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Written at Malta.
AH why, when all the scene around | |
| Has told approaching Winter nigh, | |
| When dark November’s gloom has frown’d | |
| And sadden’d all the sickly sky; | |
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| Ah why, soft flow’ret, dost thou dare | 5 |
| Upon this bleak ascent to bloom? | |
| Thou com’st amid the dying year | |
| To waste, untimely, thy perfume. | |
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| Thou shouldst have hail’d the vernal tide, | |
| When first the green bud clothed the plain, | 10 |
| Or sought the breezy valley’s side | |
| When Summer held his golden reign. | |
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| Then many a morning’s sunny sheen | |
| Had waked thee with soft magic spells, | |
| And many a dewy eve had seen | 15 |
| Thee close, unhurt, thy tender bells. | |
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| Soft fostering gales had made their care | |
| To chase each nipping frost away, | |
| And murmuring wild bees linger’d near | |
| Thy odors, all the joyful day. | 20 |
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| But Summer’s golden reign is o’er, | |
| And genial Spring, long since, has flown; | |
| The wild bees murmur here no more, | |
| And every tepid gale is gone. | |
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| Already, o’er the sea-girt hill, | 25 |
| The blasts that lead the tempest blow; | |
| And lo! the frighten’d billows swell, | |
| And whiten all the shore below. | |
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| Soft flower, thy fate the wanderer mourns, | |
| Who o’er these rocky summits strays, | 30 |
| While eve with chilling damps returns | |
| And dims the sun’s departing rays. | |
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| Poor flower! before those rays once more | |
| Shall kindle up the tardy day, | |
| Thy life, thy fragrance shall be o’er, | 35 |
| Thy simple beauties die away. | |
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| No sunny morn shall call thee forth, | |
| Nor evening smile on thy repose; | |
| For dark and cold the coming North | |
| Bids all thy shrinking flow’rets close. * * * * * | 40 |
| In vain the radiant step of Spring | |
| Awakes the year e’er Autumn close; | |
| No vernal joys now spread the wing:— | |
| No—give me to my native snows! | |
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| To these I go.—Farewell, sweet flower! | 45 |
| Thou rocky, sea-girt isle, farewell! | |
| Where hostile strangers strive for power, | |
| And fear and superstition dwell. | |
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| Yon vessel in the bay below | |
| Tomorrow bears me o’er the foam; | 50 |
| And some returning morn shall show | |
| A land of freedom and a home. | |
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| He said, and from the lonely height | |
| He turn’d, and downward bent his way; | |
| And sought, while darker grew the night, | 55 |
| The ship at anchor in the bay. | |
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| But many a sun shall seek the sea, | |
| And many a long, long night be o’er, | |
| Ere morn, returning, smile to see | |
| The wanderer on his native shore. | 60 |
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