The Pilgrim's Tale

The Pilgrim's Tale

I have gone east, I have gone west,

..To seek for what I cannot find ---

A heart at peace with its own thoughts,

A quiet and contented mind.

I have sought high, I have sought low,

Alike my search has been in vain;

The same lip mixed the smile and sigh

The same hour mingled joy and pain,

And first I sought mid sceptred kings;

Power was, so peace might be with them;

They cast a look of weariness

Upon the care-lined diadem.

I ask'd the soldier; and he spoke

Of a dear quiet home afar,

And whisper'd of the vanity,

The ruin and the wrong of war.

I saw the merchant mid his wealth;

Peace surely would with plenty be!

But no! his thoughts were all abroad,

With their frail venture on the sea.

I heard a lute's soft music float

In summer sweetness on the air;

But the poet's brow was worn and wan -

I saw peace was not written there.

And then I number'd o'er the ills

That wait upon on mortal scene;

Nor marvel where if it had been

The marvel where if it had been.

First, childhood comes with all to learn,

And, even more than all to bear

Restraint, reproof, and punishment,

And pleasure seen, but not to share.

Youth like the scripture's madman he

Scattering around the burning coal,

With hasty deeds and misused gifts,

That leave their ashes on the soul.

The manhood wearied, wasted, worn,

With hopes destroy'd and feelings dead;

And worldly caution, worldly wants,

Coldness and carelessness instead.

Then age, at last, dark, sullen, drear

The breaking out of a worn-out wave;

Letting us know that life has been

But the rough passage to the grave.

Thus we go on, hopes change to fears,

Like fairy gold that turns to clay,

And pleasures darken into pain,

And time is measured by decay.

First our fresh feelings are our wealth,

They pass and leave a void behind:

The comes ambition, with its wars,

That stirs but to pollute the mind.

We loathe the present, and we dread

To think on what to come may be,

We look back on the past, and trace

A thousand wrecks, a troubled sea.

I have been over many lands,

And each and all I found the same,

Hope in its borrowed plumes and Care

Madden'd and mask'd in Pleasure's name.

Unattributed

1:9, p. 36

1827.05.11

From the Golden Violet