"My constitution was strong and suited to a northern climate,
and there home-influences would have restrained propensities that have
grown with indulgence, and are threatening in their consequences. I
feel this: I am not the strong man I was; mind and body are failing,
and the beautiful lines of our friend Wild are constantly recurring to
my mind:
"'My life is like the autumn leaf,
Which trembles in the moon's pale ray:
Its hold is frail, its date is brief,
Restless, and soon to pass away.'
"Why did not Wild give his life to literature, instead of the musty
maxims of the law. Little as he has written, it is enough to preserve
his fame as a true poet; and though he has been a member of Congress,
and a distinguished one, a lawyer, and a distinguished one, his fame
and name will only be perpetuated by his verse, so tender, so touching,
and so true to the feelings of the heart. It is the heart that he lives
in. Ah! it is the heart only which forms and fashions the romance of
life; and without this romance, life is scarcely worth the keeping.
"'Tis midnight--on the mountains brown
The cold round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?'
"We feel as Byron did when he imagined these lines.
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