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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

BEQUEST OF

LOUISIANA SCOTT SHUMAN

i

THE

POETICAL WORKS

S. T. COLERIDGE,

INCLUDING THE DRAMAS OF

WALLENSTEIN, REMORSE, AND ZAPOLYA.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

WILLIAM PICKERING. MDCCCXXIX.

Thomas White, Printer, Johnson '* Court.

CONTENTS.

VOLUME I.

Page

Juvenile Poems,

Genevieve 11

Sonnet. To the Autumnal Moon 12

Time, real and imaginary 13

Monody on the Death of Chatterton 14

Songs of the Pixies 21

The Raven 27

Absence, a Farewell Ode . . , 30

Lines on an Autumnal Evening 32

The Rose 37

The Kiss 39

To a Young Ass 41

Domestic Peace I 43

The Sigh .44

Epitaph on an Infant 45

Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross 46

Linee to a beautiful Spring in a Village 47

On a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever induced by

calumnious reports « • * • . 49

To a Young Lady with a Poem on the French Revolution 52

Sonnet L My Heart has thanked thee Bowles 55

II. As late I lay in Slumber's Shadowy Vale. . 56

vi CONTENTS.

Page

Sonnet 111. Though roused by that dark Vizir Riot rude 57

■ IV. When British Freedom from an happier

Land 58

V. It was some Spirit, Sheridan ! 59

VI. O what a loud and fearful Shriek 60

VII. As when far off 61

VIII. Thou gentle look 62

IX. Pale Roamer through the Night ! C3

X. Sweet Mercy ! r 64

XI. Thou Bleedest my Poor Heart 65

XII. To the Author of the Robbers 68

Lines, composed while climbing Brockley Coomb 67

Lines, in the Manner of Spenser *. . . 68

Imitated from Ossian 71

The Complaint of Ninathoma 72

Imitated from the Welsh 78

To an Infant. •• • 74

Lines in Answer to a Letter from Bristol 76

To a Friend in Answer to a melancholy Letter 82

Religious Musings 84

The Destiny of Nations, a Vision 104

Sibylline Leaves.

Ode to the Departing Year * 1S1

France, an Ode 189

Tears in Solitude 144

Fire, Famine and Slaughter 155

Love 161

Lewti, or the Circassian Love Chaunt 167

The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution 171

The Night Scene, a Dramatic Fragment 179

To an Unfortunate Woman 184

CONTENTS. VU

Page

To an Unfortunate Woman at the Theatre 186

Lines composed in a Concert Room 188

The Keepsake 191

To a Lady, with Falconer's Shipwreck 194

To a Young Lady on her recovery from a Fever .... 196

Something Childish, but very Natural 198

Home-sick : written in Germany 200

Answer to a Child's Question 202

The Visionary Hope 203

The Happy Husband 205

Recollections of Love 207

On revisiting the Sea-shore 209

Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Charoouni 213

Lines written in an Album at Elbingerode in the

Hartz Forest 218

On observing a Blossom on the First of February . . , . 221

The ^olian Harp 223

Recollections on having left a place of Retirement . . . 227

To the Rev. George Coleridge 231

Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath 235

A Tombless Epitaph 237

This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison 239

To a Friend, who had declared his intention of writing

no more Poetry 244

To a Gentleman, composed on the night after his reci- tation of a Poem on the growth of an individual mind 247

Frost at Midnight 261

The Three Graves 267

Dejection, an Ode 28«

Ode to Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire 296

CONTENTS.

Page

Ode to Tranquillity I -300

To a Young Friend, on his proposing to domesticate

with the Author 302

Lines to W. L, Esq. while he sang a song to PurcelPs

Music . , 306

Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune 307

Sonnet. To the River Otter 309

Composed on a journey homeward after hear- ing of the birth of a Son 310

To a Friend 311

The Virgin's Cradle Hymn 312

Epitaph on an Infant 313

Melancholy, a Fragment 314

Tell's Birth Place 315

A Christmas Carol 317

Human Life 320

The Vision of the Gods 322

Elegy, imitated from Akenside 324

KublaKhan 829

Apologetic Preface to Fire, Famine and Slaughter . . 337

CONTENTS.

VOLUME II.

The Ancient Mariner. Part I 3

Part II 8

PartHI 12

Part IV 17

PartV 21

Part VI 27

Part VII 33

Christabfl. Part I 39

Conclusion to Part I 56

Part II 59

Conclusion to Part II 73

Prose in Rhyme; or Epigrams, Moralities, &c.

Duty surviving Self Love 77

Phantom or Fact 1 a Dialogue in Verse 78

Work without Hope 80

Youth and Age 81

A Day Dream 83

To a Lady, offended by a sportive observation 85

Reason for Love's Blindness 85

Lines suggested by the Last Words of Berengarius .... 86

The Devil's Thoughts 88

Constancy to an Ideal Object 92

The Suicide's Argument 94

X CONTENTS.

p»s.

The Blossoming of the Solitary Date Tree .« 95

Sonnet. Fancy in Nubibus 100

The Two Founts 101

The Wanderings of Cain 104

Allegoric Vision 116

New Thoughts on old Subjects 126

The Garden of Boccaccio 137

Remorse, a Tragedy 143

Appendix 156

Zapolya, a Christmas Tale 261

Part I. The Prelude, entitled " The Usurper's Fortune" 261 Part II. The Sequel, entitled " The Usurper's Fate" . . 297

VOLUME III.

The Piccolomini, or The First Part of Wallenstein 1 The Death of Wallenstein 249

PREFACE.*

Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not unfrequently condemned for their querulous Egotism. But Egotism is to be condemned then only when it offends against time and place, as in a History or an Epic Poem. To censure it in a Monody or Sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets or Monodies ? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else could. After the more violent emotions of Sorrow, the mind demands amusement, and can find it in employment alone : but full of its late sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected with them. Forcibly to

* To the First and Second Editions.

"Z PREFACE.

turn away our attention to general subjects is a painful and most often an unavailing effort.

" But O ! how grateful to a wounded heart The tale of Misery to impart — From others' eye3 bid artless sorrows flow, And raise esteem upon the base of Woe I"

Shaw.

The communicativeness of our Nature leads us to describe our own sorrows ; in the endeavour to de- scribe them, intellectual activity is exerted ; and from intellectual activity there results a pleasure, which is gradually associated, and mingles as a corrective, with the painful subject of the description. " True !" (it may be answered) u but how are the Public interested in your Sorrows or your Description V9 We are for ever attributing personal Unities to imaginary Aggregates. What is the Public, but a term for a number of scattered individuals ? Of whom as many will be interested in these sorrows, as have expe- rienced the same or similar.

" Holy be the lay Which mourning soothes the mourner on his way,"

PREFACE. 3

If I could judge of others by myself, I should not hesitate to affirm, that the most interesting passages are those in which the Author developes his own feelings ? The sweet voice of Cona* never sounds so sweetly, as when it speaks of itself; and I should almost suspect that man of an unkindly heart, who could read the opening of the third book of the Paradise Lost without peculiar emotion. By a Law of our Nature, he, who labours under a strong feel- ingi is impelled to seek for sympathy ; but a Poet's feelings are all strong. Quicquid amet valde amat. Akenside therefore speaks with philosophical accu- racy when he classes Love and Poetry, as producing the same effects :

*t Love and the wish of Poets when their tongue Would teach to others' hosoms, what so charms Their own."

Pleasures of Imagination.

There is one species of Egotism which is truly disgusting ; not that which leads us to communicate

* Ossian.

PREFACE.

our feelings to others, but that which would reduce the feelings of others to an identity with our own. The Athiest, who exclaims, " pshaw!" when he glances his eye on the praises of Deity , is an Ego- tist : an old man, when he speaks contemptuously of Love -verses, is an Egotist : and the sleek Favorites of Fortune are Egotists, when they condemn all " melancholy, discontented" verses. Surely, it would be candid not merely to ask whether the poem pleases ourselves, but to consider whether or no there may not be others, to whom it is well calculated to give an innocent pleasure.

I shall only add, that each of my readers will, I hope, remember, that these Poems on various sub- jects, which he reads at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings, were written at dif- ferent times and prompted by very different feelings ; and therefore that the supposed inferiority of one Poem to another may sometimes be owing to the temper of mind, in which he happens to peruse it

My poems have been rightly charged with a pro-

PREFACE. O

fusion of double-epithets, and a general turgidness. I have pruned the double-epithets with no sparing hand ; and used my best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction.* This latter fault however had insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union, that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier accusa- tion has been brought against me, that of obscurity ; but not, I think, with equal justice. An Author is obscure, when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or unappropriate, or in- volved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the Bard

* Without any feeling of anger, I may yet be allowed to ex- press some degree of surprize, that after having run the critical gauntlet for a certain class of faults, which I had, viz. a too or- nate, and elaborately poetic diction, and nothing having come be- fore the judgement-seat of the Reviewers during the long interval, I should for at least seventeen years, quarter after quarter, have been placed by them in the foremost rank of the proscribed, and made to abide the brunt of abuse and ridicule for faults directly opposite, viz. bald and prosaic language, and an affected simplicity both of matter and manner — faults whicli assuredly did not enter into the character of my compositions.

Literary Life, i. 51. Published 1817.

O PREFACE.

of Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like Collins's Ode on the poetical character, claims not to be popular — but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the Reader. But this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must expect from his contempo- raries. Milton did not escape it ; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it : not that their poems are better understood at present, than they were at their first publication; but their fame is established; and a critic would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet sub judice ; and if we cannot fol- low his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring above us. If any man ex- pect from my poems the same easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for him I have not written, lutelligibilia, non intellectum adfero.

I expect neither profit or general fame by my writings ; and I consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its

PREFACE. /

own " exceeding great reward :" it has soothed my afflictions ; it has multiplied and refined my enjoy- ments ; it has endeared solitude ; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.

S. T. C.

JUVENILE POEMS.

JUVENILE POEMS.

GENEVIEVE.

Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve !

In Beauty's light you glide along :

Your eye is like the star of eve,

And sweet your Voice, as Seraph's song.

Yet not your heavenly Beauty gives

This heart with passion soft to glow :

Within your soul a Voice there lives !

It bids you hear the tale of Woe.

When sinking low the Sufferer wan

Beholds no hand outstretcht to save,

Fair, as the bosom of the Swan

That rises graceful o'er the wave,

I've seen your breast with pity heave,

And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve !

12 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET.

TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON.

Mild Splendour of the various-vested Night ! Mother of wildly-working visions ! hail ! I watch thy gliding, while with watery light Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil ; And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud Behind the gathered blackness lost on high ; And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky. Ah such is Hope ! as changeful and as fair! Now dimly peering on the wistful sight ; Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair : But soon emerging in her radiant might She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

JUVENILE POEMS. 13

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY.

AN ALLEGORY.

On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother ! This far outstript the other ; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind : For he, alas ! is blind! Q'ir rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last.

14 JUVENILE POEMS.

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON.

O what a wonder seems the fear of death,

Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep,

Babes, Children, Youths and Men,

Night following night for threescore years and ten !

But doubly strange, where life is but a breath

To sigh and pant with, up Want's rugged steep.

Away, Grim Phantom ! Scorpion King, away !

Reserve thy terrors and thy stings display

For coward Wealth and Guilt in robes of State !

Lo ! by the grave I stand of one, for whom

A prodigal Nature and a niggard Doom

(That all bestowing, this withholding all,)

Made each chance knell from distant spire or dome

JUVENILE POEMS. 15

Sound like a seeking Mother's anxious call, Return, poor Child! Home, weary Truant, home !

Thee, Chatterton ! these unblest stones protect From want, and the bleek freezings of neglect. Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven Here hast thou found repose ! beneath this sod ! Thou ! O vain word ! thou dwell'st not with the clod ! Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven Thou at the throne of Mercy and thy God The triumph of redeeming Love dost hymn (Believe it, O my Soul !) to harps of Seraphim.

Yet oft, perforce, ('tis suffering Nature's call) I weep, that heaven-born Genius so shall fall ; And oft, in Fancy's saddest hour, my soul Averted shudders at the poisoned bowl. Now groans my sickening heart, as still I view

Thy corse of livid hue ; Now indignation checks the feeble sigh, Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine eye !

Is this the land of song-enobled line ?

Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain

Poured forth his lofty strain ? Ah me! yet Spenser, gentlestbard divine,

16 JUVENILE POEMS.

Beneath chill Disappointment's shade, His weary limbs in lonely anguish lay'd.

And o'er her darling dead

Pity hopeless hung her head, While " mid the pelting of that merciless storm," Sunk to the cold earth Or way's famished form!

Sublime of thought, and confident of fame,

From vales where Avon winds the M instrel* came.

Light-hearted youth ! aye, as he hastes along, He meditates the future song, How dauntless iElla fray'd the Dacyan foe ;

And while the numbers flowing strong

In eddies whirl, in surges throng, Exulting in the spirits' genial throe In tides of power his life-blood seems to flow.

And now his cheeks with deeper ardors flame, His eyes have glorious meanings, that declare More than the light of outward day shines there, A holier triumph and a sterner aim ! Wings grow within him ; and he soars above Or Bard's, or Minstrel's lay of war or love. Friend to the friendless, to the Sufferer health, He hears the widow's prayer, the good man's praise ; * Avon, a river near Bristol ; the birth-place of Chatterton.

JUVENILE POEMS. 17

To scenes of bliss transmutes his fancied wealth, And young and old shall now see happy days. On many a waste he bids trim Gardens rise, Gives the blue sky to many a prisoner's eyes ; And now in wrath he grasps the patriot steel, And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel:

Sweet Flower of Hope ! free Nature's genial child ! That didst so fair disclose thy early bloom, Filling the wide air with a rich perfume ! For thee in vain all heavenly aspects smil'd ; From the hard world brief respite could they win — The frost nipp'd sharp without, the canker prey'd

within ! Ah ! where are fled the charms of vernal Grace, And Joy's wild gleams that lightened o'er thy face ? Youth of tumultuous soul, and haggard eye ! Thy wasted form, thy hurried steps I view, On thy wan forehead starts the lethal dew, And oh! the anguish of that shuddering sigh !

Such were the struggles of the gloomy hour,

When Care, of withered brow, Prepared the poison's death-cold power : Already to thy lips was raised the bowl, When near thee stood Affection meek

18 JUVENILE POEMS.

(Her bosom bare, and wildly pale her cheek) Thy sullen gaze she bade thee roll On scenes that well might melt thy soul ; Thy native cot she flashed upon thy view, Thy native cot, where still, at close of day, Peace smiling sate, and listened to thy lay ; Thy Sister's shrieks she bade thee hear, And mark thy Mother's thrilling tear ;

See, see her breast's convulsive throe, Her silent agony of woe ! Ah ! dash the poisoned chalice from thy hand !

And thou had'st dashed it, at her soft command, But that Despair and Indignation rose, And told again the story of thy woes ; Told the keen insult of the unfeeling heart; The dread dependence on the low-born mind ; Told every pang, with which thy soul must smart, Neglect, and grinning Scorn, and Want combined ! Recoiling quick, thou bad'st the friend of pain Roll the black tide of Death through every freezing vein !

Ye woods ! that wave o'er Avon's rocky steep, To Fancy's ear sweet is your murmuring deep ! For here she loves the cypress wreath to weave Watching, with wistful eye, the saddening tints of eve.

JUVENILE POEMS. 19

Here, far from men, amid this pathless grove, In solemn thought the Minstrel wont to rove, Like star-beam on the slow sequestered tide Lone-glittering, through the high tree branching wide. And here, in Inspiration's eager hour, When most the big soul feels the mastering power, These wilds, these caverns roaming o'er, Round which the screaming sea-gulls soar, With wild unequal steps he passed along Oft pouring on the winds a broken song : Anon, upon some rough rock's fearful brow Would pause abrupt — and gaze upon the waves below.

Poor Chatterton ! he sorrows for thy fate

Who would have praised and loved thee, ere too late.

Poor Chatterton ! farewell ! of darkest hues

This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb ;

But dare no longer on the sad theme muse,

Lest kindred woes persuade a kindred doom :

For oh ! big gall-drops, shook from Folly's wing,

Have blackened the fair promise of my spring;

And the stern Fate transpierced with viewless dart

The last pale Hope that shivered at my heart !

Hence, gloomy thoughts '. no more my soul shall dwell On joys that were ! No more endure to weigh

20

JUVENILE POEMS.

The shame and anguish of the evil day,

Wisely forgetful ! O'er the ocean swell

Sublime of Hope I seek the cottaged dell

Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray;

And, dancing to the moon-light roundelay,

The wizard passions weave an holy spell!

O Chatterton ! that thou wert yet alive! Sure thou would 'st spread the canvass to the gale, And love, with us the tinkling team to drive O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale ; And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng, Hanging, enraptured, on thy stately song ! And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy All deftly masked, as hoar Antiquity.

Alas vain Phantasies ! the fleeting brood Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood! Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream, Where Susquehannah pours his untamed stream ; And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide, Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee, Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy ! And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind, Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.

JUVENILE POEMS. 21

SONGS OF THE PIXIES.

The Pixies, in the superstition of Devonshire, are a race of beings invisibly small, and harmless or friendly to man. At a small distance from a village in that county, halfway up a wood- covered hill, is an excavation called the Pixies' Parlour. The roots of old trees form its ceiling ; and on its sides are innu- merable cyphers, among which the author discovered his own cypher and those of his brothers, cut by the hand of their child- hood. At the foot of the hill flows the river Otter.

To this place the Author conducted a party of young Ladies, during the Summer mouths of the year 1793 ; one of whom, of stature elegantly small, and of complexion colourless yet clear, was proclaimed the Faery Queen. On which occasion^the fol- lowing Irregular Ode was written.

I.

Whom the untaught Shepherds call Pixies in their madrigal,

Fancy's children, here we dwell : Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell.

22 JUVENILE POEMS.

Here the wren of softest note

Builds its nest and warbles well ;

Here the blackbird strains his throat ; Welcome, Ladies ! to our cell.

II.

When fades the moon all shadowy-pale And scuds the cloud before the gale, Ere Morn with living gems bedight Purples the East with streaky light, We sip the furze-flower's fragrant dews Clad in robes of rainbow hues : Or sport amid the rosy gleam Soothed by the distant-tinkling team, While lusty Labour scouting sorrow Bids the Dame a glad good-morrow, Who jogs the accustomed road along, And paces cheery to her cheering song.

III.

But not our filmy pinion We scorch amid the blaze of day, When Noontide's fiery-tressed minion Flashes the ferved ray.

JUVENILE POEMS. 23

Aye from the sultry heat

We to the cave retreat O'ercanopied by huge roots intertwined With wildest texture, blackened o'er with age : Round them their mantle green the ivies bind,

Beneath whose foliage pale

Fanned by the unfrequent gale We shield us from the Tyrant's mid-day rage.

IV.

Thither, while the murmuring throng Of wild-bees hum their drowsy song, By Indolence and Fancy brought, A youthful Bard, " unknown to Fame," Wooes the Queen of Solemn Thought, And heaves the gentle misery of a sigh Gazing with tearful eye, As round our sandy grot appear Many a rudely sculptured name To pensive Memory dear I Weaving gay dreams of sunny-tinctured hue

We glance before his view : O'er his hush'd soul our soothing witcheries shed And twine our faery garlands round his head.

24 JUVENILE POEMS.

V.

When Evening's dusky car

Crowned with her dewy ^tar Steals o'er the fading sky in shadowy flight;

On leaves of aspen trees

We tremble to the breeze Veiled from the grosser ken of mortal sight.

Or, haply, at the visionary hour, Along our wildly-bowered sequestered walk, We listen to the enamoured rustic's talk ; Heave with the heavings of the maiden's breast, Where young eyed Loves have built their turtle nest ;

Or guide of soul-subduing power The electric flash, that from the melting eye Darts the fond question and the soft reply.

VI.

Or through the mystic ringlets of the vale We flash our faery feet in gamesome prank ; Or, silent-sandal'd, pay our defter court Circling the Spirit of the Western Gale, Where wearied with his flower-caressing sport, Supine he slumbers on a violet bank ; Then with quaint music hymn the parting gleam By lonely Otter's sleep-persuading stream;

JUVENILE POEMS. 25

Or where his wave with loud unquiet song Dashed o'er the rocky channel froth along ; Or where, his silver waters smoothed to rest, The tall tree's shadow sleeps upon his breast.

VII.

Hence thou lingerer, Light ! Eve saddens into Night. Mother of wildly-working dreams ! we view

The sombre hours, that round thee stand With down-cast eyes (a duteous band !) Their dark robes dripping with the heavy dew. Sorceress of the ebon throne! Thy power the Pixies own, When round thy raven brow Heaven's lucent roses glow, And clouds in watery colours drest, Float in light drapery o'er thy sable vest : What time the pale moon sheds a softer day Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam : For mid the quivering light 'tis our's to play, Aye dancing to the cadence of the stream.

VIII.

Welcome, Ladies! to the cell Where the blameless Pixies dwell :

26 JUVENILE POEMS.

But thou, sweet Nymph ! proclaimed our Faery Queen, With what obeisance meet Thy presence shall we greet ? For lo ! attendant on thy steps are seen Graceful Ease in artless stole, And white-robed Purity of soul, With Honour's softer mien ; Mirth of the loosely- flowing hair, And meek eyed Pity eloquently fair,

Whose tearful cheeks are lovely to the view, As snow-drop wet with dew.

IX.

Unboastful Maid! though now the Lily pale

Transparent grace thy beauties meek ; Yet ere again along the impurpling vale, The purpling vale and el fin -haunted grove, Young Zephyr his fresh flowers profusely throws,

We'll tinge with livelier hues thy cheek ; And, haply, from the nectar -breathing Rose Extract a Blush for Love !

JUVENILE POEMS. 27

THE RAVEN.

A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS. AND SISTERS.

Underneath a huge oak tree

There was, of swine, a huge company,

That grunted as they crunched the mast :

For that was ripe, and fell full fast.

Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high :

One acorn they left, and no more might you spy.

Next came a Raven, that liked not such folly :

He belonged, they did say, to the witch Melancholy!

Blacker wras he than blackest jet,

Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet.

He picked up the acorn and buried it straight

By the side of a river both deep and great.

Where then did the Raven go?

He went high and low, Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go.

28 JUVENILE PoEMS.

Many Autumns, many Springs Travelled he with wandering wings ; Many Summers, many Winters — I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he came back, and with him a She, And the acorn was grown to a tali oak tree. They built them a nest in the topmost bough, And young ones they had, and were happy enow. But soon came a woodman in leathern guise, His brow, like a pent-house, hung over his eyes. He'd an axe in his hand, not a word he spoke, But with many a hem ! and a sturdy stroke, At length he brought down the poor Raven's own oak. His young ones were killed ; for they could not depart, And their mother did die of a broken heart.

The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever ; And they floated it down on the course of the river. They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did strip, And with this tree and others they made a good ship. The ship, it was launched ; but in sight of the land Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand. It bulged on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast : The old Raven flew round and round, and cawed to the blast.

JUVENILE POEMS. 29

He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls — See ! see ! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls !

Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet, And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet, And he thank'd him again and again for this treat :

They had taken his all, and Revenge was sweet!

30 JUVENILE POEMS.

ABSENCE.

A FAREWELL ODE ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

Where graced with many a classic spoil

Cam rolls his reverend stream along,

I haste to urge the learned toil

That sternly chides my love-lorn song :

Ah me ! too mindful of the days

Illumed by Passion's orient rays,

When Peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health

Enriched me with the best of wealth.

Ah fair Delights ! that o'er my soul On Memory's wing, like shadows fly ! Ah Flowers ! which Joy from Eden stole While Innocence stood smiling by ! — But cease, fond Heart ! this bootless moan : Those Hours on rapid Pinions flown Shall yet return, by Absence crowned, And scatter livelier roses round.

JUVENILE POEMS. 31

The Sun who ne'er remits his fires On heedless eyes may pour the day : The Moon, that oft from Heaven retires, Endears her renovated ray. What though she leave the sky unblest To mourn awhile in murky vest ? When she relumes her lovely Light, We bless the Wanderer of the Night.

32 JUVENILE POEMS.

LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.

0 thou wild Fancy, check thy wing! No more Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore ! Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight Bathed in rich amber- glowing floods of light;

Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day,

With western peasants hail the morning ray !

Ah ! rather bid the perished pleasures move,

A shadowy train, across the soul of Love !

O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling

Each flower that wreathed the dewy locks of Spring,

When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower

She leapt, awakened by the pattering shower.

Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam,

Aid, lovely Sorceress ! aid thy Poet's dream !

With faery wand O bid the Maid arise,

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes ;

As erst when from the Muses' calm abode

1 came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed ;

JUVENILE POEMS. 33

When as she twined a laurel round my brow, And met my kiss, and half returned my vow, O'er all my frame shot rapid my thrilled heart, And every nerve confessed the electric dart.

0 dear Deceit ! I see the Maiden rise,

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue Eyes ! When first the lark high soaring swells his throat, Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the loud note,

1 trace her footsteps on the accustomed lawn, I mark her glancing mid the gleam of dawn. When the bent flower beneath the night dew weeps And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps,

Amid the paly radiance soft and sad, She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad. With her along the streamlet's brink I rove ; With her I list the warblings of the grove ; And seems in each low wind her voice to float Lone whispering Pity in each soothing note !

Spirits of Love ! ye heard her name ! Obey The powerfull spell, and to my haunt repair. Whether on clustering pinions ye are there, Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle trees, Or with fond languishment around my fair Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair ;

34 JUVENILE POEMS.

O heed the spell, and hither wing your way, Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze !

Spirits! to you the infant Maid was given Formed by the wonderous Alchemy of Heaven ! No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know, No fairer Maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow. A thousand Loves around her forehead fly ; A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye ; Love lights her smile — in Joy's red nectar dips His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips. She speaks ! and hark that passion-warbled song — Still, Fancy ! still that voice, those notes prolong. As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls Shall wake the softened echoes of Heaven's Halls !

O (have I sighed) were mine the wizard's rod, Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful God ! A flower-entangled Arbour I would seem To shield my Love from Noontide's sultry beam : Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose odorous boughs My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows. When Twilight stole across the fading vale, To fan my Love I'd be the Evening Gale ; Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest, And flutter my faint pinions on her breast !

JUVENILE POEMS. 35

On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night, To sooth my Love with shadows of delight : — Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies, And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes !

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame Had basked beneath the Sun's unclouded flame, Awakes amid the troubles of the air, The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare — Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep, And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep : — So tossed by storms along Life's wildering way, Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day, When by my native brook I wont to rove While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love.

Dear native brook ! like Peace, so placidly Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek ! Dear native brook ! where first young Poesy Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream ! Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek, As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream ! Dear native haunts ! where Virtue still is gay, Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellowed ray, Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears, Where softened Sorrow smiles within her tears ;

36 JUVENILE POEMS.

And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ, Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy ! No more your sky-larks melting from the sight Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight — No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat. Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between ! Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song, That soars on Morning's wing your vales among.

Scenes of my Hope ! the aching eye ye leave Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve ! Tearful and saddening with the saddened blaze Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze : Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend, Till chill and damp the moonless night descend.

JUVENILE POEMS. 37

THE ROSE.

As late each flower that sweetest blows I plucked, the Garden's pride ! Within the petals of a Rose A sleeping Love I spied.

Around his brows a beamy wreath Of many a lucent hue ; All purple glowed his cheek, beneath, Inebriate with dew.

I softly seized the unguarded Power, Nor scared his balmy rest : And placed him, caged within the flower, On Spotless Sara's breast.

But when unweeting of the guile Awoke the prisoner sweet, He struggled to escape awhile And stamped his faery feet.

38 JUVENILE POEMS.

Ah ! soon the soul-entrancing sight Subdued the impatient boy ! He gazed ! he thrilled with deep delight ! Then clapped his wings for joy.

«* And O !" he cried — " Of magic kind " What charm this Throne endear ! 11 Some other Love let Venus find — " I'll fix my empire here."

JUVENILE POEMS. 39

THE KISS.

One kiss, dear Maid! I said and sighed- Your scorn the little boon denied. Ah why refuse the blameless bliss ? Can danger lurk within a kiss ?

Yon viewless Wanderer of the vale, The Spirit of the Western Gale, At Morning's break, at Evening's close Inhales the sweetness of the Rose, And hovers o'er the uninjured Bloom Sighing back the soft perfume. Vigour to the Zephyr's wing Her nectar-breathing Kisses fling ; And He the glitter of the Dew Scatters on the Rose's hue. Bashful lo ! she bends her head, And darts a blush of deeper Red !

Too well those lovely lips disclose The Triumphs of the opening Rose ;

40 JUVENILE POEMS.

O fair ! O graceful ! bid them prove As passive to the breath of Love. In tender accents, faint and low, Well-pleased I hear the whispered " No !" The whispered " No" — how little meant ! Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent ! For on those lovely lips the while Dawns the soft relenting smile, And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy The gentle violence of Joy.

JUVENILE POEMS. 41

TO A YOUNG ASS.

ITS MOTHER BEING TETHERED NFAR IT.

Poor little Foal of an oppressed Race !

I love the languid Patience of thy face :

And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,

And clap thy ragged Coat, and pat thy head.

But what thy dulled Spirits hath dismayed,

That never thou dost sport along the glade ?

And (most unlike the nature of things young)

That earthward still thy moveless head is hung ?

Do thy prophetic Fears anticipate,

Meek Child of Misery ! thy future fate ?

The starving meal, and all the thousand aches

" Which patient Merit of the. Unworthy takes ?*

Or is thy sad heart thrilled with filial pain

To see thy wretched Mother's shortened Chain?

And truly, very piteous is her Lot —

Chained to a Log within a narrow spot

Where the close-eaten Grass is scarcely seen,

While sweet around her waves the tempting Green J

42 JUVENILE POEMS.

Poor Ass ! thy Master should have learnt to shew

Pity — best taught by fellowship of Woe !

For much I fear me that He lives like thee,

Half famished in a land of Luxury !

How askingly its footsteps hither bend ?

It seems to say, " And have 1 then one Friend V

Innocent Foal ! thou poor despised Forlorn !

I hail thee Brother — spite of the fool's scorn !

And fain would take thee with me, in the Dell

Of Peace and mild Equality to dwell,

Where Toil shall call the charmer Health his Bride,

And Laughter tickle Plenty's ribless side !

How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,

And frisk about, as Lamb or Kitten gay !

Yea ! and more musically sweet to me

Thy dissonant harsh Bray of Joy would be,

Than warbled Melodies that sooth to rest

The aching of pale Fashion's vacant breast !

JUVENILE POEMS. 43

DOMESTIC PEACE.

Tell me, on what holy ground May Domestic Peace be found? Halcyon Daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wings she flies, From the pomp of Sceptered State, From the Rebel's noisy hate. In a cottaged vale She dwells Listening to the Sabbath bells ! Still around her steps are seen Spotless Honour's meeker mien, Love, the sire of pleasing fears, Sorrow smiling through her tears, And conscious of the past employ Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

44 JUVENILE POEMS.

THE SIGH.

When Youth his faery reign began Ere Sorrow had proclaimed me man ; While Peace the present hour beguiled, And all the lovely Prospect smiled ; Then Mary ! 'mid my lightsome glee I heav'd the painless Sigh for thee.

And when, along the waves of woe, My harassed Heart was doomed to know The frantic Burst of Outrage keen, And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen ; Then shipwrecked on Life's stormy sea I heaved an anguished Sigh for thee !

But soon Reflection's power imprest A stiller sadness on my breast ; And sickly hope with waning eye Was well content to droop and die : I yielded to the stern decree, Yet heaved a languid Sigh for thee !

JUVENILE POEMS. 45

And though in distant climes to roam, A wanderer from my native home, I fain would sooth the sense of Care And lull to sleep the Joys that were ! Thy Image may not banished be — Still, Mary ! still I sigh for thee.

June, 1794.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care ;

The opening bud to Heaven conveyed And bade it blossom there.

46 JUVENILE POEMS.

LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S-ARMS, ROSS,

FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE "MAN OF ROSS."

Richer than Miser o'er his countless hoards, Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords, Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O Traveller, hear! Departed Merit claims a reverent tear. Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health, With generous joy he viewed his modest wealth ; He hears the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise, He marked the sheltered orphan's tearful gaze, Or where the sorrow-shrivelled captive lay, Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray. Beneath this roof if thy cheered moments pass, Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass : To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul, And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl. But if, like me, through life's distressful scene Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been ; And if thy breast with heart- sick anguish fraught, Thou journey est onward tempest-tossed in thought; Here cheat thy cares ! in generous visions melt, And dream of Goodness, thou hast never felt !

JUVENILE POEMS. 47

LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A VILLAGE.

Once more, sweet Stream ! with slow foot wander- ing near, I bless thy milky waters cold and clear. Escaped the flashing of the noontide hours With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers (Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn) My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn. For not through pathless grove with murmur rude Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph, Solitude; Nor thine unseen in cavern depths to well, The Hermit-fountain of some dripping cell! Pride of the Vale ! thy useful streams supply The scattered cots and peaceful hamlet nigh. The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks With infant uproar age soul-soothing pranks, Released from school, their little hearts at rest, Launch paper navies on thy waveless breast. The rustic here at eve with pensive look Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook,

48 JUVENILE POEMS.

Or starting pauses with hope -mingled dread To list the much-loved maid's accustomed tread : She, vainly mindful of her dame's command, Loiters, the long-filled pitcher in her hand. Unboastful Stream ! thy fount with pebbled falls The faded form of past delight recalls, What time the morning sun of Hope arose, And all was joy ; save when another's woes A transient gloom upon my soul imprest, Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast. Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon, Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon : Ah ! now it works rude brakes and thorns among, Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along !

JUVENILE POEMS. 49

LINES ON A FRIEND.

WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY CALUMNIOUS REPORTS.

Edmund ! thy grave with aching eye I scan,

And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast — Man !

Tis tempest all or gloom : in early youth

If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of Truth

We force to start amid her feigned caress

Vice, siren-hag ! in native ugliness ;

A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,

And on we go in heaviness and fear !

But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower

Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour,

The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted ground

And mingled forms of Misery rise around :

Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,

That courts the future woe to hide the past ;

Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side,

And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied :

Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain,

Darts her hot lightning flash athwart the brain,

50 JUVENILE POEMS.

Rest, injur'd shade ! Shall Slander squatting near

Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear?

'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow

In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe ;

Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,

The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.

Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,

And in thy heart they withered ! Such chill dew

Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed ;

And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,

With eye that rolled around in asking gaze,

And tongue that trafficked in the trade of praise.

Thy follies such ! the hard world marked them well !

Were they more wise, the proud who never fell?

Rest, injured shade ! the poor man's grateful prayer

On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.

As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,

And sit me down upon its recent grass,

With introverted eye I contemplate

Similitude of soul, perhaps of — Fate !

To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned

Energic Reason and a shaping mind,

The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,

And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.

Sloth -jaundiced all ! and from my graspless hand

Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour glass sand.

JUVENILE POEMS. 51

I weep, yet stoop not ! the faint anguish flows , A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish doze.

Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound ? Tell me, cold grave ! is Death with poppies crowned ? Tired Centinel ! mid fitful starts I nod, And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod !

52 JUVENILE POEMS.

TO A YOUNG LADY, WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Much on my early youth I love to dwell, Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell, Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale, I heard of guilt and wondered at the tale ! Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing, Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing. Aye as the star of evening flung its beam In broken radiance on the wavy stream, My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom Mourned with the breeze, 0 Lee Boo!* o'er thy tomb. Where'er I wandered, Pity still was near, Breathed from the heart and glistened in the tear :

* Lee Boo, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelew Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died of the small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich church-yard. See Keate's Account.

JUVENILE POEMS. 53

No knell that tolled, but filled my anxious eye, And suffering Nature wept that one should die!*

Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast, Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping West : When slumbering F re e dom roused with high Disda in With giant fury burst her triple chain ! Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glowed ; Her Banners, like a midnight Meteor, flowed ; Amid the yelling of the storm -rent skies ! She came, and scattered battles from her eyes ! Then Exultation waked the patriot fire And swept with wilder hand the Alccean lyre : Red from the Tyrant's wound I shook the lance, And strode in joy the reeking plains of France !

Fallen is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low, And my heart aches, though Mercy struck the blow. With wearied thought once more I seek the shade, Where peaceful Virtue weaves the Myrtle braid. And O ! if Eyes whose holy glances roll, Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul ; If Smiles more winning, and a gentler Mien Than the love-wildered Maniac's brain hath seen

* Southey's Retrospect.

54 JUVENILE POEMS.

Shaping celestial forms in vacant air, If these demand the empassioned Poet's care — If Mirth and softened Sense and Wit refined, The blameless features of a lovely mind ; Then haply shall my trembling hand assign No fading wreath to Beauty's saintly shrine. Nor, Sara ! thou these early flowers refuse — Ne'er lurked the snake beneath their simple hues ; No purple bloom the Child of Nature brings From Flattery's night-shade : as he feels he sings.

September, 1792.

JUVENILE POEMS. 55

SONNET I.

Content, as random Fancies might inspire, If his weak harp at times or lonely lyre He struck with desultory hand, and drew Some softened tones to Nature not untrue.

Bowles.

My heart has thanked thee, Bowles ! for those soft

strains Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring! For hence not callous to the mourner's pains Through Youths' gay prime and thornless paths I went: And when the mightier Throes of mind began, And drove me forth, a thought-bewildered man ! Their mild and manliest melancholy lent A mingled charm, such as the pang consigned To slumber, though the big tear it renewed ; Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood Over the wavy and tumultuous mind, As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep.

56 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET II.

As late I lay in slumber's shadowy vale,

With wetted cheek and in a mourner's guise,

I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise :

She spake ! not sadder moans the autumnal gale — -

" Great Son of Genius ! sweet to me thy name,

" Ere in an evil hour with altered voice

" Thou badst Oppression's hireling crew rejoice

" Blasting with wizard spell my laurelled fame.

" Yet never, Burke ! thou drank'st Corruption's bowl!

" The stormy Pity and the cherished lure

" Of Pomp, and proud Precipitance of soul

" Wildered with meteor fires. Ah Spirit pure!

" That error's mist had left thy purged eye :

" So might I clasp thee with a Mother's joy!

JUVENILE POEMS.

57

SONNET III.

Though roused by that dark Vizir Riot rude Have driven our Priestly o'er the oeean swell ; Though Superstition and her wolfish brood Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell ; Calm in his halls of Brightness he shall dwell ! For lo ! Religion at his strong behest Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell, And flings to earth her tinsel-glittering vest, Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy ; And Justice wakes to bid the Oppressor wail Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly : And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil To smile with fondness on her gazing son !

58 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET IV.

When British Freedom for an happier land

Spread her broad wings, that fluttered with affright,

Erskine! thy voice she heard, and paused her flight

Sublime of hope ! For dreadless thou didst stand

(Thy censer glowing with the hallowed flame)

An hireless Priest before the insulted shrine,

And at her altar pour the stream divine

Of unmatched eloquence. Therefore thy name

Her sons shall venerate, end cheer thy breast

With blessings heaven-ward breathed. And when

the doom Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb Thy light shall shine : as sunk beneath the West Though the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze, Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze.

JUVENILE POEMS. 59

SONNET V.

It was some Spirit, Sheridan ! that breathed

O'er thy young mind such wildly various power !

My soul hath marked thee in her shaping hour,

Thy temples with Hymmettian flow'rets wreathed :

And sweet thy voice, as when o'er Laura's bier

Sad music trembled through Vauclusa's glade ;

Sweet, as at dawn the love-lorn Serenade

That wafts soft dreams to Slumber's listening ear.

Now patriot Rage and Indignation high

Swell the full tones ! And now thine eye-beams dance

Meanings of Scorn and Wit's quaint revelry!

Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance

The Apostate by the brainless rout adored,

As erst that elder Fiend beneath great Michael's sword.

60 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET VI.

O what a loud and fearful shriek was there,

As though a thousand souls one death-groan poured !

Ah me ! they viewed beneath an hireling's sword

Fallen Koskiusko ! Through the burthened air

(As pauses the tired Cossac's barbarous yell

Of Triumph) on the chill and midnight gale

Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell

The dirge of murdered Hope ! while Freedom pale

Bends in such anguish o'er her destined bier,

As if from eldest time some Spirit meek

Had gathered in a mystic urn each tear

That ever on a Patriot's furrowed cheek

Fit channel found ; and she had drained the bowl

In the mere wilfulness, and sick despair of soul !

JUVENILE POEMS, 61

SONNET VII.

As when far off the warbled strains are heard

That soar on Morning's wing the vales among.

Within his cage the imprisoned matin bird

Swells the full chorus with a generous song :

He bathes no pinion in the dewy light,

No Father's joy, no Lover's bliss he shares,

Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight ;

His Fellows' freedom soothes the Captive's cares!

Thou, Fa yette ! who didst wake with startling voice

Life's better sun from that long wintry night,

Thus in thy Country's triumphs shalt rejoice

And mock with raptures high the dungeon's might :

For lo! the morning struggles into day,

And Slavery's spectres shriek and vanish from the ray i

62 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET VIII.

Thou gentle Look, that didst my soul beguile,

Why hast thou left me ? Still in some fond dream

Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile!

As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam :

What time, in sickly mood, at parting day

I lay me down and think of happier years ;

Of Joys, that glimmered in Hope's twilight ray,

Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.

O pleasant days of Hope — for ever gone !

Could I recall you! — But that thought is vain.

Avaiieth not Persuasion's sweetest tone

To lure the fleet-winged Travellers back again :

Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam

Like the bright Rainbow on a willowy stream.

JUVENILE POEMS. 63

SONNET IX.

Pale Roamer through the Night ! thou poor Forlorn !

Remorse that man on his death -bed possess,

Who in the credulous hour of tenderness

Betrayed, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn !

The world is pitiless : the Chaste one's pride

Mimic of Virtue scowls on thy distress :

Thy Loves and they, that envied thee, deride :

And Vice alone will shelter wretchedness !

O ! I am sad to think, that there should be

Cold-bosomed Lewd ones, who endure to place

Foul offerings on the shrine of Misery,

And force from Famine the caress of Love ;

May He shed healing on the sore disgrace,

He, the great Comforter that rules above !

64 JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET X.

Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled To see thee, poor Old Man ! and thy gray hairs Hoar with the snowy blast ; while no one cares To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head. My Father ! throw away this tattered vest That mocks thy shivering ! take my garment — use A young man's arm ! I'll melt these frozen dews That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast. My Sara too shall tend thee, like a Child : And thou shalt talk, in our fire side's recess, Of purple Pride, that scowls on Wretchedness. He did not so, the Galiljean mild, Who met the Lazars turned from rich man's doors, And called them Friends, and healed their noisome Sores !

JUVENILE POEMS. 65

SONNET XL

Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress

Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile

And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while

Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.

Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland ?

Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,

When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale

Jarred thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand ?

Faint was that Hope, and rayless ! — Yet 'twas fair

And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest :

Thou should'st have loved it most, when most opprest,

And nursed it with an agony of Care,

Even as a Mother her sweet infant heir

That wan and sickly droops upon her breast I

66

JUVENILE POEMS.

SONNET XII.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE " ROBBERS."

Schiller! that hour I would have wished to die, If through the shuddering midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent That fearful voice, a famished Father's cry — Lest in some after moment aught more mean Might stamp me mortal ! A triumphant shout Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene ! Ah Bard tremendous in sublimity ! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye Beneath some vast old tempest- swinging wood ! Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood : Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy !

JUVENILE POEMS. 67

LINES

COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBING THE LEFT ASCENT OF BROCKLEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE,

MAY, 1795.

With many a pause and oft reverted eye

I climb the Coomb's ascent : sweet songsters near

Warble in shade their wild- wood melody :

Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear.

Up scour the startling stragglers of the Plock

That on green plots o'er precipices browze :

From the forced fissures of the naked rock

The Yew tree bursts ! Beneath its dark green boughs

(Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white)

Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats,

I rest : — and now have gained the topmost site.

Ah ! what a luxury of landscape meets

My gaze! Proud Towers, and Cots more dear to me,

Elm-shadow'd Fields, and prospect-bounding Sea !

Deep sighs my lonely heart : I drop the tear :

Enchanting spot! O were my Sara here !

68 UVEN1LE POEMS.

LINES

IN THE MANNER OF SPENSER.

0 Peace, that on a lilied bank dost love * To rest thine head beneath an Olive Tree,

1 would, that from the pinions of thy Dove One quill withouten pain yplucked might be ! For O ! I wish my Sara's frowns to flee,

And fain to her some soothing song would write, Lest she resent my rude discourtesy, Who vowed to meet her ere the morning light, But broke my plighted word — ah ! false and recreant wight !

Last night as I my weary head did pillow With thoughts of my dissevered Fair engrossed, Chill Fancy drooped wreathing herself with willow, As though my breast entombed a pining ghost. u From some blest couch, young Rapture's bridal boast,

JUVENILE POEMS. Oy

" Rejected Slumber ! hither wing thy way ; 14 But leave me with the matin hour, at most ! '• As night-closed Floweret to the orient ray, " My sad heart will expand, when I the Maid survey."

But Love, who heard the silence of my thought, Contrived a too successful wile, I ween : And whispered to himself, with malice fraught — " Too long our Slave the Damsel's smiles hath seen : M To-morrow shall he ken her altered mien !" He spake, and ambushed lay, till on my bed The morning shot her dewy glances keen, When as 1 'gan to lift my drowsy head — " Now, Bard! I'll work thee woe I" the laughing Elfin said.

Sleep, softly -breathing God ! his downy wing Was fluttering now, as quickly to depart ; When twanged an arrow from Love's mystic string, With pathless wound it pierced him to the heart. Was there some Magic in the Elfin's dart ? Or did he strike my couch with wizard lance ? For straight so fair a Form did upwards start (No fairer decked the Bowers of old Romance) That Sleep enamoured grew, nor moved from his sweet Trance !

70 JUVENILE POEMS.

My Sara came, with gentlest Look divine;

Bright shone her Eye, yet tender was its beam :

J felt the pressure of her lip to mine !

Whispering we went, and Love was all our theme —

Love pure and spotless, as at first, I deem,

He sprang from Heaven! Such joys with Sleep did

'bide, That I the living Image of my Dream Fondly forgot. Too late I woke, and sigh'd — " O ! how shall I behold my Love at even-tide !"

JUVENILE POEMS. 71

IMITATED FROM OSSIAN.

Th e stream with languid murmur creeps,

In Lv mix's flowery vale : Beneath the dew the Lily weeps

Slow- waving to the gale.

" Cease, restless gale ! it seems to say, " Nor wake me with thy sighing !

u The honours of my vernal day " On rapid wing are flying.

" To morrow shall the Traveller come " Who late beheld me blooming :

" His searching eye shall vainly roam 11 The dreary vale of Lumin."

With eager gaze and wetted cheek

My wonted haunts along, Thus, faithful Maiden ! thou shalt seek

The Youth of simplest song.

But I along the breeze shall roll

The voice of feeble power ; And dwell, the Moon-beam of thy soul,

In Slumber's nightly hour.

72 JUVENILE POEMS.

THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHOMA.

How long will ye round me be swelling,

O ye blue-tumbling waves of the Sea 1 Not always in Caves was my dwelling,

Nor beneath the cold blast of the Tree. Through the high-sounding halls of Cathloma

In the steps of my Beauty I strayed ; The Warriors beheld Ninathoma,

And they blessed the white-bosomed Maid !

A Ghost ! by my Cavern it darted !

In moon-beams the Spirit was drest — For lovely appear the departed

When they visit the dreams of my Rest! But disturbed by the Tempest's commotion

Fleet the shadowy forms of Delight — Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean !

To howl through my Cavern by Night.

JUVENILE POEMS. 73

IMITATED FROM THE WELSH.

If, while my passion I impart,

You deem my words untrue, O place your hand upon my heart —

Feel how it throbs for you !

Ah no ! reject the thoughtless claim

In pity to your Lover ! That thrilling touch would aid the flame,

It wishes to discover.

74 JUVENILE POEMS.

TO AN INFANT.

Ah cease thy Tears and Sobs, my little Life ! I did but snatch away the unclasped Knife : Some safer Toy will soon arrest thine eye And to quick Laughter change this peevish cry ! Poor Stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe, Tutored by Pain each source of Pain to know ! Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire Awake thy eager grasp and young desire ; Alike the Good, the 111 offend thy sight, And rouse the stormy Sense of shrill Affright ! Untaught, yet wise ! mid all thy brief alarms Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms, Nestling thy little face in that fond breast Whose anxious Heavings lull thee to thy rest ! Man's breathing Miniature ! thou mak'st me sigh- A Babe art thou — and such a Thing am I ! To anger rapid and as soon appeased, For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,

JUVENILE POEMS. 75

Break Friendship's Mirror with a tetchy blow,

Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow !

O thou that rearest with celestial aim

The future Seraph in my mortal frame,

Thrice holy Faith! whatever thorns I meet

As on I totter with unpractised feet,

Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee,

Meek Nurse of Souls through their long Infancy !

76 JUVENILE POEMS.

LINES

WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SEPTEMBER, 1795 , IN ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM BRISTOL.

Good verse most good, and bad verse then seems better Received from absent friend by way of Letter, for what so sweet can laboured lays impart As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart?

Anon.

Nor travels my meandering eye The starry wilderness on high ;

Nor now with curious sight I mark the glow-worm, as I pass, Move with " green radiance" through the grass,

An Emerald of Light.

JUVENILE POEMS. 77

0 ever present to my view ! My wafted spirit is with you,

And soothes your boding fears :

1 see you all oppressed with gloom Sit lonely in that cheerless room —

Ah me ! You are in tears !

Beloved Woman ! did you fly

Chilled Friendship's dark disliking eye,

Or Mirth's untimely din ? With cruel weight these trifles press A temper sore with tenderness,

When aches the Void within.

But why with sable wand unblessed Should Fancy rouse within my breast

Dim-visaged shapes of Dread ? Untenanting its beauteous clay My Sara's soul has winged its way,

And hovers round my head !

I felt it prompt the tender Dream, When slowly sunk the day's last gleam ; You roused each gentler sense

78 JUVENILE POEMS.

As sighing o'er the Blossom's bloom Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume With viewless influence.

And hark, my Love ! The sea-breeze moans Through yon reft house ! O'er rolling stones

In bold ambitious sweep The onward-surging tides supply The silence of the cloudless sky

With mimic thunders deep.

Dark reddening from the channelled Isle* (Where stands one solitary pile

Unslated by the blast) The Watchfire, like a sullen star Twinkles to many a dozing Tar

Rude cradled on the mast.

Even theTe — beneath that light-house tower- In the tumultuous evil hour

Ere Peace with Sara came, Time was, I should have thought it sweet To count the echoings of my feet,

And watch the storm-vexed flame.

* The Holmes, in the Bristol Channel.

JUVENILE POEMS. 79

And there in black soul-jaundiced fit A sad gloom-pampered Man to sit,

And listen to the roar : When mountain Surges bellowing deep With an uncouth monster leap

Plunged foaming on the shore.

Then by the Lightning's blaze to mark Some toiling tempest- shattered bark ;

Her vain distress-guns hear ; And when a second sheet of light Flashed o'er the blackness of the night —

To see no Vessel there !

But Fancy now more gaily sings ; Or if awhile she droop her wings,

As sky-larks 'mid the corn, On summer fields she grounds her breast : The oblivious Poppy o'er her nest

Nods, till returning morn.

O mark those smiling tears, that swell The opened Rose! From heaven they fell, And with the sun-beam blend.

80 JUVENILE POEMS.

Blessed visitations from above, Such are the tender woes of Love Fostering the heart, they bend !

When stormy Midnight howling round Beats on our roof with clattering sound,

To me your arms you'll stretch : Great God! you'll say — To us so kind,

0 shelter from this loud bleak wind The houseless, friendless wretch !

The tears that tremble down your cheek, Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek

In Pity's dew divine ; And from your heart the sighs that steal Shall make your rising bosom feel

The answering swell of mine !

How oft, my Love ! with shapings sweet

1 paint the moment, we shall meet !

Witli eager speed I dart — I seize you in the vacant air, And fancy, with a Husband's care

I press you to my heart !

JUVENILE POEMS. 81

'Tis said, on Summer's evening hour Flashes the golden-coloured flower

A fair electric flame : And so shall flash my love-charged eye When all the heart's big ecstasy

Shoots rapid through the frame !

82 JUVENILE POEMS.

LINES

TO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY LETTER.

Away, those cloudy looks, that labouring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour ! Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power, When the blind Gamester throws a luckless die.

Yon setting Sun flashes a mournful gleam Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train : To-morrow shall the many-coloured main In brightness roll beneath his orient beam !

Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time Flies o'er his mystic lyre : in shadowy dance The alternate groupes of Joy and Grief advance Responsive to his varying strains sublime !

Bears on its wing each hour a load of Fate ;

The swain, who, lulled by Seine's mild murmurs, led

JUVENILE POEMS. 83

His weary oxen to their nightly shed, To-day may rule a tempest- troubled State,

Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile Survey the sanguinary Despot's might, And haply hurl the Pageant from his height Unwept to wander in some savage isle.

There shiv'ring sad beneath the tempest's frown Round his tired limbs to wrap the purple vest ; And mixed with nails and beads, an equal jest ! Barter for food, the jewels of his crown.

84 JUVENILE POEMS.

RELIGIOUS MUSINGS; A DESULTORY POEM,

WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1794.

This is the time, when most divine to hear,

The voice of Adoration rouses me,

As with a Cherub's trump : and high upborne,

Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view

The vision of the heavenly multitude,

Who hymned the song of Peace o'er Bethlehem's

fields ! Yet thou more bright than all the Angel blaze, That harbingered thy birth, Thou, Man of Woes! Despised Galileean ! For the Great Invisible (by symbols only seen) With a peculiar and surpassing light Shines from the visage of the oppressed good Man, When heedless of himself the scourged Saint Mourns for the Oppressor. Fair the vernal Mead,

JUVENILE POEMS. 85

Fair the high Grove, the Sea, the Sun, the Stars ;

True Impress each of their creating Sire !

Yet nor high Grove, nor many-coloured Mead,

Nor the green Ocean with his thousand Isles,

Nor the starred Azure, nor the sovran Sun,

E'er with such majesty of portraiture

Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate,

As thou, meek Saviour! at the fearful hour

When thy insulted Anguish winged the prayer

Harped by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy !

Which when the Almighty heard from forth his

Throne Diviner light filled Heaven with ecstasy ! Heaven's hymnings paused : and Hell her yawning

mouth Closed a brief moment.

Lovely was the Death Of Him whose Life was Love ! Holy with power He on the thought- benighted Sceptic beamed Manifest Godhead, melting into day What floating mists of dark Idolatry Broke and misshaped the Omnipresent Sire : And first by Feau uncharmed the droused Soul.*

* To Notjto hrigrixoiffiv tt; koXKwv

©•w» fooriiTas Damas. de myst. jEgypt.

86 JUVENILE POEMS.

Till of its nobler Nature it 'gan feel

Dim recollections : and thence soared to Hope,

Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good

The Eternal dooms for his immortal Sons.

From Hopk and firmer Faith to perfect Love

Attracted and absorbed : and centered there

God only to behold, and know, and feel,

Till by exclusive Consciousness of God

All self-annihilated it shall make

God its Identity : God all in all !

We and our Father one!

And blessed are they, Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven, Their strong eye darting through the deeds of Men, Adore with stedfast unpresuming gaze Him Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy ! And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend Treading beneath their feet all visible things As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne Lead gradual— else nor glorified nor loved. They nor Contempt embosom nor Revenge : For they dare know of what may seem deform The Supreme Fair sole Operant: in whose sight All things are pure, his strong controlling Love Alike from all educing perfect good.

JUVENILE POEMS. »/

Their' s too celestial courage, inly armed — Dwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse On their great Father, great beyond compare ! And marching onwards view high o'er their heads His waving Banners of Omnipotence.

Who the Creator love, created might

Dread not : within their tents no Terrors walk.

For they are Holy Things before the Lord

Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with Hell ;

God's Altar grasping with an eager hand

Fear, the wild-visaged, pale, eye-starting wretch,

Sure-refuged hears his hot pursuing fiends

Yell at vain distance. Soon refreshed from Heaven

He calms the throb and tempest of his heart.

His countenance settles ; a soft solemn bliss

Swims in his eye — his swimming eye upraised :

And Faith's whole armour glitters on his limbs !

And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe,

A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds

All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved

Views e'en the immitigable ministers

That shower down vengeance on these latter days.

For kindling with intenser Deity

From the celestial Mercy- seat they come,

And at the renovating Wells of Love

88 JUVENILE POEMS.

Have filled their Vials with salutary Wrath, To sickly Nature more medicinal That what soft balm the weeping good man pours Into the lone despoiled traveller's wounds !

Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith, Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares Drink up the spirit and the dim regards Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire New names, new features — by supernal grace Enrobed with Light, and naturalized in Heaven. • As when a Shepherd on a vernal morn Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot, Darkling he fixes on the immediate road His downward eye : all else of fairest kind Hid or deformed. But lo ! the bursting Sun ! Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree ; On every leaf, on every blade it hangs ! Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays, And wide around the landscape streams with glory !

There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy name is Love.

JUVENILE POEMS. 89

Truth of subliming import ! with the which

Who feeds and saturates his constant soul,

He from his small particular orbit flies

With blessed outstarting! From Himself he flies,

Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze

Views all creation ; and he loves it all.

And blesses it, and calls it very good !

This is indeed to dwell with the most High !

Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim

Can press no nearer to the Almighty's Throne.

But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in his vast family no Cain Injures uninjured (in her best-aimed blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide) Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature : and, behold ! A sea of blood bestrewed with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush With unhelmed Rage !

'Tis the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves Parts and proportions of one wonderous whole ! This fraternizes man, this constitutes

90 JUVENILIS POEMS.

Our charities and bearings. But 'tis God

Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole ;

This the worst superstition, him except

Aught to desire, Superme Reality !

The plenitude and permanence of bliss !

0 Fiends of Superstition ! not that oft

The erring Priest hath stained with Brother's blood Your grisly idols, not for this may wrath Thunder against you from the Holy One ! But o'er some plain that steameth to the Sun, Peopled with Death; or where more hideous Trade Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish ;

1 will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends !

And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith,

Hiding the present God ; whose presence lost,

The moral world's cohesion, we become

An Anarchy of Spirits ! Toy-bewitched,

Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,

No common centre Man, no common sire

Knoweth ! A sordid solitary thing,

Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart

Through courts and cities the smooth Savage roams

Feeling himself, his own low Self the whole ;

When he by sacred sympathy might make

The whole one self ! self, that no alien knows !

JUVENILE POEMS. 91

Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel ! Self, spreading still ! Oblivious of its own, Yet all of all possessing ! This is Faith ! This the Messiah's destined victory !

But first offences needs must come ! Even now* (Black Hell laughs horrible — to hear the scoff!) Thee to defend, meek Galilaean! Thee And thy mild laws of Love unutterable, Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands Of social Peace ; and listening Treachery lurks With pious fraud to snare a brother's life ;

* January 21st. 1794, in the debate on the Address to his Majesty, on the speech from the Throne, the Earl of Guildford moved an Amendment to the following effect: — " That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest opportunity to conclude a peace with France," &c. This motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who " considered the war to be merely grounded on one principle — the preservation of the Christian Religion." May 30th, 1794, the Duke of Bed- ford moved a number of Resolutions, with a view to the Establishment of a Peace with France. He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon in these remarkable words : " The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War ! and War carried on in the same manner in which we are taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength."

92 JUVENILE POEMS.

And childless widows o'er the groaning land ! Wail numberless ; and orphans weep for bread ! Thee to defend, dear Saviour of Mankind ! Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of

Peace ! From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War ? Austria, and that foul Woman of the North, The lustful Murderess of her wedded Lord ! And he, connatural Mind! whom (in their songs So bards of elder time had haply feigned) Some Fury fondled in her hate to man, Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge Lick his young face, and at his mouth inbreathe Horrible sympathy ! And leagued with these Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore ! Soul-hardened barterers of human blood ! Death's prime Slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips of

Fate ! Nor least in savagery of holy zeal, Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate, Whom Britain erst had blushed to call her sons ! Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd That Deity, accomplice Deity In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath

JUVENILE POEMS.

93

Will go forth with our armies and our fleets To scatter the red ruin on their foes ! O blasphemy ! to mingle fiendish deeds With blessedness !

Lord of unsleeping Love,* From everlasting Thou ! We shall not die. These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fixed untrembling heart.

In the primeval age a dateless while

The vacant Shepherd wandered with his flock

Pitching his tent where'er the green grass waved.

But soon Imagination conjured up

An host of new desires ; with busy aim,

Each for himself, Earth's eager children toiled.

So Property began, twy-streaming fount,

Whence Vice and Virtue flow, honey and gall.

Hence the soft couch, and many-coloured robe

* Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, mine Holy One t We shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for Judg- ment, &c. Habakkuk.

94 JUVENILE POEMS.

The timbre], and arched dome and costly feast, With all the inventive arts, that nursed the soul To forms of beauty, and by sensual wants Unsensualized the mind, which in the means Learnt to forget the grossness of the end, Best pleasured with its own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood's arm, The daggered Envy, spirit-quenching Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests — all the sore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills ! yet each the immediate source Of mightier good. Their keen necessities To ceaseless action goading human thought Have made Earth's reasoning animal her Lord ; And the pale-featured Sage's trembling hand Strong as an host of armed Deities, Such as the blind Ionian fabled erst.

From Avarice thus, from Luxury and War Sprang heavenly Science ; and from Science Freedom. O'er wakened realms Philosophers and Bards Spread in concentric circles : they whose souls, Conscious of their high dignities from God, Brook not Wealth's rivalry ! and they who long Enamoured with the charms of order hate

JUVENILE POEMS. 95

The unseemly disproportion : and whoe'er

Turn with mild sorrow from the victor's car

And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse

On that blest triumph, when the patriot Sage

Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud

And dashed the beauteous Terrors on the earth

Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er

Measured firm paces to the calming sound

Of Spartan flute ! These on the fated day,

When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men

Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes

That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind.

These hushed awhile with patient eye serene

Shall watch the mad careering of the storm ;

Then o'er the wild and wavy chaos rush

And tame the outrageous mass, with plastic might

Moulding Confusion to such perfect forms,

As erst were wont, bright visions of the day !

To float before them, when, the Summer noon,

Beneath some arched romantic rock reclined

They felt the sea breeze lift their youthful locks ;

Or in the month of blossoms, at mild eve,

Wandering with desultory feet inhaled

The wafted perfumes, and the flocks and woods

And many-tinted streams and setting Sun

96 JUVENILE POEMS.

With all his gorgeous company of clouds

Ecstatic gazed ! then homeward as they strayed

Cast the sad eye to earth, and inly mused

Why there was Misery in a world so fair.

Ah far removed from all that glads the sense,

From all that softens or ennobles Man,

The wretched Many ! Bent beneath their loads

They gape at pageant Power, nor recognize

Their cots' transmuted plunder ! From the tree

Of Knowledge, ere the vernal sap had risen

Rudely disbranched ! Blessed Society !

Fitliest depictured by some sun -scorched waste,

Where oft majestic through the tainted noon

The Simoom sails, before whose purple pomp

Who falls not prostrate dies ! And where by night,

Fast by each precious fountain on green herbs

The lion couches ; or hysena dips

Deep in the lucid stream his bloody jaws ;

Or serpent plants his vast moon-glittering bulk,

Caught in whose monstrous twine Behemoth* yells,

His bones loud-crashing !

* Behemoth, in Hebrew, signifies wild beasts in general. Some believe it is the elephant, some the hippopotamus ; some affirm it is the wild bull. Poetically, it designates any large quadruped.

JUVENILE POEMS.

97

O ye numberless, Whom foul Oppression's ruffian gluttony Drives from life's plenteous feast ! O thou poor Wretch Who nursed in darkness and made wild by want Roamest for prey, yea thy unnatural hand Dost lift to deeds of blood ! O pale-eyed Form, The victim of seduction, doomed to know Polluted nights and days of blasphemy ; Who in loathed orgies with lewd wassailers Must gaily laugh, while thy remembered Home Gnaws like a viper at thy secret heart ! O aged Women ! ye who weekly catch The morsel tossed by law-forced Charity, And die so slowly, that none call it murder ! O loathly Suppliants ! ye, that unreceived Totter heart-broken from the closing gates Of the full Lazar-house : or, gazing, stand Sick with despair ! O ye to Glory's field Forced or ensnared, who, as ye gasp in death, Bleed with new wounds beneath the Vulture's beak! O thou poor Widow, who in dreams dost view Thy Husband's mangled corse, and from short doze Start'st with a shriek ; or in thy half-thatched cot Waked by the wintry night-storm, wet and cold, Cow'rst o'er thy screaming baby ! Rest awhile Children of Wretchedness ! More groans must rise,

98 JUVENILE POEMS.

More blood must stream, or ere your wrongs be full. Yet is the day of Retribution nigh : The Lamb of God hath opened the fifth seal : And upward rush on swiftest wing of fire The innumerable multitude of Wrongs By man on man inflicted ! Rest awhile, Children of Wretchedness ! The hour is nigh ; And lo! the Great, the Rich, the Mighty Men, The Kings and the Chief Captains of the World, With all that fixed on high like stars of Heaven Shot baleful influence, shall be cast to earth, Vile and down-trodden, as the untimely fruit Shook from the fig-tree by a sudden storm. Even now the storm begins :* each gentle name, Faith and meek Piety, with fearful joy Tremble far-off — for lo ! the G i a n t F r e n z y Uprooting empires with his whirlwind arm Mocketh high Heaven ; burst hideous from the cell Where the old Hag, unconquerable, huge, Creations eyeless drudge, black ruin, sits

Nursing the impatient earthquake.

O return !

Pure Faith ! meek Piety ! The abhorred Form

Whose scarlet robe was stiff with earthly pomp,

Who drank iniquity in cups of Gold,

* Alluding to the French Revolution.

JUVENILE POEMS. 99

Whose names were many and all blasphemous,

Hath met the horrible judgment ! Whence that cry ?

The mighty army of foul Spirits shrieked

Disherited of earth ! For she hath fallen

On whose black front was written Mystery ;

She that reeled heavily, whose wine was blood ;

She that worked whoredom with the Dcemon Power

And from the dark embrace all evil things

Brought forth and nurtured : mitred Atheism !

Arid patient Folly who on bended knee

Gives back the steel that stabbed him; and pale

Fear Hunted by ghastlier shapings than surround Moon-blasted Madness when he yells at midnight ! Return pure Faith ! return meek Piety ! The kingdoms of the world are your's : each heart Self-governed, the vast family of Love Raised from the common earth by common toil Enjoy the equal produce. Such delights As float to earth, permitted visitants ! When in some hour of solemn jubilee The massy gates of Paradise are thrown Wide open, and forth come in fragments wild Sweet echoes of unearthly melodies, And odours snatched from beds of Amaranth,

100 JUVENILE POEMS.

And they, that from the crystal river of life

Spring up on freshened wing, ambrosial gales !

The favoured good man in his lonely walk

Perceives them, and his silent spirit drinks

Strange bliss which he shall recognize in heaven.

And such delights, such strange beatitude

Seize on my young anticipating heart

When that blest future rushes on my view !

For in his own and in his Father's might

The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand

Years Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts ! Old Ocean claps his hands ! The mighy Dead Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous plan, Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump The high Groves of the renovated Earth Unbosom their glad echoes : inly hushed, Adoring Newton his serener eye Raises to heaven : and he of mortal kind Wisest, he* first who marked the ideal tribes Up the fine fibres through the sentient brain. Lol Priestley there, Patriot, and Saint, and Sage, Him, full of years, from his loved native land Statesmen blood-stained and Priests idolatrous * David Hartley.

JUVENILE POEMS. 101

By dark lies maddening the blind multitude Drove with vain hate. Calm, pitying he retired, And mused expectant on these promised years.

O Years ! the blest pre-eminence of Saints ! Ye sweep athwart my gaze, so heavenly bright, The wings that veil the adoring Seraph's eyes, What time he bends before the Jasper Throne* Reflect no lovelier hues ! yet ye depart, And all beyond is darkness ! Heights most strange, Whence Fancy falls, fluttering her idle wing. For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane Making noon ghastly ! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretchedf Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans, In feverish slumbers — destined then to wake, When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name And Angels shout, Destruction ! How his arm

* Rev. Chap. iv. v. 2 and 3. — And immediately I was in the Spirit: and behold, a Throne was set in Heaven, and one sat on the Throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and sardine stone, &c.

f The final Destruction impersonated.

102 JUVENILE POEMS.

The last great Spirit lifting high in air Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One, Time is no more !

Believe thou, 0 my soul, Life is a vision shadowy of Truth ; And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave, Shapes of a dream ! The veiling clouds retire, And lo ! the Throne of the redeeming God Forth flashing unimaginable day Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.

Contemplant Spirits ! ye that hover o'er

With untired gaze the immeasurable fount

Ebullient with creative Deity !

And ye of plastic power, that interfused

Roll through the grosser and material mass

In organizing surge ! Holies of God !

(And what if Monads of the infinite mind)

I haply journeying my immortal course

Shall sometime join your mystic choir ? Till then

I discipline my young noviciate thought

In ministeries of heart-stirring song,

And aye on Meditation's heaven- ward wing

Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air

JUVENILE POEMS. 103

Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,

Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul '

As the great Sun, when he his influence

Sheds on the frost-bound waters — The glad stream

Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.

104 jrVENILE POEMS.

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS.

A VISION.

Auspicious Reverence ! Hush all meaner song, Ere we the deep preluding strain have poured To the Great Father, only Rightful King, Eternal Father! King Omnipotent ! The Will, the Word, the Breath, — the Living God.

Such symphony requires best instrument. Seize, then, my soul ! from Freedom's trophied dome' The Harp which hangeth high between the Shields Of Brutus and Leonidas ! With that Strong music, that soliciting spell, force back Earth's free and stirring spirit that lies entranced.

For what is Freedom, but the unfettered use Of all the powers which God for use had given ? But chiefly this, him First, him Last to View

JUVENILE POEMS. 105

Through meaner powers and secondary things Effulgent, as through clouds that veil his blaze. For all that meets the bodily sense I deem Symbolical, one mighty alphabet For infant minds ; and we in this low world Placed with our backs to bright Reality, That we may learn with young unwounded ken The substance from its shadow. Infinite Love Whose latence is the plenitude of All, Thou with retracted Beams, and Self-eclipse Veiling, revealest thine eternal Sun.

But some there are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the winged thought, scoffing ascent Proud in their meanness : and themselves they cheat With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Untenanting creation of its God.

But properties are God : the naked mass (If mass there be, fantastic Guess or Ghost) Acts only by its inactivity. Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think

106 JUVENILE POEMS.

That as one body seems the aggregate Of Atoms numberless, each organized ; So by a strange and dim similitude Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs With absolute ubiquity of thought (His one eternal self- affirming Act !) All his involved Monads, that yet seem With various province and apt agency Each to pursue its own self-centering end. Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine ; Some roll the genial juices through the oak ; Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air, And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed, Yoke the red lightning to their volleying car. Thus these pursue their never-varying course, No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild, With complex interests weaving human fates, Duteous or proud, alike obedient all, Evolve the process of eternal good.

And what if some rebellious, o'er dark realms Arrogate power 1 yet these train up to God, And on the rude eye, unconfirmed for day, Flash meteor-lights better than total gloom. As ere from Lieule-Oaive's vapoury head

JUVENILE POEMS. 107

The Laplander beholds the far-ofF Sun Dart his slant beam on unobeying snows, While yet the stern and solitary Night Brooks no alternate sway, the Boreal Morn With mimic lustre substitutes its gleam, Guiding his course or by Niemi lake Or Balda-Zhiok,* or the mossy stone Of Solfar-kapper,f while the snowy blast Drifts arrowy by, or eddies round his sledge, Making the poor babe at its mother's backj

* Balda Zhiok ; i. e. mons altitudinis, the highest mountain in Lapland.

t Salfar Kapper ; capitium Solfar, hie locus omnium quotquot veterum Lapponum supers titio sacrificiis religiosoque cultui de- dicavit, celebratissimus erat, in parte sinus australis situs semi- milliaris spatio a mari distans. Ipse locus, quem curiositatis gratia aliquando me invisisse memini, duabus prealtis lapidibus, sibi invicem oppositis, quorum alter musco circumdatus erat, constabat. — Leemius Be Lapponibus.

$ The Lapland women carry their infants at their back in a piece of excavated wood, which serves them for a cradle. Op- posite to the infant's mouth there is a hole for it to breath A through. — Mirandum prorsus est et vix credibile nisi cui vidisset contigit. Lappones hyeme iter facientes per vastos montes, perque horrid a et invia tesqua, eo presertim tempore quo omnia perpetuis nivibus obtecta sunt et nives ventis agitantur et in gyros aguntur, viam ad destinata loca absque errore invenire posse, lactantem autem infantem si quem habeat, ipsa mater in dorso bajulat, in excavato ligno (Gieed'k ipsi vocant) quod pro cunis utuntur: in hoc infans pannis et peliibus convolutus colligatus jacet. — Leemius De Lapponibus.

108 JUVENILE POEMS.

Scream in its scanty cradle : he the while

Wins gentle solace as with upward eye

He marks the streamy banners of the North,

Thinking himself those happy spirits shall join

Who there in floating robes of rosy light

Dance sportively. For Fancy is the Power

That first unsensualizes the dark mind,

Giving it new delights ; and bids it swell

With wild activity ; and peopling air,

By obscure fears of Beings invisible,

Emancipates it from the grosser thrall

Of the present impulse, teaching Self-controul,

Till Superstition with unconscious hand

Seat Reason on her throne. Wherefore not vain,

Nor yet without permitted power impressed,

I deemed those legends terrible, with which

The polar ancient thrills his uncouth throng ;

Whether of pitying Spirits that make their moan

O'er slaughtered infants, or that Giant Bird

Vuokho, of whose rushing wings the noise

Is Tempest, when the unutterable* shape

Speeds from the mother of Death, and utters once

That shriek, which never Murderer heard, and lived.

Or if the Greenland Wizard in strange trance

Pierces the untravelled realms of Ocean's bed

* Jaibme Aibmo.

JUVENILE POEMS. 109

(Where live the innocent as far from cares As from the storms and overwhelming waves Dark tumbling on the surface of the deep), Over the abysm, even to that uttermost cave By mis-shaped prodigies beleaguered, such As Earth ne'er bred, nor Air, nor the upper Sea.

There dwells the Fury Form, whose unheard name With eager eye, pale cheek, suspended breath, And lips half-opening with the dread of sound, Unsleeping Silence guards, worn out with fear Lest haply escaping on some treacherous blast The fateful word let slip the Elements And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her, Armed with Torngarsuck's* power, the Spirit of Good, Forces to unchain the foodful progeny Of the Oceans stream, — Wild phantasies ! yet wise, On the victorious goodness of high God

* They call the Good Spirit Torngarsuck. The other great but malignant spirit is a nameless Female ; she dwells under the sea in a great house, where she can detain in cap- tivity all the animals of the ocean by her magic power. When a dearth befalls the Greenlanders, an Angekok or magician must undertake a journey thither. He passes through the king- dom of souls, over an horrible abyss into the Palace of this phantom, and by his enchantments causes the captive creatures to ascend directly to the surface of the ocean.

See Crantz' Hist, of Greenland, vol. i. 206.

110 JUVENILE POEMS.

Teaching Reliance, and Medicinal Hope, Till from Bethabra northward, heavenly Truth With gradual steps winning her difficult way, Transfer their rude Faith perfected and pure.

If there be Beings of higher class than Man, I deem no nobler province they possess, Than by disposal of apt circumstance To rear up Kingdoms : and the deeds they prompt, Distinguishing from mortal agency, They chuse their human ministers from such states As still the Epic song half fears to name, Repelled from all the Minstrelsies that strike The Palace-Roof and sooth the Monarch's pride.

And such, perhaps, the Spirit, who (if words Witnessed by answering deeds may claim our Faith) Held commune with that warrior-maid of France Who scourged the Invader. From her infant days, With Wisdom, Mother of retired Thoughts, Her soul had dwelt ; and she was quick to mark The good and evil thing, in human lore Undisciplined. For lowly was her Birth, And Heaven had doomed her early years to Toil That pure from Tyranny's least deed, herself Unfeared by Fellow-natures, she might wait

JUVENILE POEMS.

Ill

On the poor Labouring man with kindly looks, And minister refreshment to the tired Way-wanderer, when along the rough-hewn Bench The sweltry man had stretched him, and aloft Vacantly watched the rudely pictured board Which on the Mulberry-bough with welcome creak Swung to the pleasant breeze. Here, too, the Maid Learnt more than Schools could teach : Man's shifting

mind, His Vices and his Sorrows ! And full oft At Tales of cruel Wrong and strange Distress Had wept and shivered. To the tottering Eld Still as a Daughter would she run : she placed His cold Limbs at the sunny Door, and loved To hear him story, in his garrulous sort, Of his eventful years, all come and gone.

So twenty seasons past. The Virgin's Form, Active and tall, nor Sloth nor Luxury Had shrunk or paled. Her front sublime and broad, Her flexile eye-brows wildly haired and low, And her full eye, now bright, now unillumed, Spake more than Woman's Thought; and all her face Was moulded to such Features as declared That Pity there had oft and strongly worked, And sometimes Indignation. Bold her mien,

112 JUVENILE POEMS.

And like an haughty Huntress of the woods She moved : yet sure she was a gentle maid ! And in each motion her most innocent soul Beamed forth so brightly, that who saw would say Guilt was a thing impossible in her ! Nor idly would have said — for she had lived In this bad World, as in a place of Tombs And touched not the pollutions of the Dead.

Twas the cold season when the Rustic's eye From the drear desolate whiteness of his fields Rolls for relief to watch the skiey tints And clouds slow varying their huge imagery ; When now, as she was wont, the healthful Maid Had left her pallet ere one beam of day Slanted the fog-smoke. She went forth alone Urged by the indwelling angel-guide, that oft, With dim inexplicable sympathies Disquieting the Heart, shapes out Man's course To the predoomed adventure. Now the ascent She climbs of that steep upland, on whose top The Pilgrim- Man, who long since eve had watched The alien shine of unconcerning Stars, Shouts to himself, there first the Abbey-lights Seen in Neufchatel's vale; now slopes adown The winding sheep-track vale -ward : when, behold

JUVENILE POEMS. 113

In the first entrance of the level road An unattended Team! The foremost horse Lay with stretched limbs ; the others, yet alive But stifT and cold, stood motionless, their manes Hoar with the frozen night-dews. Dismally The dark-red down now glimmered ; but its gleams Disclosed no face of man. The maiden paused, Then hailed who might be near. No voice replied. •From the thwart wain at length there reached her ear A sound so feeble that it almost seemed Distant: and feebly, with slow effort pushed, A miserable man crept forth : his limbs The silent frost had eat, scathing like fire. Faint on the shafts he rested. She, mean time, Saw crowded close beneath the coverture A mother and her children — lifeless all, Yet lovely ! not a lineament was marred — Death had put on so slumber-like a form ! It was a piteous sight ; and one, a babe, The crisp milk frozen on its innocent lips, Lay on the woman's arm, its little hand Stretched on her bosom.

Mutely questioning, The Maid gazed wildly at the living wretch. He, his head feebly turning, on the group

114 JUVENILE POEMS.

Looked with a vacant stare, and his eye spoke

The drowsy calm that steals on worn-out anguish.

She shuddered : but, each vainer pang subdued,

Quick disentangling from the foremost horse

The rustic bands, with difficulty and toil

The stiffcrampedteam forced homeward. There arrived,

Anxiously tends him she with healing herbs,

And weeps and prays — but the numb power of Death

Spreads o'er his limbs ; and ere the noon-tide hour,

The hovering spirits of his Wife and Babes

Hail him immortal ! Yet amid his pangs,

With interruptions long from ghastly throes,

His voice had faltered out this simple tale.

The Village, where he dwelt an Husbandman, By sudden inroad had been seized and fired Late on the yester-evening. With his wife And little ones he hurried his escape. They saw the neighbouring Hamlets flame, they heard Uproar and shrieks ! and terror-struck drove on Through unfrequented roads, a weary way ! But saw nor house nor cottage. All had quenched Their evening hearth-fire : for the alarm had spread. The air dipt keen, the night was fanged with frost, And they provisionless ! The weeping wife 111 hushed her children's moans ; and still tkey moaned,

JUVENILE POEMS. 115

Till Fright and Cold and Hunger drank their life. They closed their eyes in sleep, nor knew 'twas Death. He only, lashing his o'er-wearied team, Gained a sad respite, till beside the base Of the high hill his foremost horse dropped dead. Then hopeless, strengthless, sick for lack of food, He crept beneath the coverture, entranced, Till wakened by the maiden. — Such his tale.

Ah ! suffering to the height of what was suffered, Stung with too keen a sympathy, the Maid Brooded with moving lips, mute, startful, dark ! And now her flushed tumultuous features shot Such strange vivacity, as fires the eye Of misery Fancy-crazed ! and now once more Naked, and void, and fixed, and all within The unquiet silence of confused thought And shapeless feelings. For a mighty hand Was strong upon her, till in the heat of soul To the high hill-top tracing back her steps, Aside the beacon, up whose smouldered stones The tender ivy-trails crept thinly, there, Unconscious of the driving element, Yea, swallowed up in the ominous dream, she sate Ghastly as broad-eyed Slumber ! a dim anguish

116 JUVENILE POEMS.

Breathed from her look ! and still with pant and sob, Inly she toil'd to flee, and still subdued, Felt an inevitable Presence near.

Thus as she toiled in troublous ecstasy, An horror of great darkness wrapt her round, And a voice uttered forth unearthly tones, Calming her soul, — " O Thou of the Most High " Chosen, whom all the perfected in Heaven " Behold expectant — —

[The following fragments were intended to form part of the Poem when finished.]

'• Maid beloved of Heaven ! (To her the tutelary Power exclaimed) " Of Chaos the adventurous progeny " Thou seest; foul missionaries of foul sire, " Fierce to regain the losses of that hour " When love rose glittering, and his gorgeous wings u Over the abyss fluttered with such glad noise, u As what time after long and pestful calms, " With slimy shapes and miscreated life " Poisoning the vast Pacific, the fresh breeze " Wakens the merchant-sail uprising. Night " An heavy unimaginable moan

JUVENILE POEMS. 117

44 Sent forth, when she the Protoplast beheld 44 Stand beauteous on Confusion's charmed wave. 44 Moaning she fled, and entered the Profound " That leads with downward windings to the Cave 44 Of darkness palpable, Desert of Death 44 Sunk deep beneath Gehenna's massy roots. 44 There many a dateless age the Beldame lurked 44 And trembled; till engendered by fierce Hate, 44 Fierce Hate and gloomy Hope, a Dream arose, 44 Shaped liked a black cloud marked with streaks of fir e. 44 It roused the Hell- Hag : she the dew damp wiped 44 From off her brow, and through the uncouth maze 14 Retraced her steps ; but ere she reached the mouth 44 Of that drear labyrinth, shuddering she paused, 44 Nor dared re-enter the diminished Gulph. 44 As through the dark vaults of some mouldered Tower 44 (Which, fearful to approach, the evening Hind 44 Circles at distance in his homeward way) 44 The winds breathe hollow, deemed the plaining

groan 44 Of prisoned spirits ; with such fearful voice 44 Night murmured, and the sound through Chaos

went. 44 Leaped at her call her hideous-fronted brj^ ! " A dark behest they heard , and rushed on earth ;

118 JUVENILE POEMS.

" Since that sad hour, in Camps and Courts adored, " Rebels from God, and Monarchs o'er Mankind !"

From his obscure haunt Shrieked Fear, of Cruelty the ghastly Dam, Feverish yet freezing, eager-paced yet slow, As she that creeps from forth her swampy reeds, Ague, the biform Hag ! when early Spring Beams on the marsh-bred vapours.

" Even so" (the exulting Maiden said) " The sainted Heralds of Good Tidings fell, " And thus they witnessed God ! But now the clouds " Treading, and storms beneath their feet, they soar " Higher, and higher soar, and soaring sing " Loud songs of Triumph ! O ye spirits of God, " Hover around my mortal agonies!" She spake, and instantly faint melody Melts on her ear, soothing and sad, and slow, Such Measures, as at calmest midnight heard By aged Hermit in his holy dream, Foretell and solace death ; and now they rise Louder, as when with harp and mingled voice The white-robed* multitude of slaughtered saints

* Revel, vi. 9, 11. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain

JUVENILE POEMS. ] 19

At Heaven's wide-opened portals gratulant Receive some martyr'd Patriot. The harmony Entranced the Maid, till each suspended sense Brief slumber seized, and confused ecstasy.

At length awakening slow, she gazed around : And through a Mist, the relict of that trance Still thinning as she gazed, an Isle appeared, Its high, o'er-hanging, white, broad-breasted cliffs, Glassed on the subject ocean. A vast plain Stretched opposite, where ever and anon The Plough-man following sad his meagre team Turned up fresh sculls unstartled, and the bones Of fierce hate-breathing combatants, who there All mingled lay beneath the common earth, Death's gloomy reconcilement ! O'er the Fields Stept a fair form, repairing all she might, Her temples olive-wreathed ; and where she trod, Fresh flowerets rose, and many a foodful herb. But wan her cheek, her footsteps insecure, And anxious pleasure beamed in her faint eye,

for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

120 JUVENILE POEMS.

As she had newly left a couch of pain, Pale Convalescent ! (yet some time to rule With power exclusive o'er the willing- world, That blessed prophetic mandate then fulfilled Peace be on Earth !) An happy while, but brief, She seemed to wander with assiduous feet, And healed the recent harm of chill and blight, And nursed each plant that fair and virtuous grew.

But soon a deep preeursive sound moaned hollow : Black rose the clouds, and now, (as in a dream) Their reddening shapes, transformed to Warrior- hosts, Coursed o'er the Sky, and battled in mid-air. Nor did not the large blood-drops fall from Heaven Portentous ! while aloft were seen to float, Like hideous features booming on the mist, Wan Stains of ominous Light ! Resigned, yet sad, The fair Form bowed her olive-crowned Brow, Then o'er the plain with oft reverted eye Fled till a Place of Tombs she reached, and there Within a ruined Sepulchre obscure Found Hiding-place.

The delegated Maid Gazed through her tears, then in sad tones exclaimed

JUVENILE POEMS. 121

" Thou mild-eyed Form ! wherefore, ah ! wherefore

fled? " The Power of Justice like a name all Light, " Shone from thy brow; but all they, who unblamed " Dwelt in thy dwellings, call thee Happiness. " Ah! why, uninjured and unprofited, " Should multitudes against their brethren rush? " Why sow they guilt, still reaping Misery ? " Lenient of care, thy songs, O Peace ! are sweet, " As after showers the perfumed gale of eve, " That flings the cool drops on a feverous cheek: " And gay thy grassy altar piled with fruits. " But boasts the shrine of Daemon War one charm, " Save that with many an orgie strange and foul, " Dancing around with interwoven arms, " The Maniac Suicide and Giant Murder " Exult in their fierce union ! I am sad, " And know not why the simple Peasants crowd " Beneath the Chieftains' standard !" Thus the Maid.

To her the tutelary Spirit replied : " When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores " No more can rouse the appetites of Kings; " When the low flattery of their reptile Lords " Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear ; " When Eunuchs sing, and Fools buffoonery make,,

122 JUVENILE POEMS.

" And Dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain ;

" Then War and all its dread vicissitudes

" Pleasingly agitate their stagnant Hearts ;

" Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats,

u Insipid Royalty's keen condiment !

u Therefore uninjured and unprofited,

" (Victims at once and Executioners)

u The congregated Husbandmen lay waste

" The Vineyard and the Harvest. As along

" The Bothnic coast, or southward of the Line,

" Though hushed the Winds and cloudless the high

Noon, " Yet if Leviathan, weary of ease, " In sports unwieldy toss his Island- bulk, " Ocean behind him billows, and before " A storm of waves breaks foamy on the strand. " And hence, for times and seasons bloody and dark, " Short Peace shall skin the wounds of causeless

War, " And War, his strained sinews knit anew, " Still violate the unfinished works of Peace. 11 But yonder look ! for more demands thy view T He said : and straightway from the opposite Isle A vapour sailed, as when a cloud, exhaled From Egypt's fields that steam hot pestilence, Travels the sky for many a trackless league,

JUVENILE POEMS. 123

Till o'er some Death-doomed land, distant in vain, It broods incumbent. Forthwith from the Plain, Facing the Isle, a brighter cloud arose, And steered its course which way the Vapour went.

The Maiden paused, musing what this might mean. But long time passed not, ere that brighter Cloud Returned more bright ; along the Plain it swept ; And soon from forth its bursting sides emerged A dazzling form, broad-bosomed, bold of eye, And wild her hair, save where with laurels bound. Not more majestic stood the healing God, When from his bow the arrow sped that slew Huge Python. Shriek'd Ambition's giant throng, And with them hissed the Locust-fiends that crawled And glittered in Corruption's slimy track. Great was their wrath, for short they knew their reign ; And such commotion made they, and uproar, As when the mad Tornado bellows through The guilty islands of the western main, What time departing from their native shores, Eboe, or * Koromantyn's plain of Palms,

* The Slaves in the West-Indies consider death as a pass- port to their native country. This sentiment is thus expressed in the introduction to a Greek Prize-Ode on the Slave-Trade, of

124 JUVENILE POEMS.

The infuriate spirits of the Murdered make Fierce merriment, and vengeance ask of Heaven.

which the ideas are better than the language in which they are conveyed.

Q cxorov 7rv\ug, ©avaTs, 7rpo\et7ro)v Eg yevog o-ttsuSo/s V7ro^tv^0sv At#* Ou {-evtffQrjtni yivvu>v <r7rupoiyjuots

OuS' oKoXvy/xu), AXXa xai xvxhoicri yopoiT\)7TOK7i K' OLfffxoLrwv "yap*' <P°^e§°S /jccv ea<rt AXA' Ofiayg EheuQeptqt avuotxeTg,

2ruyve Tvgavvs 1 Aourxioi; S7r$i TTTspvysarat crrifft A ! SaXuaffiov xoSopwvreg o<S/a« A$e§07rXa.yTQig vno nocr' aveiai ; /

TlxTptS' in* a/av. Ev0a jxoiv Epacrat Epoo/javriffiv Afxtyt 7rr}yricri* xnpivwv vn' aXrwv, Ofl-o-' una QpoTOig s7ra.Qov /S^otoi, ra.

Ativa. Xeyovou. LITERAL TRANSLATION.

• Leaving the Gates of Darkness, O Death ! hasten thou to a Race yoked with Misery ! Thou wilt not be received with lacerations of cheeks, nor with funereal ululation — hut with circling dances and the joy of songs. Thou art terrible indeed, yet thou dwellest with Liberty, stern Genius ! Borne on thy dark pinions over the swelling of Ocean, they return to their native country. There, by the side of Fountains beneath Ci- tron-groves, the lovers tell to their beloved what horrors, being Men, they had endured from Men.

JUVENILE POEMS. 125

Warmed with new influence, the unwholesome Plain

Sent up its foulest fogs to meet the Morn :

The Sun that rose on Freedom, rose in Blood !

" Maiden beloved, and Delegate of Heaven ! (To her the tutelary Spirit said) " Soon shall the Morning struggle into Day, 11 The stormy Morning into cloudless Noon. " Much hast thou seen, nor all canst understand — " But this be thy best Omen — Save thy Country 1" Thus saying, from the answering Maid he passed, And with him disappeared the Heavenly Vision.

" Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven ! " All conscious Presence of the Universe ! " Nature's vast Ever-acting Energy ! « In Will, in Deed, Impulse of All to All! " Whether thy Love with unrefracted Ray " Beam on the Prophet's purged eye, or if " Diseasing Realms the Enthusiast, wild of Thought, " Scatter new Frenzies on the infected Throng, " Thou Both inspiring and predooming Both, " Fit Instruments and best, of perfect End : " Glory to Thee, Father of Earth and Heaven !

126 JUVENILE POEMS.

And first a Landscape rose More wild and waste and desolate than where The white bear, drifting on a field of ice, Howls to her sundered cubs with piteous rage And savage agony.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I. POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM.

When I have borne in memory what has tamed Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart When men change swords for ledgers, and desert The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed I had, my country ! Am I to be blamed ! But, when I think of Thee, and what Thou art, Verily, in the bottom of my heart, Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. But dearly must we prize thee ; we who find In thee a bulwark of the cause of men ; And I by my affection was beguiled. What wonder if a poet, now and then, Among the many movements of his mind, Felt for thee as a Lover or a Child.

Wordsworth.

ODE

TO

THE DEPARTING YEAR.

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T& peWov $ffj. Ka< crv /ojv rtkyjei Trap!*)* 'Aya> y aXijflfycavnv [t? ipttg,

^Eschyl. Agam. 1225.

ARGUMENT.

The Ode commences with an Address to the Divine Provi- dence, that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th. of November, 1796 ; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the Departing Year, &c. as in a vision. The second Epode prophecies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

*K yj, a» '*

ODE ON THE DEPARTING YEAR.*

Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time I It is most hard, with an untroubled ear Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear ! Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime Long when I listened, free from mortal fear, With inward stillness, and submitted mind ; When lo ! its folds far waving on the wind, I saw the train of the Departing Year ! Starting from my silent sadness Then with no unholy madness Ere yet the entered doud foreclosed my sight, I raised the impetuous song, and solemnized his flight.

* This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796 : and was first published on the last day of that year.

132 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

II.

Hither, from the recent Tomb, From the Prison's direr gloom, From Distemper's midnight anguish ; And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish ; Or where, his two bright torches blending,

Love illumines Manhood's maze ; Or where o'er cradled infants bending, Hope has fixed her wishful gaze.

Hither, in perplexed dance, Ye Woes ! ye young-eyed Joys ! advance ! By time's wild harp, and by the hand Whose indefatigable sweep Raises its fateful strings from sleep, I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band ! From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth, Haste for one solemn hour ; And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth,

Weep and rejoice ! Still echoes the dread Name that o'er the earth Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell :

And now advance in saintly Jubilee Justice and Truth ! They too have heard thy spell, They too obey thy name, Divinest Liberty !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 133

III.

I marked Ambition in his war-arra} !

I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry — " Ah ! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay ! " Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" Fly, mailed Monarch, fly ! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, No more on Murder's luric face The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye ! Manes of the unnumbered slain ! Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, When human ruin choked the streams,

Fell in conquest's glutted hour, Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams ! Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling ! The exterminating fiend is fled —

(Foul her life, and dark her doom) Mighty armies of the dead

Dance like death-fires round her tomb ! Then with prophetic song relate, Each some tyrant-murderer's fate !

134 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

IV.

Departing Year I 'twas on no earthly shore My soul beheld thy vision ! Where alone, Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne, Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore, With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours ! Silence ensued, Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude, Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone. Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, From the choired Gods advancing, The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet, And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

V.

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hushed were harp and song : Till wheeling round the throne the Lamp ads seven,

(The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make : The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and spake !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 135

" Thou in stormy blackness throning

" Love and uncreated Light, " By the Earth's unsolaced groaning, " Seize thy terrors, Arm of might ! " By Peace with proffered insult scared, " Masked Hate and envying Scorn ! " By Years of Havoc yet unborn ! u And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared ! " But chief by Afric's wrongs,

" Strange, horrible, and foul I " By what deep guilt belongs " To the deaf Synod, ' full of gifts and lies!' M By Wealth's insensate laugh ! by Torture's howl ! " Avenger, rise ! « For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, " Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? Speak ! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud !

'' And on the darkling foe " Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud !

" O dart the flash ! O rise and deal the blow ! " The Past to thee, to thee the future cries !

" Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature ! rise."

136 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

VI.

The voice had ceased, the vision fled ; Yet still I gasped and reeled with dread. And ever, when the dream of night Renews the phantom to my sight, Cold sweat- drops gather on my limbs ;

My ears throb hot ; my eye-balls start ; My brain with horrid tumult swims ; Wild is the tempest of my heart ; And my thick and struggling breath Imitates the toil of Death ! No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread, When all foredone with toil and wounds,

Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead ! (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

And the night- wind clamours hoarse ! See ! the starting wretch's head

Lies pillowed on a brother's corse !)

VII. Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile, O Albion ! O my mother Isle ! Thy vallies, fair as Eden's bowers, Glitter green with sunny showers ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 137

Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells

Echo to the bleat of flocks ; (Those grassy hills, those glittering dells

Proudly ramparted with rocks) And Ocean mid his uproar wild Speaks saftety to his island-child !

Hence for many a fearless age

Has social Quiet loved thy shore ; Nor ever proud Invader's rage Or sacked thy towers, or stained thy fields with gore.

VIII.

Abandoned of Heaven 1 mad Avarice thy guide, At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride — Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast

stood, And joined the wild yelling of Famine and Blood ! The nations curse thee ! They with eager wondering

Shall hear Destruction, like a Vulture, scream !

Strange-eyed Destruction ! who with many a dream Of central fires through nether seas upthundering

Soothes her fierce solitude ; yet as she lies By livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

O Albion ! thy predestined ruins rise,

138 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap, Muttering distempered triumph in her charmed sleep .

IX.

Away, my soul, away ! In vain, in vain the Birds of warning sing — And hark ! 1 hear the famished brood of prey Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind ! Away, my soul, away ! I unpartaking of the evil thing, With daily prayer and daily toil Soliciting for food my scanty soil, Have wailed my country with a loud Lament. Now I recentre my immortal mind

In the deep sabbath of meek self-content ; Cleansed from the vaporous passions that bedim God's Image, sister of the Seraphim.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 139

FRANCE.

AN ODE.

L

Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,

Whose pathless march no mortal may controul !

Ye Ocean- Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws ! Ye Woods ! that listen to the night-birds' singing,

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

Have made a solemn music of the wind ! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod,

How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound ! O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forests high !

140 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And O ye Clouds that far above me soared ! Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky ! Yea, every thing that is and will be free ! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.

II.

When France in wrath her giant -limbs upreared,

And with that oath, which smote air, earth and sea,

Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared ! With what a joy my lofty gratulation

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band : And when to whelm the disenchanted nation,

Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, The Monarch s marched in evil day, And Britain joined the dire array ;

Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many friendships, many youthful loves

Had swoln the patriot emotion And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves ; Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delayed and vain retreat !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 141

For ne'er, O Liberty ! with partial aim

I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame ;

But blessed the paeans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name.

III.

" And what," I said, " though Blasphemy's loud scream " With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! H Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove " A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream ! " Ye storms, that round the dawning east assem- bled, " The Sun was rising, though he hid his light!

And when, to sooth my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright; When France her front deep-scar'd and gory Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory ;

When, insupportably advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's tramp ;

While timid looks of fury glancing, Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore ;

Then I reproached my fears that would not flee ; " And soon," I said, " shall Wisdom teach her lore " In the low huts of them that toil and groan !

142 SIBYLLINE LEAVE*.

" And, conquering by her happiness alone,

" Shall France compel the nations to be free, 16 Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own."

IV.

Forgive me, Freedom ! O forgive those dreams !

I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament,

From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent — I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams F

Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain -snows

With bleeding wounds ; forgive me, that I cherished One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes !

To scatter rage, and traitorous guilt,

Where Peace her jealous home had built ; A patriot-race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear ;

And with inexpiable spirit To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer — O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,

And patriot only in pernicious toils ! Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind ?

To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway, Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils

From freemen torn ; to tempt and to betray?

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 143

V.

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! O Liberty ! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour ;

But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor eve* Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Not prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)

Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the

waves I And there I felt thee ! — on that sea-clifT's verge,

Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above,

Had made one murmur with the distant surge !

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,

And shot my being through earth, sea and air,

Possessing all things with intensest love,

O Liberty ! my spirit felt thee there.

February, 1797.

144 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

FEARS IN SOLITUDE.

Written in April, 1798, during the Alarm of an Invasion.

I A greek and silent spot, amid the hills, A small and silent dell ! O'er stiller place No singing sky-lark ever poised himself. The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, All golden with the never-bloomless furze, Which now blooms most profusely : but the dell, Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax, When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, The level Sunshine glimmers with green light. Oh ! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook ! Which all, methinks, would love ; but chiefly he, The humble man, who; in his youthful years, Knew just so much of folly, as had made His early manhood more securely wise !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 145

Here he might lie on fern or withered heath, While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best,) And from the Sun, and from the breezy Air, Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame ; And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, Made up a meditative joy, and found Religious meanings in the forms of nature ! And so, his senses gradually wrapt In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds, And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark ; That singest like an angel in the clouds !

My God ! it is a melancholy thing For such a man, who would full fain preserve His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel For all his human brethren — O my God ! It weighs upon the heart, that he must think What uproar and what strife may now be stirring This way or that way o'er these silent hills — Invasion, and the thunder and the shout, And all the crash of onset ; fear and rage, And undetermined conflict — even now, Even now, perchance, and in his native isle : Carnage and groans beneath this blessed Sun ! We have offended, Oh ! my countrymen !

146 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

We have offended very grievously,

And been most tyrannous. From east to west

A groan of accusation pierces Heaven !

The wretched plead against us ; multitudes

Countless and vehement, the Sons of God,

Our Brethren ! Like a cloud that travels on,

Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,

Even so, my countrymen ! have we gone forth

And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,

And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint

With slow perdition murders the whole man,

His body and his soul ! Meanwhile, at home,

All individual dignity and power

Engulfed in Courts, Committees, Institutions,

Associations and Societies,

A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild,,

One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery,

We have drunk up, demure as at a grace,

Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ;

Contemptuous of all honourable rule,

Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life

For gold, as at a market ! The sweet words

Of Christian promise, words that even yet

Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached

Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones proclaim

How flat and wearisome they feel their trade :

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 147

Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.

Oh ! blasphemous ! the book of life is made

A superstitious instrument, on which

We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break ;

For all must swear — all and in every place,

College and wharf, council and justice-court;

All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,

Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,

The rich, the poor, the old man and the young ;

All, all make up one scheme of perjury,

That faith doth reel ; the very name of God

Sounds like a juggler's charm ; and, bold with joy,

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,

(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,

Sailing on obscene Wings athwart the noon,

Drops his blue -fringed lids, and holds them close,

And hooting at the glorious Sun in Heaven,

Cries out, " Where is it?"

Thankless too for peace, (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war ! Alas ! for ages ignorant of all Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,

148 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry-snows,)

We, this whole people, have been clamorous

For war and bloodshed ; animating sports,

The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,

Spectators and not combatants ! No Guess

Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,

No speculation or contingency,

However dim and vague, too vague and dim

To yield a justifying cause; and forth,

(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,

And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)

We send our mandates for the certain death

Of thousands and ten thousands ! Boys and girls,

And women, that would groan to see a child

Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,

The best amusement for our morning-meal !

The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers

From curses, who knows scarcely words enough

To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,

Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute

And technical in victories and defeats,

And all our dainty terms for fratricide ;

Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues

Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which jsfg

We join no feeling and attach no form !

As if the soldier died without a wound ;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 149

As if the fibres of this godlike frame Were gored without a pang ; as if the wretch, Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed ; As though he had no wife to pine for him, No God to judge him ! Therefore, evil days Are coming on us, O my countrymen ! And what if all-avenging Providence, Strong and retributive, should make us know The meaning of our words, force us to feel The desolation and the agony Of our fierce doings !

Spare us yet awhile, Father and God ! O ! spare us yet awhile ! Oh ! let not English women drag their flight Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes, Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday Laughed at the breast ! Sons, brothers, husbands, all Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms Which grew up with you round the same fire-side, And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells Without the infidels' s scorn, make yourselves pure ! Stand forth ! be men ! repel an impious foe, Impious and false, a light yet cruel race, Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth

150 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

With deeds of murder ; and still promising Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free, Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes And all that lifts the spirit ! Stand we forth ; Render them back upon the insulted ocean, And let them toss as idly on its waves As the vile sea- weed, which some mountain-blast Swept from our shores ! And oh ! may we return Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear, Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung So fierce a foe to frenzy !

I have told, O Britons ! O my brethren ! I have told Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. Nor deem my zeal or factious or mis-timed ; For never can true courage dwell with them, Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices. We have been too long Dupes of a deep delusion ! Some, belike, Groaning with restless enmity, expect All change from change of constituted power; As if a Government had been a robe, On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 151

Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach

A radical causation to a few

Poor drudges of chastising Providence,

Who borrow all their hues and qualities

From our own folly and rank wickedness,

Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others,

meanwhile, Dote with a mad idolatry ; and all Who will not fall before their images, And yield them worship, they are enemies Even of their country !

Such have I been deemed — But, O dear Britain ! O my Mother Isle I Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father ! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all Within the limits of thy rocky shores. O native Britain ! O my Mother Isle ! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills, Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, Have drunk in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature,

z

152 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

All lovely and all honourable things, Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel The joy and greatness of its future being? There lives nor form nor feeling: in my soul Unborrowed from my country. O divine And beauteous island ! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple , in the which I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God that made me !

May my tears, My filial fears, be vain ! and may the vaunts

A J c ^ ? 1

And menace ot the vengetul enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away In the distant tree : which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass*

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze : The light has left the summit of the hill, Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot ! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way ; and lo ! recalled From bodings that have well nigh wearied me,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 153

I find myself upon the brow, and paus3

Startled ! And after lonely sojourning

In such a quiet and surrounded nook,

This burst of prospect, here the shadowy Main,

Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty

Of that huge amphitheatre of rich

And elmy Fields, seems like society —

Conversing with the mind, and giving it

A livelier impulse and a dance of thought !

And now, beloved Stowey ! I behold

Thy church-tower, and, methinks the four huge elms

Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend ;

And close behind them, hidden from my view,

Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe

And my babe's mother dwell in peace ! With light

And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,

Remembering thee, O green and silent dell !

And grateful, that by nature's quietness

And solitary musings, all my heart

Is softened, and made worthy to indulge

Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.

Nether Stowey, April 28th, 1798.

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER.

A WAR ECLOGUE.

WITH AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE.*

The Scene a desolated Tract in la Vendue. Famine

is discovered lying on the ground -, to her enter

Fire and Slaughter.

Famine. Sisters I sisters ! who sent you here ?

Slaughter (to Fire), I will whisper it in her ear.

Fire.

No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell : Twill make an holiday in Hell.

No ! no ! no ! Myself, I named him once below, And all the souls, that damned be, Leaped up at once in anarchy, Clapped their hands and danced for glee

* Printed at the end of this volume.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 155

They no longer heeded me ;

But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters

Unwillingly re-echo laughters !

No ! no ! no ! Spirits hear what spirits tell : ;i

'Twill make an holiday in Hell !

Famine.

Whisper it, sister ! so and so ! In a dark hint, soft and slow.

Slaughter.

Letters four do form his name — And who sent you ?

Both. The same ! the same !

Slaughter. He came by stealth, and unlocked my den, And I have drank the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Both. Who bade you do it?

Slaughter.

The same ! the same !

156 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due.

Famine. Thanks, sitter, thanks ! the men have bled, Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle; With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog — but they would not go. So off I flew : for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare ? I heard a groan and a peevish squall, And through the chink of a cottage-wall — Can you guess what I saw there?

Both.

Whisper it, sister ! in our ear.

Famine. A baby beat its dying mother : I had starved the one and was starving the other !

Both. Who bade you do 't ?

Famine.

The same! the same »

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 157

Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried, Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due.

Fire.

Sisters ! I from Ireland came !

Hedge and corn-fields all on flame,

I triumphed o'er the setting sun !

And all the while the work was done,

On as ) strode with my huge strides,

I flung back my head and I held my sides,

It was so rare a piece of fun

To see the sweltered cattle run

With uncouth gallop through the night,

Scared by the red and noisy light !

By the light of his own blazing cot

Was many a naked Rebel shot :

The house-stream met the flame and hissed,

While crash ! fell in the roof, I wist,

On some of those old bed-rid nurses,

That deal in discontent and curses.

Booth. Who bade you do't ?

Fire.

The same ! The same ! Letters four do form his name.

158 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

He let me loose, and cried Halloo ! To him alone the praise is due.

All.

He let us loose, and cried Halloo ! How shall we yield him honour due ?

Famine.

Wisdom comes with lack of food. I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude, . Till the cup of rage o'erbrim :

They shall seize him and his brood —

Slaughter. They shall tear him limb from limb !

Fire.

0 thankless beldames and untrue ! And is this all that you can do For him, who did so much for you ? Ninety months he, by my troth ! Hath richly catered for you both ; And in an hour would you repay

An eight years' work ? — Away ! away !

1 alone am faithful ! I Cling to him everlastingly.

1796.

II. LOVE POEMS.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in aevo. Perlegis hie lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta IHe puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus, Omnia paulatim consumit longior aetas, Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendb. Ipse mihi collatus enim non ille videbor : Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago, Voxque aliud sonat —

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes, Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultu* Mens horret relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

Petuarch. I

•

LOVE,

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower.

The Moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve ; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve !

162 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight ; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air, I sang an old and moving story — An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes and modest grace ; For well she knew, I could not chuse But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand ; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 163

I told her how he pined ; and ah ! The deep, the low, the pleading- tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace ; And she forgave me, that I gazed, Too fondly on her face I

But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night ;

That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade.

There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright ; And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight!

164 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

And that unknowing what he did, He leaped amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land !

And how she wept, and clasped his knees ; And how she tended him in vain— • And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain.

And that she nursed him in a cave ; And how his madness went away, When on the yellow forest-leaves A dying man he lay.

His dying words — but when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faultering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity !

Ail impulses of soul and sense

«q baP

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve ; The music and the doleful tale, The rich and balmy eve;

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 165

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng, And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherished long !

She wept with pity and delight, She blushed with love, and virgin-shame ; And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved — she stepped aside, As conscious of my look she stepped — Then suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, She pressed me with a meek embrace ; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly Love, and partly Fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.

166 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I calmed her fears, and she was ealm> And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

SYBYLLINE LEAVES. 167

LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT.

At midnight by the stream I roved, To forget the form I loved. Image of Lewti ! from my mind Depart ; for Lewti is not kind.

The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam

And the shadow of a star Heaved upon Tamaha's stream ;

But the rock shone brighter far, The rock half sheltered from my view By pendent boughs of tressy yew — So shines my Lewti's forehead fair, Gleaming through her sable hair. Image of Lewti ! from my mind Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

158 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the Moon it passed ; Still brighter and more bright it grew, With floating colours not a few,

Till it reached the Moon at last : Then the cloud was wholly bright, With a rich and amber light ! And so with many a hope I seek

And with such joy I find my Lewti ; And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty ! Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud — it floats away,

Away it goes ; away so soon ? Alas ! it has no power to stay : Its hues are dim, its hues are grey —

Away it passes from the Moon ! How mournfully it seems to fly,

Ever fading more and more, To joyless regions of the sky —

And now 'tis whiter than before ! As white as my poor cheek will be,

When Lewti ! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 169

Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — And yet, thou did'st not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,

Thin, and white, and very high ; I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud :

Perhaps the breezes that can fly

Now below and now above, Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud

Of Lady fair — that died for love. For maids, as well as youths, have perished From fruitless love too fondly cherished. Nay, treacherous image ! leave my mind — For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush ! my heedless feet from under

Slip the crumbling banks for ever : Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread, And startle from their reedy bed. O beauteous Birds ! methinks ye measure

Your movements to some heavenly tune! O beauteous Birds ! 'tis such a pleasure

To see you move beneath the Moon,

170 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I would it were your true delight To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies, When silent night has closed her eyes :

It is a breezy jasmine-bower, The Nightingale sings o'er her head :

Voice of the Night ! had I the power That leafy labyrinth to thread, And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white Heaving lovely to my sight, As these two swans together heave On the gently swelling wave.

Oh ! that she saw me in a dream

And dreamt that I had died for care ;

All pale and wasted I would seem, Yet fair withal, as spirits are !

I'd die indeed, if I might see

Her bosom heave, and heave for me !

Soothe, gentle image ! soothe my mind !

To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

)h'^: - ' *--■«£" -vft-% 'feii •_£; r is/ft fid *

1795.

STBYLLINE LEAVES. 171

THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.

Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood I force my way ; now climb, and now descend O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts ; while oft unseen, Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil I know not, ask not whither ! A new joy, Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust, And gladsome as the first-born of the springy Beckons me on, or follows from behind, Playmate, or guide ! The master-passion quelled, I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake

172 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Soar up, and form a melancholy vault High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse ;

Here too the love-lorn Man who, sick in soul,

And of this busy human heart aweary,

Worships the spirit of unconscious life

In tree or wild-flower.— Gentle Lunatic !

If so he might not wholly cease to be,

He would far rather not be that, he is;

But would be something, that he knows not of,

In winds or waters, or among the rocks !

(oH But hence, fond wretch ! breathe not contagion here ! No myrtle-walks are these : these are no groves Where Love dare loiter ! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore g^~ His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades ! And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! You, O ye wingless Airs ! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze, Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES* 173

The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed —

Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless Damp,

Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.

Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes !

With prickles sharper than his darts bemock

His little Godship, making him perforce

Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back.

This is my hour of triumph ! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free. Here will I seat myself, beside this old, Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine Clothes as with net- work : here will I couch my limbs, Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world — unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound ; Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me, Was never Love's accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; Ne'er played the wanton — never half disclosed The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence

174 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth, Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze ! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert Stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative ! Behold ! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow ! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror ! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth, (For fear is true love's cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed : for see, ah ! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 175

Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells : And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool ! Then all the charm Is broken — all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes ! The stream wilt soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return I And lo ! he stays : And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror ; and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree — but where, O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leaned On its bare branch ? He turns, and she is gone ! Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth I Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad Love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, The Naiad of the Mirror !

Not to thee, O wild and desert Stream ! belongs this tale :

176 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Gloomy and dark art thou — the crowded firs

Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,

Making thee doleful as a cavern-well :

Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest

On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt — emancipate From passions dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo ! stealing through the canopy of firs How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, How soon to re-unite ! And see ! they meet, Each in the other lost and found : and see Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Throbbing within them, Heart at once and Eye ! With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds, The stains and shadings of forgotten tears, Dimness o'erswum with lustre ! Such the hour Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds ; And hark, the noise of a near waterfall ! I pass forth into light — I find myself Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest-trees, the Lady of the woods,)

SIBYLLTtfE LEAVES. 177

Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock

That overbrows the cataract. How bursts

The landscape on my sight ! Two crescent hills

Fold in behind each other, and so make

A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem,

With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages,

Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet,

The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray,

Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall.

How solemnly the pendent ivy -mass

Swings in its winnow : All the air is calm.

The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light,

Rises in columns ; from this house alone,

Close by the waterfall, the column slants,

And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?

That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke,

And close beside its porch a sleeping child,

His dear head pillowed on a sleeping dog —

One arm between its fore legs, and the hand

Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers,

Unnlletted, and of unequal lengths.

A curious picture, with a master's haste

Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin,

Peeled from the birchen bark ! Divinest maid !

Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries

Her pencil ! See, the juice is scarcely dried

178 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

On the fine skin ! She has been newly here ;

And lo ! yon patch of heath has been her couch —

The pressure still remains ! O blessed couch !

For this mayst thou flower early, and the Sun,

Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long

Upon thy purple bells ! O Isabel !

Daughter of genius ! stateliest of our maids !

More beautiful than whom Alcseus wooed

The Lesbian woman of immortal song !

O child of genius ! stately, beautiful,

And full of love to all, save only me,

And not ungentle e'en to me ! My heart,

Why beats it thus J Through yonder coppice-wood

Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway

On to her father's house. She is alone !

The night draws on — such ways are hard to hit —

And fit it is I should restore this sketch,

Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn

To keep the relique ? 'twill but idly feed

The passion that consumes me. Let me haste !

The picture in my hand which she has left ;

She cannot blame me that I followed her :

And I may be her guide the long wood through.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 179

THE NIGHT-SCENE:

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

Sandoval. You love the daughter of Don Manrique?

Earl Henry.

Loved

7

Sandoval. Did you not say you wooed her?

Earl Henry.

Once I loved Her whom I dared not woo !

Sandoval.

And wooed, perchance, One whom you loved not !

180 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Earl Henry.

Oh ! I were most base, Not loving Oropeza. True, I wooed her, Hoping to heal a deeper wound ; but she Met my advances with impassioned pride, That kindled love with love. And when her sire, Who in his dream of hope already grasped The golden circlet in his hand, rejected My suit with insult, and in memory Of ancient feuds poured curses on my head, Her blessings overtook and baffled them ! But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.

Sandoval.

Anxiously, Henry ! reasoning anxiously. But Oropeza —

Earl Henry.

Blessings gather round her ! Within this wood there winds a secret passage, Beneath the walls, which opens out at length Into the gloomiest covert of the Garden — The night ere my departure to the army, She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom, And to that covert by a silent stream,

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 181

Which, with one star reflected near its marge,

Was the sole object visible around me.

No leaflet stirred ; the air was almost sultry ;

So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us !

No leaflet stirred ; — yet pleasure hung upon

The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.

A little further on an arbour stood,

Fragrant with flowering trees — I well remember

What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness

Their snow-white blossoms made — thither she led me,

To that sweet bower ! Then Oropeza trembled—

I heard her heart beat — if 'twere not my own.

Sandoval. *

A rude and scaring note, my friend !

Earl Henry.

Oh! no! I have small memory of aught but pleasure. The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams Still flowing, still were lost in those of love : So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature, Fleeing from Pain, sheltered herself in Joy. The stars above our heads were dim and steady, Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us : We were all life, each atom of our frames

182 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

A living soul— I vowed to die for her :

With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,

Relapses into blessedness, I vowed it :

That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,

A murmur breathed against a lady's ear.

Oh ! there is joy above the name of pleasure,

Deep self-possession, an intense repose.

Sandoval (with a sarcastic smile).

No other than as eastern sages paint, The God, who floats upon a Lotos leaf, Dreams for a thousand ages ; then awaking, Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble, Relapses into bliss.

Earl Henry.

Ah ! was that bliss Feared as an alien, and too vast for man ? For suddenly, impatient of its silence, Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead. I caught her arms ; the veins were swelling on them. Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice, Oh ! what if all betray me i what if thou ? I swore, and with an inward thought that seemed The purpose and the substance of my being, I swore to her, that were she red with guilty

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 183

I would exchange my unblenched state with hers. — Friend ! by that winding passage, to that bower I now will go — all objects there will teach me Unwavering love, and singleness of heart. Go, Sandoval ! I am prepared to meet her — Say nothing of me — I myself will seek her — Nay, leave me, friend ! I cannot bear the torment And keen inquiry of that scanning eye. —

[Earl Henry retires into the wood.

Sandoval (alone.)

O Henry ! always striv'st thou to be great

By thine own act — yet art thou never great

But by the inspiration of great passion.

The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up

And shape themselves : from Earth to Heaven they

stand, As though they were the pillars of a temple, Built by Omnipotence in its own honour! But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit Is fled : the mighty columns were but sand, And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins !

184 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,

WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.

Myrtle- leaf that, ill besped, Pinest in the gladsome ray,

Soiled beneath the common tread, Far from thy protecting spray !

When the Patridge o'er the sheaf Whirred along the yellow vale,

Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf! Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, foolish thing !

Heave and flutter to his sighs, While the flatterer, on his wing,

Wooed and whispered thee to rise.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 185

Gaily from thy mother-stalk

Wert thou danced and wafted high —

Soon on this unsheltered walk Flung to fade, to rot and die.

186 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE THEATRE.

Maiden, that with sullen brow Sittest behind those virgins gay,

Like a scorched and mildewed bough, Leafless 'mid the blooms of May !

Him who lured thee and forsook, Oft I watched with angry gaze,

Fearful saw his pleading look, Anxious heard his fervid phrase.

Soft the glances of the youth,

Soft his speech, and soft his sigh ;

But no sound like simple truth, But no true love in his eye.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 187

Loathing thy polluted lot, Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence !

Seek thy weeping Mother's cot, With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,

Thou hast felt that vice is woe : With a musing melancholy

Inly armed, go, Maiden ! go.

Mother sage of Self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O Melancholy ! The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion

Is the memory of past folly.

Mute the sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes,

That had skimmed the tender corn, Or the beanfleld's odorous blooms.

Soon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring

And embathe in heavenly light.

188 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.

Nor cold, nor stern, my soul ! yet I detest

These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng,

Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast, In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint ;

But when the long-breathed singer's uptriiled strain Bursts in a squall — they gape for wonderment.

Hark ! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate ! Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer

My lady eyes some maid of humbler state

While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest, Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 189

O give me, from this heartless scene released, To hear our old musician, blind and grey,

(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed,) His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,

By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, The while I dance amid the tedded hay

With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder- trees For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne ! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed Makes the cock shrilly on the rain storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship- wrecked sailor floating dead,

Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

190 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

The things of Nature utter ; birds or trees Or moan of ocean- gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves,

Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 191

THE KEEPSAKE.

The tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,

The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,

Shew summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall

Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,

Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,

Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose

(In vain the darling of successful love)

Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,

The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.

Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk

By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,

That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,

Hope's gentle gem, the sweet For get- me -not !*

* One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scnrpioides Pdlustris, a flower from six to twelve inches

192 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I loved, And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool. There, in that bower where first she owned her love, And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched The silk upon the frame, and worked her name Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not — Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair I That forced to wander till sweet spring return, I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look,

Ligh, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (Virgissmein nicht) and we believe, in Denmark and Sweden.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 193

Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood

Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)

Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss

With which she promised, that when spring returned,

She would resign one half of that dear name,

And own thenceforth no other name but mine !

194 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO A LADY.

WITH FALCONER^ " SHIPWRECK.'1

Ah ! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams, In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice ;

Nor while half-listening, mid delicious dreams, To harp and song from lady's hand and voice ;

Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood

On cliff, or cataract, in Alpine dell ; Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strewed,

Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell ;

Our sea-bard sang this song ! which still he sings, And sings for thee, sweet friend ! Hark, Pity, hark !

Now mounts, now totters on the Tempest's wings, Now groans, and shivers, the replunging Bark !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 195

" Cling to the shrouds !" In vain ! The breakers roar — Death shrieks! With two alone of all his clan

Forlorn the poet paced the Grecian shore, No classic roamer, but a ship-wrecked man !

Say then, what muse inspired these genial strains, And lit his spirit to so bright a flame ?

The elevating thought of suffered pains,

Which gentle hearts shall mourn ; but chief, the name

Of Gratitude ! Remembrances of Friend, Or absent or no more ! Shades of the Past,

Which Love makes Substance ! Hence to thee I send, O dear as long as life and memory last !

1 send with deep regards of heart and head,

Sweet maid, for friendship formed ! this work to thee :

And thou, the while thou canst not choose but shed A tear for Falconer, wilt remember me.

196 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

TO A YOUNG LADY.

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER.

Why need I say, Louisa dear ! How glad I am to see you here,

A lovely convalescent; Risen from the bed of pain4 and fear,

And feverish heat incessant.

The sunny Showers, the dappled Sky, The little Birds that warble high,

Their vernal loves commencing, Will better welcome you than I

With their sweet influencing.

Believe me, while in bed you lay, Your danger taught us all to pray :

You made us grow devouter ! Each eye looked up and seemed to say,

How can we do without her ?

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 197

Besides, what vexed us worse, we knew, They have no need of such as you

In the place where you were going : This World has angels all too few,

And Heaven is overflowing !

198 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

If I had but two little wings, And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly my dear ! • But thoughts like these are idle things,. And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly :

I'm always with you in my sleep ! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I ? All,, all alone.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 199

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids :

So I love to wake ere break of day :

For though my sleep be gone,

Yet, while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,

And still dreams on*

200 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

HOME-SICK.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

'Tis sweet to him, who all the week

Through city-crowds must push his way,

To stroll alone through fields and woods, And hallow thus the Sabbath-Day.

And sweet it is, in summer bower,

Sincere, affectionate and gay, One's own dear children feasting round,

To celebrate one's marriage-day.

But what is all, to his delight,

Who having long been doomed to roam, Throws off the bundle from his back,

Before the door of his own home ?

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 201

Home-sickness is a wasting pang ;

This feel I hourly more and more : There's Healing only in thy wings,

Thou Breeze that playest on Albion's shore !

202 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION.

Do you ask what the birds say ? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, " I love and I love !" In the winter they're silent — the wind is so strong; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm

weather, And singing, and loving — all come back together. But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings ; and for ever sings he — *' I love my Love? and my Love loves me!"

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 203

THE VISIONARY HOPE,

Sad lot, to have no Hope ! Though lowly kneeling He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing? That his sick body might have ease and rest ; He strove in vain ! the dull sighs from his chest Against his will the stifling load revealing, Though Nature forced ; though like some captive

guest, Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, An alien's restless mood but half concealing. The sternness on his gentle brow confessed, Sickness within and miserable feeling ; Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain, Each night was scattered by its own loud screams : Yet never could his heart command, though fain, One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

204 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he would — For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost ! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, He wishes and can wish for this alone ! Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower ! Or let it stay ! yet this one Hope should give Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 205

THE HAPPY HUSBAND.

A FRAGMENT.

Oft, oft methinks, the while with Thee I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear And dedicated name, I hear

A promise and a mystery,

A pledge of more than passing life, Yea, in that very name of Wife !

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep !

A feeling that upbraids the heart

With happiness beyond desert, That gladness half requests to weep !

Nor bless I not the keener sense

And unalarming turbulence

Of transient joys, that ask no sting From jealous fears, or coy denying ;

206

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

But born beneath Love's brooding wing, And into tenderness soon dying,

Wheel out their giddy moment, then Resign the soul to love again.

A more precipitated vein

Of notes, that eddy in the flow

Of smoothest song, they come, they go,

And leave their sweeter understrain Its own sweet self — a love of Thee That seems, yet cannot greater be !

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 4207

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.

How warm this woodland wild Recess !

Love surely hath been breathing here.

And this sweet bed of heath, my dear ! Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,

As if to have you yet more near.

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden rills

Float here and there, like things astray, And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

No voice as yet had made the air Be music with your name ; yet why That asking look ? that yearning sigh ?

That sense of promise every where ? Beloved ! flew your spirit by ?

208 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

IV.

As when a mother doth explore

The rose-mark on her long lost child, I met, I loved you, maiden mild !

As whom I long had loved before — So deeply, had I been beguiled.

You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream. But when those meek eyes first did seem

To tell me, Love within you wrought — O Greta, dear domestic stream !

VI.

Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep Has not Love's whisper evermore, Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar ?

Sole voice, when other voices sleep, Dear under-song in Clamor's hour.

SIBYLLINE LEAVES. 209

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE, AFTER LONG ABSENCE,

UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE.

God be with thee, gladsome Ocean!

How gladly greet I thee once more ! Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion,

And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild Physician, " Those briny waves for thee are Death !"

But my soul fulfilled her mission, And lo ! I breathe untroubled breath !

Fashion's pining Sons and Daughters, That seek the crowd they seem to fly,

Trembling they approach thy waters ; And what cares Nature, if they die ?

210 SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures, A thousand recollections bland,

Thoughts sublime, and stately measures, Revisit on thy echoing strand :

Dreams, (the Soul herself forsaking,) Tearful raptures, boyish mirth ;

Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this Earth !

O ye hopes, that stir within me, Health comes with you from above !

God is with me, God is in me ! I cannot die, if Life be Love.

III. MEDITATIVE POEMS,

IN BLANK VERSE.

Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived, Who seeks a Heart in the unthinking Man. like shadows on a stream, the forms of life Impress their characters on the smooth forehead : Nought sinks into the Bosom's silent depth. Quick sensibility of Pain and Pleasure Moves the light fluids lightly ; but no soul Warmeth the inner frame.

Schiller.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.

Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides ; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its ft flowers of loveliest blue."

Hast thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful Form ! Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines, How silently 1 Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge ! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy chrystal shrine,

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Thy habitation from eternity !

0 dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer

1 worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret Jpy ; Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty Vision passing — there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven !

Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy ! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake I Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale I O struggling with the Darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink : Companion of the Morning-Star at Dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the Dawn

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Co-herald : wake, 0 wake, and utter praise ! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth ! Who filled thy Countenance with rosy light ? Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams ?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged Rocks For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? And who commanded (and the silence came,) Here let the Billows stiffen, and have Rest ?

Ye Ice-falls ! ye that from the Mountain's brow Adown enormous Ravines slope amain — Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! Motionless Torrents ! silent Cataracts ! Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full Moon ? Who bade the Sun Clothe you with Rainbows ? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? —

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God ! let the Torrents, like a Shout of Nations Answer ! and let the Ice-plains echo, God ! God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice i Ye Pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! And they too have a voice, yon piles of Snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God \

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal Frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the Eagle's nest ! Ye Eagles, play-mates of the Mountain- Storm ! Ye Lightnings, the dread arrows of the Clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Utter forth God, and fill the Hills with Praise !

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing Peaks, Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure Serene Into the depth of Clouds, that veil thy breast — Thou too again, stupendous Mountain ! tho.u That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy Base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me — Rise, O ever rise,

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Rise like a cloud of Incense, from the Earth ! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch ! tell thou the silent Sky, And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising Sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

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LINES

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE HARTZ FOREST.

I stood on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills, A surging scene, and only limited By the blue distance. Heavily my way Downward I dragged through fir groves evermore, Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms Speckled with sunshine ; and, but seldom heard, The sweet bird's song became an hollow sound ; And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly," Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct From many a note of many a waterfall, And the brook's chatter; 'mid whose islet stones The dingy k idling with its tinkling bell

* The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North Germany.

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Leaped frolicsome, or old romantic goat

Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on

In low and languid mood:* for I had found

That outward Forms, the loftiest, still receive

Their finer influence from the Life within :

Fair cyphers else : fair, but of import vague

Or unconcerning, where the Heart not finds

History or Prophecy of Friend, or Child,

Or gentle Maid, our first and early love,

Or Father, or the venerable name

Of our adored Country ! O thou Queen,

Thou delegated Deity of Earth,

O dear, dear England ! how my longing eye

Turned westward, shaping in the steady clouds

Thy sands and high white cliffs !

My native Land ! Filled with the thought of thee this heart was proud, Yea, mine eye swam with tears : that all the view From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,

* When I have gazed

From some high eminence on goodly vales, And cots and villages embowered below, The thought would rise that all to me was strange Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.

South ey's Hymn to the Penates,

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Floated away, like a departing dream, Feeble and dim ! Stranger, these impulses Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane, With hasty judgment or injurious doubt, That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel That God is everywhere ! the God who framed Mankind to be one mighty Family, Himself our Father, and the World our Home.

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ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY, 1796.

Sweet Flower ! that peeping from thy russet stem

Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering

Month Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower ! These are but flatteries of the faithless year. Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave, E'en now the keen North-East is on its way. Flower that must perish ! shall I liken thee To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth Nipped by Consumption mid untimely charms ? Or to Bristowa's Bard,* the wondrous boy ! An Amaranth, which Earth scarce seemed to own, Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong

* Chatterton.

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Beat it to Earth ? or with indignant grief Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope, Bright flower of Hope killed in the opening bud ? Farewell, sweet blossom ! better fate be thine And mock my boding ! Dim similitudes Weaving in moral strains, Fve stolen one hour From anxious Self, Life's cruel Task- Master ! And the warm wooings of this sunny day Tremble along my frame and harmonize The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

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THE EOLIAN HARP.

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDOIST, SOMERSETSHIRE.

My pensive Sara ! thy soft cheek reclined

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is

To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown

With white -flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved

Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field ! and the world so hushed ! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of Silence.

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And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark ! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong ! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy- Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing ! O the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where — Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled ; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my love ! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold

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The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,

And tranquil muse upon tranquillity ;

Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,

And many idle flitting phantasies,

Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

As wild and various as the random gales

That swell and flutter on this subject lute !

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of All ?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved woman ! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek daughter in the family of Christ ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised These shapings of the unregenerate mind ; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe

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I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ;

Who with his saving mercies healed me,

A sinful and most miserable Man,

Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess

Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honoured Maid!

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REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.

Sermoni propriora. — Hqr,

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest Rose Peeped at the chamber-window. We could hear At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air Our Myrtles blossomed ; and across the Porch Thick jasmins twined : the little landscape round Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye. It was a spot which you might aptly call The Valley of Seclusion ! Once I saw (Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, Bristowa's citizen : methought, it calmed His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse With wiser feelings : for he paused, and looked

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With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again, And sighed, and said, it was a Blessed Place. And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones Fve said to my beloved, " Such, sweet girl ! " The inobtrusive song of Happiness, " Unearthly minstrelsy ! then only heard " When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed, " And the Heart listens !"

But the time, when first From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top, Oh ! what a goodly scene ! Here the bleak Mount, The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep ; Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ; And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed, Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ; And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey and the Wood, And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint City-spire ; The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails, Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless Ocean —

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It seemed like Omnipresence ! God, methought, Had built him there a Temple : the whole World Seemed imaged in its vast circumference, No wish profaned my overwhelmed Heart. Blest hour ! It was a Luxury, — to be !

Ah ! quiet dell ! dear cot, and mount sublime ! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away the entrusted hours On rose-leaf Beds, pampering the coward Heart With feelings all too delicate for use ? Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth : And He that works me good with unmoved face, Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, My Benefactor, not my Brother Man ! Yet even this, this cold Beneficence Praise, praise it, O my Soul ! oft as thou scann'st The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving Tribe ! Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies ! I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,

230

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ*

Yet oft when after honourable toil Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,. My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot ! Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose, And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air. And I shall sigh fond wishes — sweet Abode t Ah ! — had none greater ! And that all had such ! It might be so — but the time is not yet. Speed it, O Father ! Let thy Kingdom come !

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TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.

WITH SOME POEMS.

N otus in fratjes animi paterni.

Hor. Carm. lib. 1. 2.

A blessed lot hath he, who having passed His youth and early manhood in the stir And turmoil of the world, retreats at length, With cares that move, not agitate the Heart, To the same Dwelling where his Father dwelt ; And haply views his tottering little ones Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap, On which first kneeling his own Infancy Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend ! Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy At distance did ye climb Life's upland road,

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Yet cheered and cheering : now fraternal Love Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live !

To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed A different fortune and more different mind — Me from the spot where first I sprang to light Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed Its first domestic loves ; and hence through Life Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills ; But, like a Tree with leaves of feeble stem, If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once Dropped the collected shower ; and some most false, False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel, Have tempted me to slumber in their shade E'en mid the storm ; then breathing subtlest damps, Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, That I woke poisoned ! But, all praise to Him Who gives us all things, more have yielded me Permanent shelter ; and beside one Friend, Beneath the impervious covert of one Oak, I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names