"Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice: O simple spirit, guided from above, ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUTCHESS OF ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER "PAS- And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild! SPLENDOUR's fondly foster'd child! O lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Light as a dream your days their circlets ran, Enchanting music lull'd your infant ear, Detain'd your eye from nature: stately vests, Were yours unearn'd by toil; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free nature's uncorrupted child, O lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! But boasts no many a fair compeer A heart as sensitive to joy and fear; Yet these delight to celebrate The doom of ignorance and pentay! O lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! You were a mother! That most holy name I may not vilely prostitute to those You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye Without the mother's bitter groans: By touch or taste, by looks or tones A moment turn'd his awful face away; Blest intuitions and communions fleet O beautiful! O nature's child! 'Twas thence you hail'd the platform wild, O lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through th' accustom'd mead And breaks the busy noonlight clouds, The feeling heart, the searching soul, The present works of present man A wild and dreamlike trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile! TO A YOUNG FRIEND, ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, Calm pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb. Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosorn ached with lonelinessHow more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless Th' adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round, Wide and more wide, increasing without bound! O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark The berries of the half uprooted ash Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,-Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark, Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock; In social silence now, and now t' unlock The treasured heart; arm link'd in friendly arm, Save if the one, his muse's witching charm Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag; Till high o'erhead his beckoning friend appears And from the forehead of the topmost crag Shouts eagerly for haply there uprears That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs, Which latest shall detain th' enamour'd sight Seen from below, when eve the valley dims, Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; And haply, basin'd in some unsunn'd cleft, A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears, Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale! Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left, Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine, And bending o'er the clear delicious fount, Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine To cheat our noons in moralizing mood, While west winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd: Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss! Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore, The hill of knowledge I essay'd to trace; That verdurous hill with many a resting-place, And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour To glad and fertilize the subject plains; That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod, And many a fancy-blest and holy sod, Where inspiration, his diviner strains Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age, And bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage! O meek retiring spirit! we will climb, And oft the melancholy theme supply,) eye Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole : Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth, Now may Heaven realize this vision bright! LINES TO W. L., ESQ., WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC. WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died! ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE, WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY. HENCE that fantastic wantonness of w> Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd, All effortless thou leave life's commonweal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind. SONNET. COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796. OFT o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mix'd with such feelings, as perplex the soul Self-question'd in her sleep; and some have said We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore. O my sweet baby! when I reach my door, If heavy looks shall tell me thou art dead, (As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear,) think that I should struggle to believe Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve; Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve, While we wept idly o'er thy little bier! SONNET. TO A FRIEND WH) ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first And hanging at her bosom (she the while So for the mother's sake the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child. SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the west! But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray, And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: Ah! that once more I were a careless child! THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN. COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet, Si non dormis, Mater plorat, Blande, veni, somnule. ENGLISH. Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling, Sleep, my darling, tenderly! * Ην που ημων η ψυχη πριν εν τωός τω ανθρωπινω είδει γενέσθαι. PLAT. in Phadon MELANCHOLY. A FRAGMENT. STRETCH'D or a moulder'd abbey's broadest wall, The fern was press'd beneath her hair, That pallid cheek was flush'd: her eager look And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought. Strange was the dream A CHRISTMAS CAROL. THE shepherds went their hasty way, And now they check'd their eager tread, They told her how a glorious light, While, sweeter than a mother's song, She listen'd to the tale divine, And closer still the babe she press'd; Thou mother of the Prince of peace, O why should this thy soul elate? Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,- And is not war a youthful king, Him. earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye "Tell this in some more courtly scene, I am a woman poor and mean, And therefore is my soul elate. War is a run, all with guilt defiled, * A botanical mistake. The plant which the post hes describes is called the hart's tongue, "A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the sire and starves the son; The husband kills, and from her board Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day. "Then wisely is my soul elate, That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate, The mother of the Prince of peace. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She form'd with restless hands unconsciously! Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tear Mean but themselves, each fittest to create, And to repay the other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Peace, peace on earth! the Prince of peace is born!" Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, TELL'S BIRTHPLACE. IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. MARK this holy chapel well! The birthplace, this, of William Tell. Here first, an infant to her breast, God gave him reverence of laws, The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein! To nature and to holy writ The straining oar and chamois chase HUMAN LIFE. ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. Ir dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be life itself, and not its task and tent, If e'en a soul like Milton's can know death, O man! thou vessel, purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes! Surplus of nature's dread activity, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold! ELEGY, IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE INSCRIPTIONS. NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, Where "sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdan! bed O humbly press that consecrated ground! Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue! Where'er with wilder'd steps she wander'd pale Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view, Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale. With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms, Go, traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught: THE VISIT OF THE GODS. IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. NEVER, believe me, Appear the immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler; |