British Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Poems by Wordsworth, Coleridge ...

438

TO WORDSWORTH

1837.

THOSE who have laid the harp aside
And turn'd to idler things,
From very restlessness have tried
The loose and dusty strings,
And, catching back some favorite strain,
Run with it o'er the chords again.

But Memory is not a Muse,

O Wordsworth! though 'tis said They all descend from her, and use To haunt her fountain-head: That other men should work for ine In the rich mines of Poesie,

Pleases me better than the toil

Of smoothing under hardened hand, With attic emery and oil,

The shining point for Wisdom's wand, Like those thou temperest 'mid the rills Descending from thy native hills. Without his governance, in vain, Manhood is strong, and Youth is bold.

If oftentimes the o'er-piled strain,

Clogs in the furnace and grows cold
Beneath his pinions deep and frore,
And swells and melts and flows no
more,

That is because the heat beneath

Pants in its cavern poorly fed.
Life springs not from the couch of
Death,

Nor Muse nor Grace can raise the

dead;

Unturn'd then let the mass remain,
Intractable to sun or rain.

A marsh, where only flat leaves lie,
And showing but the broken sky,
Too surely is the sweetest lay
That wins the car and wastes the day,
Where youthful Fancy pouts alone
And lets not Wisdom touch her zone.

He who would build his fame up high,
The rule and plummet must apply.
Nor say, "I'll do what I have plann'd,"

Before he try if loam or sand
Be still remaining in the place
Delved for each polished pillar's base.
With skilful eye and fit device
Thou raisest every edifice,
Whether in sheltered vale it stand,
Or overlook the Dardan strand,
Amid the cypresses that mourn
Laodameia's love forlorn.

We both have run o'er half the space
Listed for mortal's earthly race;
We both have crossed life's fervid line,
And other stars before us shine:
May they be bright and prosperous
As those that have been stars for us!
Our course by Milton's light was sped,
And Shakespeare shining overhead:
Chatting on deck was Dryden too,
The Bacon of the rhyming crew;
None ever cross'd our mystic sea
More richly stored with thought than he;
Tho' never tender nor sublime,
He wrestles with and conquers Time.
To learn my lore on Chaucer's knee,
I left much prouder company;
Thee gentle Spenser fondly led,
But me he mostly sent to bed.

I wish them every joy above
That highly blessed spirits prove,
Save one and that too shall be theirs,
But after many rolling years,

When 'mid their light thy light appears.
1837.

1833.

TO JOSEPH ABLETT

LORD of the Celtic dells.
Where Clwyd listens as his minstrel
tells

Of Arthur, or Pendragon, or perchance
The plumes of flashy France,

Or, in dark region far across the main,
Far as Grenada in the world of Spain,

Warriors untold to Saxon ear,
Until their steel-clad spirits reappear;
How happy were the hours that held
Thy friend (long absent from his native
home)

Amid thy scenes with thee! how wide
afield
From all past cares and all to come!
What hath Ambition's feverish grasp
what hath

Inconstant Fortune, panting Hope ;
What Genius, that should cope

"Take what hath been for years delay'd, And fear not that the leaves will fall One hour the earlier from thy coronal." Ablett! thou knowest with what even hand

I waved away the offer'd seat Among the clambering, clattering, stilt ed great,

The rulers of our land;

Nor crowds nor kings can lift me up,
Nor sweeten Pleasure's purer cup.

Thou knowest how, and why, are dear to me

My citron groves of Fiesole,

My chirping Affrico, my beechwood nook,

My Naiads, with feet only in the brook, Which runs away and giggles in their

faces,

Yet there they sit, nor sigh for other places.

'Tis not Pelasgian wall,

By him made sacred whom alone "Twere not profane to call

The bard divine, nor (thrown Far under me) Valdarno, nor the crest Of Vallombrosa in the crimson east.

Here can I sit or roam at will: Few trouble me, few wish me ill, Few come across me, few too near; Here all my wishes make their stand; Here ask I no one's voice or hand; Scornful of favor, ignorant of fear.

Yon vine upon the maple bough

Flouts at the hearty wheat below; Away her venal wines the wise man sends,

While those of lower stem he brings From inmost treasure vault, and sings Their worth and age among his chosen friends.

Behold our Earth, most nigh the sun Her zone least opens to the genial heat, But farther, off her veins more freely

run:

'Tis thus with those who whirl about the great; [mote The nearest shrink and shiver, we reMay open-breasted blow the pastoral oat. 1834. 1837.1

1 This poem had been printed in an earlier form, containing lines to Coleridge, in Leigh Hunt's London Journal, December 3, 1834. Sea Colvin's Life of Landor. note to p. 142.

Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses
Bordering the channel of the milky-way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet's song.
I did believe (what have I not believed?)
Weary with age, but unoppressed by
pain,

To close in thy soft clime my quiet day And rest my bones in the Mimosa's shade.

Hope! Hope! few ever cherished thee so little;

Few are the heads thou hast so rarely
raised;
[well.
But thou didst promise this, and all was
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceased, when the
lone heart

Can lift no aspiration-reasoning
As if the sight were unimpaired by death,
Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,
And the sun cheered corruption! Over
all

The smiles of nature shed a potent charm,

And light us to our chamber at the grave. 1835. 1846.

TO A BRIDE

FEBRUARY 17, 1846 1

A STILL, Serene, soft day; enough of sun To wreathe the cottage smoke like pinetree snow,

Whiter than those white flowers the bride-maids wore;

Upon the silent boughs the lissom air Rested; and, only when it went, they moved,

Nor more than under linnet springing off. Such was the wedding morn: the joy. ous Year

Leapt over March and April up to May.
Regent of rising and of ebbing hearts,
Thyself borne on in cool serenity,
All heaven around and bending over
thee,

All earth below and watchful of thy course!

Well hast thou chosen, after long demur To aspirations from more realms than

Adding as true ones, not untold before, That incense must have fire for its as cent,

Else 'tis inert and can not reach the idol. Youth is the sole equivalent of youth. Enjoy it while it lasts; and last it will; Love can prolong it in despite of Years. 1846.

LYRICS

"Do you remember me? or are you proud?"

Lightly advancing thro' her star-trimm'd crowd,

Ianthe said, and looked into my eyes. "A yes, a yes, to both: for Memory Where you but once have been must ever be,

And at your voice Pride from his throne must rise."

No, my own love of other years!
No, it must never be.

Much rests with you that yet endears,
Alas! but what with me?

Could those bright years o'er me revolve So gay, o'er you so fair,

The pearl of life we would dissolve

And each the cup might share.
You show that truth can ne'er decay,
Whatever fate befalls;

I, that the myrtle and the bay
Shoot fresh on ruin'd walls.

ONE year ago my path was green,
My footstep light, my brow serene;
Alas! and could it have been so
One year ago?

There is a love that is to last
When the hot days of youth are past:
Such love did a sweet maid bestow
One year ago.

I took a leaflet from her braid
And gave it to another maid.
Love! broken should have been thy bov
One year ago.

YES; I write verses now and then, But blunt and flaccid is my pen, No longer talked of by young men As rather clever :

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