For I, that God of Lov'is Servantes serve,
Ne dare to love, for mine unlikelinesse,
Prayin for spede, al should I therefore sterve,
So ferre am I fro his help in darknesse;
But nathelesse, if this may doe gladnesse
To any lovir, and his cause aveile,
Have he the thanke, and mine be the traveile.

Chaucer : Troilus and Creseide.

VOL. I.

C

LEEDS:
PUBLISHED BY F. E. BINGLEY, CORN-EXCHANGE;

AND BALDWIN AND CRADOCK,

LONDON.

1833.

DEDICATORY SONNET,

TO S. T. COLERIDGE.

Father, and Bard revered! to whom I owe,
Whate'er it be, my little art of numbers,
Thou, in thy night-watch o'er my cradled slumbers,
Didst meditate the verse that lives to shew,
(And long shall live, when we alike are low)
Thy prayer how ardent, and thy hope how strong,
That I should learn of Nature's self the song,
The lore which none but Nature's pupils know.

The prayer was heard : I “wander'd like a breeze,” By mountain brooks and solitary meres, And gather'd there the shapes and phantasies Which, mixt with passions of my sadder years, Compose this book. If good therein there be, That good, my sire, I dedicate to thee.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

19 482,4

HARVARD COLLEGE 13

LAR 1684

Minot funt

PREFACE.

Of the verses contained in this volume, a considerable number have already appeared in various periodicals. The rest are productions, for the most part, of a later time—it may be, of less leisure. None of them, with a single exception, can claim the privilege of juvenile poems. I neither deprecate nor defy the censure of the critics. No man can know, of himself, whether he is, or is not, a poet. The thoughts, the feelings, the images, whch are the material of poetry, are accessible to all who seek for them; but the power to express, combine, and modify—to make a truth of thought, to earn a sympathy for feeling, to convey an image to the inward eye, with all its influences and associations, can only approve itself by experiment—and the result of the experiment may not be known for years. Such an experiment I have ventured to try, and I wait the result