Poems by Hartley Coleridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

Old I am, yet not past feeling,
Maiden think not so;
Time, the thief, for ever stealing
Moments as they go.
Still the moment dear has left me,
Moment that of self bereft me,
Moment that did wound with healing,
Cause and cure of woe.

Hope, and yet not hope, it gave me—
Oh! that lovely smile—
Hope, alas! too brief to save me,
Yet 'twas sweet the while,
Bright as joy, and sweet as pity,
Little like thyself, and pretty,
Nought beside can now enslave me,
Nothing else beguile

210

Old I am and daily older,
Not in days alone,
Yet, methinks, that I am bolder
Since that grey I'm grown;
Young, I had not dared address thee,
Old, I may presume to bless thee,
Hope is dead and fancies moulder,
All but Love is flown.

Smile again. The look that gazes,
Asks not, wants not, no;
Laugh at me and all my praises,
Laugh at all my woe.
But when I have done with sighing,
In the quiet churchyard lying,
Softly smile upon the daisies
On my grave that grow.

211

ON SEEING THREE YOUNG LADIES ON GRASMERE LAKE.

Within the compass of a little vale
There lies a Lake unknown in Fairy tale,
Which not a Poet knew in ancient days,
When all the world believed in Ghosts and Fays;
Yet on that Lake I have beheld a Boat
That seemed a fairy Pinnace all afloat,
On some bless'd mission to a distant isle,
To do meet worship to some ruined pile,
Where long of yore the Fairies used to meet
And haply hallow with their last retreat;
For all alone the boat was on the waters,
And in it three of “Beauty's youngest daughters.”
Sometimes at rest, like infant on a pillow,
Then gliding soft as light upon a billow,
When lady's hand drew nigh to lady's breast
The oar, so fond:—yet there it might not rest,
But thence dispatched, went forth like errant knight
For new achievement on the plain so bright.

212

Oh! when it stopped, the boat, and damsels three
Charming the calm air with their triple glee,
While all the shadows on the lake projected,
Moved little as the mountains they reflected;
It seemed a thing ordained for aye to stay
Just where it was and sleep from day to day.
And when it moved with slide and gentle stroke,
Rippling the shadow of the hanging oak,
Sole motion, only life on all the mere,
'Twas like the motion of the lapsing year,
Which none would more expect or wish to cease
Than his own pulse.

The fancy of old Greece
That gave to beauty and to loveliness
The definite outline and the shape express,
Could not conceive, and therefore could not make,
Aught so divine as that still evening Lake,
With shadow deep, with gold and purple glowing,
And those three lovely maids upon its bosom rowing.

213

MARRIED LIFE.

WRITTEN ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF A WEDDING DAY.

The earth once more hath run its annual round,
And smiles as faintly at the paling sun
As when by holy rite ye twain were bound,
And a glad brother's voice proclaimed ye one;

One in the Lord, as one in heart and choice,
For ye alike had chosen the better way,
And therefore will with holy glee rejoice,
When Autumn grave brings back the wedding-day.

All hath not haply been as young conceit
Of wedded bliss the story would compose,
But have ye found the song of love less sweet
Because translated into household prose?

Duties there needs must be, and toils, and cares,
And there may be some salutary pains,
That unexpected come and unawares
To all that walk in wedlock's lightest chains.

214

The man who tills the blessed Saviour's land,
Must sow a seed that oft is long a growing;
And she that would assist with patient hand,
Must water daily while her spouse is sowing.

The world besieges sore the wedded pair,
And many a charm of youth is early blighted,
But Heaven preserve ye both from fruitless care,
And bless the day whereon ye were united.

215

A POOR MAN'S REASONS FOR NOT MARRYING.

I heard thy voice amid the psalm,
Where many voices meet,
Yet thy low voice was like a calm,
It was so soft and sweet.
'Twas like a calm upon the ocean,
When seas have been in wild commotion.

I heard thy voice one summer eve
Within thy lowly cot,
When I am sure thou didst believe
That mortal heard it not.
And then thy voice was bold and strong,
Singing a solitary song.

I heard a meagre mother sing,
With small and whining note,
To soothe a little pining thing,
From bare and hungry throat;
And then I thought, O lady mine,
May never such a song be thine!

216

LINES WRITTEN IMPROMPTU AFTER HEARING A LADY SINGING.

Like a blithe birdie in a darksome isle
Of changeless holly mid a spacious wood;
Such was the song, and such the pensive smile,
Robed in the garb of early widowhood.
And yet not so, the birdie has a nest,
And sings of hopes and joys that yet are coming,
When every bush is in its vernal best,
And all her callow brood are sunk to rest
To thousand thousand insects' joyous humming.
But not in hope the human songstress trills
The lilt of joy, or long, long note of sorrow;
We sing not well till frequent proofs of ills
Have made us too distrustful of to-morrow;
And yet sometimes we gladly would be gay—
So let's rejoice in joy of yesterday.

Dec. 26th 1840.

217

GOOD NIGHT.

Good night, good friend, good night to thee,
Good night, sweet lady fair and free,
For the night has been a good night to me,
Though thou art come from a far countree.

Smiles soft and still, not laughter high,
Have gladdened our quiet company,
And ever and aye with a happy sigh
Thou smilest on the baby sleeping by.

See how the baby smiles in her sleep.
What dream on her soul doth lightly creep?
What fancy so pretty is playing bo-peep
With the innocent's thoughts in the fields of sleep?

When slumbering babies smile in a dream,
'Tis their angel, as antique faith would deem,
That plays with their hearts like a moonlight beam,
Stealing through chinks to a hidden stream.

218

Good night, good night, the smile is past,
And I must say good night at last;
I am long agoing, but hark to the blast,
And the rain that patters so loud and fast.

But I will carry sweet thought away,
To sweeten my bread for many a day,
When I think of the beautiful babe that lay
So calm yet as bright as an image of May.

219

VALENTINE, BY AN AGED LOVER.

Some ladies like a man whose hair
Is bright as threads of gold,
Some the dark youth and some the fair,
But few the man that's old.
My locks were jetty black in May,
But latest autumn makes them grey.
Where is the maiden that will twine
Round doddered oak, a lithe woodbine,
And choose an old man for her valentine.

'Twere vain to say thou wilt be free
To merry be or grave;
Better an old man's darling be,
Than be a young man's slave.
'Twere vain to talk of common sense,
And lessons of experience;
For tears that in the dim eye shine,
And trace the wrinkle's furrowed line,
Were never shed by winsome valentine.

220

LINES.

If I were young as I have been,
And you were only gay sixteen,
I would address you as a goddess,
Write loyal cantos to your boddice,
Wish that I were your cap, your shoe,
Or any thing that's near to you.
But I am old, and you, my fair,
Are somewhat older than you were.
A lover's language in your hearing
Would sound like irony and jeering.
Once you were fair to all that see,
Now you are only fair to me.

221

[As the dew of the morning bestars every blade]

As the dew of the morning bestars every blade,
But ere noon is no more on the plain,
Yet abides in the bell of the flower in the shade
Till dew comes at evening again.

So the feelings of youth, the fond faith of the heart,
In manhood dry up like the dew.
Oh! let them survive in the soul's better part,
Till death shall the morning renew.

[Never till now I felt myself so old]

Never till now I felt myself so old
As seeing you so tall, such bursting roses
Just at the time when rosy buds unfold
Their sweet concealment into summer posies.

So may I measure time, nor cease to see
His silent work in still maturing graces.
I quite forgive what he has done to me,
For what he has bestow'd on your sweet faces.

222

TO A FRIEND LEAVING GRASMERE.

Sweet Grasmere vale, though I must leave
Thy hills and quiet waters,
Nor sing again at fragrant eve
To glad thy winsome daughters,
Yet will I fondly think of thee,
And thy fair maids will think of me,
When I am far away.

I think of thee, but 'tis a thought
That has no touch of sadness;
I joy to think that I have brought
To thee so much of gladness.
Such thoughts I fain would leave behind
To maidens that are fair and kind,
When I am far away.

223

SONG.

Have you seen the stars at morning,
How they blend with rising day,
Paling still and still adorning
All the morn with their decay.
Paling, blinking,
Coyly winking,
While the gold usurps the grey.

So with fancies of the heathen,
Brightest stars of heathen night,
Slowly of their reign bereaven,
Lose themselves in Gospel light.
Stars of warning
Melt in morning,
End their task and bid good night.

224

SONG.

You ask me to sing—I'd be glad if I could
Sing like a thrush in the underwood,
Like a twinkling lark that sings up in the sky,
Or a swan that sings only when going to die.
Ere now I have sung, when my heart was young,
Like cock-crow loud and clearly,
But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,
Because I love you dearly.

Could I sing like a syren—but that would I not,
Could I sing like a minstrel whose name is forgot,
But whose strain is a treasure which all men may borrow,
To harmonise joy and to sweeten their sorrow,
Oh, then I would sing to my dear, dear thing,
Like cock-crow loud and clearly,
But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,
Because I love you dearly.

225

Could I sing what I feel, and express by a note
How justly esteeming, how fondly I dote,
Then would music no more be a nice thing of art,
But as in old time the true voice of the heart.
I could sing all day long—sing song after song,
Like an angel singing clearly,
But I cannot sing now, I protest, I vow,
Because I love you dearly.

226

THE SOLACE OF SONG.

When on my mother's arm I lay
A happy helpless thing,
Still was I glad by night and day
To hear my mother sing,
Baby, baby, do not cry,
It was a lovely lullaby.

I was a boy, a wayward boy,
And yet I still would cling,
With something like a baby joy,
To any that could sing.
Sing up, sing high, a merry lay,
For 'tis a merry holiday.

I was a youth, a sighing youth,
A zephyr of the spring,
And then I thought that all was truth
That I was fond to sing.
Sweetly, sweetly let me die
In the soft breathing of a sigh.

227

But now, alas, I am a man,
And time has pruned my wing,
And I have but a little space
To flutter and to sing.
Singing to the autumn blast,
Be my sweetest song my last.

And should I live to be an old,
An old forgotten thing,
Yet never may my heart be cold
When holy maidens sing.
Holy, holy, may the Psalm
My very latest sense embalm!

228

A SONG WITHOUT A TUNE.

A song without a tune
I made in the month of June,
Eighteen hundred and forty-eight;
'Tis right to be exact in date.

Sweet lassy, parted we have been
A full twelvemonth and more,
And many a change the world has seen,
And many a heart been sore.
Kings that were mighty monarchs then
Are not, or nothing are but men.

And many a maid that loved a man
Of wealth and high degree
Must try to love him, if she can,
In perilous poverty.
For in the wild creed of the time,
To have been rich is deem'd a crime.

229

We were not rich, we were not kings,
We are just where we were;
No hope has borne us on its wings,
To drop us in despair.
I might forget an hour had pass'd
Since the sweet hour I saw thee last,

Thou art so very like the maid
I saw twelve months ago;
And yet almost I am afraid
Thou dost not feel it so.
Thou art, my love, the same to me,
But am I quite the same to thee?

The lines are deeper on my brow,
The corners of my eyes
Are quaintly netted, I allow,
As wings of dragon flies;
My cheek the red and yellow dapple,
Much like a last year's russet apple.

A year is nothing to a man
That forty years hath seen;
But, ah! it is no little span,
'Twixt fifteen and sixteen.

230

Now I perceive a year hath flown,
And thou almost a woman grown.

A something sure hath cross'd thy view,
Or perhaps some lady sage
Hath told what to thy hopes is due,
And to thy stately age:
Yet thou hast not forgot me—no;
But thou would'st very fain do so.

Farewell! I will not vex thee more,—
I would not be a blot
On thy fair page, a fretting sore,
An ever-tangled knot.
What matter what thou think'st on me,
While thy young heart is glad and free.

231

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.

A NEW VERSION.

Not what I would, but what I could,
I give our little Queen so good,
Adapting thus a custom'd strain
To the sweet promise of her reign,
Whatever men in any part lie,
May they be loyal all as Hartley
Coleridge.

God save our Island's hope,
Long live the people's hope,
God bless our Queen.
Still may our Queen be free,
Then evermore will she
Love that good liberty
Which makes her Queen.

232

Oh! may she prize that gem
Bright in her diadem,
Fair on her brow;
So, to the end of days,
May God approve her ways,
And heaven resound her praise
As earth does now.

Lord keep her evermore,
Pure in her own heart's core,
Kind and serene;
So shall the wise and good
Reverence her womanhood,
And the glad multitude
Love their young Queen.

May He that dwells on high
All her thoughts sanctify;
Seraphs unseen
Sing up with holy glee,
“Let this maid's name still be
Omen of victory,”
God save the Queen!

233

[A wanton bard in heathen time]

“Non bene conveniunt nec unâ in sede morantur Majestas et amor.”— Ov. Met., ii. 846.

A wanton bard in heathen time,
In sensual age and sensual clime,
Hath sung that no accord can be
Of love with god-like majesty.
Far other had his sentence been
Had gentle Ovid ever seen
An English home, a Christian Queen;
For love, content in cot to dwell,
Becomes a British palace well.
And our young Queen, whose happy choice
Has made a noble land rejoice,
Is sure the monarch need not smother
The feelings of a wife and mother.
A wife and mother truly great,
In woman's duties consummate,
Such is she now. And every wife
And mother wishes joy and life
To the good Queen that dignifies

234

The mother's cares, the baby's cries.
Now, every mother in the isle,
When she beholds her infant smile,
Should have a good wish and a prayer
For her the matron Queen so fair;
Who, though a Queen, has that in common
With every homely household woman,
That she has got a babe to love,
And knows there is a God above
That will the babes alike receive;
For they have all one mother Eve—
May in one well of life be laved,
And by one Jesus shall be saved.
Oh! may that God prepare their hearts,
Alike to fill their several parts.

Dec., 1840.

235

THE GUERNSEY LILY.

AMARYLLIS SAMIENSIS.

[_]

“This plant was brought from Japan, where it was found by Kaempfer and also by Thunberg, who visited that country in 1775. It was first cultivated in the garden of John Morin, at Paris, where it blowed for the first time on the 7th of October, 1634. It was then made known by Jacob Cornutus, under the name of ‘Narcissus Japonicus flore rutilo.’ After this it was again noticed by John Ray, in 1665, who called it the Guernsey Lily. A ship, returning from Japan, was wrecked on the coasts of Guernsey, and a number of the bulbs of this plant, which were on board, being cast on shore, took root in that sandy soil.”—Beckman's Inventions, vol. iii.

Far in the East, and long to us unknown,
A lily bloom'd, of colours quaint and rare;
Not like our lilies, white, and dimly fair,
But clad like Eastern monarch on his throne.
A ship there was by stress of tempest blown,
And wreck'd on beach, all sandy, flat, and bare;—
The storm-god bated of his rage to spare
The queenly flower, foredoom'd to be our own.
The Guernsey fisher, seeking what the sea
Had stolen to aid his hungry poverty,
Starts to behold the stranger from afar,
And wonders what the gorgeous thing might be,
That like an unsphered and dejected star
Gleam'd in forlorn and mateless majesty.

236

TO A YOUNG LADY FROM A FOREIGN CLIME.

Thou sweet exotic, lovely brown!
No fair one could be sweeter,—
Young as thou art, thou wilt not frown
Upon an old man's metre.

Rich is the sky where thou wert born,
And gorgeous were the flowers;
But yet I trust thou wilt not scorn
This cold blue sky of ours.

And though the flowers of Westmorland
Do not surcharge the wind
With burden of perfume so bland
As flowers of Western Ind;

Yet are they sweet if they be sought
Where careless eyes would miss them;
They crouch so low, as if they thought
A maid should stoop to kiss them.

237

Our little birds they are not deck'd
With hues of molten gems;
Their modest plumes do not reflect
The rays of diadems.

But yet they twitter sweetly, sweetly,
Their little notes so clear,
Methinks they could not sing more fitly
To little maiden's ear.

There is a blackness in thine hair—
A deep black in thine eye—
That do not speak of English air,
But of a hotter sky.

And there is something in the mouth,
Not easy to be told,
That marks thee of the passionate south,
And not of northern mould.

Then learn to love all simple things,
That pretty are and cool.
Look how the swallow dips its wings,
And glides along the pool;

238

For it hath felt the Afric suns
Voluptuously hot,
Yet comes to rear its little ones
Beside the English cot.

So may'st thou keep the tropic glow
And the full joy of life,
Yet tame thy current to the flow
Of a cheerful English wife.

239

AN AUTOGRAPH.

What is the trifle which you would demand?
The self-betraying of a tremulous hand,
That ne'er in useful labour was employed,
Though once with self-production overjoyed.
Its strutting capitals and whisking tails,
Quaint cyphers, slanting to the veering gales
Of vanity and would-be wit, implied
That e'en my digits felt a Poet's pride.
That pride of rhyme, that pert, pen-jerking joy,
Has left me long. I am no more a boy;
For yesternoon, alas! brought home to me
The solemn tidings I was forty-three.
At such an age the triumph of the pen
Is poor indeed to poor and pensive men.
And yet my pen finds something still to fee it,
Though mean my name, yet you desire to see it.

240

SONG.

Rose, and violet, and pansy,
Each has told a tale of love,
Various with the freak of fancy.
Apt and bold the fields to rove,
See the pansy;
Seek her not in secret grove.

Rose of summer, lovely creature!
Who did ever look on thee,
But beheld the very feature
Which he most was glad to see,—
Fairest, dearest,
Whosoe'er the dear may be?

Long ago, when I was roaming,
In a shady path I met,
Dim and blue as summer gloaming,
Far apart from all the rest,
Meek and lowly,
Her, my own dear violet.

241

THE OLD ARM-CHAIR:

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

High was my lineage, many an age ago
My grandsire nursed the mystic mistletoe,
By Druid shorn for dark primeval rite,
With golden sickle by the pale moonlight,
When forests dank of patriarchal oak,
“That never echo'd to the woodman's stroke,
In boundless contiguity of shade,”
Possess'd the destined seats of wealth and trade.
The dappled deer, the sullen shaggy bear,
The tall elk, bursting from its bosky lair,
And all the natural tribes of earth and air,
All, all, familiar with the gnarled tree,
Did homage to my sire's antiquity.
Had he possess'd a human heart and speech
As sage to know and eloquent to teach
As his dark brethren of Dodona, then
What tales could he have told of beasts and men!

242

Of Giant Albion, and his peer in fame,
That to far-jutting Cornwall left his name,—
Of Trojan Brutus, and his progeny,
The boast of many a Welsh long pedigree,
And many a king and chief, forgotten long,
Embalm'd in Geoffrey's prose and Spenser's laureate song:
But mute he was, unable to divine
The lamentable lot of old Locrine;
Nor aught of Camber or of Albinact
Could he relate, nor of poor Lear distract,
Though once, I think, that Lear was fain to house
And sing mad songs beneath my grandsire's boughs:
And sure the kindly tree bemoan'd his grief,
With groaning fibre and with quivering leaf.
The Romans came,—they came, they fought, they slew,
They conquer'd, reign'd awhile, and then withdrew
From Britain's isle. Yet, as wild winds bestrew
The long lanes that they make in close defiles
Of intermingled underwood for miles,
With wrecks and relics of their fatal glee,
And trophies of triumphant anarchy;
So, when the hairy myriads of the North
O'erleap'd the barrier,—when the Pict rush'd forth,

243

And Caledonia pour'd from cavern'd rocks,
From all her crankling bays and sinuous lochs,
From purple moor, green shaw, and quaking fen,
Her grisly superfluity of men,—
And not to heal, but aggravate the sore,
Came the red sea-kings from the Saxon shore,
Wave after wave, and blast outhowling blast,
Till all despair'd that any would be last;—
Though shy Civility and stately Form
Or fled or fell before the human storm,
Nor quite effaced were all the steps of Time,
For Druid saw was blent with Runic rhyme,—
The oak, which Briton bards had sung beneath,
And whence the Roman pluck'd his civic wreath,
Was still an oak, and grew in power and pride,
With its old shade, new kingdoms to divide.
My grandsire's story it were long to tell,—
How long he flourish'd, how at last he fell!
Was it his doom in shallow bark to bow
His knotty strength, and form a pirate's prow?
Made he the vast beam of a baron's hall,
Or board smooth-rubb'd for lavish festival?
Or iron-headed ram, to smite the tottering wall?
Ah no! He was a dedicated tree
From the first germ of his nativity.

244

For many a year in holy peace he stood,
The tallest of a noble brotherhood;
At length a godly king bestow'd their trunks
On a fraternity of studious monks,—
Good men, that wore the penitential weed.
Unquiet times of such meek men have need.

Long was the age—some thought an age too much—
That I was hallowed from a woman's touch.
I was a mere discomfort of a chair;
Monk did not sit in me, and did not dare:
My wooden arms had never clasped the fair.
My bones were stiff to plague the bones of others.
The long bare legs of those long-praying brothers
In me have left a dell, a hollow dint,
Beyond the date of reminiscent print.
But when bluff Harry rent the British rose
From the old stalk on which her sister grows,
When Luther's trumpet with a voice of storm
Defied the Pope and bid the Church reform,
Then I, alas! was but a bit of wood;
For those who leaned on me, and those that stood,
Or knelt beside me in accustom'd prayer,
Became the pensioners of earth and air.

245

Poor wanderers, doom'd from doubting souls to crave
The shelter and the food which late they gave.
While I—last note of a forgotten ditty,
No more a thing of worship, scarce of pity—
Am fain to rest unconsecrated now,
Like a pale votary forced to break her vow,
The humble inmate of a genial room,
Far from monastic pomp, monastic gloom.
I will not say how many men have sat
Between my arms to slumber or to chat;
What flying maid, what panting fugitive,
What sinner breathing the last word—forgive;
What lady-love, that dotes on babe so fresh,
And feels the life in its soft dimpling flesh;
Nor what besides of sorrow or of mirth
I may have witness'd by the glowing hearth.
'Tis true—(I fear not to reveal the truth)—
My later days were gayer than my youth;
Yet may my age for aye respected be,
For one good woman's sake that sat on me.

Cornwall. The Giants Albion and Corineus are memorised by Geoffrey of Monmouth and by Spenser.

Camber gave name to Cambria and Cumberland; Albinact to Albania, the poetic name of Scotland.

246

TO THE MAGPIE.

What shall we say of thee, pert, perking Mag,
Whose every motion seems to fish for praise,
Whose whole existence is a game at brag?
Art thou a stranger quite to poet's lays,
With black and white thy pretty self adorning,
Like a blithe widow in her second mourning?

Thou wert the pet bird of the God of wine,
And dear thou art, and should'st be very dear,
To that great Son of Jove whose mighty line,
After long strife, and many a toilsome year,
Regain'd at last their lawful heritage,
And reign'd in southern Greece for many an age.

For great Alcides never had a home—
No wonder if his loves were vagabond.

247

Once in a hollow vale he chanced to roam,
And of a village maid grew sudden fond.
What shall we say?—the buxom village lass
Became the mother of Æchmacoras.

The brawny sire, as usual, went his way,
New loves to woo—new monsters to destroy.
But the poor mother—she that went astray—
All husbandless, with her unfathered boy—
What can she do? Her ruthless father's curse
Bids her conceal a small sin with a worse.

She wrapt her baby in a lion's skin,
The lion's skin her roving lover gave,
And left the helpless witness of her sin
In the dark wood. Ye happy wood-nymphs, save,
As ye would keep your innocence secure,
The helpless thing—like you—so sweet and pure.

Nought that the poet feigned in happiest mood,
Or pagan priest invented in his trade,

248

Was ever half so beautiful or good
As the kind things that Nature's self hath made:
O'er the poor babe the magpie chatters still,
Soothes with its wings, and feeds it with its bill.

Ere long the strenuous foe of Hydra came—
He came in pride of some new conquest won;
But when he saw how pale the hapless dame,
The childless mother, by himself undone,
Enraged he rushed into the forest wild,
To seek the pledge of love, the hapless child.

I will not say how loud the thickets crash'd,
For he would never step an inch aside;
Or how far off the timid lions lash'd
Their sides; or how, less wild, the serpents eyed
The trampling terror. Nought he cared for this—
For lion's inward growl, or serpent's smothered hiss—

But ever onward he pursued the cry,
The still repeated one note of the bird,
That faithful sat where that poor babe did lie.
Still he pursued the note, and never err'd;
And there he found them both—the babe and Mag—
In the dark wood, beneath the mossy crag.

249

The babe became a hero in its time;
The bird, its task performed, it fled away.
To the good bird I dedicate this rhyme;
The hero lives in many an antique lay.
Oh could my song preserve thy nest of briar,
As thou the babe Herculean for its sire!

Æchmacoras, fil. Herculis, ex vitiatâ Phillone, filiâ Alcimedontis Herois; qui cum in lucem editus fuisset, ab Alcimedonte, unà cùm matre Phillone, in proximo monte feris expositus fuit: ibi vagientem infantem cùm pica imitaretur, ad hujus avis vocem, quòd puerilem esse credidisset, Hercules fortè illàc iter habens conversus, puellam et a se genitum puerum agnovit, ambosque vinculis liberavit.—Pausan. in Arcadic. (Hofmanni Lex. Univ.)

250

TO A RED HERRING.

Wonder of art and nature! ocean-born,
Like Aphrodite, Queen of Love and Life,
And those white nymphs that dwell in crystal bowers,
And oft, when ships were rare, and none had burst
Into that ocean which first Cortez view'd
From Darien's heights, beneath the summer moon,
Were wont to weave their labyrinthine dance
On the smooth surface of the sacred sea,
To minstrelsy of kindred sprites of air,—
Child of the waves! whose antique ancestry
Saw unappall'd, say rather with huge joy,
The avenging fountains of the deep broke up,
And the vast hollow globe of waters pour
Dark and continuous o'er the offending earth.
Then did the creatures of the sea rejoice!
The arrowy shark shot swift o'er cities drown'd,
But soon grew sluggish with mere gluttony;
Then herrings fearless stray'd o'er all the world,

251

For even the hungriest tyrants of the floods,
The finny aristocracy, o'ergorged
With flesh, for fish had no more appetite
Than pious Papist at the end of Lent.
Herrings were happy then, but were not red;
The green effulgence of their scaly suit
Rippled the sunny sea with emerald light
For many a league, what time their countless hosts
Sped from their chill septentrion nursery,
In numbers without number, numberless!
A tribe to which the whole of Adam's race,
By Leuwenhoeck seen through optic lens,
With all whom Malthus, and his sage compeers,
Extinguish'd in the breeding womb of time
By vice and misery—and, oh, ye Gods!
Moral restraint, were but a band élite,
A biped aristocracy, as few
As Protestants in Erin, as the pale
Albino monster upon Afric shore,
As gentlemen in Parliament reform'd,
As honest men—in any place you please.

252

TO A CAT.

Nelly, methinks, 'twixt thee and me,
There is a kind of sympathy;
And could we interchange our nature,—
If I were cat, thou human creature,—
I should, like thee, be no great mouser,
And thou, like me, no great composer;
For, like thy plaintive mews, my muse,
With villainous whine doth fate abuse,
Because it hath not made me sleek
As golden down on Cupid's cheek;
And yet thou canst upon the rug lie,
Stretch'd out like snail, or curl'd up snugly,
As if thou wert not lean or ugly;
And I, who in poetic flights
Sometimes complain of sleepless nights,
Regardless of the sun in heaven,
Am apt to dose till past eleven.

253

The world would just the same go round
If I were hang'd and thou wert drown'd;
There is one difference, 'tis true,—
Thou dost not know it, and I do.

[Angels have wings? Well, let them grow—]

Angels have wings? Well, let them grow—
May it be long before you know
Whether they have or not.
But geese have wings, and quills as good,
Perhaps, as wings of angels could
Supply—could they be got.
But oh! dear lady, why contrive
To make the vainest man alive
Conceited more than ever:
I will not call these pens divine,
But certain they were pens of thine,
And that's enough, however.

254

DE ANIMABUS BRUTORUM.

No doubt 'twere heresy, or something worse
Than aught that priests call worthy of damnation,
Should I maintain, though in a sportive verse,
That bird or fish can e'er attain salvation;
Yet some have held that they are all possess'd,
And may be damn'd, although they can't be bless'd.

Such doctrine broach'd Antonio Margerita,
A learned Spaniard, mighty metaphysical.
To him the butterfly had seem'd a Lytta,—
His wasp-stung wits were grown so quaint and phthisical;
To him the sweetest song of Philomel
Had talk'd of nothing in the world but hell.

Heaven save us all from such a horrid dream!
Nor let the love of heaven,—of heaven, forsooth!—
Make hard our hearts, that we should so blaspheme
God for Christ's sake, and lie for love of truth.
Poor Tray! art thou indeed a mere machine,
Whose vital power is a spirit unclean?

255

If all the lives that throng the air and earth,
And swarm innumerous in the slimy deep,
Die once for all, and have no second birth,—
If, ceasing once, they do not even sleep,
But are no more than sounds of yesterday,
Or rainbow tints that come and pass away,—

Yet are they not to loving Nature lost;
She doth but take them to herself again!
The curious pencilling of moonlit frost
Melts in the morning ray, and leaves no stain;
Yet every drop preserved distils in showers,
And winds along the path of dewy flowers.

Nor shall they all in their oblivion lie,
Nor lack the life, though vain that life may be,
Which breathes in strains that wasting time defy:
A poet's song can memorise a flea;
The subtle fancy of deep-witted Donne,
The wee phlebotomist descanted on.

And once that strenuous insect leap'd by chance
Upon the white breast of a Gallic dame;
Forthwith the wits of universal France
Vied to consign the happy flea to fame!

256

Pasquier, the gravest joker of his age,
Berhymed La Puce in many a polished page.

The Teian bard, so skittish and so hoary,
That loved so well all things that merry be,
In honied phrases gave to blithest glory
The shrill cicada chirping cheerily;
The bloodless songster drunk with balmy dew,
Whose happy being every year is new.

That sad old wag, that Peter Pindar hight,
Who was no worshipper of William Pitt's,
Did whilome soar a bold Pindaric flight
To celebrate the progeny of nitts,
Telling how once a creature without wings
The crown invaded of the best of kings.

The insect empress, and her clustering throng
Of chemists, famed for geometric skill,
Have lent their laboured sweets to Virgil's song,
Their stings bequeathed to wicked Mandeville;
Wealthy as Tyre their homes, the more their sorrow,
Like Tyre despoiled, and smothered like Gomorrah.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and be wise!”
So said the amorous king that wrote of hyssop,—

257

You know the rest. Nothing that creeps or flies
Reads half so good a lesson in all Æsop.
Great Johnson has berhymed the words; I swear,
He'd better far have left them as they were.

No question you have heard of Virgil's gnat,
Which by our gentle Spenser was transmuted,
Though probably I need not tell you that
Its authenticity is much disputed;
And 'tis denied also by judgments nice
That Homer ever sung of frogs and mice.

If Homer did not, some one did, I'm sure;
The tale is extant in the choicest Greek.
Can living tongue express, in phrase so pure,
The deep bass croak, and shriller treble squeak?
And Aristophanes no title lacks
To his brekekekek koax koax.

But thou dark dweller of the central rock,
Spawned ere avenging waves the hills o'erflowed,
Survivor of full many an earthquake's shock,
Last of the Troglodytes, primæval toad,
Like antique virtue, hated upon earth,
Or trampled under foot, like modest worth,—

258

Time was (or else our ancestors were liars)
That thou to mystic verse wert not unknown,
When witches danced around Tartarean fires,
To screech of owls and mandrake's fatal groan;
For thou could'st drain the marrow, mad the brains,
Or foulest passion breed in chastest veins.

Most poets are great wanderers by night,
And love the moon, though sons of Phœbus call'd;
And well we ken the small scarce-moving light
Of the she, wingless, amorous emerald,
That keeps her lone lamp burning for her mate,
Pining because he always is so late.

Unlike her kindred of the glowing zone,
That star the dark groves of the tropic even,
There the proud earth has comets of her own,
And every shoal out-fires the distant heaven,
And all the groves and underwoods unfold
A gorgeous blossoming of fire and gold.

Is it to soothe our sorrow, or deride,
That these bright insects leave both flower and tree,
And swarm upon the new-heaped earth beside
The pit designed for dead mortality?

259

Who has not heard of death-lights on a grave?
And these are death-lights, gay, and bright, and brave!

But who may count, with microscopic eye,
The multitudes of lives that gleam and flash
Behind the rousing keel, and multiply
In myriad millions, when the white oars dash
Through waves electric, or at stillest night
Spread round the bark becalm'd their milky white?

Oh, had the bards that did so sweetly sing
In times of old, when poesy was young,
Known but the half, in their quick blooming spring,
Of what we know, how sweetly had they sung!
Then many a plant, that yet has not a name,
Had won a story and a deathless fame;

And many a living thing of instinct wise,
Of form majestic, or of brightest plume,
That o'er the vast South Sea unwearied flies,
Or mid the broad magnolia's fiery bloom
Builds its low nest, had been beloved of men,
Like Robin Redbreast and plain Jenny Wren.

260

TO GOODY TWOSHOES.

Ah, little Goody! I have known thee long,
And feel it strange to call thee Lady Jones.
Art thou as happy mid the bowing throng
As when thou hadst thy two shoes on the stones?
Sole sound of comfort that could reach thy heart,
When thy companion child must needs depart.

Thy lamb, thy raven, and thy box of letters,
Thy love for all the tribes of earth and air,
Thy shrewd odd sayings, apt to make thy betters,
Or folks so called, look round with wondrous stare,
And deeper minds reflect on wisdom given
To fortune's waifs by compensating Heaven;—

All these, to curious childhood dear, as new,
Retain a value to the satiate age,

261

And press full oft before the inward view
Of souls long strangers to the brief square page,
The tinselled covers, and the strange old pictures
That served our ancestors instead of lectures.

I've trembled with thee in the church so cold,
And fearful in its soundless solitude.
What place so weary as deserted fold,
Where few hours past the shepherd wise and good
Had spoke the words that take the sting from death,
And change our human tears to wells of faith?

But more of fear and more of pain was thine,
And short and smothered was thy sweet breath, when
A little musty hay, a narrow line
Of darkness, parted thee from evil men,
With horrid whisper plotting crime and plunder,
Mocking with muttered oaths the awful thunder.

A neighbourhood unmeet for one like thee;
Yet out of evil, maids whose minds are right,
As thine was in its sweet simplicity,
Draw blessings for themselves; celestial light
Beams on the weakest in extreme distresses—
Assurance, where proud prudence hardly guesses.

262

Such wert thou, Goody, in thy childish days,
And though, no doubt, thou didst grow old in time,
And wert a spinster much deserving praise,
That praise I will not speak in prose or rhyme;
For rather I'd believe thee tripping still
With Ralph the Raven, and with Baa-Lamb Bill.

263

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY,

NEITHER THE ESQUIRE, THE LAUREATE, THE LL.D., BUT THE GOOD MAN, THE MERRY MAN, THE POET, AND THE DOCTOR.

He was not born beneath the Cambrian hills;
No mountain breezes lull'd his infant slumbers;
Loud rattling cars, and penny-dropping tills,
And blended murmurs of conglomerate numbers,
Were the chief sounds that baby Robert heard;
The pecking sparrow, his sole household bird.

Great Bristol was his nest and natal town,
And not till he had cast his baby frock
He felt the liberal air of Durdum Down,
Or look'd on Avon from St. Vincent's rock,
Whence many a bark was seen in trim array,
Bound on bad quest to hapless Africa.

'Tis hard to say what might have been his lot,
If born with Nature from the first to dwell;

264

Yet am I prone to guess that he would not
Have conn'd, or known, or loved her half so well.
She was a stranger to his opening eyes,
Clad with the charm of still renew'd surprise.

And finding little in the daily round
To fashion fancy from the things of sense,
His love of kin was all the more profound;
Not wide in surface, but in act intense,
Affection still a dutiful reality,
The ground and law, and soul of all morality.

Yet keeping still his little heart at home,
He wander'd with his mind in realms remote,
Made playmates of the Fairy, Sylph, and Gnome,
And knew each Giant, Knight, and Wight of note
Whate'er of wonderful the East and North,
Darkly commingling, gender'd and brought forth.

Sweet thought he found, and noble, in the story
Of the Wehr-Wolf and sweet Red Ridinghood,
Shudder'd at feast of Ogre, raw and gory,
And watch'd the Sleeping Beauty in the wood.
[OMITTED]

265

THE LARCH GROVE.

Line above line the nursling larches planted,
Still as they climb with interspace more wide,
Let in and out the sunny beams that slanted,
And shot and crankled down the mountain's side.

The larches grew, and darker grew the shade;
And sweeter aye the fragrance of the Spring;
Pink pencils all the spiky boughs arrayed,
And small green needles called the birds to sing.

They grew apace as fast as they could grow,
As fain the tawny fell to deck and cover,
They haply thought to soothe the pensive woe,
Or hide the joy of stealthy tripping lover.

Ah, larches! that shall never be your lot;
Nought shall you have to do with amorous weepers,
Nor shall ye prop the roof of cozy cot,
But rumble out your days as railway sleepers.

266

DENT.

I.

There is a town, of little note or praise,
Narrow and winding are its rattling streets,
Where cart with cart in cumbrous conflict meets,
Hard straining up or backing down the ways,
Where insecure the crawling infant plays,
And the nigh savour of the hissing sweets
Of pan or humming oven rankly greets
The hungry nose that threads the sinuous maze;
Yet there the lesson of the pictured porch,
The beauty of Platonic sentiment,
The sceptic wisdom, positive in doubt,
All creeds and fancies, like the hunter's torch,
Caught each from each, perfection find in Dent,
Where what they cannot get they do without.

267

GEOLOGY.

II.

In that small town was born a worthy wight,
(His honest townsmen well approve his worth,)
Whose mind has pierced the solid crust of earth,
And roam'd undaunted in the nether night.
His thought a quenchless incorporeal light,
Has thrid the labyrinth of a world unknown,
Where the old Gorgon time has turned to stone
Long thorny snake and monstrous lithophyte.
Long mayst thou wander in that deep obscure,
And issuing thence, good sage, bring with thee still
That honest face, where truth and goodness shine;
Right was thy creed, as all thy life was pure.
And yet if certain persons had their will,
The fate of Galileo had been thine.