Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

My heart is light, and my strength is good,
And e'er night I shall pass yon dreary wood!
The red sun is sinking behind the hill,
And every thing around is still,
Save the murmuring sound, so pleasing and sweet,
Of the rippling river that runs at my feet;
And the nightingale chaunting his evening song,
To the traveller, wearily toiling along!

But curling now from yon cottage I see
The dun smoke ascending so cheerily;
And the housewife now, with duteous care,
The evening meal begins to prepare;
And though for me no home is near,
No meal prepared with friendly cheer,
Yet so light is my heart, and my strength so good,
That e'er night I shall pass this dreary wood!

1825.

A REVERIE.

“—incipe! nil est.
Culpantur frustra calami.
Hor. Ser. 2, 3.

As thus I sate in musing mood,
With nought to break my solitude,
Mingling and mangling bits of rhymes
And changing each a thousand times;
Now catching at a straggling thought
And shifting it about, when caught,
To see in what form it would look
The best, in paper or in book;
And now, relinquishing as vain
Each futile project of my brain—
The candles had been long neglected,
And thieves too might have been detected,
Which both their reddening wicks infested,
Allowed to reign there unmolested;
'Twas then, when they began to glimmer,
Growing irregularly dimmer,
Now burning steady, dull, and slow,
And sinking gradually low;
Now quickening up, and shedding bright,
But wavering and trembling light;
That all my thoughts and projects gone,
And not one left to rhyme upon,
I dashed my pen into the fire,
And swore I would renounce the lyre.

1825

WINTER.

The air is cold and chilling now,
On the trees not a leaf is remaining;
And barren Winter, crowned with snow,
In desolate grandeur is reigning.

Like a dream, those lovely flowers are past,
Though many and blooming we found them,
Which, laughing in rich luxuriance, cast
The glow of their beauties around them.

The rose has blushed for the last, last time
And sweet, from its lowly bed,
The violet's blue no more glistens through
The dew-drop that weighed down its head.

The light winds sigh so mournfully by,
They seem o'er the flow'rets weeping;
The hard-fixed ground with the frost is bound,
And Nature herself is sleeping.

But Spring will soon call, and wake her again,
She will come in her beauty bounding!
Pleasure and Joy will dance in her train,
Her welcome return resounding!

The sun will smile on the flowers once more,
Their leaves will unfold to receive him;
His beams will illumine the earth as before,
And Nature with joy will perceive him!

So when affliction saddens the heart,
And man of his crosses is weary;
When hope is fled, and desires are dead,
And all within is dreary;

His passions asleep, the world he detests,
And despair succeeds to sorrow;—
But hope returns, in his bosom she burns,
And he smiles again to-morrow!

December, 1826.

ANACREONTIC.

The red sun drinks of the cooling wave,
When his shining course is over,
And the moon, with pale and watery beam,
Drinks brightness from her lover:
The dry earth drinks the shower,
And flowers spring anew;
The bee sips from the flower,
And the flower drinks the dew—
Then why should we refuse
To drink together too?

The brilliant sun-beams glancing
On the billows of the ocean,
Are ever with them dancing,
In ever-restless motion—
The flow'rets of the dingle,
And the leaves upon the trees,
In merry dances mingle
To the music of the breeze—
Then why should we refuse
To join the dance with these?

June, 1827.

THE STEAM-BOAT.

A goodly vessel did I then espy,
Come like a giant from a haven broad,
And lustily along the bay she strode!
Wordsworth—Sonnet.

The sun sinks down—his last beams parting stray,
In streaks of gold along the placid deep,
Far-spreading; and the soft-declining day
Dying, sinks calmly beautiful to sleep,—
Whence comes that lengthening rush? Is it the sweep
Of some far distant torrent? Whence may be
Those breeze-borne notes of harmony, that creep,
Softened by distance, onward, till the sea
Is filled with swelling strains of sweetest melody!

On comes the steamer swift—swift she glides by!
Proud, steady, and majestic! surely she
Disdains by help of winds or tides to fly,
Aye, though they both at once opposing be,
Would still sweep on resistless through the sea!
Around her prow the dancing waters play;
And, rattling on in swift succession, see,
The fast-revolving paddles beat away
The waves, that rise on high in clouds of foaming spray!

As the heart heaves within the troubled breast,
Late moved by some wild passion; and 'tis long
Before the fluttering spirits sink to rest,
Still shaken by the dark tumultuous throng
Of feelings which survive the first, the strong
Excitement, ceased itself;—so though no more
The steamer labours the vexed waves among,
Still rise the heaving waters—still they pour
Back, as with greater force, to lash the opposing shore

1827.

[As the April sun breaking]

As the April sun breaking
Through masses of cloud,
Flings a dim ray of brightness
O'er the dark purple shroud—
A single ray, stealing
Across the wild sky,
Like an angel of promise
From glory on high!

So memory brings us
From the days that are gone,
Some bright sunny moment,
Seen sparkling alone!—
Though faintly she trace it,
Forgetfulness round it,
Yet she brings it as pure
And as calm as she found it!

As we gaze o'er the desert
That stretches between,
And doat on that moment
So brightly serene!

Its joys are remembered—
Its happiness cherished—
Its cares, if it had them,
Forgotten and perished.

It is hard to conceive
When we think what we are,
All wearied with trouble,
All worn out with care—
That we are the same
With those whom we see,
In that glimpse of the past
So happy and free;

Then, motes in the sunbeam
Disporting so gaily;
Now, learning new sorrows,
Fresh bitterness daily;—
But we'll banish the present,
To live in the past,
Content with the knowledge
That nothing can last.

1827.

SUNSET.

[_]

(FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM.)

O'er Shechem's vale, the fading day
Steals, calmly lingering, away;
On either hand the mountains rise,
Clothed richly soft with varied dyes;
Not cragged and cold—and bleak and gray,
But gently curved, with flowers gay.
And where they open, widely sweeping,
The western sky all golden shewing,
Is seen the broad sun, brightly glowing,
And crimson streaks around him sleeping,
Crossed by a distant scattered group
Of palm trees that desponding droop,
As if in lowly meekness bending,
Before their God, the Sun descending!

And warmly flow those sunbeams bright,
Fill the hushed vale with hallowed light,
And gleam o'er groves whose lengthening shadows
In stillness rest on greenest meadows—
Groves richly filled with jasmine fair
That sweetly scents the evening air—
And skirted by a gay profusion
Of fruit and flower in wild confusion,
And many a tree in blossom now
Whose fruit still blushes on the bough.

The bee hums on to the mountain side,
His gathered honey there to hide;
The warbling of the nestling bird
Within the trees is faintly heard;
All is so still, and sweet, and fair,
That every sense might revel there!

A STARRY NIGHT.

[_]

(FROM THE SAME.)

He looked on the stars—and with something of joy—
But mingled and mellowed with mournful alloy;
He saw them shining brightly on high,
Brightly in the distant sky;
The sky that seemed so darkly blue
But to add brightness to their hue—
The sky that seemed so softly calm
But to increase their soothing charm!
He looked—and he thought how they come and go—
Unmarking, unmoved by what passes below;
Happily twinkling—happily burning—
Still calmly departing—still brightly returning!

He turned to earth, and looked around—
And he felt like a grovelling worm on the ground;

He felt as if that were his proper sphere—
He felt as if left by all he held dear—
It was so dark and so dismally drear!
The very sky, as the earth it neared,
Dark and deep in gloom appeared!
So he turned him again to the regions of light,
With their myriads on myriads gathering bright—
Strange! That all brightness and peace should be there.
And nothing but sorrow and darkness here

DEATH.

[_]

(FROM THE SAME.)

The warrior on the battle plain,
Elated feels that Death is gain!
He knows that many a tongue will tell,
He bravely fought and nobly fell;
That many a young and ardent heart
Will burn to act his glorious part,
And often as his name he hears,
Will see the pictured scene arise,
Though mellowed by the mist of years,
Distinct before his envious eyes;
The deadly storm of desperate blows
The furious charge—the fatal close!

The sick one on the dying bed,
May even there be comforted;
He sees around the falling tear
Of weeping friends who watch him near,
And knows, however dark his lot,
He will not here be all forgot!
The poor man worn and wearied dies,
And finds a place of rest—
The rich man every pleasure tries,
And finds them poor at best;
Then sick of all he loved before,
With nothing left to live for more,
Dies, like a sated guest!
Hope gives the good man strength to bear,
And pride can make the wicked dare
This last, this trying test,
Uphold them in Death's darkest hour,
And bid them mock his vaunted power!

DESPAIR.

[_]

(FROM THE SAME.)

The goaded soul will madly try
Distracted from its woes to fly—
Try every slenderest hope in vain;
The blasting sense returns again,

The sense of utter helplessness—
Till, wearied with its wild distress,
It sinks beneath the barren blight
Of dark Despair's o'ershadowing might!

A bitter calm—unlike the roar
The fierce waves madly made before,
While o'er them yet the vessel bore;
But like the waters settling dark
And silent o'er the sinking bark!

A FRAGMENT.

[_]

(FROM THE SAME.)

Go—take the wings of morning light—and fly
To where the utmost ocean meets the sky—
Amidst the lonely stillness, need Despair
Afflict the heart?—no, God is present there!
Or through yon watching orbs unwearied wind
Till farthest glimmering stars are left behind—
There, lost in gloomy space—still, changeless, wide—
His hand shall hold thee, and his right hand guide!
Dive down the darkest depths of hell, and there
Will God be still—God, God is everywhere!

June, 1828.

PLAIN TRUTHS.

[_]

(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER.)

Well then, for advice, it most common and trite is,
And therefore, perhaps, most easy to write is;
And you know, like the slipper that's hunted, you reap it
From all without trouble, though no one will keep it:
And as they give it first, who should have least to do with it,
Why, we'll make that a reason for my troubling you with it.

In all things you do, say, think, or devise,
Moderation will govern you if you be wise;
The extremes e'en of virtues are vices that hurt you,
The beginning of vices is sometimes a virtue;
There's nothing so bad that it has not some good in't;
To discover how much be but cautious and prudent.
Though all bitter we like not, all sweetness admire,
'Tis a mixture of both that most we desire;
For where is the fruit ever woman or man ate
With more relish than oranges, shaddock, pomegranate?
Of beauty, both moral and physical, ‘tak tent;’
The highest of beauty's when neither is lacked in't;

Of the two, that which claims of attention most part,
Of course is the beauty of mind and of heart;
As an earthenware jug of real flowers is finer
Than the best artificial! though clustered in China;
And a plain homely dish of good viands will tempt ye
From the brightest and richest gold plate that is empty.
Study mildness, good-humour, submission, and meekness,
For the strength of a woman consists in her weakness;
The thistle and nettle, though armed, none would spare,
But who'd tread on the daisy, “wee, crimson and fair?”
Good hours, of course, I need not recommend to you,
The cheapest best ornaments any could send to you;
“Good hours, of fair cheeks,” Byron says, “are best tinters,
“And lower the rouge bills, at least by some winters.”
Take care of your health, and take care of your purse,
'Tis a friend you should cherish—you often meet worse.
But whatever you lean to, whate'er in your way shun,
Of all things, keep farthest from vile affectation;
It puts one in mind of the story related
By the good-humoured Hajji, wherein it is stated
That the doctor or purser (I forget which it was) had a
Dye lent him by one of the suite of the ambassador;
And his head he profusely anointed, opining
That his hair would be soon both jet-black and shining;

But one of the stains which mixed gave the jettiness
Its virtue had lost—and with it its prettiness;
And the coxcomb was shocked, when he found to his sorrow
That his hair was as red as a brick on the morrow.
Just so, the good folks who this foible delight in,
But detract from those charms which they think it will heighten.

May 12, 1829.

See the Adventures of Hajji Baba in England.

CHORUS IN THE ‘SEVEN AGAINST THEBES’ OF ÆSCHYLUS.
[_]

(FAITHLESSLY RENDERED FROM THE ORIGINAL.)

An Argive army before the walls of Thebes, advancing to the assault. The Chorus of Virgins looking out from the battlements, pours forth a medley of description, prayers, and ejaculations.

Θρουμαι φοβερα μεγαλα τ'αχη. κ. τ. λ.
78

Terror strikes my trembling frame—
Woes impend too great to name!
The warrior-hosts upon the plain,
Are moving to their ranks again.
Successive crowds of cavalry
Pour onward like a raging sea
Whose waves with wildly-hollow roar
Chase each other to the shore.
I know it by the thick clouds curling,
Wide their slugglish folds unfurling!
I see them slowly from the tents,
Uprising to the battlements!
Dense and slow—they clearly tell,
And deadly still—they speak too well—
Too well they tell of foemen nearing,
Crimson War and Death appearing!

Hark to the slumber-startling sound,
The steady tramp that shakes the ground!
The heavy tread of horses prancing,
Hundred steeds at once advancing!
Hearken to the fearful hum
Gathering as they fiercely come,
Like waves that dash with boisterous shock
On the wet, spray-dripping rock!
Oh ye that in Olympus dwell!
Ye gods! ye gods! our foes repel!
Their efforts crush, their fury quell,
And calm the rising storm!
See! see! how backward flash the rays—
A circle wide of dazzling blaze—
As high their glittering shields they raise
And round the city form!
Who is now our aid?
Who for our defence arrayed?
Of all the gods on high
On whom shall we rely?
Shall we to the shrines repair,
And clinging to the statues, there
Supplicate with earnest prayer?
Oh ye who from the blissful plains
Descend to illume our sacred fanes,

By fixing there your bright abodes—
Our own, our chief, our guardian gods!
Oh is not this the time to clasp
With entreating trembling grasp,
Made by depth of terror bold,
Those statues of terrestrial mould
In which revering mortals see
Personified divinity?
Why—why do we delay
With bursting sigh and trickling tear
To wend the mournful way?
First Three of the Choir,
(addressing the others).
Do ye not hear
The clashing sword—the whirring spear?—
When shall we go, with footsteps slow,
Clad in gloomy garb of woe—
On brows declining, chaplets twining,
At the sanctuaries to bow?
Oh never if not now!

Second Three,
(answering).

I hear—I hear!
The clashing sword—the whirring spear!
Hark! hark! the air around
So teems with horrid sound,

It may be felt and seen!
Not one—not one! a thousand spears
With clashing din assault the ears—
Sharp cries and shouts between!

Lord of War! to thee we pray!
Lord of War! wilt thou betray
Thine own peculiar people—they
Who more than all thy rule obey?
Oh golden-helmëd god—look down—look down
Upon the city once thine own!
Come all ye Powers of Light!
Come in glorious might!
Come, every radiant Lord of heaven
Till wide the scattered foe be driven!
Till the virgin-band shall be
From the chilling terror free
Of soul-debasing slavery!

Against the walls, a roaring sea
Of proud-plumed men beats clamorously,
Lashed to fury, fierce and far
By the rushing breeze of war!
But oh! thou King of Gods, to whom, below,
Above, all things performance owe,
Our battles wage, our fears assuage
And baffle the besiegers' rage!
The Theban towers encircled stand
By a threatening Argive band

Gathering in increasing swarms—
And oh! those horrid arms!
Hark! the bits and trappings playing
Freely, as the chargers neighing
Proudly prance in furious mood,
Ring querulous for blood!
At every one of seven gates,
One of seven champions waits,
Breathing terrors fierce and high,
In spear-repulsing panoply!

Oh Jove-descended power!
To whose delighted ear
The deafening bray of battle-hour
Is ravishingly dear!—
Minerva! be our trusty tower
In time of weakness near!

And thou, the God, whose mighty nod
The generous courser gave,
Without whose will the winds lie still,
The great Deep dare not rave—
Awed by the trident vast, whose sway
Upreared above the wave
The Monsters of the Main obey—
Thine anxious people save!

Sire of our Cadmeian line!
Warrior God! thine ear incline;

Let our state thy power attest
Make thy glory manifest!
Venus too! we bow before thee,
Venus, ever we adore thee!
In thine ambrosial form we trace
The mother of the Theban race!
Oh then deeply we implore thee
Defend our long-loved dwelling place!
Mighty with the matchless bow!
Archer-king, assist us now!
And thou the chaste Latona-born!
Maiden of the mountain horn!
Diana! can the foe withstand
Shaft from thine unerring hand!

Strophe 1.

Hark! rolling through the streets afar,
Comes the clattering of the car!
Oh Juno, Juno hear!
Heavily creaking o'er the stones,
How the loaded axle groans!
Be thou, Diana, near!
The air is maddened with the sound
Of showers of spears that ring around!
What will be our city's fate!
What doom doth its defenders wait!
What dread result will soon be given
By the ruling powers of Heaven!

Antistrophe 1.

See! clouds of stones are thickly soaring,
Against the ramparts, crashing, roaring—
Nearer rolls the desperate fight!
'Tis at the gate those falchions bright
Are clashing on the brass-bound shields—
Who now, Apollo, wins or yields?
Mistress of the Conflict! hear!
Fray-enchanted Queen! appear!
Yield not thus to adverse Fates
The City of the Seven Gates!

Strophe 2.

Hail all ye tutelary powers!
Guardians of our ancient towers!
Ye for whom our victims bleed,
Help us in the hour of need;
When the spoiler at the gates
The foreign foe terrific waits!
Our trembling arms are raised and bare,
Oh listen to the virgins' prayer!

Antistrophe 2.

Come all in one resistless band!
Mars! who loves the battle-brand—
Archer-King and Mountain Maid—
Thou who mak'st the depths afraid!

Goddess of the olive green—
Ever-ruling Beauty's Queen—
All who make our land your care,
For that land your love declare!
If ye the rites of worship heed,
If ye would have the victim bleed,
If ye would have a nation bow,
Protect those rites—that nation now!

July, 1829.

OPENING SCENES OF THE “CLOUDS” OF ARISTOPHANES.

[_]

The “Clouds” was written to ridicule the pernicious doctrines of the Sophists, at that time the sole educators of the Athenian youth. From one of these doctrines, that the agreeable was always right, if practicable—that what we would we always should, if we could, an idea of the rest may be formed. The person of Socrates, singularly suited for caricature, and his constant attendance at the schools of the Sophists, for which alone he was then remarkable, pointed him out to the comic dramatist as a fitting hero for his poem. Socrates indeed was always seen in the company of the Sophists— but his object was unknown to the public; he was a perpetual thorn in their sides—ever engaging and beating them with their own weapons; he stuck to them like a goat-sucker—though his case was just the converse of the bird's, in this particular, that in reality the greatest enemy, he was generally esteemed the friend of those to whom he adhered.

A countryman, ruined by the extravagance of his son, endeavours to persuade him to go and learn sophistry at the school of Socrates, that so he might be enabled to cheat his creditors.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Strepsiades.
Parsnippides, Son of Strepsiades.
Disciple of Socrates.
Servant Boy.

Scene first.

Strepsiades and his son in bed. The latter asleep.
Streps.

Alack! alack!
How long, how monstrous long, oh Jove, the nights are
In dragging through! Will day-light never come?

I'm sure I heard the cock crow long ago—
The slaves are snoring still—before the war
I'd not have borne their impudence so coolly!
This comes of going to war—my curses on it!
Look ye, I dare not even give my slaves
A beating when they want it; curse the war!
Young Hopeful here, though, seems but little given
To pass the night in watching; there he lies,
At least five blankets round and round him rolled.—
Well, since it must be so, I'll pull the clothes up
And try to snore as loud as they.

No, no!
The slaves may sleep, I cannot; for the cost
This fellow of a son for ever puts me to
In debts for horses, stables, and the like,
(Besides the keeping) racks me all night long,
And—bites me till the blood comes. Not the less
The rascal rides and drives his curricle,
And even dreams of horses. I am like
To die when I perceive the moon bring on
The days for payment to the usurers:
The interest still goes on. Boy, bring a light,
And fetch the account book, quick, that I may see
How much I owe, and reckon up the interest.
Here, give it me. First, forty pounds to Pasia.
What! forty pounds to Pasia! and for what?
I'd like to know for what. Oh, for a horse—
The dashing blood Bellerophon. Alack,

Unhappy that I am! I wish before
I'd bought this dashing blood Bellerophon,
I'd dashed my eye out with a big, sharp stone!

Pars.
(talking in sleep.)
My friend, that isn't fair—keep your own course.

Streps.
There, there, 'tis that that ruins me, d'ye see
Though sound asleep, his head still runs on driving.

Pars.
How many courses has that chariot driven?

Streps.
How many courses, fool, have you driven me?
How many shifts compelled me to resort to?—
But come, whose claim doth next oppress me ? Ah!
Twelve pounds to Amunias, for wheels and coach-box!

Pars.
(still asleep)
Strip off that horse's harness; lead him home.

Streps.
I think, bad luck to you, you're stripping me
Of all I'm worth; besides, these debts to pay,
The usurers swear they'll seize my goods.

Pars.
(waking.)
Why father,
What can the matter be? What makes you fume,
And turn the whole night topsy-turvey, eh?

Streps.
I cannot rest a moment in the blankets;
I'm bitten through and through by—the usurer,
Who says he'll seize my goods.

Pars.
I wish, good man,
You'd let me get a wink or two of sleep.

Streps.
Go, go to sleep with you; but mark my words,
The weight of these detested debts shall fall
On your own lazy shoulders, my young fellow Alack-a-day!
Oh, would to Heaven destruction deep had fallen
On her, the busy, meddling match-maker,
Who fooled me into marrying your mother.
I led, ere that, the sweetest country life:
Up to my eyes in dirt, unscrubbed, at ease,
And passing rich in fleeces, bees, and vineyards,
And then to go, a hob-nail that I was,
And marry me, forsooth, a grand and dressy dame,
From top to toe “my lady”—niece of Megacles,
The high-born Megacles! I wedded her;
I, rank with smell of fleeces, bees-wax, cheese-rinds—
She, all perfumery scent and dalliance,
Dress, showers of kisses, waste and wantonness.
I don't say she was out-and-out a spendthrift,
But just in all she did, she ran too fast
Taking a candle up the other day,
“My dear,” said I, ('twas just to cloak a hint)
“You shouldn't light both ends at once, my dear!”—

Boy.
There's not a drop of oil, sir, in the lamp.

Streps.
Why did you light a lamp that used so much?
Come and be beaten, rascal.

Boy.
Oh, sir, why?

Streps.

Because you put in one of the thick wicks.—
Well, after that, this precious son was born;
And then a desperate tussle straight began
'Twixt my good dame and me, about his name.
Nothing would please her fancy but Xanthippus,
Charippus, or Callippides, or some
Such lofty-sounding, noble appellation.
I battled stoutly for plain—Parsimon,
For 'twas his grand-dad's name; 'twas long before
We came to terms—at last we split the difference,
And called the boy—Parsnippides.

This boy,—
Whenever dandling him upon her knee,
My wife began, “My sweet, when you're grown up,
“Oh what a dashing gig you'll drive to town,
“Wrapt in a graceful cloak like Megacles”—
And I would interrupt with, “When you're grown up,
“What shaggy herds of goats you'll drive to pasture,
“Clad like your father, in a coarse smock frock”—
He never wasted breath in talking on't,
But quietly inflicted on my purse
A kind of veterinary malady,
A horse-consumption, equine atrophy!

Now, after puzzling all night long, I've got
One plan at last, I think a devilish good one—
And if I can but coax this fellow into't,
I yet shall save my bacon. First, let's see

How I can wake him least offensively—
Parsnippides! my pretty!

Pars.
What say, father!

Streps.
(Coaxingly.)
Kiss me, my boy—come let me squeeze your hand.

Pars.
Oh, oh! what now!

Streps.
My boy, now do you love me?

Pars.
Ay, that I do—by Neptune, god of horseflesh!

Streps.
No more, for God's sake, of the god of horseflesh—
That god's the cause of all my troubles, boy!
But if you really love me from your heart,
Obey me, boy!

Pars.
In what must I obey you?

Streps.
Give up your present courses—mend your manners,
And come attend to what I've got to say.

Pars.
Say what it is, then.

Streps.
But will you obey me?

Pars.
Ay, ay, by Bacchus!

Streps.
Well, then, look this way.
D'ye see that door, and that small cottage, there?

Pars.
I do—i'faith, and what may that be, father?

Streps.
The mental-workshop of your witty spirits;
There men reside, who'd prove the very sky
A mighty furnace wrapping us in flame,

And we the coals and cinders. For a fee,
They teach a man, by dint of argument,
To prove that wrong is right, and right is wrong.

Pars.
But what are they?

Streps.
I don't exactly know;
Excogitators deep, real gentles, all,
Of substance good, and reputation fair.

Pars.
A pack of scamps, I'll lay my life! you mean
Such gruel-visaged, ill-shod swaggerers,
As Socrates (the knave!) and Chœrephon.

Streps.
Hush, hush, now—don't talk nonsense.
But do something
To save your father's barley-board and lodging,—
Cut jockeyship, and turn philosopher.

Pars.
I one of these! No, no—by Bacchus—no!
Not though you bribe me with the finest game-cocks
My friend Leogoras ever trained for victory!

Streps.
I do entreat you now, my dearest fellow,
Do come and learn.

Pars.
What would you have me learn?

Streps.
They say those people have two kinds of reasoning,
The stronger, as they call it, and the weaker;
Of these, they say, though wholly in the wrong,
The worse can get the better of the better.
Go, learn me then, that unjust argument,
And of those debts, incurred on your account,
I will not pay—not I—no, not a farthing!

Pars.
I cannot go—how could I bear to look
A man o' horseback in the face again,
If I were like those dried skin-bags of bones,
Those clattering, withered, lean anatomies!

Streps.
Curse catch me if you get a bit to eat then!
Either yourself, your carriage-horse, or hunter;
But out of doors I'll kick you, neck and heels!

Pars.
The stylish Megacles shall never see me
Studless! I'll go—not that I care for you!

Exit.

Aristophanes puns upon the words κοππατιαν and εξεκοπην.. An attempt, perhaps a needless or unsuccessful one, has been made to preserve the pun in the translation.

This line is parodied from the tragedians.

In the original, a parody on the first line of the Medea of Euripides.

SCENE II.

Strepsiades solus. Before the Door of the School.
I've had a fall; but won't give up the contest,—
I'll sooner put my trust in Providence,
And go and take to scholaring myself!
Though how can I, a thick-sculled, dull old man,
Of slippery memory, slow of apprehension,
Learn all the subtleties of chopping logic?
I must go on, however—why stand here, then,
And hesitate to knock?—Boy! boy! within there!

SCENE III.

The School. A Disciple of Socrates. Strepsiades Knocking.
Disc.
Go to the devil with you! who is't knocking?

Streps.
'Tis one Strepsiades, from Cicynna.

Disc.
Some snob, by Jove! some rude, unpolished clown,
Who thus unheedfully exerts his heels
To batter the reverberating door,
And brings miscarriage on the labouring brain,
Abortiveness on its sublime conception!

Streps.
Beg pardon, sir—I live a long way off;
But say, what was the thing that so miscarried?

Disc.
Inhibited is speech except with scholars.

Streps.
Ne'er fear to speak to me, then! I am come
A sort of scholar to the school myself!

Disc.
I will expound then—fitting 'tis you learn
And be initiated in the mysteries.
Socrates had inquired of Chœrephon
As to a flea—how many of its paces
He thought a flea could leap; for one just then,
With morsure satiated of Chœrephon,
Had vaulted to the occiput of Socrates.

Streps.
And did he measure them?

Disc.
Oh, beautifully!
Of wax he chose a lump—which first exposed

To due proportion of caloric, he
With nice precision liquefied; and then
Grasping the little insect by the back,
Deep into the mass its legs the sage immersed.
There fitting time he held him, till the wax
Its pristine state of density resumed.
Forth then he drew the flea; and then, observe
The bright effects of skill—its legs were cased
In Persian boots—such boots as ladies wear;
He pulled these off, and measured them, and thus
The size of the flea's sole exactly hit on.

Streps.
By Jupiter! the 'cuteness of the thing!

Disc.
Oh! if you knew another demonstration
Of Socrates!

Streps.
I pr'ythee say, what was it?

Disc.
Chœrephon proposed to him concerning gnats,
As to which theory he most inclined:
Whether their powers cantatory reside,
Or in their heads, or haply in their tails?

Streps.
And what was his idea about the gnat?

Disc.
He said that the intestinal canal
Is narrow in the gnat—that through its form
So slender, trumpet-like, cylindrical,
The irruent atmospheric fiercely rushes—

That its momentum meets caudine compression
And forth results mysterious melody.

Streps.
The gnat, then, wears his horn upon his tail,
Not on his head, like other animals—
But oh! thrice happy he, supremely blest,
In power of intestine-explication!
How would he slip the clutches of a bailiff,
To justice give the go-bye, and escape
The meshes of the law—who can discern
The twinings of the ileum of a gnat!

Is there not, in the original, though not to the degree insisted on in the translation, a clownish bluntness about the thoughts and expressions of the countryman, contrasted with a preciseness and pompous verbosity in those of the student?

1829 & 1832.

THE FIRST ODE OF HORACE,

PARAPHRASED.

Oh thou whose lofty lineage flows
In streams where dimless glory glows,
Where monarchs shine, in ancient day,
Majestic with the Tuscan sway:
Thou, sheltered by whose princely power,
I calmly pass the careless hour,
Thy love at once my pride and pleasure,
My treasured glory, darling treasure,
Mæcenas! mark with curious ken
The various tastes of various men.
Some love to whirl with flying car
Clouds of Olympic dust afar;
And when the wheels have deftly rounded
The mark by which their course is bounded,
And when th' ennobling palm is given,
The Lords of Earth are Kings of Heaven!

And some there are whose sole desire
Is gained when changeful crowds conspire
On their aspiring heads to shower
The pomp and pride of civic power.
And other bosoms beat no more,
When gathered to their private store

What reapings rich of golden grain
Are largely swept from Lybia's plain.

Not all the luxuries wealth could bring,
Not all the splendours of a king,
Could lure the man, whose joy is still
The lands his father left to till—
Where many a silent summer sun
Hath seen him cheerly toiling on—
With timorous awkwardness to brave
The raging of the restless wave.

The merchant, lapt in rural ease,
While yet the dashing of the seas,
And howling of the angry breeze
The foamy billows buffeting—
In memory's ear discordant ring,
Enraptured boasts the scenery sweet,
And quiet of his calm retreat.
But soon before his dazzled eyes
Wealth's glittering visions brightly rise;
And little wills he to endure
The hardships that await the poor;
So fits his waveworn bark again,
And dauntless skims the heaving main.

Nor wanting some who gaily measure
The brimming cup of sparkling pleasure;

But little loth to wile away
Meet portion of the livelong day,
Stretched on the spot of shadow spread
By strawberry clustering over-head;
Or more reclined, in darker dell,
Where rising up with bubbling swell,
Some clearly-gushing crystal rill
Its sacred stream doth rippling fill.

And many a heart with rapture boundeth
When the lofty trumpet soundeth,
And the silver clarion waketh
Ardour nought but battle slaketh!
The rolling pride of war's array,
The joy intense of deadly fray—
Though they bid the mother's breast
Throb with fears which will not rest,
Source of fond and deep alarms—
For many bear resistless charms.

The huntsman plies his eager feet,
Full reckless or of cold or heat;
And well repaid for lost caresses
Of her his absence sore distresses,
If haply in his far career
His hounds espy the fallow deer;
Or mazy net give way before
The fury of the tusky boar.

Me, the wreathëd ivy-bough,
Fittest gift for learned brow,
Lifts far above a world like this,
And wafts into the fields of bliss!
Me the silent lonely rove,
The dewy freshness of the grove,
Across whose darkling shadows glancing,
Nymphs are seen with Satyrs dancing;
Eluding still the cheated eye,
On faëry footstep flitting by—
Never resting, ever changing,
Through each mazy measure ranging—
These, these can win me from among
The bustling of the selfish throng—
These, if Euterpe nor refrain,
From her sadly-pleasing strain,
Nor the many-hymnëd Muse
Touch of Lesbian lyre refuse.

But if, my friend, you number me,
With bards of lyric minstrelsy—
Though far on high the stars may shine,
Their glory shall not equal mine,
And brilliant though their lustre be,
A brighter fame shall welcome me!

August, 1829.

FRAGMENTS.

DEATH.

Ω σκοτος, 'εμον φαος:
Soph: Ajax.

Oh thou, whate'er thou art, whose name
Is Terror's trumpet-call!
The knell of everything but Fame
On this terrestrial ball—
Thou undefined and shadowy Thing,
Whose ever-haunting dusky wing
Hangs dimly over all,—
A moment sweep thy clouds away
And stand revealed in open day!

I've wondered oft what thou might'st be,
Since first my life began,
And tried as well to picture thee
As Doubt and Darkness can—
And now, e'er yet we close, thou Foe,
Whom all engage, yet none o'erthrow,
I would thy features scan;
And measure well thy breadth and height,
Like combatants before they fight.

How oft doth charmed childhood read,
In Araby's bright lore,
Of dangers dark to him decreed,
And woes unfelt before,
Whose venturous arm should rashly bold
Some mystic portal dare unfold;
Yet ardour to explore
The secrets deep he there might read,
Hath nerved him to the desperate deed.

And thus, there seems so much to know
Which only thou canst teach,
Such rest from pain, disgust, and woe,
Which none but thou can'st reach,
Thou should'st to Reason's eye appear
A thing to hope for, not to fear,
A blessing to beseech;
And man should joy to see thee nigh,
And deem it liberty to die.

Why was this burning thirst for Fame
Into my breast instilled?
Why was I born with hope and aim
Which ne'er could be fulfilled?
Would I were dead!—for then my breast
Would find at least a little rest,

This throbbing heart be stilled—
Again—again—would I were dead,
That I might rest this weary head!

And oft, perhaps, on silent night,
When all is still and lone,
The watery moonbeams, silvery bright,
May rest on the cold stone;
And I no other tears will crave,
No other mourners o'er my grave,
Forgotten and unknown!
There weeds may grow, there worms may creep,
But nought shall break that stirless sleep.

April, 1830.

A WISH.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND.

The Lark who sings in the morning air
Is happy as happy may be;
On wings of joy he rises there—
May'st thou be as happy as he!

The Bee in the stilly summer noon,
O'er the bright fields wanders free,
And begs of each flower a honied boon—
May'st thou be as happy as he!

And when all the sky is dimly chill,
And there's nothing but snow to see,
At the window the Robin sings happily still—
May'st thou be as happy as he!

And when the fire is blazing bright,
As at Christmas is wont to be,
The Cricket full blithely chirps at night—
May'st thou be as happy as he!

And so may to thee summer, winter, and spring,
Measured many and many times o'er,
In this bright world as much of pure happiness bring,
Till a brighter shall lure thee to more!

December, 1829.

IN AN ALBUM.

You bid me write, what must appear,
Amid these pages bright and gay,
A tear, where all are ‘wreathed smiles,’
A ‘cloud upon a sunny day.’

Is it that fond remembrance here
May find forgotten scenes again—
As cherished locks of hair remind
Of those who're past all joy and pain?

If so, should gladness light my life
And bright my future fortunes be,
This record will but raise a smile,
A sneer, in those who coldly see.

But if misfortune dim my days,
And storm arise and cloud appear,
Perhaps it might obtain a sigh—
If not too much to ask—a tear.

Then why require my lonely grief
O'er others joy its shade to throw?
Why bid me ask a happier heart
To share in private selfish woe?

Christmas, 1829.

COMMONPLACES.

I.

Our wishes and our wants
Keep place with what supplies them—what we have
We think our own by right, so nought regard it;
'Tis in the actual growth of our possessions,
Not in their stationary magnitude,
That all the charm of satisfaction lies.
The ragged Beggar thinks him fortunate
And deeply blest, if on a bed of straw
His weary limbs awhile may rest;—the King
Would have another throne to sit upon.
The Beggar thinks his poor repast complete
If that his mouldy crust of bread be doubled;—
The Monarch thinks his rich repast a poor one,
Composed of all earth, air or sea may yield
In rich profusion spread upon the board.
For all is good or bad or great or small
But by comparison.

We do not say the sun is glorious bright
Because his brightness doth eclipse the moon;
Nor wonder at the brightness of the moon
If that she do outshine a little star;

We do not praise the swiftness of the hare
Because she far outstrips the crawling tortoise;—
Who starts a mile before his adversary,
Will have but little cause to bless his fortune
Arriving at the goal as soon as he!

II.

“—and to deem
We are not what we should be.—”
Childe Harold.

We know the good, and yet we seize it not;
See the true path, and yet pursue it not;
Discern the brightness of the glancing star,
Whose salutary lustre would deliver
Our storm-tossed vessel from the waves of sorrow,
Yet trust not to its extricating guidance.
So wrangle still our wishes with our practice;
Conscience and honour, virtuous love of fame,
All upward tendings of the emulous heart,
Drive like a gusty wind against the tide,
The swelling tide of base and low affections,
Of all that lures us from the sunbright way
Of noble deeds; and so the stream of life
Is ruffled only into billows on the surface,
Its deeper course unchanged—so jar and tumult

And sad commotion of the inward breast
Perplex its foamy course. More happy they
Whose eyes content have never looked beyond
The common aimings of the multitude,
Attracted never by the voice of Fame
The clear exalted light of fair Renown!
They pass ignobly happy—with the crowd
They pass away unheard of—in obscure
Oblivious calm, they live their sluggish death,
Nor claim distinction aught, desiring none.

III.

“How little do we know the joys we have
Until we lose them,”—then with what regret
Discern their value never felt before!
The tenant of the chamber, through whose gloom
Pale Sickness waves her pleasure-frighting wand,
Bidding attendance of her ghastly crew
Of pains corporeal, sappers of the mind—
Paints to himself the blessings sweet of Health,
Of rosy bounding health—compares his heart
Languid and sinking—faint with long disuse
Of cheering breeze, fresh air, and gladsome sun,
With his, the unchecked wanderer's, to whom

Health lends enlivening buoyancy to choose
And taste the joys around. Yet strange to say
Though taught by hard experience how good
A thing is mere exemption from the ill,
So soon her lessons are forgot, we find
The good regained no longer good than whilst
The ill its absence made could set it off.
Once more 'tis ours and we perceive it not—
Its beauty all has vanished—and again
We toil for other blessings, fancy-fired,
But to neglect and think them little worth
When we have gained them.—Thus we live
Still toiling on to nothings—each fulfilment
The worst of disappointments; as in wilds
Of burning Afric—sullen, herbless wastes—
With cleaving tongue, and weary, fainting step,
The traveller strains to reach the false mirage
That mocks his thirst with pictured lake, and finds
A smooth expanse of still deceptive sand
Which baffles him at once to deep despair.
Oh when will fancy-flouted man consent
To study to enjoy the good he has,
Not pant for blessings which he views afar—
To know Possession's worth—though partial, sure;
And Hope's deceit—though boundless, insecure,

Spring, 1830.

FRAGMENT OF A CHORUS IN THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES.

Oh thou who possessest that isle of the sea,
The wave-beaten Salamis—happy and free—
When thy deeds are of glory, thy actions all bright,
In thy fame I rejoice, in thy fortune delight!

But when thou art stricken by Jove in his wrath,
And the threats of the Greeks go terribly forth;
As the dove in the greenwood all fearful may be,
So, Telamon's son, must I tremble for thee!

For reports are abroad that tarnish thy fame,
All foul with dishonour, all blackened with shame!
They say that thou roamest at night-time alone
O'er the thickly-clad fields where the booty is strewn;

That on flocks and on herds with inglorious blow
Thou dealest the death thou shouldst hurl at the foe,
And the sword that an enemy's life-blood should steep,
Is but stained with the slaughter of oxen and sheep!

But if down with fell swoop like a vulture you come,
In an instant all hushed is that clamorous hum,
And those babblers so loud in a moment are dumb!

1830.

TEARS.

“To them 'tis a relief—to us a torture.”
—Don Juan.

The tears of Woman flow from sorrow's source,
As mildly as the softest rains from heaven,
Which steal so gently downward, and distil
Continued drops so fine, you scarce can hear
Them meet the shrubs, and not a rose-leaf falls,
Though faded, at their downy touch; but soon,
Beneath their influence bland, all Nature breathes
Fresh sweetness more delightful;—not so Man's
When pride, even pride, fails to restrain the tears,
And choking torture will not be repressed,
The big drops fall, though stifled half, yet wrung
From bitter agony,—though few, yet fierce
And heavy;—like the firstlings of the storm,
Dashed savagely from forth the muttering gloom,
That blackly scowls above! Woman's seem given
But to add sweetness to the after-smile,
As to the clearing beam the gentle rains;—
Man's are the dark announcers of the war,
The elemental war of pride and passion,
Raging with deep and bitter gloom within,
Like lightning in the bosom of the cloud.

April, 1830.

ODE TO THE MATHEMATICS.

A CAMBRIDGE EBULLITION.

“Nor deal (thank God for that!) in Mathematics.”
Don Juan.

Ye Mathematics! over which I pore
Full stolidly—yet to my sorrow find
I cannot fix upon your crabbed lore
My scape-grace, wandering, weak, wool-gathering mind—
Oh, are yet not in language plain, a bore,
For luckless wight like me a plague refined—
Ye intellectual catacombs—where drones
Of many an age have piled up musty bones!

We are old foes—yet can't, it seems, be loosed
From one another, though we tug the chain
Like coupled hounds: I have so oft abused
And railed at you, and yet returned again
To be by your dark mysteries confused,
That at my fate I smile, and friendship fain
Would offer—foes are well-nigh friendly (trust 'em,)
Whose regular abuse becomes a custom.

They say you lead to grand results, and Science
Makes you unto her heaven a Jacob's ladder;
So clouded though, we cannot see the sky hence,
And black-gowned students are a vision sadder,
Nor promise half so much for what they spy hence,
As did the white-robed angels Jacob had a
Glimpse of;—but be that as it may, you lead to
Things greater far than I can e'er give heed to.

You teach the stars—their courses—like Silenus;
Teach what the world is set a-going by,
And all the eccentricities of Venus;
You compass earth and ocean, land and sky;
Teach us to argue and to squabble, wean us
From base delights (no doubt) to pure and high;
You teach mankind all, all that can ennoble 'em;—
Meantime I'm staggered by this plaguy problem!

1830.

See the Sixth Eclogue of Virgil.

[Oft when I read the lays]

“Και γαρ ημιν Μουσα.”
“For a Muse is ours too.”
Euripides.

Oft when I read the lays
Of many a deathless bard divine
Who shone in other days,
I mourn because no Muse is mine,
That I no wreathe of song may twine.

It little soothes to say,
The light of Fame could not illume,
Though bright indeed its ray,
The joyless, black, neglected gloom,
That reigns within the stilly tomb—

To say that though the crowd
Combine to laud the lofty lay,
In wondering worship loud,
Its voice would fail to scare away
The worm that banquets on our clay!

What matter, though Renown
Like wreathe of poisonous flowers show—
A rich but fatal crown;
Or like the meteor's baleful glow,
The dank pestiferous marsh below!

What, though experience tells
Thou, Genius, art a fearful dower;
That Ruin darkly dwells
Within thy fairy-seeming bower,
And Grief is handmaid to thy power!

What, though it be too true
That Sorrow oft, and often Care,
Thy heritors pursue—
The pain, the death, who would not dare,
The everlasting meed to share!

To hold in every clime
A sunny place in every heart,
Down to the end of Time,
Into unnumbered souls to dart
Our soul—and influence sweet impart!

Then Poesy, be mine!
And from thine amaranthine bowers
A wreath for me entwine,
And thou shalt cheer my latest hours,
And strew the path of death with flowers!

Feb. 1830.

STANZAS.

“Dry be that tear, be hushed that sigh,
At least I'll love thee till I die!”
Sheridan.

“Until I die!” Oh, could I vow
To love thee only till I die?
And wouldst thou smile so fondly now,
If all my love with life could fly?

When from the tomb my soul shall break,
From dust and mouldering ashes free,
And in the unknown void awake,
Where shonld it turn, if not to thee?

If love with this day-dream must perish,
That sweet exchange no more be known,
What hopes immortal can I cherish?
Could there be joy when thou wert gone?

And if remembrance should remain,
And waft the vivid thoughts above,
Of all the dear delightful pain
Of earth's affection, human love—

Oh, could thine image ever fly?—
My soul would cease to love thee never;
It could not rest, it would not die,
But dying live to mourn for ever!

Oh, no! there is no heaven without thee;
My only heaven, above, below,
In all its glory hangs about thee;
The rest is changeless, endless woe!

Sept. 1830.

FRAGMENT.

Oh! they who soonest sink to sadness,
Are soonest warmed again to gladness!
And brightest joys that heart illume,
Which sometimes wears the deepest gloom;
As flowers, whose life is frailest, fleetest,
In growth and bloom are quickest, sweetest!

March, 1830.

TO A LADY.

WITH A FAN FROM CHINA.

Go, fan—thy journey's almost over—
In many a clime, o'er many a sea,
Long hast thou been a weary rover,
But brighter days are waiting thee!

Yet shouldst thou love thy fortune dearly,
Couldst thou by wandering far and free,
Through dangers threatening more severely,
Serve her whom thou art soon to see!

But thy reward shall be thy duty,
And own how much that duty blesses;
To bathe in freshness beaming beauty,
And wave her glossy raven tresses!

Before thee flies the glow invading
That cheek so fair and brow so bright,
Like rosy hues of sunset fading
Before the cooling winds of night!

Go then, all meaner breezes scorning,
The richest seek that ever blew;
The fresh cool air of April morning
All bright with mist and glittering dew!

The sweet airs Araby discloses,
That spicy land of golden dreaming,—
Or lovely Cashmere's fields of roses;
Or Jordan's groves with jasmine teeming!

On—on! äerial depths exploring,
The purely subtle breeze pursue,
Which bears aloft the eagle, soaring
Through Alpine skies intensely blue!

Nor rest thee yet—those airs assemble
Which Seraphs' radiant wings diffuse,
When bliss ecstatic makes them tremble,
All sparkling with a thousand hues!

Go—go—let toil nor trouble stay thee,
For if thou chance her breath to meet,
That breath at once will richly pay thee,
Thou canst bestow no airs so sweet!

Yet haply, after all, 'twere better
To spare thy search through sky and plain,
Whose richest breathings leave thee debtor—
And waft her back her own again!

Sept. 1830.

TO ------.

When the Moon shines in the lucid sky,
Silently and still;
Like beauty's sadly-musing eye,
Which the bright tears fill—
How the melting hush, like a spell,
Doth the soul disarm,
And the breath is restrainëd well,
Lest it break the charm!

So when we gaze with joy intense,
On that radiant face,
And the pure soft light of innocence
In its features trace—
How its still sweet serenity
O'er the spirit steals;
Till the heart dare not breathe to thee
Of the love it feels!

1830.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

Oh, who shall describe me this Album of thine!—
'Tis the heart's turnpike-gate, where its minions pay toll;
It is Love's table-d'hote, where her votaries dine—
Of the forces of Friendship the muster-roll!

Of the murderer's cairn it is just the reverse—
To that every comer contributes a stone;
But a token of hate is left there, and a curse,
While by what is left here, it is love that is shown!

Here all feelings are found, sad, sober, or quizzical;
Here all tastes, and all sects, and all authors agree;
From romantic and light to the dark metaphysical,
There is room for them all, whatever they be!

Here the stately and orthodox Épiscopalian
Sits peaceably down by his brother dissenting;
And with Chalmers or Irving, comes Sherlock or Paley on;
While Ephraim on Judah no venom is venting.

Here with spinners of poetry, psalm-spinners soar,
Or try to, alas! though their steeds often stumble;
And Watts comes with Byron, and Doddridge with Moore,
And ‘take up their songs’ without ever a grumble.

Here cold Common-Sense for poor Sentiment sickly,
Lays aside most humanely its sneer or its frown;
So the leopard in days of Millennium, quickly
With the kid shall politely and meekly lie down.

Here the old poet's lay shines so quaint and so curious,
Like a sweet simple flower that should bloom by itself;
And more modern songs blaze here—extravagant—furious—
Like the nosegays that stare on a kitchen-maid's shelf.

Here the aged folks tender both prayers and advice,
And the young ones prate sweetly of feeling and passion;
While here and there glows of description a spice,
From the bard whose effusions are just then in fashion.

Here with crumbs of morality, gayest young ladies
Each other devoutly and tenderly cheer,
And convince us that all for which Albums are made, is
To keep up their courage in virtue's career.

And some bring conceits most facetious and pleasant;
Some with saddest of sentiment coo like a pigeon ill—
And some (like the writer who's scribbling at present)
Would, no doubt, if they could, be considered original.

Some draw, sketch, or paint, to embellish the plan,
Ships, houses, or cattle, men, women, or trees—
They do it, of course, not to show that they can,
But to prove how they long the fair owner to please.

And all ere they write turn over the pages
With quizzical smile and sarcastic remark;
And hint doubtful things of complexions and ages,
And are still most severe when they're most in the dark.

And then from the writing how shrewd are the guesses
What the writer may be, both in body and mind;
If he's steady or gay—how he looks, or she dresses,
With nicest sagacity all is divined.

There are some who write stiffly like school-boys in dread
Of the rod of the master—while others more knowing
Will affect a bad hand that can scarcely be read,
A genteel, superior, indifference showing.

And look at the neat hand of gentle feminitie—
(So pointedly delicate irony should be!)
She who writes so ethereally must be divinity,
Nor less than an angel in petticoats could be!

But whoe'er to this chaos, than Milton's more motley,
May contribute his mite, should remember this chiefly,
Be it gaily or sadly, or coldly or hotly,
(More wise than this writer) he had better write briefly!

October, 1830.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

The raindrop on the lily lying,
Tells that a gloomy cloud hath past;
Its hour of birth beholds it dying,
Though on so sweet a pillow cast.

And such appears this verse's lot—
For sad and dark the heart that leaves it;
And just as soon 'twill be forgot;
Although a fairer flower receives it!

October, 1830.

LINES.

The Stars their watch are keeping—
But the midnight Taper's burning;
And through the window peeping,
Their light there's no discerning!

But hide the taper's gleaming—
And in all their conscious glory
The mystic brilliants beaming,
In thousands rise before ye!

So, when dazzled by the pleasures
Which here we love so dearly,
Heaven's brighter, purer treasures
We can ne'er distinguish clearly.

But when the sweetest flowers
In the heart's rich wreath are faded,
When Affection flies her bowers,
And Hope's sunlight is shaded—

With purer gaze and fonder,
No lights of Earth obscuring,
On Heaven we love to ponder,
And woo its joys enduring.

October, 1830.

ON THE BIRTH OF A NEAR RELATION.

Fountain of an endless River,
Mighty stream from scanty source,
Flowing once, to flow for ever,
All Eternity thy course!

Joyful be the path thou cleavest,
Through Life's dull ravine, whose bed,
From the champain broad thou leavest,
Tends to that far on ward spread!

Oh! would Reason have us mourning
O'er the much-loved new-born boy?
Stern Experience—is she warning,
Birth may not be cause for joy?

Does she say, “Away with gladness!
Woe is oft the world's best fare;
He must eat the bread of sadness,
Often drink the cup of care?”

No—there must be so much blessing—
So much ‘rose’ without the ‘thorn,’

As will make it not distressing
That an heir to earth is born!

Say—because its leaves have faded,
Would you wish the Rose unblown?
Since by clouds he may be shaded,
Wish no Sun had ever shone?—

Ask the Mother, when her Treasure
Warm she presses to her heart,
Fondly thinking of the pleasure
It doth to its sire impart!

Ask the Father, whose affection
Glows, as he beholds them, there,
Doubly claiming that protection
Which they cannot seek elsewhere!

Poets tell us, seraphs mingle
Wholly, when in heaven they love,
In etherial essence single—
Clay divides not hearts above.

Such the union parents gather,
When in one fair child they trace
All the mother, all the father,
Beaming in its beauteous face!

Oh! the hopes that then they cherish—
Do they lure them but to leave them?
Must their golden visions perish?
Do they shine but to deceive them?

Must we ask when years have found him,
When long years have passed away,
Will he give to all around him
Joy, like that he gives to-day?

No! away with doubts unpleasant—
Let us hope and wish the best!
Reap the joy that gilds the present—
Why should man regard the rest?

Let us wish a heart supplied him,
Ardent as the steed's career—
While the head shall curb and guide him
Deftly as the charioteer!

To the last may youth's quick feeling
Make life's dullest scenery bright—
Age from hearts no freshness stealing,
They create their own delight!

Shall we wish the power given
Fancy's fairy dreams to gild?

Yes—and we shall wish him heaven
If we wish those dreams fulfilled.

Oh! may real Honour charm him;
Glory, made by Virtue fair!
To be first, Ambition warm him,
Sense direct him how and where!

Thus with head and heart agreeing,
May he aim at Reason's mark;
All things on their bright side seeing,
Cheerly bear with what is dark!

And o'er all be free Health sparkling—
Head, or heart without, I ween,
Are like lovely landscapes darkling,
Without sun to make them seen!

Father! may he ever lend thee
All the joy thou feelest now—
Each succeeding summer send thee
Happier heart and brighter brow!

Mother! all thy fond caressing
May his future years repay—
May'st thou deem him then a blessing,
Such as he appears to-day!

November 7, 1830.

GREEK SONG.

COMMONLY ASCRIBED TO ALCÆUS.

Εν μυρτου κλαδι το ξιφος φορησω. κ. τ. λ.

Twined with myrtle I will bear
The sword that Freedom bids me wear!
So Aristogeiton bore it,
So the brave Harmodius wore it,
When they slew the Tyrant-slave
And Freedom's laws to Athens gave!

Thou art not, loved Harmodius, dead!
Though that day thy spirit fled,
Dead thou canst not, shalt not be!
Thou art living, thou art free,
Where Achilles—Tydeus rest,
In the Islands of the Blest!

Twined with myrtle I will bear
The sword that Freedom bids me wear!
So Aristogeiton wore it,
So beloved Harmodius bore it,

When they did the Tyrant slay
On Minerva's festal day!

Never fades their glory, never!—
Brightly shall thy fame for ever
Brave Aristogeiton, shine,
And beloved Harmodius, thine,
Because ye slew the Tyrant-slave,
And Freedom's laws to Athens gave!

Nov. 20, 1830.

[Whence is it mountains, forests, fields, and floods]

“It lightens—it brightens
The tenebrific scene!”
—Burns.

Whence is it mountains, forests, fields, and floods
Hold o'er the Mind of Man such influence strange?
Whence is it Nature's soul hath power
Its lights and shadows to impart
To man's chameleon-fashioned heart,
Which throbs in unison with her great moods,
And takes her Spirit's hues which vary every hour—
True to her every change?
Why is it, Morn, and Noon, and Eve,
The starry Night, the golden Day,
Can sadden, cheer, depress, beguile,
Each with peculiar sway?
Whence may it be
Some weather makes it difficult to grieve,
In some we scarce can smile?
Or why are we
So often gay, or sad, or proud,
As sun prevails, or rain or cloud?—

Why it is, I cannot tell,
But this I know full well,
There is a spell
Can make the tinkling rain
Which patters on the windows, seem
Melodious as the musing stream—
Make the low-moaning wind dispute
With the sweetly-stealing lute;
The wind and rain
Both strive in vain
To fling o'er fine-strung hearts their dark desponding chain!
It is the beauty of a certain cheek,
Of eyes in which the pensive soul doth speak;
It is the sweetness of a certain face
Where softness sits serene, and purity and grace!
The soft, the downy hand,
Timid, unresisting, warm—
The smile affectionate—the undesigning glance—
These, these can charm
The heavy Heart to joy, the moody Mind entrance!
Ay! let the Sun refuse his light—
Love's dullest day is still with more than sunshine bright!
And let the Cloud descend in gloom—
With inborn radiance Love can murkiest sky illume!
The scenes which Love has lighted
Are never darkened more;

But Memory backward-flighted,
Doth on their glory pore!
For, as the Rocket's track is seen,
Gemmed with drops of starry sheen,
Though dark the path, or rude or mean—
Love leaves a trail of light wherever he hath been!

March, 1831.

“GOOD BYE.”

No poesy this page can show—
It tells not “tear” nor “sigh;”
Nor sentiment nor pathos boasts—
It only says “Good bye!”

And when beyond the deep sea far,
This record meets thine eye,
Remember, 'mid thy many friends
That I too said “Good bye.”

1830.

['Twas in the twilight once—and Sorrow's shadow lay]

“While yet in truth I knew not why
Nor wherefore I am sad!”
—Kirke White.

'Twas in the twilight once—and Sorrow's shadow lay
Heavily on my mind—
I knew not whence she came, nor why,
Where she could entrance find—
It was as creeping Mists diffuse them o'er the sky
With progress unperceived and mute,
And sweep the stars away!
A moment back, and every star,
Most faintly palpitating in remotest cell,
Minutely trembling with delight irregular,
Might be discovered well!
Now, all is one dim, wide, unbroken shroud,
No shape distinct, no form of Cloud!
So stole upon my heart that deeply-brooding Shade
And all its stars unrayed;
Yet seemed no Grief particular in kind,
No single feeling certainly displayed,
No sad thought well-defined!
The fire was burning faint and low—
The bubbling flames meandering slow,
Their quiet converse held;

The falling coals at intervals a crumbling murmur made;
Upon the dusky ceiling, to and fro,
The shadow of the chimney-piece
With fitful throbbing played—
The ceiling's glimmer answered still the flitting flame below;
So the harmonious workings of the Brain
Keep time and tune, in thought and strain,
With every feeling which the Heart doth burningly contain!
As in the silence, deep, distinct,
I listened to the quiet fire [OMITTED]

“LONG AGO,”

ADDRESSED TO ------

I.

Long ago!—long ago!
How heavily on the heart
The simple accents flow!—
Yet is there music in the sound,
A witching charm not elsewhere found,
That makes us love the woe!

II.

How at the words Imagination fond
Flies to the Pictures of the Past,
In Memory's gallery cast ;
Which, like the gloomy clouds that dimly hang
Motionless, in skies of grey,
And seem to threaten less than they despond—
Pause ere they pass away.

Each aspect of what once has been
May there with sad delight be seen—
The light and shade of years of old—
And many an hour in sunshine or in rain,
Of sport, employment, mirth or pain,
With melancholy joy beheld again!

III.

But where's the pen
By which the difference can be told
'Twixt now and then!
The hopes, the fears,
The smiles, the tears,
The fond pursuits of other years,
Are past and gone!
Our interest in them done.
The friends that once were dear
Have long in silence ebbed away—
And every-thing that once was all in all
Does trifling now appear—
Remembered scarce to-day.
We needs must mourn their transient sway,
And yet cannot but love whatever may remain
Of feelings, forms, and scenes that we
Through life and long Eternity
Can never meet again!

IV.

The Soul where'er her sunny home
Mingles with it, fondly clings,
And lovingly her tendrils flings
On all the beauties round;
And though perhaps compelled to roam,
And though another home be found,
She loves full oft to fly on Memory's wings,
And mournfully renew her former communings.

V.

The Earth, the glorious gladsome Earth—
From her our soul-linked clay had birth!
And when her magic influence steals
The Heart, what is it that it feels
But the Child's longings, ill-exprest
Deep yearnings for its Mother's breast,
There to be again at rest!
In these renewals of her power,
Earth recalls our natal hour,
Stirs us with mysterious might,
And reasserts her primal right.
And wherever Love hath been
Between us and some olden scene,
Nature will not let it die,
But rebinds the broken tie,

Revives the drooping sympathy,
And makes it sweet our view to cast
O'er long-closed pages of existence past!

VI.

The Present is a Mine,
From which we dig the mingled ore,
Rude though it be and gross;—
Then Time extracts the worthless dross,
And leaves it dull no more!
And then the rich, refinëd hoard,
In the coffers of the Past is stored,
Where in radiant rows they stand,
Arranged for pensive Memory's hand—
A fairer show,
Than e'er did glow
In gorgeous faëry tale of sweet Arabia's land.

VII.

The Present is a Stream,
That sweeps along, a varying tide—
Now dancing on in Pleasure's beam,
Now tost by Passion, swoln by Pride!
And troubled waves of Strife are there,
And bitter waves of Grief and Care!—
Dim with Woe or foul with Crime,
These are filtered well by Time!

He finds a torrent—turbid, wild—
He leaves a lake, transparent—mild!
Then, in some silent hour,
When nature sinks in deep repose,
In summer's sultry noon;
Or when a stillness more intense she knows,
And swims in tears the weary Moon;—
The first, the rapturous Sleep of Joy,
Faint with its own excess—
The last, the musing Wakefulness of Woe,
Full, full of tenderness—
In such an hour comes Memory there
Her golden cup to fill;
And dipping in the streamlet fair,
Quaffs with serenest joy the clearly-gushing rill.

VIII.

Then why the deeds of Time
Complainingly decry?
Why say that all his triumphs
Only ask a sigh?
All the victories of years
Merit jubilees of tears?
Why declare
He will not spare
Aught save relics here and there,
Crumbling fragments, passing fair!

That he only leaves behind
The simple—the sublime—
And all-enduring Records of the Majesty of Mind!
Pillar and stone and column gray
Melt beneath his touch away!
See how in ruin forlornly they stand—
Mournfully lingering all alone—
Sighing for a world that's gone!
Why tarry they here in a Stranger-land,
With a race that knows them not?
Their eloquent stillness seems to say
They would follow those who are past away,
Those who joyed in their loveliness ages ago,
But have forsaken them in their woe,
Left them to decay!

IX.

And must we thus in melancholy tone
All the deeds of Time bemoan?
Cheerlessly in him behold
Circumfluous Ocean ruinous round all Creation rolled—
Silent, ever-pressing zone
Wrapping in corrosive fold
This rotund World with life encrusted;
Till Titanean Might o'erthrown
Beauty blighted, Glory rusted—
New is old, and old is gone,
The things that are, are things that were—the things that were, unknown?

We will take a brighter view
Of the deeds that Time can do!
View him slowly veiling Sadness,
Mellowing the hues of Gladness;
Making Danger's memory dear,
Softening what was harsh, when near;
Turning, like the King of old,
All things, by his touch, to gold!
'Tis his refining hand can make
Our weary Days the semblance take
Of moonlit waves in a vessel's wake—
Dark while around they dash in spray,
Not lighted up till they're past away!
He teaches those who do not spurn
The Sadness of Delight,
From what is to what was to turn,
And oft in vision not unpleasant,
By dreamy day or stirless night,
Chequer the gloom that purples o'er the Present
With the Past's mild streaks of light!

X.

Roll on, then, swift Days, roll!
Be ye dark, or be ye bright,
Be whate'er it may your goal—
Is it not a treasure
To discover in your flight
But material of pleasure,
Increase of delight?—

But stay—methinks I hear you say—
“Whither, whither will you stray?
Sure this idle, rambling rhyme
Wasteth words and loseth time!
To you whatever it may be
Small interest it can have for me!”
Shall I tell a simple plan
Will do more than fancy can?
Give it interest for you,
Haply make you read it through?—
List!—the spell you soon shall know—
Deem it idle, rambling rhyme,
Waste of words and loss of time;
Only wait, though many a day,
And pass it by, till you can say
“It was written long ago!”

April, 1831.

It ought perhaps to be stated, that at the time of writing the above, the author had not perused Mr. Tennyson's exquisite little volume of Poems, in one of which the same phrase occurs.

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN AN ALBUM.

A meteor oft from earth will bound
To sparkle in the sky,
And with eternal worlds around
A while may cheat the eye.

But soon it glides down heaven's face,
In death repenting late;
It little knew its proper place,
And all deride its fate!

And can I wonder if the same
Success await on me,
Inserting numbers here, which claim
But little melody?

Here, where the Great Ones of the Lyre
Undying music bring,
Thoughts tangible, and words of fire—
Should I attempt to sing?—

Oh, no! but be not mine the wrong,
Since mine is not the choosing—
For when “the Fair commands the song,”
There can be no refusing!

April, 1831.

ANOTHER.

A glow worm circled round with stars,
With fairest flowers a weed—
Such similes did in my mind
To your request succeed.

I had not written could it seem,
I deemed that aught of mine
Were worth a place where Lords of Song
In dimless splendour shine!

But well I know, as from the Moon
A radiant beam is thrown
Which lends the rudest, meanest scene,
A beauty not its own—

So, haply, Friendship's partial eye
A moment glancing o'er,
May find a worth in this poor page
It could not boast before!

And who will blame the meanest bard,
Or turn displeased away,
If, tempted by the rich reward,
He thus insert his lay?

April, 1831.

TO AGNES.

AN HISTORICAL REFLECTION.

Herodotus says, a custom prevailed among some tribes of the ancient Scythians, of prohibiting the marriage of their virgins till they had killed an enemy in battle.

The rovers of old Scythia's plain
A curious custom had, 'tis said;
No maid till she a foe had slain
Was e'er allowed to wed.

Now think you, gentle Agnes, what
Had been your fate had you lived then—
Sure your's had been a luckless lot,
Among those savage men!

Hard doom! that one so sweet, so fair,
Unloved, unwedded should remain,
Because her kind heart could not bear
To give another pain!—

And yet methinks one way had still
Been left, your fortune to redress—
For you would pierce all hearts, and kill
By very gentleness!—

1831.

STANZAS.

(A BIT OF BIRTH-DAY MORBIDEZZA.)

This day it was my life begun—
And small my joy in looking back
Along the course which I have run—
A dreary track!

A restless, frantic war with fate,
Or calm disgust—too calm by far!
The sullen, sluggish Peace, whose weight
Is worse than War;

When mad Despair gives up the strife
With ills with which 'twere vain to cope—
And rebel pride sends love of life
To follow Hope!—

The wasting of the aimless breast—
Hopes waxing but to wane in Grief—
The listless mien to cloak unrest—
Poor, poor relief!

Each day endured, as what conveyed
A chance of change, though bringing none;
Each day a burden while it stayed,
A grief when gone!—

I should be young, to date by years—
But bounding hopes, and fancies gay,
The generous warmth—the ready tears—
Where, where are they?—

Once Love made common day divine—
And once I thrilled with thirst of Fame—
To make the general mention mine,
The deathless name!—

Those sanguine dreams of youth are gone—
The tinge of glory all things wore;
Truth, mournful truth, remains alone—
Illusion's o'er!

The dreary past I would forget—
And with the future calmly cope;
The first has nothing for regret—
The last, for hope!—

My earlier birth-days brought delight—
My later little else than grief—
No more the coming year looks bright,
The past one, brief!

One grief is mine to-day—to see
So much remains of wretched breath;
One sad delight—so much to be
The nearer Death.

May, 1831.

FLOWERS.

“To me the meanest Flower that blows, can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears!”
Wordsworth.

I.

Flowers, though of texture inexpressible, woven though they be of a mystic woof, are yet the Birth-day Apparel of Earth—her Raiment of Gladsomeness—her Festival-Drapery!

Her Virgin-Zone of Beauty they were—her Matron-Stole of Loveliness they are, but she putteth them off in the days of her Widowhood!—

Her Children too are they—the dear ones of her heart—but old Winter frighteneth them!

II.

Who shall tell out the colours of their Glory? to what will ye liken the richness of their Odours?—mingling yet separately perceived they come,— like the hues of the Rainbow, that Wedding-ring of Sunlight and Cloud-gloom—like the streaks on the blade of the sheeny Striped-grass—like the colours of an eddying Banner—like Love.

III.

Flowers and Female Beauty, peers in their peerlessness, though hardly in their tarriance;—their brief existence the theme of Song—their coming and going in eternal alternation, waxing and waning in their bloom and decay, like the brightness and dimness of an ever-revolving Beacon-light at sea—preserving the while such mysterious silence—may well be the subject of marvel and earnest curiosity.

IV.

The expressions of Flowers, as various and striking as though they were animated by indwelling Spirits, who made them their radiant Resting-places—their pure Pavilions—their silent Homes!

And oh that they had voice to explain the feelings which cause their diverse expressions—as the sky-roamer hath!—certes, it would be both sweet and strange—strange as the murmuring of the Spirit of the Seashell—strange as the melody of the finger-invoked Genie of the Handglass,

breathing forth his deep unearthly churming;—soft, as the footstep of a silver cloud—as the sound of melting snow,—as the fall of glittering dew—as the flickering of troubled gossamers, glancing in the Summer noontide air—subtle—evanescent!

VI.

And harmoniously would they discourse—haply of high regrets, and sorrowings after glorious and forfeited things—of lasting melancholy; haply of transient sadness—of private and passing afflictions—of griefs of every-day!

VII.

Flowers sympathise ever with us—share in our Triumph—lend their gaiety to our Joy, and soothe us when Sorrow is near—they are tender and pure—and tranquil in gladness—and calm in grief!

VIII.

And mournfully and strangely doth contrast with their tranquillity our restlessness—our “pining for what is not”—our ambition and unsatisfying speculations—our toiling after shadows—our “looking before and after” —our regret—our anxiety!

IX.

And are they not, then, silent and delicate Teachers of the Littleness of Wealth and Fame and Power and Praise?—and meek and shining exemplars of extremes avoided and content attained?—

PART THE FIRST.

What are ye, lovely Flowers?

Flowers, though of texture inexpressible, woven though they be of a mystic woof,

Sense and Reason say,
Your nature is like ours,
Ye are formed of clay;
They, methinks, cannot be right—
Ye are so delicate and bright!

The Light—it is your Mother,

are yet the Birthday apparel of Earth, her raiment of Gladsomeness—her Festival-Drapery!

And your food—it is the Dew;
The Rainbow is your Brother—
He is most like you!
Born of Light and gentle Rain,
Both are free from earthly stain!

Ye are Stars, besprinkling

Her Virgin-zone, of Beauty they were, her Matron-stole of Loveliness they are,

The broad expanse of Earth—
In coloured radiance twinkling,

but she putteth them off in the days of her widowhood.

Filling her with mirth!
Her form in all-hued robes ye swathe,
Her limbs in precious odours bathe!

Her revolving motion

Her children too are they—the dear ones of her heart,

Ye follow with delight;
Plunge down into the Ocean
Of Darkness, every night;
And up again with her returning,
Freshly greet the Day-light burning!

When dark Winter neareth,

but old Winter frighteneth them!

From Earth's face ye fly,
As when dawn appeareth
Stars fade off the sky!
Scattered drops of light, ye fear,
Touch of one so cold and drear.

So the Poet's visions,
Sweet imaginings,
Shrink from all collisions
With cold, worldly things—
Aught less high and warm than they,
Sweeps them from his mind away!

PART THE SECOND.

Sweet is the dazzling whiteness
Of the Maiden's brow;
Sweet is the azure brightness
Of her meek eyes' glow;
Her lip's geranium-red—the flush
Of her modest, mantling blush;

Sweet are the dyes adorning
A tropic Bird's array;
The coloured clouds of Morning,
The tints of rising Day;
And sweet the Sun-set to behold—
The crimson, and the water-gold!

Sweet are the tinges, glowing
Through the bright green tide,
From Coral-reefs up-growing
Like gardens petrified—
Sweet and gay the rich sea-flowers
Which crown those insect-pilëd towers!

Yes—sweet are these, and many
Hues of Earth and Air,
But I know not any
May with yours compare—
With the million-coloured bloom
These gems of upper Earth assume!

Odours from you pouring

to what will ye liken the richness of their odours?

Gush deliciously;
Such rich fragrance showering,

mingling they come, yet separately perceived, like the hues of the Rainbow, that Wedding-ring of Sunlight and Cloudgloom—like the streaks on the blade of sheeny stripedgrass—like the colours of an eddying Banner—like Love.

That the sense would be
Delighted to drink in the river
Of refreshing scent for ever!

In your posies pleasant,
Distinct, although combining,
Each sweet scent is present—
Like the intertwining
Voices of a choir, around
Dispensing silver threads of sound;

Like that combination
Which young bosoms prove—

Brilliant constellation
Of fond feelings—Love!
Every Star in lustre blent
Of the Soul's deep firmament!

In that mighty Ocean
Of mixed tenderness,
No wave-like Emotion
Is discerned the less;
Each in different form and fashion
Adding to the Tide of Passion.

All the Love that dwelleth
In the Parent's breast;
All that simply swelleth
In the child confest;
Love of Sister, Brother, Friend,
Distinctly in the Lover blend.

All the ties Protection
On either side can raise,
Humble, proud affection,
Serving while it sways—
Oh the sheaves that Lovers bind
Of golden ears of Feelings kind!

100

PART THE THIRD.

Maidens everywhere
Hold with you communion;

Flowers and female beauty, peers in their peerlessness, though hardly in their tarriance; their brief existence the theme of song;

Both are pure and fair,
And that simple union
Makes them cherish and befriend you,
And like younger sisters tend you.

I know how poets often
Your short lives bewail;
And their sweet lays soften
To a tender tale,
As they tell how Beauty too,
Dies almost as soon as you.

We have earthly creatures
So purely clear and bright,
That their tender features
Seem melting into Light!
Transparent cheek and sunny tress
Often mock your loveliness.

Yet beauty in the Maiden
Will last until the heart
Of its love may be unladen;
And when it does depart

101

We miss it not—for then we die—
You, while our love is freshest, fly!—

Many an anxious query,

their coming and goingin eternal alternation—waxing and waning in their bloom and decay, like the brightness and dimness of an ever-revolving beacon-light at sea—preserving the while such mysterious silence—may well be the subject of marvel and earnest curiosity.

Mysteries without clue,
Till the mind is weary,
Rise, on watching you—
What may be your end and aim,
Where ye go, or whence ye came?

Why your races gay,
In silence fast succeeding,
Come—smile—and pass away,
To oblivion speeding?
Why ye are so lovely made,
So lovely, if so soon to fade?

Oh that I could sing you
In a strain undying—
I would rather bring you
Life, than mourn your flying;
Not lament in idle lay,
But bid you bloom till Time decay.

102

PART THE FOURTH.

And yet if we could make you
Lasting as ye're fair—
Many a summer wake you
Fresh as now ye are—
Should we, gazing on you so,
Have no more to ask or know?

Oh there are deeper feelings
To both of us belong
Than may have revealings
Or in prose or song—
There is such infectious power
In the sadness of a Flower!

Some of you smile gladly,

The expressions of Flowers, as various and striking

Some look coy and shy;
Some seem grieving sadly
As the Moon on high,
When she floateth, full of sighs,
Asking some to sympathise!

Whence could ye inherit
Expressions all so true?—

as though they were animated by indwelling spirits,

I am sure that Spirit
Must reside in you,

103

For amidst your simple sheening,
There are looks so full of meaning!

Not the honey-gatherer only
Dives into your cells,
And insects not alone lie
In your cups and bells—
In your fragrant, tiny breasts,
Spirits must have made their nests!

As in olden ages
It was idly thought
By romancing sages,
That our Spirits sought,
When their human life had ceased,
Ignoble home in bird or beast—

So, perhaps, when weary

who made them their radiant resting places, their pure pavilions, their silent homes!

Of their forms of fire,
May the souls of Peri,
Into you retire—
If such After-homes were ours,
Might not they migrate to Flowers?

Or do Smiles, long vanished,
Sighs—forgotten too—
From our bosoms banished,
Fly at last to you,

104

And enshrined there, teach you how
To mimic all our feelings now?

PART THE FIFTH.

When I see you grieving
Grief attacketh me;
'Tis beyond believing
That just cause can be,

And oh that they had voice to explain the feelings which cause their diverse expressions,

Cruel Sorrow should not spare
Things so innocent and fair!

What are your distresses?
Wherefore do you sigh?
Vainly Fancy guesses,
Idly would reply—
For your speaking looks alone
Make your gentle sorrows known!

To the Wind that wingeth

as the sky-roamer hath!

The Profound of Heaven,
Is a lyre that singeth
All its feelings given;
Now in revelry loud-ringing,
Now low-moaning sweetness flinging!

105

It tells how breezes sorrow,
Tells how they rejoice—
Would that we could borrow
Such an echoing voice,

certes—it would be both sweet and strange—

For the hidden thoughts which dower
The mystic muteness of a Flower!

Oh, Woman's voice is dearest,

strange as the murmuring of the Spirit of the sea-shell— strange as the melody of the finger-invoked Genie of the hand-glass, breathing forth its deep unearthly Churming—soft as the foot-beat of a silver cloud, as the sound of the melting snow, as the fall of the glittering dew—as the flickering of troubled gossamers—glancing in the summer noontide—subtle, evanescent!

And sweet beyond compare!
To hers in beauty nearest
Birds' merry warblings are—
Sweetly too the summer fly
Murmureth an instant by!

But what were sweetest trilling
Of insect, bird or maiden,
To that a Flower were willing
Its soul should be conveyed in?
The tones a Flower would choose, to express
All its joy and its distress!

Sound of Chaffinch weaving
Her moss-fibred nest;
Sound of Bees upheaving
Waxen cells of rest;
Feathers rustling in the wing
Of a bright Moth fluttering;

106

Sound of Motes a-dancing
In the slant sunbeam,
Floating—turning—glancing—
Rude and harsh would seem,
Harsh and rude all these would be,
To a Flower's euphony!

PART THE SIXTH.

Mutely would we listen
To your meek complaining;
And our eyes would glisten,
Tears of pity raining,

And harmoniously would they discourse,

As ye did in silver tone
Make your gentle sorrows known.

And then you would declare

haply ofhigh regrets, and sorrowings after

How, you could not smile
In a World so fair,
Filled with woe and guile—
How, you cannot cease to mourn
That for which you first were born!

How some of you have ever
Wept for fallen Man—
How some of you have never
Looked otherwise than wan

107

Since ye drew your timid eyes

glorious and forfeited things,

From a sinless Paradise!

And how ye still remember
Those olden glories well;

of lasting melancholy;

And how Tradition's ember
Glimmers yet to tell
How happy once, ye lived and grew
In Eden light, on Eden dew!

Or you would discover

haply, of transient sadness,

Tales of simpler sorrow;
Grief would soon be over
And forgot to-morrow;
Haply tell us how your tears
Fall for humbler pains and fears;

How some bee has slighted
One whom oft his kisses

of private and passing afflictions,

And his song delighted;
How, another misses
Warmly-wooing, faithless breezes—

of griefs of everyday!

And their coldness sore displeases!

How fate too far removed you
From sunlight—overshaded;
How some Flower that loved you
Prematurely faded—

108

How it is for Love that ye
Droop your heads so pensively!—

These and more distresses
Would your sweet plaint swell—
But vainly Fancy guesses
What you cannot tell;
For, alas! your looks alone
Make your gentle sorrows known!

PART THE SEVENTH.

Poet's happy carol

Flowers sympathise ever with us,

Wreath of Flowers earneth;
Hero from high quarrel
Flower-crowned returneth:
Hero bold, and Poet too,

share in our triumph,

Half their Triumph owe to you!

Flowers on Bridal Morning

lend their gaiety to our joy,

Heighten gladsomeness;
Dear ones' graves adorning

and soothe us when sorrow is near;—

Soothe our deep distress:
You smile with us when we are glad,
And you weep when we are sad!

Lambs in joyaunce lowly

they are tender and pure

Share your simple grace;

109

Dove-like melancholy
In some of you we trace—
Doves and Lambs of herbal kind—
Sometimes sad—alway resigned!

Passions in you glow not,

and tranquil in gladness,

Which we could reprove—
Hate and guile ye know not,
Ye are full of Love!
Calm your tears as is your gladness—
That is tender as your sadness!

and calm in grief.

Pride ye have—but harmless—
Envy—ye have none—
There is nothing charmless,
Which ye do not shun—
There is nothing pure and sweet
Misseth your serene retreat!

PART THE EIGHTH.

Guide us, tranquil Flowers,

And mournfully and strangely doth contrast with their tranquillity

To your springs of Quiet—
Anxious Care is ours,
And distressing Riot;
Our joys are troubled at the best—
Our repose is seldom rest!

our restlessness;

110

We dream of Worlds of Faëry,
Joys which cannot be—

our “pining for what is not;”

And weep—because they vary
From the ones we see;
You pass your lives exempt from pain,
Content with what ye may attain.

Thought and high desire—
All the Pride of Mind;

our ambition

Thirst for something higher
Than 'tis ours to find:
These our chance of Quiet mar,
Because our Will and Power jar.

Mysteries of deep wonder
Ever hang about us,

and unsatisfying speculations;

Enticing us to ponder,
Only then to flout us—
You live happily and well
By clinging to the visible!

We toil—and discontent

our toiling after shadows,

Is often all we win;
Your lives are gladlier spent,
Who toil not, neither spin!

our “looking before and after,'

We grieve o'er all the Past—and sorrow

our regret, our anxiety!

O'er that which may be ours Tomorrow!

111

Oh then, sweet ones, guide us
To your Springs of Quiet!
Care has sorely tried us—
We are sick of Riot—
And would fain know where they be,
Those Fountains of Tranquillity!

PART THE NINTH.

As the Sunbeams lighten
Chambers of the Deep,

And are they not then silent and delicate teachers

All my breast ye brighten,
All my bosom steep
In thought—delightful Calm bestowing
Till my eyes are overflowing!

Why then toil for treasure,
Gold and Silver so?—
I have store of pleasure

of the littleness of wealth

Long as Flowers blow;
Joys that pall not may be mine
While dew falls, or sunbeams shine

Teach me not to languish
Any more for Fame;

and fame, and power and praise,

Not to quail at Anguish,
Wild Delight to tame—

112

Take what happiness I may,

and meek and shining exemplars of extremes avoided and content attained?

Bidding lofty Thoughts away!

I will ask no praises—
Friendships—very few;
Power in me raises
No wish to pursue;
Sunny fields—blue skies—the lyre—
These are all that I require!

Let me live as ye,
Happy Flowers, do;
Love my Sunlight be—
Poesy my Dew;
Love and song all wants supply
Till tranquilly as you I die!

1831.

Who shall tell out the colours of their Glory?

113

A SIMILE.

When placid is the Lake,
And not a breath of air
With smile-like ripple doth its silver surface break,
The Heavens, mirrored there,
A glorious picture make,
Doubled in every change of brilliant, foul or fair.

And so my heart shall be
A Lake wherein shall glow
The true reflection of its lovely Heaven, thee!
And all thy clouds of Woe
And stars of Joy shall see
Their sweet forms imaged in my watchful breast below.

And as the Lake remains
Itself unseen, unknown,
Its only features those which from the Heavens it gains,—
My heart shall of its own
No pleasures and no pains,
No joys, no hopes possess, but throb with thine alone.

114

And as the lake-born sky
Combines with that above,
To form one sphere complete of beauty deep and high—
My heart and thine shall prove
A double unity,
A two-fold single sphere of happiness and love!

September, 1831.

115

THE BROKEN TRYST.

Alas! poor lady! desolate and left—
Two Gent. of Verona,

What! all alone desponding,
Fairest, quite alone?
Love's adoring minions,
Vanished, every one!

None to praise the tangles
Of thy jetty hair,
And brokenly to tell thee,
Thou art very fair!

To draw thy breath in sighing—
To kiss thy soft blue eye,
And of very tenderness
Almost to die!

The whispering voice of Night—
But cheerless things it says;
The Moon's a silent lover—
Cold the Fountain's praise!

116

Moon! Moon! shine not so brightly—
Those beams are idly thrown
To tell the poor forlorn one
She is all alone!

Moon! Moon! shine not so coldly—
Thy kisses cold and wan
Poorly supply the place of those
For ever, ever gone!

Oh shine no more, no more, Moon!
Thy tender look but mocketh!
Thy light—it is not Love's light—
Its brightness only shocketh!—

Cease, Fountàin, cease thy murmur!
Thy sweet tender tone,
Reminds her of another
Sweeter than thine own!

Last night thy waters murmured
In the self-same tone;
But then he listened with her—
And now she's all alone!

Oh, rest thy weary bosom,
Sweet, on the balustrade—
Cold as the heart is, that so late
Its warm, warm pillow made!

117

Thou wert a simple Flower,
And he, the pilfering Bee
Who stole thy love, the honey—
Cruel, cruel he!

Sorrow now must woo her—
Constant lover, he,
All unlike her first love,
Is not wont to flee.

He's a jealous Lover;
Miser of the heart,
Grudging Joy his rival,
Any, any part!—

Prythee, weep, forlorn one!
Tears will give thee ease—
Strange—dark Grief should father
Children bright as these!—

Nay, do not, do not weep so!
Lest it break thy heart—
Did'st not know that bright dreams
Soonest, first depart?

Did'st not know that Sorrow
Comes when Joys are dearest—
To the most confiding
Treachery is nearest?—

118

She will ever weep so—
She will never smile—
Death will dry those meek eyes
In a little while.

I have seen a poor dove,
With a broken wing—
Surely, surely thou art
Such a maimëd thing!

I have seen a Rainbow,
One half dissolved and gone—
More than half her bright soul
With her love has flown!

Die, then, die, forlorn one!
Peace returneth never—
In the cold grave, poor one,
There is rest for ever!

August, 1831.

119

A SEA SIDE CALM.

The morning air was pure and cool—
Asleep the silver bay;
Each object on the shining sands,
In shade reflected lay.

The giant Cliffs in long array
Were drawn up by the sea;
Their heads thrown back with lofty pride
In musing Majesty.

The Sea methought did woo the Earth
In low fond tones of love—
The silent Sky hung stooping o'er,
And listened from above!

The herds of clouds were lying down—
The hunting Winds were gone;
Their angry bark was heard no more,
The weary chase was done.

120

A calm, ambrosial consciousness
Did Nature's bosom steep—
A stillness, not so stern as Death,
And more profound than Sleep!

'Twas music mute, and voiceless speech—
A quiet, creeping, spell—
Repose—without forgetfulness,
And silence audible!

September, 1831.

THE CARD CASE'S PETITION.

TO A LADY.

May I come and attend on you, day after day,
As you wing through your friends like a bee through the flowers?—
Though the bee on his visits takes sweetness away,
While you would bestow all the sweetness on ours?

Oh can I expect you will deign to receive me,
When so few and so poor must my services be?—
For since every one loves you that knows you, believe me,
There are none will deny themselves ever to thee!

Oct. 1831.

121

THE “LAND O' THE LEAL.”

“There's nae sorrow there, Jean,
There's neither cauld nor care, Jean,
In the Land o' the Leal!”
Scotch Song.

Και τοτε, ως εοικεν, ημιν εσται ου επιθυμουμεν τε και φαμεν ερασται ειναι, φρονησεως—επειδαν τελευτησωμεν, ζωσι δε ου. Plato: Phœdon.

Oh what a strange and a wonderous thing
It will be when the Soul from its earth-home takes wing,
And changes this narrow and darksome place
For the limitless spread of Etherial Space!

When it steals from its trammels of cumbersome clay
And wakes in the subtle void—far, far, away,
And marvels awe-struck what the hush of the scene,
And the vast and mysterious loneliness mean!

As the flame of the taper you thrust unaware
In a chamber surcharged with inflammable air,
Expands all at once to an atmosphere bright
Of wide-spreading blaze, a volume of light—

Will the spark of the Soul, half-stifled in clay,
Thus dilate as it springs into measureless Day,
And spread with the rush of a Banner unfurled,
To the furthermost range of the spiritual world?

122

Will it silently float on its wondering way,
The strange and the secret by turns to survey?
Or burst into Being of boundless expanse,
And drink all the Universe in with a glance?

Will it bid a farewell to the Sky and the Sun,
And the Stars, that in glory and mystery run—
Like fire-flies glancing through cloud-woven bowers,
Or golden hail driving in dazzling showers—

And the many-hued awning of Cloud spread on high,
Which shuts o'er the globe, like the lid o'er its eye?
And the dark-bright Earth with her dœdal dress,
And her changes on changes of loveliness?

Will it nevermore list to the deep melody
Which she hums as she flies, like a murmuring bee—
The music she whirls to, which ceaseth never,
The chaunt of the wind and the chime of the river?

Oh what will the Soul be where matter is none—
The visible, audible, tangible gone—
Where Mind is the only Existence, and nought
Is remaining but senseless and bodiless Thought?

123

Will it be through Eternity radiantly shrined
In a cloud of pure brightness undefined,
Like the formless flood of silvery light
Which hides the Sun's orb in winter white?

Or revel in all that sweet Poesy breathes
Of Elysium—ambrosia—and amaranth wreathes?
All that is joyous and all that is bright—
The sapphire—the onyx—the chrysolite?

The emerald-green, resplendent bowers—
The crystal streams—the unfading flowers—
All refined from the grossness they wear below
To a mellow, transparent, etherial glow!

And the towers heaped up like the silvery piles
Of sun-lit clouds when the summer smiles;—
And the pearly domes, and the long colonnades,
And the softer gleams of their gem-lit shades!

And the diamond-roofs raining their blinding rays;
And the fretwork alive with a rainbow blaze;
And the tall aisles that shoot far far away,
Built of radiance that moves with a flitting play;

And the wide sea of Spirits that dazzle the sight,
And their Crowns that quiver and flash with light,
All violet-dark as the Sun's disk may be With the depth of their liquid brilliancy!

124

And the bright jasper-pavement that mirror-like flings,
From its surface the hues of the Seraphim's wings,
Whose glossy and changing green, rich-blue and gold
Would make all the plumage of Earth dim and cold!

And the harmonies floating through all Time and Space,
That in beauty breathe on though their birth none may trace;
For Music once made shall exist evermore,
Nor in Silence, its Death, fade away as before!

And the ever-new songs of the Cherubim choirs;
And the thrilling throb of their golden lyres;
And the floating flush of the fragrant air,
And the melodies ringing everywhere!

We know not—we guess not—how these things may be;
The rapture to feel—and the glory to see!
We only conceive that Repose will be there,
Unbroken by sorrow—uncankered by care!

There the bud of our Reason shall perfectly blow,
And reveal all we darklingly ponder below—
All that we hear, and all that we see,
In the light of a lovely consistency!

125

And that mournful questioning never again
Shall arise—which makes Admiration a Pain,
From the mystery mantling the Death and the Birth
Of everything beautiful here on Earth!

There the bitter and sad shall for ever be gone,
And the Pleasaunce of Sorrow be tasted alone;
And Memory, Hope, and Possession unite
In one deep gush of serene delight!

Memory—unpoisoned by sad regret;
And Hope, by no doubts, no fears beset—
Possession enduring, and never to cloy—
Condensed to a crisis eternal of joy!

There the Will and the Power together shall flow;
Hand in hand with Fulfilment Desire shall go!
Disappointment and Grief shall not enter there,
And Pride and Ambition be banished elsewhere!

Oh for a taste of that Calm of the breast—
That dreamy sleep of a brilliant Rest!
For a moment of that world's moony bliss,
To quiet the turmoil and fever of this!

126

What is Death, what is Death, then, if he will explain
All the doubts that so restlessly harass the brain?
And where is the gloom of the terrorless Tomb,
If its shadows the clouds of the Mind will illume?—

Like the darkened approach to a grotto spar-bright,
Is the dark path of Death to the regions of Light;
And its palpable Night but the foil may be
To the sparkles that gem Eternity!

Then let Life fade away with its glimmering sheen,
For the Night must rush down e'er the Stars can be seen,
We shall leave only weariness, languor at best,
And meet undisturbed, eternal Rest!

Christmas, 1831.

“Then unembodied doth it trace
By steps each planet's heavenly way,
Or fill at once the realms of space,
A thing of eyes that all survey?”

Byron.

“Dark with excessive bright.”—Paradise Lost.

—“the bright
Pavement—that like a sea of jasper shone.”

Paradise Lost.

Moving about in worlds not realized.”

Wordsworth.

127

“GOOD-BYE!”

Good-bye!—yes, good be with thee ever,
Though fraught the words with ill to me—
Oh could my wishes guard thee, never
Should evil trouble thee!

Good-bye!—as much of good remain
With thee, as will with me of sorrow—
Thy joy could not exceed the pain
That will be mine to-morrow!

And yet to one so good, believe
Good wishes must superfluous be—
For who would harm, or wrong, or grieve
A gentle thing like thee?

Good-bye!—but in that tender tone,
Oh say not, love, `good-bye,' to me—
To wish me good when thou art gone,
Is cruel mockery!

128

Thou art my good—and I shall find
No good, no joy, when wanting thee,
Except thine image in my mind—
And that shall never flee!

But did you really wish my breast
To feel the good you seem to pray,
Oh you would grant your own request—
And ever with me stay!

Jauuary, 1832.

129

TO IONE.

Thy deeply-chiselled brows,—thy twilight eyes
Upraised in gentle seriousness,—thy hair
Whose long black weight makes more than marble fair
The smooth brow and white bust whereon it lies,—
Have given thy loveliness that tone we prize
For its attractive awe—that deep serene
Solemnity of sweetness, which is seen
In dark blue zenith depths of Alpine skies!
The untamed Life of young pure Thought, in thee,
So gently bold, so innocently free,
Seems mellowed to a glowing still repose,
A fervent calm its holiness bestows,—
A look half rapture and half awe—meek fire
We know not most to love, to worship, or admire!

January 31, 1832.

130

TO AGNES.

Thine azure eyes, floating in pensive light,—
Thy raven hair,—thy features, soul-imprest,
So tingeless and transparent—simply drest
In placid purity—serenely bright,—
Would make me deem that thou hadst winged thy flight,
A blessed Spirit, sped on love-behest,
From some celestial Home of sainted Rest!
But when thy dark-fringed eyelids, curved and white,
In mournful meekness veil thine eyes' blue beaming,
As sink a silver dove's wings o'er the dart,—
I feel how sweetly human is thy heart,
And long to reassure thy timid seeming,
Protect thy gentle innocence, and press
Thy breast to mine in ecstacy of tenderness!

April 1, 1832.

131

THE LONE STAR OF LOVE.

“But soft! what light through yonder window breaks!”
Romeo and Juliet.

I.

Stilly as sinks on a Flower of June,
The weight of dusk Eve or of sultry Noon—
Mutely and densely as fog-mists enthral
The elegant Fabric on which they fall—
Thus mutely and deeply, with novelty laden
Has the pall of Love mantled the beautiful Maiden!

And the downcast light of the eye, half-hid
By the heavily drooping, transparent lid;—
And the long jetty lashes, imbedded that lie
In the liquidly lustrous glow of the eye,
As, when the Sun, with a mournful glare
Is setting behind a wood all bare,
The black naked branches by which he is crost
In the indistinct brightness are almost lost;—
Those glossy dark fringes that seem to seek
To pillow themselves on the damask cheek,

132

Whose delicate sheen with a warm-blush is burning,
Like the Daisy away from you modestly turning;—
And the rose-lips, down sinking in sweetest of sadness,
Undimpled,—unwreathed by the smilings of gladness;—

Nay, the head that is bowed, as the blue-bell may be,
When it folds to its bosom the searching bee,—
And the arm, that can scarcely its own weight sustain,
But unweetingly losing its hold again
Of the curtain it clung to, is ready to glide
Slowly adown to her gentle side—
Sooth to say, her whole graceful but buoyantless frame,
Unupheld and so languid—all tell us the same,
The same soft tale of the o'ermastering weight
Of her spirit's tyrannical tender freight!—

The attitude was suggested by Mr. Newton's beautiful picture of the Dutch Girl.

II.

Yes! Love doth deeply oppress her—I trow:—
As noiselessly, softly as clouds of snow
Do weigh down the boughs of a cedar-tree,
Thus overladen with Love is she.
Gently and tenderly every limb
He hath brought into quiet subjection to him—
Smoothing them down with a softening touch,
As ye smoothe a Dove's feathers when ruffled too much—

133

And each feature is stamped with the impress intense
Of his pervading influence.

And as sunbeams, in which they transparently sleep,
A Flower's rich-hued petals steep,
Through and through them free-flowing, till the floweret seems
To be made of the Light which on it streams;
Thus are the gushes of subtle feeling
To her Frame's and her Spirit's recesses stealing;—
Her Soul, and the Frame where it meekly doth rest,
Like a lovely bird in a lovely nest,
Both with that Feeling so fully are fraught
That she seems but the Essence of passionate Thought!

And like as the Flower, its light-mingled hues
Doth o'er the air it respires diffuse,
So the Maid breathes an atmosphere, round and above,
An atmosphere sated and teeming with Love!

III.

But is not Sadness in her air,
And on her brow a tinge of Care?
And feels she then that Weariness
Which repose can make no less?
Without fatigue, that Want of Rest,
For aching heart, and weary breast?

134

And does she prove that dear Distress,
The workings of sweet bitterness—
The crave—the void—the restlessness?
The darling Woe which 'tis a pain
To relinquish or retain?

And does she fondly, sadly cherish
Thoughts that drain Life's fountains dry,
With obstinate love resolved to perish,
Ere her heart's poor nestlings die?
And does she nurse the Pelican-brood
Of Wishes not to be withstood,
Which, like that Desert-winger's young,
Too often drain the dear life-blood
That warms the breast from which they sprung?—

Alas! that ever Pleasure paineth!
That Woe so deep such Joy containeth!
And well-a-day! that ever Gladness
Should be but a phase of Sadness!

IV.

Have you seen when the Summer's day is done,
And the Earth turns away from her lord, the Sun,
Like a love-sated weary one,
By his gifts and his kisses no more to be won?

135

Though he had pranked her in glorious braverie,
In cloud-robe of purple, far-flowing and free,
And of crimson adornment, as rich as may be?
All braided with water-gold, gorgeous to see,
And jasper-streak, sheening bewitchingly?—
His labour is thrown away, I guess,
The Ladye-Earth turns from his rich caress,
And himself and his favours capriciously spurning
For a new Paramour is the faithless One burning!
And lo! the sweet awe of the fading twilight,
Prepareth the way for her new-love Night!—

And then have you seen the first lone Star,
Faint with its journeying from afar—
In the surfaceless Heaven's paly blue
Still liquidly warm with a roseate hue—
Hanging with a motionless light,
Innocently calm, and timidly bright?

Belike, unperceived she hath stolen away,
From the flashing halls where her Sisters play,
In golden troops eternally dancing,
Like glittering sun-sparks on wavelets glancing!—
She hath come to the outskirts of Heaven awhile
On some Meteor-Genie of Earth to smile,
And throbbingly list to his harrowing tale,
Of the woes and the dangers that did him assail

136

While fettered he lay on the dismal swamp,
Chained to the marish-floor, cold and damp—
Like a purple-winged Peri when doomed by the rage
Of the Demons of Evil to pine in a cage—
And how he escaped with such danger and pain,
And is come to his Angel, his fair One again!

But alas for the ear that will list to his tale,
And alas for the cheek that will turn so pale,
And the innocent heart that will meekly believe
And fondly confide in the words that deceive!
For soon she will see him glide down the steep sky,
Nor care though he leave her to mourn till she die,
Or to wander heart-broken, disconsolate, pining,
Through the airy-built halls where her sisters are shining!

V.

And a Star seems the Maiden all brightly to be,
In the light of her Angel purity!
A young, fair Star, such an one as is given,
To make of this dull Earth a radiant Heaven!

And she resteth now, star-like and still,
Expectant on the window-sill;
And watcheth, like that horizon-gem,
The sweetest in Night's diadem!

137

So be the light, her heart alluring,
Than that Meteor more enduring!
So may her Love-mate be truer
Than that meek Star's Meteor-wooer!

Feb. 1832.

138

LOVE AND CIRCUMSTANCE.

“Circumstance, that unspiritual God
And miscreator—”
Childe Harold.

I.

Alas! that most our wishes swell
For what is least attainable!
That what we can and what we should
Is so removed from what we would !
Alas! need is we pare and press
The mind to meet its earthly dress,
And mould it to a statue which
May suit its narrow worldly niche!

For Circumstance is a cruel thing,
Remorseless all, and uncomplying—
And aye bemocketh tears and sighing;—
And Fancy's is too wild a wing,—

139

And what to sanguine Youth appears
The bud of Smiles, may bloom in Tears!

The author has unconciously adopted these lines from Cowper—who has,

“But what we would-so weak is man—
Lies oft remote from what we can.”

Sheridan says of plagiarisms, “Faded ideas float in the fancy like half-forgotten dreams; and the imagination in its fullest enjoyments becomes suspicious of its offspring, and doubts whether it has created or adopted.” May we not affirm the same in the less lofty case of phrases and turns of expression floating in the memory?

II.

And when some sunny Isle of Bliss
Along the sea of Life is spied—
And straight our bark puts off for this,
And Hope her sails unfurleth wide—
And nearer still, and still more near
That bright Isle woos our mad career—
Then woe for what full soon is seen!
A thousand breakers rise between,
And with long-rolling burst defend,
The pleasant Isle to which we tend!
They boil and hiss, and raise on high
Their surf-white heads complainingly,
And press around, with plaintive cry,
And like a wild bird's famished brood
Importunate for wanted food!

III.

And are not these breakers the passionate pangs
Which clutch the torn heart with their desperate fangs,
When the Tide of fierce wishes which hurry the Soul
Heedlessly on its dazzling goal,
Breaks o'er the sharp rocks—discovered too late,
Which the Demon of Circumstance, Fiends of Fate,
For the poor Heart's shipwreck miscreate?

140

IV.

And many the Isles that gem that sea,
And varied in form as the wishes may be!
Ambition is there with its mountains high,
And its pinnacles piercing the depths of the sky;—
And the gentle slopes and the still dells of Ease,
With their murmuring streams, and their slumbery trees;—
And the low coast of Wealth, dull and dark to the show,
But teeming with mines richly laden below;—
And looming in Majesty, shrouded in mist,
That strange Isle—whose music clay souls never hist—
To whose heart-thrilling echoes “clear spirits,” must list—
What is it but Fame? though it be not avowed
If a real isle it be, or only a cloud?
Like renowned Atalanta, much-babbled of old,
Which all might approach though but few could behold,
Or Mona mist-hid from the hardy sea-rover
By a mermaid to punish her cold-hearted lover!

V.

But Love is the foremost and crowning Isle
Of all that in Life's Archipelago smile!
And what if Love be, though so fancy-bright,
An all unattainable Home of Delight?
One of those rich Resting-places of Bliss,
Too sweet to be gained in a world like this!
As bright as a Star or Rainbow to view—
But like Rainbow or Star, unapproachable too!

141

And what if its Sorrow-girt Pleasaunce appears,
Like the delicate Foxglove, which gracefully rears
Its stem hung with pink-bells, so meekly forlorn,
Through briars all tangled and bristling with thorn!
While Fancy alone is the Bee that has power
To fly past them all—and to sip of the flower!

January, 1832.

142

ADRIAN'S DYING ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL.

[_]

[Animula—vagula—blandula!
Hospes, comesque corporis!
Quæ nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula, rigida, nudula—
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos!]

Tremulous, fluttering, Spirit!—
Guest and companion whose presence
Did enliven the Body, and cheer it—
Whither, Oh whither art flying?—
Mournful—and shrinking—and sighing—
Where be thy jokes and thy pleasaunce?

April 7, 1832.

143

WELLINGTON.

(ON A PICTURE BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.)

I.

The dense smoke's volumes, rolling pitchy gloom
Across the darkened sky—the vivid play
Of levelled flashes, glancing bright dismay—
The winged Artillery's loud exulting boom,
With fierce joy bellowing forth a nation's doom—
These, and the bounding thrill, the rapture-rife
Intense intoxication of the strife,
The deadly revelry making Earth a Tomb—

Declare the War-delirium at its height!—
Meanwhile, in all the uproar of the scene,
Curbing his pawing steed—unmoved—serene—
Sits Wellington! but not the stern delight
That fires the common warrior, can excite
His features' hardy calm—wherein exprest
Most visibly, looks forth the Mind, at Rest
In riotous Amaze—in wild Affright

144

Composed—whose home is on the Battle-field—
The Petrel of the War-storm—in repose
Where grappling in the death-gripe thousands close!
In calmest consciousness of Strength, self-steeled,
Behold in him the Master-mind revealed!
The cloudless brow—the clear well-opened eye—
The half-smile on the lips—all foes defy—
His very Quiet is a People's shield!

So, proudly rising in the hushed profound
Of vacant purple, soars some Alpine Peak,
Smiling in sunny calm—while, surging round
Its base, wide foaming Mist-waves boil and break!

II.

The mildness of his mien might seem to mock
The Hosts together flung with Earthquake shock!
The cheerful ease of his confiding air,
But ill betrays his all-Importance there!
For through those lips what few short words transpire,
Are Giants to upheave an Army's ire!
That calm glance shoots the lightning of its ken
O'er many a sulphur-clouded mass of men!
The reins of Rage are guided by his hands,
He wields the wrath of myriad warrior-bands!
Proud-seated Cities bow before his breath—
He waves Destruction—nods Despair and Death!

145

Leagued Nations nerve him, in the awful hour
Of red Revenge, with strength condensed, to smite;
The gathered energies of Empires glow
In him—the Vehicle of all their Power,
The Focus of their concentrated Might,
Flashing its death-glare on the dazzled Foe!

By Genius throned, on Self-Possession's height,
Unmoved he scans the Chaos spread below—
A still Moon shining through the Combat's night
Bidding its Tides of Fury ebb and flow—
A Sun, whose high behests serenely guide
The fierce Monsoons of Battle to and fro;
After whose path of calm commanding Pride
Etesian war-winds wildly hurrying go—
A Battle-Pharos, beaming steady light
Far o'er the raging Sea of fluctuating Fight!

Of the thick and sulphurous fight.”

Byron's French Ode.

The peculiar calmness, amounting almost to dejection, which was the predominating expression of Napoleon's features during the battle of Austerlitz, is recorded by Savary, and strikingly preserved in the celebrated picture by Gerard.

March 12, 1832.

146

ADRIAN'S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL WHEN DYING.

PARAPHRASED.

Spirit! gentle—kindly!
Fluttering, wandering Thing!
Long the Body's tenant—
Its companion dear—
Whither would'st thou blindly?
Why art on the wing?—
Silently awe-stricken—
All aghast with fear;
Strangely grave and mournful,
Wrapt in settled gloom—
Shrinking from the shadows,
Of thy coming doom!
No quips, no jests has thou—
No mirthful fancies now!

1832.

147

SISERA.

“Then sang Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam”—
Judges.

Wake! son of Abinoam!—Deborah, wake!
Uprise, and your timbrels of victory take!
For the Conqueror's conquered—the Tyrant is slain
And Israel exults in her freedom again!

With the rumbling of thunderclouds heard from afar,
Rolled Sisera's chariots on to the war!
As the hot Simoom blasts with its withering breath
Proud Sisera scattered Destruction and Death!—

He is dead—he is gone! with his horsemen of might—
A terror at morning—a byword at night!
They are stirless as clods on the plains where they strode,
And in silence they rot where they recklessly rode!

148

The Stars fought against them—the Rivers arose—
Old Kishon was first with the tyrants to close!
The dark Heaven scowled on their desperate path—
They withered—they shrunk from the blaze of its wrath!

Wake! Deborah, wake! Sleep'st thou, Barak?—Oh wake!
Let your timbrels of triumph glad melody make!
For the Earth and the Skies did the work of the sword,
And dashed into nothing the foes of the Lord!

1827 and 1832.

149

THE VOICE OF THE PESTILENCE.

BY A YOUNG FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.

Αιλινον, αιλινον ειπε: το δ'ευ νικατω:
Æsch. Agam.

I.

Breathless the course of the pale white horse,
Bearing the ghastly Form—
Rapid and dark the spectre bark
When it sweeps before the storm!
Balefully bright, through the torrid night
Ensanguined meteors glare—
Fiercely the spires of volcanic fires
Stream on the sulphurous air!

Shades of the slain through the Murderer's brain
Flit terrible and drear—
Shadowy and swift the black storm-drift
Doth trample the atmosphere!
But swifter than all, with a darker pall
Of Terror around my path,
I have arisen from my lampless prison—
Slave of the high God's wrath!

150

II.

A deep Voice went from the Firmament
And it pierced the caves of Earth—
Therefore I came on my wings of flame
From the dark place of my birth!
And it said: “Go forth from the South to the North
Over yon wandering ball—
Sin is the King of that doomëd Thing,
And the sin-beguiled must fall!”

III.

Forth from the Gate of the Uncreate,
From the portals of the Abyss—
From the caverns dim where vague Forms swim,
And shapeless Chaos is!
From Hades' womb—from the joyless Tomb
Of Erebus and Old Night—
From the unseen deep where Death and Sleep
Brood in their mystic might—
I come—I come !—before me are dumb
The nations, aghast for dread—
Lo! I have past, as the desert-blast—
And the millions of Earth lie dead!

151

IV.

A voice of fear from the Hemisphere
Tracketh me where I fly—
Earth weeping aloud for her widowhood—
A wild and desolate cry!
Thrones and Dominions, beneath my pinions
Cower like meanest Things—
Melt from my presence, the pride and the pleasaunce
Of pallor-stricken Kings!
Sorrow and mourning supremely scorning,
My throne is the boundless Air—
My chosen shroud is the dark-plumed cloud
Which the whirling breezes bear!

V.

Was I not borne on the wings of the Morn
From the jungles of Jessore,
Over the plain of the purple main
To the far Mauritian shore?
To the isles which sleep on the sunbright deep
Of a coral-pavëd sea,
Where the blue waves welter beneath the shelter
Of Heaven's serenity?
From the womb of the waters, athirst for slaughters
I rose that thirst to sate—
Those green isles are graves in the waste of the waves,
Their beauty is desolate!

152

From the wide Erythrean the noise of my Pœan
Rolled on the Southern blast—
Eternal Taurus made answering chorus,
From his glaciers lone and vast!
Did I not pass his granite mass,
And the ridged Caucasian hill—
Over burning sands—over frost-chained lands,
Borne at my own wild will?

VI.

Then hark to the beat of my hastening feet,
Thou shrinëd in the Sea—
Where are thy dreams that the Ocean-streams
Would be safety unto thee?
Awaken! awaken! my wings are shaken
Athwart the troubled sky—
Streams the red glance of my meteor lance,
And the glare of mine eager eye!
Hearken, oh hearken! my coming shall darken
The light of thy festal cheer—
In thy storm-rocked home, on the Northern foam—
Nursling of Ocean—hear!

1831.

153

NIGHT.

A FRAGMENT.

[_]

(BY THE SAME.)

“—'tis not merely
The human being's pride, that peoples Space
With Life, and mystical Predominance.”
Coleridge's Wallenstein.

The wings of the Night-wind brood
Over the deep Tyrrhene;
The buoyant plains are strewed
With star-beams from between
Yon filmy-pacëd Clouds that travel the serene!

Forth from their dewy prison,
The subtle Mists arisen
Wind o'er the heaving waste of sable waves;
And upon Spirit-wings
Sepulchral whisperings
Float upward from the dark of the untrodden caves.

Formless and undefined,
Move on the silent Mind,

154

Presences from a world invisible—
As upon wood and meadow,
White clouds drop quick shadow
When scattered over heaven at the West wind's will.

Within her own deep cells,
The Human Spirit dwells,
List'ning the weird thoughts that she cannot shun—
Thoughts of Birth and Being
And Death—that mock th' unseeing
And sense-bedimmëd eyes of mortal vision!

Beings of other mould
With her still converse hold,
Filling dew-like the Void etherial—
Converse rarely heard
By the passion-stirred
Soul that enchainëd is, in this material Thrall.

Music—gentle and rare—
Glides on the throbbing air,
As over cloudless Skies the grey moonshine—
Softer than radiant Dreams—
Brighter than fitful gleams
Of transitory joys on hearts that inly pine.

Denizens of Faëry,
Vague and visionary—

155

Children o' th' bright Dreams of the impassioned Eld,
Genii and Gnomes
That people the far Domes
Of star-ensphering Heaven—deep in the Unbeheld—

Beautiful Shapes and dim,—
The vacant air do swim,
Thronging the Chambers of the wan Midnight,—
Tissue of waving cloud
Mantles the bodiless crowd;
The charmëd Soul o'erflows with tremulous Delight.

She wakes from the grave of Sense
Where she hath buried been,
Fraught with Intelligence,
Ardent and pure and keen—
Hearing the erst Unheard—and gazing on th' Unseen!

1832.

156

HORACE TO LAMIAS.

BOOK I. ODE.

“Musis amicus—tristitiam et metus, &c.”

[_]

(ALCAICS.)

Dear to the Muses, gaily I hurl away
Sorrow and Fear for wild winds to whirl away
O'er Cretan waters—little caring
Who may be fearful of Monarch daring

Throned by the Pole; who plotting annoyances
Threat'ning the East!— Oh Muse! thou whose joyaunce is
In crystal fountains purely flowing,
Weave me a crownal of flow'rs full blowing,

Weave them for Lamias! Glory can do for me
Nothing without thee:—Come, then, renew for me
My lyre, and hymn my Lamias meetly,
Thou and thy sisters according sweetly!

157

“Οιχεται θανωιν.”
“He's gone dead.”
Greek Trag. passim.

158

To “------,”

Which symbol best may represent
The “even tenor of her way,”
Her heart and mind (though far indeed from blank
And ever most upright),
Single—straightforward—pure—well-ruled—
No rising vanity—no crooked double-thought;—or,
To “---,”
Which emblem better still may typify
Her feelings all starbright with kindly cheerfulness,
The glowing warmth of her benevolence;—
In short, to her,
Than whom none can afford more charity for the failings of others,
As few can require so little for home-consumption—
Who has a kind glance at all times for all who approach her—
(Except when she's taking a nap)
And a kind word to give to all who address her—
(Except when she has lost her voice);
Who has pity in plenty for the sorrows and pains
Of creatures that walk upon two legs—
And therefore (à fortiori) must feel for the mishaps
Of those who go upon four;—

159

To her
The following Rhymes,
Prompted by “that sincere admiration” (and so on) of “the Genius”
And that “unfeigned regret” (&c. &c.) for the dissolution of their subject,
Which Biographers and Dedicators are wont to assume,
These Rhymes—
Occasioned by the melancholy decease
Of—A DOG
Who had been her bosom companion for upwards of thirteen years,
And since whose death (as is usually the case) we have suddenly discovered
That he was as “highly esteemed” before that event, as he is “deeply regretted” after it—
These Rhymes (I say a third time, for it's a terribly long sentence)
“Which it is hoped may not altogether,” &c.&c.&c.&c.
“Are humbly, and with the deepest, &c.&c.” &c.&c.&c.&c.
Inscribed by
Her “most grateful and affectionate friend,”
And “obedient humble servant,”
“THE AUTHOR.”

April, 1832.

160

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF FRISK.

“Our good old friend is gone—gone to his rest.”
Cowper.

“Ergo Quinctilium perpetuus sopor
Urguet?—cui Pudor, et Justitiæ Soror
Incorrupta Fides—nudaque Veritas
Quando ullum inveniet parem?”
Horace.

“Dead! Dead! Dead!—Oh, oh, oh!”
Othello.

“Dead? no, sure! what old Thomas Day!”
Glee.

“I'm sorry—but we all must die. [OMITTED]
“His time was come—he ran his race,
We hope he's in a better place.”
Swift.

“Stretched in the street—and able scarce to pant— [OMITTED]
“Poor fellow!—for some reason, surely bad,
They had slain him with five slugs.”
Don Juan, Canto v.

“Fallen—fallen—fallen—fallen—
And weltering in his blood—
On the bare earth exposed he lies
And not a friend to close his eyes.”
Dryden.

“But Tom is dead—and so no more of Tom.”
Don Juan.

161

Come, every Muse of saddest vein,
From her who prompted David's strain,
When “Brother Jonathan” was slain,
To her, whose sob
Wrung speeches from the Corporal's brain
O'er Master Bob!

Come thou who came at Milton's wish,
When Lycidas was food for fish;
Who wept o'er Keats with Percy Bysshe—
Inspired Marc Antony
When Brutus “carved the Gods a dish”
They scarce could want on high!

Come every Muse who mournfully
Doth Harp or Hurdigurdy ply;

162

Who stirred up Byron's burning sigh
When Thyrza fell,
Or bade Ben Battle “pipe his eye”
For faithless Nell!

Come all who turn, nor turn in vain
That cistern's cock, in which the rain
Of human tears is gathered—deign
Your aid to apply!
Grief is the cock through which you drain
The salt floods dry!

Bring every cry that Sorrow knows
From Greek “αι: αι:”s, “ε: ε”s, “ιω”s,
To our “Alack's,” “Alas's!” “Oh's!”—
Bring groans and sighs,
And handkerchiefs to blow the nose,
And wipe the eyes.

Come all and mourn with saddest mind
The good—the gentle, and the kind—
The friend sincere—the guest refined—
The foe to none;—
The Star of Dogs has sure declined—
For Frisk is gone!

163

As Homer in immortal lay,
Makes wise Ulysses fiercely say,
'Twas to the suitors (by the way
A currish crew!)
“Dogs,” says he, “you have had your day!”
We say so too!

The last of all the—Poodles! we
Must bid a sad farewell to thee!
It will be long before we see
Thy like again—
A coat and character so free
From spot or stain!

Thy merits, Frisk, as I opine,
Deserve an abler pen than mine—
But yet thy ghost (if ghost be thine)
Need not be fretted,
Nor by the Styx despairing whine,—
'Twas so regretted!

Aye! though no tomb thy bones encrust,
Nor (dog-faced) “animated bust”

164

Nor “storied urn” adorn thy dust—
The feeling heart
Thy death will mourn—it may and must—
Dog as thou wert!

What, though there was no sable show—
No plumes—no pall—no outside woe—
Nor all that retinue so slow
Of saddest stuff—
As death were not itself a foe
Quite sad enough—

Yet tears as true o'er thee descend,
As o'er the many Great, whose friend
Not sad enough himself to attend
The funeral courses,
Would—what will weep as truly, send—
His coach and horses.

And who with cold contemptuous sneer,
Will scorn the undesigning tear
That falls o'er thy—we can't say, bier,
Because thou'dst none—
But that which falls, (we hope so) here
O'er friendship gone.

Oh, is there so much love to spare
In this cold world of selfish care,

165

That even the sternest heart could bear
To spurn—reprove—
Or slight the meanest things there are,
Who offered love?

The tears of Heaven's affection streak
The dappled daisy's modest cheek,
So purely bright—so simply meek,
As fondly quite
As when the Oak's proud crest they seek—
A glorious sight!

The Heavens look down with equal love
Upon the sparrow of the grove,
And on the King-Bird, far above,
When charging on,
He rides full-tilt, in fight to prove
The astonished Sun!

Then why regard with scorn or mirth,
The creatures of fraternal birth,
The children of one Mother—Earth—
Whose each degree
Can feel and fill Affection's dearth
As well as we?

Oh, if a very worm relied
On my protection—would confide

166

In me, and love none else beside—
Could I reject it?
No! I would cherish it with pride,
And ne'er neglect it!

The dog—unlike the human race—
Loves on, through Pride and through Disgrace;
Unaltered fondness in his face
His tail he wags,
And owns the friend he knew in lace,
A friend in rags.

His Master's side he never fled,
Though black with crime by Passion bred—
Man coldly shrugs, and shakes his head,
With seeming sigh,
And talks of “Friendship forfeited,”
And “ruin nigh”!—

But I, methinks, have wandered long,
From him, the subject of my song—
And sooth it were a grievous wrong
To leave untold
What virtues in his breast did throng,
Who's stiff and cold.

His feats were not like theirs who brave
Deep Alpine snows, and travellers save

167

Who lose their way to find their grave—
Nor pulled he ever
A Roland Græme from out the wave,
With bold endeavour.

He rivalled not the Bow-street “rout ,”
In snuffing secret murder out;
Nor equalled him whose fame for snout
So wide and large is—
The dog there's so much talk about,
Of old Montargis.

He could not boast the murderous power
Of Billy, who, of dogs the flower,
Killed rats by thousands in the hour—
To save digression—
The best of valour was his dower—
And that's Discretion!

Yet though no rat of life he rid, who
Left four-legged orphans, long-tailed widow,
As Billy, cruel monster, did do—
Though travellers none for
His succour, back to Being slid, who
Had else been done for;—

168

Though we may say, and without slander,
He was no canine Alexander—
Nor did, a Howard on four feet, wander
Philanthropizing—
You'll find his virtues, if you ponder,
Were worth the prizing.

Each kind domestic quality,
And all accomplishments that be
Denied to dogs of low degree,
In him were found—
The Chesterfield of Dogs was he,
With heart more sound!

And though there are who do aver
At call to arms he would demur,
And “fortiter in re” to cur
But seldom showed,—Oh
'Twas but excess of “suaviter”
(Poor Dog!) “in modo”!

A Canine Lake-School would have crowned
Poor Frisk their king—in him was found
No love “of war or battle's sound”—
The milk so mild
Of quadrupedal kindness drowned
Such wishes wild!

169

His ever-peaceful conduct shows,
The Christian creed of love to foes
(Which we profess in midst of blows)
He followed better,
Than many a two-legged Christian does—
Christian by letter!

The Politics of Frisk, I ween,
Were moderate as e'er were seen—
He thought not Anarchy must mean
A Liberal's glory—
And difference found (perhaps) between
Tyrant and Tory.

While fierce discussion o'er him flew,
He gnawed his bone, nor thought it true
If you allowed Corruption—you
Would leave him none,
Nor that Reform would give him two
Instead of one!

He classed the “right divine” of kings,
Like far-famed Niger's mouth and springs,
With nature's secret, hidden things—
The time, the way,
Or who the right from Heaven brings
He could not say.

Perhaps it comes down in a sheet,
And sanctions them to “slay and eat”

170

Just whom they please—a glorious treat
Should make us vain!
Promoted into Monarchs' meat—
We can't complain!

True, Jove a log from Heaven sent,
When on a King the frogs were bent—
And surely, there's safe precedent
Why logs should be
Received as kings by heaven lent,
By you and me.

But Frisk of this was never told
So saw in Kings (profanely bold
He must have been) no better mould
Than flesh and blood,
Which Nations vest with power, to hold
For public good!

Yet joined he not with those who thought
That all to be made equal ought—
Like him, who all his captives brought,
Both great and small ones,
To fit one bed, by stretching short,
And lopping tall ones .

171

Again he held, his whims among,
That Nature meant each body (strong
Or weak) should to that Soul belong
To which she tacked it—
But wiser men prove Nature wrong
If thus she acted.

Strange waste of Soul, that thing divine!
It would have been in her to assign
A separate one to each—in fine
'Tis right black bodies
Should serve our souls, and I opine
So meant the Goddess!

In giving them their skins of black,
She clapt a livery on their back,
And stamped them slaves, to toil and hack
For souls in white case—
How could our Dog reject—alack!—
This plain and bright case!

Yet had his choice been (not to spin a
Long yarn) 'twixt Slavery with a dinner,
And Liberty without—the sinner!
The fault I fear
Had not been his, if he'd got thinner
So nigh good cheer.

172

For Faith, he had a “word in season”—
“You neither made your Will nor Reason,
Nor ever put yourself your knees on;
'Twas all inherited—
So talk the matter how you please, on—
You've nothing merited.”

To Sceptics vain, he said, (or might,)
“Unless you doubt your doubt—and quite
Mistrust your power of doubting right—
Where is your claim
To Reason's free, unclouded light—
'Tis all a name!”

That nothing we for certain know—
That nought's incredible below,
And nought indubitable—so
Our dog believed—
He thought not that it must be, though,
As he conceived .

173

His “cry ,” or bark, was moderation;
The golden mean of legislation,
'Twixt total change and conservation;
And though ye die for 't,
Freedom for every sect and nation—
(No doubt he 'll fry for't!)

But let us leave his politics
And call to mind his gambols, tricks,
And all that did our Friendship fix—
For nought remains
But Memory—since the gloomy Styx
All else retains.

How would he dance with lively bound
And twirl on two legs round and round—
Then, graceful sink upon the ground—
And take the bread
So gently, which his labours crowned—
And now—he's dead!

174

A pebble at your feet he'd lay—
Retreat a step or two—and pray
With wistful whine, that seemed to say,
“Do come and throw it!”—
His eyes the same request display—
His tail would show it!

And then his whine more earnest grew,
The stone was nearer pushed—he threw
A glance at it, and then at you—
His tail too, said
With more impatient wag “Now do!”—
But oh!—he's dead!

Those eyes, whose language did surpass
The eye-talk of love-smitten lass,
Or ev'n of Sterne's dejected ass,
Are past away—
“Dog's flesh as well as man's is grass”—
Death makes it hay!

Those eyes—as eloquent as bright—
The feet that told each want aright—
The exulting bark, to show delight,
The whine, to pray—
The Rhetoric of that tail so white—
Where, where are they?

175

Of Time we are the fools, the sport—
And all complain our Life is short;
Take fifty years from this—to nought,
Complaining Man,
The Dog's “sojourn on Earth” is brought,
To scarce a span!

Frisk died not in his bed or cot—
Nor died he in his shoes—his lot
Was not to fall by hangman's knot—
Yet tried was he,
Convicted of—old age, and shot—
His crime—to be!—

It was the ancient Scythians who
Their aged men and women slew—
We know not if Frisk's slayers too
Ere they could sate 'em,
Followed the precedent quite through
And—boiled and ate him

176

He fell—no fears his fame belied,
He perished with becoming pride;
Like Duke d'Enghien or Ney, he died
With tearless eye;
O'er which no bandage mean was tied—
So heroes die!

An edifying end we may
Affirm he made; he “past away
With Christian fortitude” as say
The tombstones ever,—
Though benefit of Clergy they
Allowed him never.

O'er him they held no “crowner's quest”—
No “useless coffin shrined his breast”
But “like a—Poodle taking rest”
Just so he lay—

177

No want of shroud or tomb distrest
His sleeping clay.

Then farewell Frisk! thour't kennelled now
Safe in that bourne from which nor thou
Nor any dogs return, but know
Delight unceasing—
No whine—no snarl will there avow
Dislike to teasing.

But hadst thou thy deserts—the might
Of Genius should thy form unite
With that ideal Menagerie bright,
That Phantom throng
Of creatures living in the light
Of deathless song!

There chirps Catullus' sparrow yet
With Lesbia's tears no longer wet;—
There Pope's and Byron's dogs forget
Their earthly cares;—
There Mailie frisks—poor Burns's pet—
With Cowper's hares;

There Gray's and Johnson's cats are found—
And with like fame should'st thou be crowned

178

And long as Earth spins round and round
With merry whisk,
Full many admiring tongues should sound
The praise of Frisk!

D.&.—The Will.

His wealth perhaps, on hobbies gone,
He died like Billy Pitt, with none—
Perhaps a kind good-natured crone
(Which first we'd best state)
Poor Frisk had no will of his own,
And died intestate.

179

Perhaps, being fond of notoriety
His wealth endowed “some good society,”
Of pleasure having had satiety,
While drawing breath—
Enabled thus to look with quiet eye
On coming death:

He left it, p'rhaps for Bible mission ,
To teach “wild salvages” contrition—
Perhaps to foster erudition
And useful knowledge,
In scholarship or exhibition
For dogs at college.

Perhaps in purpose philanthropic
To spread from pole to either tropic—
Perhaps to benefit poor Chlopicki's gallant Poles—
For even dogs on such a topic
Would show they'd souls .

180

His friendship, constant, warm, and weeded
From selfish motives, much was needed;
But Fashion's slaves to most succeeded—
Though, Heaven under,
If any love so well as he did—
'Twill be a wonder.

His tolerance—the Church had it,
(Dissenters scarcely got a bit;)
He left to Barristers dog-wit;
To Parliament,
For duellists who seldom hit,
His valour went.

To Merchants how could he deny
His honour delicate and high,
And boundless generosity.—
He made his power
Of picking clean, and lapping dry,
The Lawyer's dower.

181

Could he to Editors of News
His trick of twirling round refuse?
His candour, freedom from abuse
And gentleness,
Who would like party speakers use—
Who waste it less?

His self-mistrust, assumption small,
And modesty he left to all;
No single person would he call
Heir to his charity;
He knew, wherever it might fall,
'Twould be a rarity.

See Corporal Trim's eloquence on the death of Master Bobby, in Tristram Shandy.

Brutus says of Julius Cæsar—

“Let's carve him as a dish fit for the Gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds!”

Jul. Cæs.

See the dolorous Ballad of the Love and Death of bold Ben Battle for Nelly Gray, in Hood's Whims and Oddities.

The Greek Tragedians give us line after line of “οτοττοτοτοι:”s, “αι: αι: αι: αι”s, “ιαλεμων. ιαλεμων”s, &c.—by way of moving our pity—proving thereby the truth of Byron's assertion, that “Truth denie all Eloquence to woe.”

See Pope's (Homer's) Odyssey.—

“Dogs—ye have had your day!—ye feared no more
Ulysses vengeful from the Trojan shore!” &c.

Brutus (is it not?) mourning over the corpse of Cassius, calls him the Last of all the Romans.

—“the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard,” &c.

Par. Lost.

Chesterfield recommends the “suaviter in modo, et fortiter in re,”— the union of suavity of manner with firmness of action.

Procrustes (I think) was the famous robber who subjected his captives to this equalising ordeal—about as judicious a way of enforcing the physical “Rights of Man,” as the other would be of adjusting their moral and political ones.

Lucky reservation !—else doubtless had his canine conclusions and antiquated dogmatisms provoked felicitous applieation of Sidrophel's satire on

“Those Athenian sceptic owls
That will not credit their own souls—
But measuring all things by their own
Knowledge, hold nothing's to be known,” &c.

or, more effectively, of the gentleness and insinuating persuasiveness of the glorious Socrates, reasoning against those who conclude by supposing themselves σοφωτατοι γεγονεναι και κατανενοηκεναι μονοι οτι ουτε των πραγματων ουδενος ουδεν υγιες ουδε βεβαιον ουτε των λογων: of the mild and melancholy-tinged appeal: Ουκουν οικτρον αν ειη το παθος, ει . . . μη εαυτον τις αιτιωτο μηδε την εαυτου ατεχνιαν αλλα . . . τον λοιπον βιον μισων τε και λοιδορων τους λογους, διατελοι, των δε οντων της αληθειας τε και επιστημης στερηθειη. Plat. Phæd. 89, 90.

“Fair Liberty was all his cry,”—Swift.

Herodotus says the Massagetæ put to death, boiled and ate those whose age and infirmities made them encumbrances.—It was certainly a strange way of “living again in one's posterity”—these savages must have been the original “living graves” to which Byron compares the dungeons of Chillon. Each man was the burial-place of all his ancestry—a walking charnel-house—son after son widening the great self-sarcophagus, like the concentric rings made by throwing a stone into a pond—one within another, like the cases of a mummy, or the tubes of a sliding telescope— the last always embracing all that preceded him. A resurrectionist (or Burkite, for in this case the two would be identical) would not only have rifled the whole family vault at once, but have carried off the vault itself. It was the oak, not springing from, but re-inclosed in, the acorn. Vanity, in such circumstances, must have been a virtue, for in worshipping one's self, one would have been “honouring father and mother;” self-know-ledge would have been synonymous with length of descent, for in knowing one's-self, one would have known a far-ascending ancestry—in examining his own breast a man would have examined his pedigree. How truly might the young have declared that “the ills of Eld their earlier years alloyed,”—how literally may the old be said to have merged again into “second childhood—mere oblivion!”—The men of such an age, whether or not they “judicious drank,” certainly “greatly daring dined” —for at a meal they devoured all their forefathers. What were the suppers of the Roman Emperors or Cleopatra to this?—we can only hope they “inwardly digested” them.

“No useless coffin enshrined his breast—
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him,
But he lay like a Warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him!”

Wolfe.—Death of Sir J. Moork.

Catullus complains that Lesbia's eyes were red with weeping for the loss of her sparrow—Pope and Byron have immortalised their Dogs— Burns writes an Elegy on the death of Mailie, the Author's pet lamb—Gray a poem on the death of a favourite cat—Sterne has given everlasting existence to a starling and a jackass or two—Boswell records Johnson's fondness for his cat “old Hodge”—Frederic the Great was so grieved at the loss of one of his dogs, that nothing but his nose could compel him to suffer the removal of its carcass from his room. Walter Scott's Maida, and many other animals—pets of the Immortals, will occur to the mind of the reader.— A history of them all would form a pleasant Biographical Dictionary—an interesting intellectual Zoological Garden.

Very probably—seeing that hobby-horses are winged Pegasuses, (or Pegasi) for flying away with cash and kicking down money. They are terribly hardmouthed.

Canning—at Guildhall—wrote—

“He lived without ostentation and he died poor.”

Byron—in Don Juan—wrote—

“Pitt as a high-souled Minister of State, is
Renowned for ruining his country gratis!”

Are we to look for a specimen of the benefits to be derived from such appropriation of his property, to that strange combination of saints and savages, of swarthy chiefs and pale-faced missionaries—of barbarism and methodism—licentiousness and cant—Otaheite?

If so, it would be more than their brother Englishmen did; they showed neither souls nor bowels—at least of compassion—upon the occasion; however, ‘nil desperandum.’

‘For Freedom's battle once begun,
Requeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won!’

[There seems an ambiguity about this sentence. It is not sufficiently clear whether his “tolerance” is said to have been allotted to “the Church,” from their actual possession, or from their want of it—whether it is withheld from the Dissenters, because they already had so much that more would have been superfluous, or still have so little that none could ever have been imparted. In each point, as the Dog would most likely have done, we must withhold our judgment, or put the most charitable construction on the tèxt.]

182

HORACE TO HIS PAGE.

ODE. XXXVIII.—BOOK I.

[_]

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus
Displicent nexæ philyra coronæ,
Mitte sectari rosa quo locorum
Sera moretur

Simplici myrto nihil adlabores
Sedulus, curo; neque te ministrum
Dedecet myrtus, neque me sub arctâ
Vite bibentem.

[_]

(SAPPHIC.)

Much I mislike your orient parade, boy,
Little delight in coronals and posies,
Cease then to seek where longest undecayed, boy,
Linger the roses!

Bring simple myrtle, nothing intertwining
Myrtle alone will not become you meanly,
You nor myself, boy, 'neath my vine reclining,
Sipping serenely.

183

THE STARS.

Because not of this noisy world—but silent and divine.
Wordsworth.

I.

The sleep of sun-beguiled Earth is o'er—
The pearly lids of Day have drawn their screen
Of golden lashes from her lustrous eyes,
And they—albeit she shadows them in dark,
As one about to gaze upon a sight
Of most intolerable brilliancy—
Exult in interchange of glances glad,
With all the orbs of Argus-visioned Heaven!

On Day's blank skyey page Magician Night
Has traced the figures of his glittering lore,
The gorgeous symbols of his unknown tongue—
The eloquence of a language mystical—
The soul-exciting secrets of a science
Written in tomes which are the Universe,
Lettered in Stars, worded in burning Worlds,
And syllabled in Systems radiance-wrought!

II.

Oh then my Spirit, wake! wake thou, my soul!
Shake off the shackles of terrestrial commerce,

184

And with the ardour of etherial temper
Make strong thy pinions to uphold thy flight
Arduous, through endless multitudes of worlds,
Of moving worlds—unutterable crowds
And families of glory! On the Night,
The black outstretched immense of Darkness, launch
Thy loving ken enraptured—onward soar!
Through the starred Infinite wend thy wondering way
Unwearied—through the labyrinthine maze
Of golden marvels wind—and find no rest,
No pause, no change, no little space unfilled,
No respite from the infinite display
Of infinite might, where the bewildered soul
And Admiration overborne and spent
And dazed Delight may breathe a moment free!

III.

The glancing myriads rise—above, around,
Before—still, still upon the encumbered sight
They throng, they grow; on every side in swarms
Increasing, as by mirrors multiplied
Innumerable! lo, how the glittering shoals
Floating in quick succession through the blue
Vacuity, glide by the trancëd gaze,
Serenely swift, as sweep shores, fields, and trees,
And grazing cattle past a flying bark!

And mark! extant from out the studded Depths,

185

Of those which nearer strew our airy path
Each as it rapidly approaches seems
A spark—a star—a luminous orb—a globe
Immense, upon its separate aim intent,
And walking lone in silent confidence
Its settled way—ponderous, dilating sphere,
Hanging in solitude!—then shrinking fast,
From globe to luminous orb—to star—to spark,
Again it twinkles in the gemmed expanse,
And in the brilliant masses merging, flies!

IV.

How overpowering now the sense profound
Of shoreless—waveless—still Immensity!
Where now are Earth and Time—and their vain doings,
And where is Old—and New—and Past—and Present—
The Empires—and the Kingdoms—and the Glory?
Oh where is History with her restless years,
Power and Might with all their fluctuations?
The high Adventurings of old Renown—
The glorious visions of the indistinct Eld—
The illustrious things of dark Antiquity—
The ebb and flow of the great Tides of Time?
Where is the noise—the bustle—and the tumult—
The ceaseless clashing of continual Wars—
The exalted bass which follows murmuringly
The ever-rolling billows of Mankind?

186

The shaking thunders of the big World's march,
And the vast echoes of a thousand ages?—

Unheard—unknown—unseen—forgotten—lost—
Gathered, condensed, and dwindled to a spark—
All their high soundings sunk within the Deep
Of the unbounded Silence. The mute Sky
Through its far-rounding, solemn, clear, concave,
Loaded with stars, tells not of such—the void
Speaks not of them—the shadowy Inane
Knows not the fame thereof.—They are absorbed,
Lost in the hushed immense of hollow being—
Whisper-like melting from the mute Abyss,
As melts the hiss of feverish excitation
From off the surface of subsiding waters.

V.

But look again across the spangled steep
And tell us where the Earth thou callest thine?—
Left far behind and lost in crowded space—
Invisible!—But take yon little speck—
Hardly discerned amid the myriad lights
Profuse along the Heavens; what must be
The mites that crawl upon its surface when
Itself is but a point?—Oh is there found
Among them Pride, and big undoubting sense
Of Dignity, and Confidence disturbed

187

By no misgiving? Strive they to be known?
Oh toil its habitants to gain respect
And adoration on that little mote?
Do they with impotent endeavour strain
To force their fame throughout that tiny speck,
That single grain of sand upon a shore
Boundless far more than Ocean's—all composed
Of atoms each as worthy as itself?—

VI.

Ambition! look you here!
That atomy of light, minutest, faintest—
And by keen gaze alone discernible
Amid innumerable such, contains
A wider space than is bestowed on you
To scheme and fret in!—Kings and Lords of Earth,
Whose sceptered sway extends o'er regions wide,
And far-spread masses of mankind, and strength
Of cities vast—behold! a wider realm
Than you can boast, Kingdoms and nations more
Than worship you, are dwindled to that speck!
There stoop ye to your state—grope for your greatness—
There prick ye for your provinces, and lay
The microscope to your magnificence!

Poets! and ye to whom 'tis more than life
To break the bread of Fame, to feed on Glory,

188

And drink the draught of Honour—ye who toil
To lift your heads above your fellow worms,
And mar the relish of your real existence,
By revelling in all unreal Entity—
Spurning the joys of ordinary men,
With a dull distaste for all known delight—
Steeled in a strangely-sanguine stoicism,
A wild life-clinging impulse, which forgets
The life around it, phantasy-beguiled—
With a most quenchless ardour, and a deep
Uneasy longing for ye know not what—
Toiling for praise ye will not hear, for love
Ye never can return—for fond remembrance
And glowing reverence in the hearts of crowds,
The fervour of whose yearning adulation,
Will sadly mock your mouldering silentness—
See what a whole World's lasting Praise is pent in!
Be talked of in that speck—there climb to grovel—
Soar from its spaceless point until you crawl
Some hair-breadth higher then its creeping tenants;
Go be the boast, the glory of an atom;—
There vaunt yourselves the voice of viewless crowds,
The Mouth-piece of the hearts of Multitudes,
Whose mighty feelings fume within a speck!
Yes! there be very famous—in a spark
Even by yourselves 'mid thousand others lost
For utter insignificance!

189

VII.

Oh could we fill the Universe itself,
Aye, all which it inherit, with the sense,
The consciousnes of our existence—could we charge
With Soul, our Soul, the endless breadth of space,
And pour the puissance of pervading Mind
Throughout its unimaginable spreadings—
Oh could we load its limitless extent
With all-unchecked diffusion of our presence,
And with the being of our large Renown
Furnish the infinite—until the range
Of rapid-winking stars most coy of commune,
Should tell of us—this—this methinks were meet,
But meet Ambition for a Soul which claims
Deathless Eternity!—Could we unveil
The crowded tracts that lie far far beyond
That canopy of golden gems, perchance
We there might find fit object for the aim
And aspiration of Eternal Spirit—
There haply might discover region fit
For the expatiations unrestrained
Of immaterial Immortality!

VIII.

But here, here in our pointlike nook remote,
Our faintly-twinkling speck of light which shows
Like to a grain of sand on boundless sands—
Like to a bubble on a pathless ocean—

190

A leaf in forest-tracts interminable—
We cannot choose but wait—patient and firm—
Wrapt in the calmness of inemulous hope,
The quiet of a proud Humility;—
Setting minuteness of the visible world,
And littleness of those that tenant it,
Against the majesty of unmeasured Space,
And our own hopes of infinite Existence;—
Deducing from our kinship with the one,
A meek perception of our low estate,
A cold indifference for its puppet pomp,
Its paltry prides and dreams, pleasures and fears,—
And reaping from our yearnings for the other
A lofty consciousness—not free from awe—
Of birth superior, nobler destiny;—
Despising greatness, yet confessing weakness,
And owning meanness, though expecting might—
Thus should we rest—till Death do kindly couch
Our blinded eyes—purge our material ken,—
Infuse the keenness of immortal vision
Into these powerless orbs,—and with the glance,
The lightning glance of mental sight, endow
Our dull perception, till it brightly break
The cooping thraldom of our bonds of clay,
And, strong to pierce the ‘palpable obscure,’
Explore the secret, and embrace the mighty,
Gloat o'er the boundlessness of all that is!

1830 and 1832.

191

MIDNIGHT.

“Tell me moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of Heaven's pathless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now!”
Shelley.

'Tis dead of night—yet downy sleep
Sinks not upon my brow;
There is a spell more calmly deep,
That binds my spirit now:
For 'tis the hour
When Nature musing on her power,
Seems hushed in awe,
As if she scarcely dared her breath restrained to draw.

In every lifeless object round
There seems a pulse—a soul;
Yet each is throbless, breathless bound,
In mystic, mute control;
Hist! with a throng
Of whisperings, like the Sea-shell's song,
The air is fraught,—
Continuous, faint, and low—the very voice of Thought!

192

The frequent sighs of dripping caves
Are hollow, faint, and bland;
And softly sink the crystal waves
In smooth absorbing sand;
More soft than they,
This rippling Silence sings alway—
More soft, more faint,
This simmering Silence weaves its dimly-chiming plaint.

The moonbeams rest upon the white
And shadowed coverlet;
The dusky flakes of bluish light
Are crossed, like work of net,
Depicting plain
Each diamonded casement-pane;—
In cautious mood
They seem to peer around, ere further they intrude.

And through the glistening mistry glass,
The Moon, the curious elf,
Its barrier half-inclined to pass,
Is peeping in herself!
She seems to wait
Till those fair beams report the state
Of all within,
And tell when unperceived herself may entrance win.

193

And though detected now, lest more
Suspicion she excite,
She keeps the look she had before,
Unchanging—stirless quite!
So when the rest
Of watchful Spider you molest,
In shrunken shape
He boldly mimics death your notice to escape.

What is this strange bright Thing, which draws
So near at dead of night?
Its growing presence almost awes
With meekest, mutest might!
It fills my room—
In living Thought absorbs the gloom—
Its silence rife
With Spirit seems,—intense with conscious, creeping Life!

Why does its lonely softness flow
So sadly on the heart,
And whence the bright, the tearful woe
It does to all impart?
That look so worn—
Whence is it, Wanderer most forlorn?
Or why dost keep
Weak watch, and go thy rounds, when all the strong ones sleep?

194

Would'st tell of slight unkind—of dire
Neglect, that thou dost break
My chamber's gloom?—will none admire?
Oh is not love awake?
Then I full fain
Will bless thee in a simple strain;
And soothly say
Thy light is sweeter far than gaudy glare of Day!

1830, & 1832.

195

[This brave bright Earth with Mind o'erflows—]

“But it was all a mystery.”
Don Juan.

This brave bright Earth with Mind o'erflows—
With secret Soul o'erfraught;
In every form a Feeling glows,
In every tone, a Thought!
And yet o'er all there seems to reign,
A mystery I can ne'er explain!

I feel the joy of frolic rills,
Elate in forest brown;
The proud reserve of beetling hills,
Their calm majestic frown;
The dark defiance—sullen—high—
Of clouds that walk the stormy sky!

The sweet repose the solemn caves
Of azure heaven possess;
The dim might of careering waves,—
The Ocean's restlessness!
The sad despondence of a day
Oppressed with mists of mournful gray!

196

The deep intelligence of Stars
I mark with mute delight;
No want of kindred feeling mars
My glory in the Night!
The Moon's meek thoughts I cannot shun,
Nor miss the rapture of the Sun!

The joy of trembling grass I know,
The wild soul of the breeze;
The languor of each leaning bough,
The quiet of the trees;
The revelry of hissing showers,
And all the moods of thoughtful Flowers.

Yes !—I can feel the Soul, the Mind,
That breathes through Nature's face—
To its expressions am not blind,
Her mighty feelings trace—
And yet o'er all there seem to reign
Deep mysteries I can ne'er explain!

June 3rd, 1832.

197

A SUMMER THOUGHT.

How oft you see, in summer bright,
Two butterflies, on wings of light,
So like, in colour, form and flight
That each seems either to the sight!—
With tremulous flutter, low or high,
Their flower-like forms together fly;
One impulse guides them both, as they
Together wing their zig-zag way;
Direct, aslant, above, below,
Still side by side they gaily go!—
Thus, one in each emotion, thrill,
My heart and thine accorded still;
And thus, alike in aim and hue,
Our thoughts and hopes together flew!

May, 1832.

198

TO BIANCA.

As one, who having looked upon the Sun,
Deems every object of his after-sight
Wrapt in a swimming shroud, obscure and dun,

Of throbbing gloom—so much the Daystar's might
Of quivering brilliancy his vision crushed,
So much surpassed all else of fair and bright;—

Thus when the beams of loveliness which gushed
From thy meek form and, mind had filled the gaze
Of my arrested Soul, upon me rushed

Such blindness to what else had won my praise,
Such darkness dimmed what else had moved my sighs,—
I see no beauty in the vermeil glaze

Of other cheeks—no heart in other eyes—
In other hearts no love, no tenderness to prize.

199

And as the eyes, which thus without a screen
Have met that flashing orb, when closed may see
Full many an image of the Sun in green

Emerge from out the purple vacancy;—
So when thine absence throws a veil around
All things that once had interest for me,

Making this crowded world a void profound,
A barren blank, in which no spot of rest
My listless gaze of apathy hath crowned,—

I see upon the dim inane imprest
Thy sweet resemblance multiplied ;—a throng
Of visions of that Day-star of my breast

In each remembered aspect flit along,
And cheer my sinking heart—and reawake my Song.

1832.

200

SONG.

I love thee, my own one! how much—can I tell?
I love thee—Oh would I could sing thee as well!
Oh would that my love could extort from the Nine,
A measure as noble as thou art divine!

I know that thy charms could immortalise song,
But I feel that my lays would thy loveliness wrong;
For that face is so sweet—Oh, I never can feign—
I can sing, but “I love thee, and—love thee again!”

But could I describe thee, love, just as thou art,
With their numbers the Nine might unwelcomed depart;
For the world—so enchanting the picture would be—
Could not think of the numbers, for thinking of thee!

There are bards who can sing the fair Angels they love
In strains might be chanted by Angels above;
But strive as I may to be lofty, my strain
Still recurs to, “I love thee, and—love thee again!”

201

'Tis not that those Angels are fairer, I trow,
Than a dear winsome Angel who smiles on me now;
No! their verses in vain with my song would compete,
Were my song half as good as its subject is sweet!

And I will not, I cannot, believe it to be,
That their love could be greater than mine is for thee;
Oh no, for if Truth could give worth to a lay,
I need not have blushed for my numbers to day!

Then my own one I know will confide in me still,
Though by fancy deserted, unaided by skill;
For my heart, not my Muse, bids me sing thee a strain,
Which but vows that “I love thee, and—love thee again!”

202

THE NIGHTINGALE.

“Even yet thou art to me,
No bird—but an invisible thing,
A voice—a mystery!”
Wordsworth.—To the Cuckoo.

I

It is night—silent night; restless winds have gone away—
And the trees may in quiet sleep;
And the stars, that like fawns had been scared by the stranger Day,
Now timidly nearer creep;
Your glance threads its way through their crowds, shining high and low,
As it might through a motionless swarm
Of insects that play in the summer even's glow,
As they hang in the twilight warm.

II

As you look on the star-dropt dome, you may feel the soft dews
Stealing downward like flakes of cool air;
And flowers unseen their faint fresh odours diffuse,
Through the thin darkness everywhere!

203

The trees are so still—they seem in a trance to lie!
Like dark clouds they thoughtfully stoop—
Their soft dusky foliage mixed with the mellow gray sky—
A spirit-like shadowy group!

III

How meekly in the pale gleaming sky are those starry eyes spread,
O'er the corpse-like Earth, wrapt in gloom!
Like the innocent wax-lights which burn o'er the regal Dead,
Laid in state in a palace-room!
And brightly that still Sky is watching the dark Earth below,
As a sweet bright-eyed Child surveys
Its Mother's black robes, and her shrouded face of woe,
With a silent and wondering gaze.

IV

Did it startle you, Silence—or charm you to joy?— that strain?
It broke out with strange sweet power,
And presently ceased—and the darkness and hush again
Have settled o'er meadow and bower!

204

But again and again it wells forth—Oh, pleasant and rare
Is its changeful capricious controul!
It is playful—enraptured—despairing by turns—till the air
Seems refined into living soul!

V

From the Ocean of Night how strangely those sounds emerge!
How fitfully flitting along,
Now hid by the black waves of Silence, now seen o'er their verge,
Comes the air-cleaving, argent-winged Song!
It would seem that grim Darkness, usurping the throne of Day,
Did strive with persuasion bland,
To win to himself the support and the love, if he may,
Of the conquered and mourning Land!

VI

A surprise—a delight, that Oasis of Harmony seems—
'Tis unlooked for, unwonted, I ween,
When Silence and Sleep sit brooding o'er nestling Dreams—
As the white Moon at midday seen!

205

Not more strange, when benighted, no human dwelling near,
In some deep lane or lonesome glen,
Would it be, in the darkness close by, should you suddenly hear
Low voices of talking men!

VII

Not more strange is the sound, when the livid sky's obscured,
Of a bee humming on through the gloom;
Some lone minstrel-bee of the wilderness—allured
By the dark furze's golden bloom!
Not more strange or delightful, to the Mariner so rude
May the velvet-winged butterfly be,
Wafting dreams of green fields, through some silent solitude
Of the violet, silvery sea!

VIII

What art thou, who flingest thy fullness of feeling pure
O'er the voiceless abysm of Night?
Why thy lone Star of Sound, why art gemming the mute obscure
With thy single point of Light?

206

What is peer to thy beautiful loneness? what like to thee shows?—
Like a rose-bud in winter thou art;
Like Faith at a funeral, joyful—like Love when it glows
In a crime-bedimmed, desperate heart!

IX

Like a Sorceress fair, whose employment we cannot guess;
Though fearful it needs must be!
As she stoops o'er her work, and sings in her loneliness,
She deemeth no eye can see;
Then she holds flitting converse, with some Spirit-Familiar near,
Whose answers in silence are lost;
And her voice though so low, in the Night-hush sounds awfully clear—
But what says she? whom can she accost?

X

Thou art like a young Poet, who deep in his midnight retreat
Gains him skill while the soulless sleep;
Breathing fragments of song, would make even sorrow sweet,
Or win you with gladness to weep!

207

Till his voice full and clear through the listening world resound,
And men to his spirit bow down:—
While the Stars shining through the cold Night of Neglect around
Are the glimpses of dear Renown!

XI

Thou art like a meek Maiden, left lonely awhile and drear
By the loved-one whose presence was Day;
Fondly feeding her grief on the songs which to him were dear,
And the tunes which he loved her to play;
And yet, though the Night-gloom of Absence, remembrances sweet,
Starlike, of his true love roll—
Of their thoughts held in common—their confidence complete,
And of all their deep oneness of Soul!

XII

Hark! seems it not Rapture is flashing those rays of verse?
“Sing a strain of exceeding Delight!
Sing the heart-thrill of feeling alone, unbeheld to commérce
With the Stars, the Soul of Night!

208

From my leafy-roofed well of seclusion, my gushing joy leaps
To their sweet glances all mine own!
Mine, mine are the Earth and the Sky! for the world of life sleeps—
Joy! Joy! I am all alone!”

XIII

Then Cheerfulness sheds her moonbeams of melody bright:—
“Oh tranquil our days shall be;
Our own fond thoughts all my world—my task and delight
The sweet one of tending thee!
In a loving lone dream, from our sheltered shades we will trace
The golden-paced Day till he flies—
Then tunefully doat on the soft-illumined face
Of Night—and those spiritual eyes!”

XIV

It is hushed—and lo! Sorrow is raining her liquid plaint:—
“Why—why hast thou flown from me!
Thy form was the food of my Soul—my spirit is faint
With mournfully pining for thee!

209

The Stars have no light for me now—for Thou art away!
“Dark—dark as my heart is the Sky!
“And the clear solemn Night is no dearer now than Day—
“Oh why hast thou left me, why—why?”—

XV

Methinks as I listen, that it cannot well be true,
Spirit-voice! who art warbling thus,
That Sorrow, Hope and Joy are not keenly felt by you
As ever they can be by us!
And the glory of Man, what is it? his excellence, where?
When his songs which have most of divine,
Whose Fame wraps the Nations—eternal—wide-spread as the Air—
Are so easily surpassed by thine?

XVI

But if you sing so blithely, though darkling and all alone,
Can it be that repining Men
O'er whom Grief, Doubt, Bereavement, have their deepest shadows thrown,
Should be utterly despairing then?

210

Oh! methinks we are bidden by that cheerily-gushing breath,
To be patient yet a little while,
Till the Mystery of Heaven and Earth, Life, Sorrow, and Death,
In the Daylight of Knowledge shall smile!

July, 1832.

Butterflies, carried out to sea in gales of wind, are sometimes met with hundreds of miles from any land.

211

LOVE THE POET.

“Love the Poet, pretty one.”
Barry Cornwall.

Thou, divine in Beauty's dower!
Thou to whom the World must bow!
Love the Poet! name of Power—
Name divine as thou!

Maker, he, of mental treasure—
All delight, above, beneath;
Soothing sorrow—tearful pleasure,
Life, Existence, Death!

All of lovely, pure, excelling
Which refines the soul from Earth—
From the clayey prison-dwelling
Of its lowly birth!

Love him, lovely one, whose duty
'Tis to love all loveliness—
All the world can know of beauty—
More than it can guess.

212

Fire, of more than mortal splendour
Makes his breast a lightning cloud;—
Not less lofty 'tis than tender,
Sensitive as proud!

He will mark each faint expression
Of the voice, the form, the face,
Shedding in its transient session
Momentary grace;

Gesture, look, or tone concealing
Subtle charm from duller eye—
Flitting glimpse of thought or feeling,
All will he descry,

Though less fleetly vary-sheening
Rainbow-coloured rays of light
Glance o'er tresses intervening
'Twixt the Sun and sight!

Through your heart his Mind shall travel
Reading its sweet workings well—
Each emotion, throb, unravel
Which you cannot tell!

Lofty feeling, pure and holy,
He will give it honour due—
Delicate weakness, fond or lowly,
He will cherish too!

213

And with Fancy so prevailing
He will sing his loved-one fair,
It will turn a very failing
To a beauty rare!

In such witching hues each merit
By his love-tones shall be drest—
You will feel yourself a Spirit,
Or an Angel blest!

And young Love's divine delusion
Which they say must fly so fast,
In his fancy's rich profusion
He will bid it last.

While his judgment fore-discerning
Shall secure him from the fate
Of that Disappointment, turning
Coldness into Hate!

His rich words such robes of glory
O'er thy lineaments shall throw,
'Mid the fairest dreams in story
Shall thine Image glow!

Thou shalt shine so in his pages,
Crowds to come shall worship thee;
There the love of future ages
Shall concentred be!

214

To such insight he will move you
Into things that common be;
You shall find a Soul to love yon
In each star and tree!

He will bid to instant being
Brighter worlds than yet have been—
Worlds evading vulgar seeing—
You shall be their Queen!

And his Mind shall so adore you,
So shall make its might your own,
Time and Space shall bow before you,
Universe your Throne!—

Would you bound in bright upbuoyance
From a sad world, blighted, banned?
Would you lead a life of joyance
In a fairy land?

Would you have each finest beauty
Well discerned and fully prized?
Not a charm of feeling, duty,
Overlooked—despised?

Would you learn all lore that's rarest,
And be loved by all for ever?
Love the Poet! sweetest, fairest,
Oh reject him never!

Nov. 1832.

215

REMORSE.

A FRAGMENT.

The fierce demands the self-attacking breast
Makes for the motives it but now possest—
Pressing for reasons it can ne'er accord,
Reasons for conduct now contemned, abhorred:—
The bitter curses on its weakness cast,
Deep imprecations on its frenzy past—
When waking to a consciousness of crime
From passion which obscured it for a time,
It views the work on which its rage was spent
With gloomy horror—blank astonishment!—

The torturing Thought that all Remorse is vain,
That nothing can undo that deed again—
Prayers, curses, tears, can move it not, nor wound—
Those soul-shot arrows on the soul rebound—
There, sternly fixed, irrevocably done,
Accuser, judge, avenger, all in one,—
Its maddening muteness mocks the wretch who gave
It birth—its palled Creator now its Slave!—

216

The furious efforts of the Soul to flee
From that o'erwhelming, withering Certainty,—
Her wildest plungings in the tangling toils,
But make more keenly felt the clinging coils,
The deepening dints of that still, clankless chain,
That circling mute Omnipotence of Pain!—

And silently, as some increasing Tide
Swells on the barrier which confronts its pride,
That Thought unfolds the fullness of its might
And brings its still Resistlessness to light!
Then, as some Monster of his prey secure,
Despising haste where victory is sure,
Sports him with pangs which faint and fainter grow,
Watching his victim's death—though certain, slow;—
So that Reflection sees the Spirit cower,
Beneath its crushing weight of passive power—
Distracted with vain struggles to get free,
And maddening with excess of Misery—
Exhausting self in fruitless self-defence,
And writhing in convulsive impotence!

The Mind resigned to Reason all too late,
Itself the only object of its hate,
In vain reproaches on reproaches urge—
Itself the victim, and itself the scourge!
Waging on agonising War with Air
It whirls within the Maelstrom of Despair!

December 25th, 1832.

217

SONG.

Nay!—it was not thy loveliness lured me,
Though all that is lovely be thine;
It was something more dear that assured me
Thy soft heart could sorrow with mine!
And oft, when around thee there hovered
The bright and the joyous and free,
Oh say not 'twas Fancy discovered
My gloom was as welcome to thee!

All power, all wish of resistance
Thy tranquil simplicity stole:
Thy love reawoke my Existence;
Thy form superseded my Soul!
Yet it was not thy loveliness lured me,
Though all that is lovely be thine;
It was something more dear that assured me,
Thy soft heart could sorrow with mine!

January, 1832.

218

[My own—my absent one! thou who art still]

My own—my absent one! thou who art still
Though absent, ever present!—if I strive
My page with radiance of thy Form to fill,

And to the outward eye thine Image give
In lineaments of loveliness as clear
As in my inmost Soul secluded live—

Alas! what boots the fond attempt to cheer
The weary pining of my woe-worn breast?
Still as I dwell on each remembrance dear,

And pore on all that cannot be exprest,
Communion feigned makes Solitude more drear—
Such Opiate goads to more convulsed Unrest.

What solace springs from dreaming thou art near?
The worn impatient writhe—the bitter, blinding tear!

219

PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS

SUGGESTED BY THE CARTOON OF RAFFAELLE.

The glorious gathering of palaces,
Where groves of whitest pillars proudly rose,—
The temples, rife with capital and frieze,
And frequent with the silent life which glows
In marble statues, mocking human woes
And frail Mortality, with godlike mien,
And pure perfection of divine repose,
Secure as calm, immortal as serene,—
Made Athens and her hill a more than earthly scene.

As two long waves approach with swelling might,
And meeting—ere in backward curl o'erthrown—
Shoot up with boiling crests to equal height;
So reared that hill its tower-studded crown:
Like foam-streaks, on its verdure-chequered brown
The girdling walls ran up from side to side;
And high o'er all, Minerva's fane looked down
In dignified reserve, retiring pride—
And like her own chaste brow—still, solemn, quiet-eyed.

220

But with far nobler charms that fair clime shone;
In every porch and grove young Genius stept;
Seemed it her very Atmosphere had grown
Subtle with Intellect; the sunbeam crept
Athwart her pillared shades, and on it slept
The Spirit of deep Musing; Attic bees
On her lone hills a thoughtful music kept;
Inquiry murmured in the plaintive breeze,
And stooped in pensive Reverie the stilly trees.

There all the little vain, the humble great,
Of the Mind's children dwelt;—her throne of Pride
It was,—her ever-famed, world-worshipped seat
Of centuries of Triumph:—thither hied
Sage, Sophist, Bard, Philosopher, and vied
In wrestling-bouts of Reason;—keenly blind
Each wildest wilderness of Thought they tried;
Their marts the Schools—Wisdom their wealth refined,
They long monopolised all merchandise of Mind.

Thither, well-nigh two thousand years ago,
While some dreamed dreams ingeniously untrue,
And more, in wonted idlesse, to and fro,
Lounged listlessly in search of “something new,”
Toil-worn and travel-soiled came there a Jew:

221

While the broad Sun did westering expand,—
Simple, august, serene, amid a crew
Of hoary sages, dark-browed, subtle band,
High-raised on Mars's hill, methought I saw him stand!

His outstretched arms seemed raised to waft his soul
Far o'er the Abyss, the unfathomable Sky,
Where the great mysteries of the Future roll;
Majestically still, his lighted eye,
Dilating to embrace Eternity,
Deep-held in awe appeared, as by the vast
Presence of mighty Thoughts, divinely high,
Which o'er his mind their brooding Shadows cast,
And terribly sublime, entranced him as they past!

In various mood, around him listening prest,
The Stoic, who plucked passions up, like weeds,
And rooted all the man from out his breast;
And he who gave a loose in words and deeds
To that sad bitterness man's baseness breeds—
The snarling Cynic; and the tribe whose aim,
The present pleasure to which virtue leads,
Was oft exchanged for that which vice may claim;—
With these came many more of every sect and name.

The Epicurean scowled to hear of meed
And penance paid on that extremest Day;

222

The Cynic laughed to think another creed
Would lend excuse to persecute and slay;
The Stoic heard without confest dismay,
Words which the Mind's stern mastery o'erthrew
And spurned its self-sufficiency away;
The haughty Roman scorned the humble Jew;
And smiling calm contempt, the polished Greek withdrew.

Some mocked in mirthful wonderment, and thought
Madness alone in such wild visions dealt;
With upraised brows, protruded lips—some sought
To look the candour which they never felt,
And much on common sense and reason dwelt;
Some seemed to feel Philosophy required
Fair hearing even for error; others knelt,
Such love and reverence his words inspired:
But his presumption more with indignation fired.

And thrilling 'twas, that memorable day
To hear such lips to men like those rehearse
The wonder-works of Deity; display
In eloquence, electric, burning, terse,
The solemn Spirit of the Universe.
Unmoved by withering glance, full fiercely hurled,
Ill-feigned indifference, or open curse;
The lip compressed in hate, or scornful curled;
He stood—the moral Atlas of a mightier world!

223

Oh would he to our awe-struck gaze appear,
As then he seemed—a Being of the Sky—
Majestic tenant of a nobler Sphere—
Creation gathered on his brow—his eye
Sublime with Immortality!
Can that be he—the peasant churl insane—
The scorn of that illustrious company—
Barbarian babbler, visionary vain?
Oh could the pride of Mind that glorious One disdain!

Nov. 1832.

224

L'Envoy.

“My soul's child!”
Byron.

Child of my Spirit, go!—
Hope not the world's regard to steal;
Thy little worth too well I know,
Too sadly feel!

Yet fondly weak, I wait,
Not much in Hope—much more in Fear—
Soul of my Solitude! thy fate—
My comrade dear!

Thy fate, of frequent nights
And days, my Comrade dear—my Child!
Who whence I know not, brought delights
Deep, deep and wild!—

Yet go!—no laurel crown,
No darling meed of Fame expect;
But with Oblivion lay thee down,
And woo Neglect!

225

What though, sweet Muse! when Day
Poured joy profuse with liberal hand
O'er all the glistering display
Of sea and land,—

Or chiefly when at Night
Silence held soft solioquy,
Grown vocal with extreme Delight
And Liberty,—

With me thou didst commune,
And lapse of linkëd numbers bring,
If with a Spirit out of tune
I heard thee sing!

If with their amber flow
My Soul chimed not in pure concent,
But with them jarring notes of woe
Discording blent;

As silver raindrops strewn
Brightly by dark clouds sun-bestrid,
Are stained by fogsmokes which festoon
A City hid!—

No! thou couldst not impart
The Hope elastic, Fancy strong,
Which o'erinform the joyous heart
With crystal song!

226

From feelings of its own
Some respite must the Spirit gain,
Ere those by thee divinely shown
It well can feign.

Then wing, my Soul! thy flight—
On lowly verse, a voyage brief;
Success not proffering much delight,
Nor failure, grief!

Go forth! despising Fame;
With nought of Hope, with little Fear:
A few, few years—and praise or blame
Thou wilt not hear!

Till then—there is a Pride,
A stern nor bitter Hopelessness,
Which gives the Mind, o'er worlds defied,
Serene success!

THE END.

University of Virginia Library

THE PEDESTRIAN.

A REVERIE.

WINTER.

ANACREONTIC.

THE STEAM-BOAT.

[As the April sun breaking]

SUNSET.

A STARRY NIGHT.

DEATH.

DESPAIR.

A FRAGMENT.

PLAIN TRUTHS.

CHORUS IN THE ‘SEVEN AGAINST THEBES’ OF ÆSCHYLUS.[_] (FAITHLESSLY RENDERED FROM THE ORIGINAL.)

Strophe 1.

Antistrophe 1.

Strophe 2.

Antistrophe 2.

OPENING SCENES OF THE “CLOUDS” OF ARISTOPHANES.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

Scene first.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

THE FIRST ODE OF HORACE,

PARAPHRASED.

FRAGMENTS.

DEATH.

A WISH.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND.

IN AN ALBUM.

COMMONPLACES.

I.

II.

III.

FRAGMENT OF A CHORUS IN THE AJAX OF SOPHOCLES.

TEARS.

ODE TO THE MATHEMATICS.

A CAMBRIDGE EBULLITION.

[Oft when I read the lays]

STANZAS.

FRAGMENT.

TO A LADY.

WITH A FAN FROM CHINA.

TO ------.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.

LINES.

ON THE BIRTH OF A NEAR RELATION.

GREEK SONG.

COMMONLY ASCRIBED TO ALCÆUS.

[Whence is it mountains, forests, fields, and floods]

“GOOD BYE.”

['Twas in the twilight once—and Sorrow's shadow lay]

“LONG AGO,”

ADDRESSED TO ------

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

ON BEING ASKED TO WRITE IN AN ALBUM.

ANOTHER.

TO AGNES.

AN HISTORICAL REFLECTION.

STANZAS.

(A BIT OF BIRTH-DAY MORBIDEZZA.)

FLOWERS.

I.

PART THE FIRST.

PART THE SECOND.

PART THE THIRD.

PART THE FOURTH.

PART THE FIFTH.

PART THE SIXTH.

PART THE SEVENTH.

CHORUS IN THE ‘SEVEN AGAINST THEBES’ OF ÆSCHYLUS.
[_]

(FAITHLESSLY RENDERED FROM THE ORIGINAL.)