University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

I. TO S. T. COLERIDGE.

If when thou wert a living man, my sire,
I shrank unequal from the task to praise
The ripening worth of thy successive days,
What shall I do since that imputed fire,
Extinct its earthly aliment, doth aspire,
Purged from the passionate subject of all lays,
From all that fancy fashions and obeys,
Beyond the argument of mortal lyre?
If while a militant and suffering saint,
Thou walk'dst the earth in penury and pain,
Thy great Idea was too high a strain
For my infirmity, how shall I dare
Thy perfect and immortal self to paint?
Less awful task to “draw empyreal air.”

II.

Oh! my dear mother, art thou still awake?
Or art thou sleeping on thy Maker's arm,—
Waiting in slumber for the shrill alarm
Ordain'd to give the world its final shake?
Art thou with “interlunar night” opaque
Clad like a worm while waiting for its wings;
Or doth the shadow of departed things
Dwell on thy soul as on a breezeless lake!
Oh! would that I could see thee in thy heaven
For one brief hour, and know I was forgiven
For all the pain and doubt and rankling shame
Which I have caused to make thee weep or sigh.
Bootless the wish! for where thou art on high,
Sin casts no shadow, sorrow hath no name.

III.

Hast thou not seen an aged rifted tower,
Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?
Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower
Of fragrance wild, and many-dappled hue,
Gold streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,
Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.
E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be,
Should Heaven appoint me to a lengthen'd age;
So old in look, that Young and Old may see
The record of my closing pilgrimage:
Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing
To which young sweetness may delight to cling!

IV.

Let me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my Being was an accident,
Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wish'd to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain
Hath its own mission, and is duly sent
To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent
'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.
The very shadow of an insect's wing,
For which the violet cared not while it stay'd,
Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,
Proved that the sun was shining by its shade:
Then can a drop of the eternal spring,
Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?

V.

Pains I have known, that cannot be again,
And pleasures too that never can be more:
For loss of pleasure I was never sore,
But worse, far worse it is, to feel no pain.
The throes and agonies of a heart explain
Its very depth of want at inmost core;
Prove that it does believe, and would adore,
And doth with ill for ever strive and strain.
I not lament for happy childish years,
For loves departed, that have had their day,
Or hopes that faded when my head was grey;
For death hath left me last of my compeers:
But for the pain I felt, the gushing tears
I used to shed when I had gone astray.

VI.

Why should I murmur at my lot forlorn?
The self-same Fate that doom'd me to be poor
Endues me with a spirit to endure
All, and much more than is, or has been borne
By better men, of want and worldly scorn.
My soul has faith—my body has the nerve
To brave the penance that my sins deserve:
And yet my helpless state I deeply mourn.
Well could I bear to be deserted quite;
Less should I blame my fortune were it worse:
But taking all, it yet hath left me friends,
For whom I needs must mourn the wayward spite
That hides my purpose in an empty purse;
Since what I grateful wish, in wishing ends.

VII.

When I review the course that I have run,
And count the loss of all my wasted days,
I find no argument for joy or praise
In whatsoe'er my soul hath thought or done.
I am a desert, and the kindly sun
On me hath vainly spent his fertile rays.
Then wherefore do I tune my idle lays,
Or dream that haply I may be the one
Of the vain thousands, that shall win a place
Among the Poets,—that a single rhyme
Of my poor wit's devising may find grace
To breed high memories in the womb of time?
But to confound the time the Muse I woo;
Then 'tis but just that time confound me too.

VIII.

A lonely wanderer upon earth am I,
The waif of nature—like uprooted weed
Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed,
A frail dependent of the fickle sky.
Far, far away, are all my natural kin:
The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry,
Almost hath grown a mere fond memory.
Where is my sister's smile? my brother's boisterous din?
Ah! nowhere now. A matron grave and sage,
A holy mother is that sister sweet.
And that bold brother is a pastor meet
To guide, instruct, reprove a sinful age,
Almost I fear, and yet I fain would greet;
So far astray hath been my pilgrimage.

IX.

How many meanings may a single sigh
Heave from the bosom; early, yet too late,
I learn'd with sighs to audit mine estate,
While yet I deem'd my hope was only shy
And wishing to be woo'd. Fain to descry
The little cloud I thought could never vex
My vernal season, I would still perplex
With sighs the counsel of my destiny.
Still it moved on, and ever larger grew,
And still I sigh'd and sigh'd—and then I panted;
For now the cloud is huge, and close to view.
It burst; the thunder roar'd, the sharp rain slanted,
The tempest pass'd, and I was almost fain
To sigh forlorn, and hear the sigh again.

X.

How shall a man fore-doom'd to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverently grey,
Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,
Dead sleeping in a hollow, all too late—
How shall so poor a thing congratulate
The blest completion of a patient wooing,
Or how commend a younger man for doing
What ne'er to do hath been his fault or fate?
There is a fable, that I once did read,
Of a bad angel, that was someway good,
And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood,
Looking each way, and no way could proceed;
Till at the last he purged away his sin
By loving all the joy he saw within.

XI.

It were a state too terrible for man,
Too terrible and strange, and most unmeet,
To look into himself, his state to scan,
And find no precedent, no chart, or plan,
But think himself an embryo incomplete,
Or else a remnant of a world effete,
Some by-blow of the universal Pan,
Great nature's waif, that must by law escheat
To the liege-lord Corruption. Sad the case
Of man, who knows not wherefore he was made;
But he that knows the limits of his race
Not runs, but flies, with prosperous winds to aid;
Or if he limps, he knows his path was trod
By saints of old, who knew their way to God.

XII.

Think upon Death, 'tis good to think of Death,
But better far to think upon the Dead.
Death is a spectre with a bony head,
Or the mere mortal body without breath,
The state foredoom'd of every son of Seth,
Decomposition—dust, or dreamless sleep.
But the dear Dead are they for whom we weep,
For whom I credit all the Bible saith.
Dead is my father, dead is my good mother,
And what on earth have I to do but die?
But if by grace I reach the blessed sky,
I fain would see the same, and not another;
The very father that I used to see,
The mother that has nursed me on her knee.

XIII.

What is the meaning of the word “sublime,”
Utter'd full oft, and never yet explain'd?
It is a truth that cannot be contain'd
In formal bounds of thought, in prose, or rhyme.
'Tis the Eternal struggling out of Time.
It is in man a birth-mark of his kind
That proves him kindred with immaculate mind,
The son of him that in the stainless prime
Was God's own image. Whatsoe'er creates
At once abasement, and a sense of glory,
Whate'er of sight, sound, feeling, fact, or story,
Exalts the man, and yet the self rebates,
That is the true sublime, which can confess
In weakness strength, the great in littleness.

XIV. HOMER.

Far from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain
As the clear noon-day sun, an “orb of song”
Lovely and bright is seen, amid the throng
Of lesser stars, that rise, and wax, and wane,
The transient rulers of the fickle main,
One constant light gleams through the dark and long
And narrow aisle of memory. How strong,
How fortified with all the numerous train
Of truths wert thou, Great Poet of mankind,
Who told'st in verse as mighty as the sea,
And various as the voices of the wind,
The strength of passion rising in the glee
Of battle. Fear was glorified by thee,
And Death is lovely in thy tale enshrined.

XV.

'Twere surely hard to toil without an aim.
Then shall the toil of an immortal mind
Spending its strength for good of human kind
Have no reward on earth but empty fame?
Oh, say not so. 'Tis not the echoed name,
Dear though it be—dear to the wafting wind,
That is not all the poet leaves behind,
That once has kindled an undying flame.
And what is that? It is a happy feeling
Begot by bird, or flower, or vernal bee.
'Tis aught that acts, unconsciously revealing
To mortal man his immortality.
Then think, O Poet, think how bland, how healing,
The beauty thou hast taught thy fellow men to see.

XVI. TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Yes, mighty Poet, we have read thy lines,
And felt our hearts the better for the reading.
A friendly spirit, from thy soul proceeding,
Unites our souls; the light from thee that shines
Like the first break of morn, dissolves, combines
All creatures with a living flood of beauty.
For thou hast proved that purest joy is duty,
And love a fondling, that the trunk entwines
Of sternest fortitude. Oh, what must be
Thy glory here, and what the huge reward
In that blest region of thy poesy?
For long as man exists, immortal Bard,
Friends, husbands, wives, in sadness or in glee,
Shall love each other more for loving thee.

XVII. TO THE SAME.

And those whose lot may never be to meet
Kin souls confined in bodies sever'd far,
As if thy Genius were a potent star,
Ruling their life at solemn hours and sweet
Of secret sympathy, do they not greet
Each other kindly, when the deep full line
Hath ravish'd both—high as the haunt divine
And presence of celestial Paraclete?
Three thousand years have pass'd since Homer spake,
And many thousand hearts have bless'd his name,
And yet I love them all for Homer's sake,
Child, woman, man, that e'er have felt his flame;
And thine, great Poet, is like power to bind
In love far distant ages of mankind.

XVIII. RYDAL.

Nigh to the mansion of a titled dame,
A charitable lady, the recluse,
Begirt with trees too reverend for use,
A village lies, and Rydal is its name.
Its natives know not what is meant by fame;
They little know how men in future time
Will venerate the spot, where prose and rhyme
Too strong for aught but Heaven itself to tame,
Gush'd from a mighty Poet. Yet all calm,
Calm as the antique trunks whose hollow age
The woodman spares, sweet thoughts on every page
Breathe for the soul admonitory balm.
'Tis Nature teaching what she never knew;
The beautiful is good, the good is true.

XIX.

From infancy to retrospective eld,
Year after year, we slide from day to day
Like a sleek stream, from bay to sinuous bay
Wearing the course it evermore hath held.
The crumbling banks, that have so long compell'd
The stream to wind, to haste, to strive, or stay,
Drop down at last and quite choke up the way
That once they foil'd. The river that rebell'd
Becomes a marsh, prolific of ill weeds.
Such is the life of him who streams along
A lazy course, unweeting of his deeds;
Till duty, hope, love, custom, prayers and creeds
Crumble away, and yield to helpless wrong,
That from the mere disuse of right proceeds.

XX. TO ALFRED TENNYSON.

Long have I known thee as thou art in song,
And long enjoy'd the perfume that exhales
From thy pure soul, and odour sweet entails
And permanence, on thoughts that float along
The stream of life, to join the passive throng
Of shades and echoes that are memory's being
Hearing we hear not, and we see not seeing,
If passion, fancy, faith move not among
The never-present moments of reflection.
Long have I view'd thee in the crystal sphere
Of verse, that, like the beryl, makes appear
Visions of hope, begot of recollection.
Knowing thee now, a real earth-treading man,
Not less I love thee, and no ore I can.

XXI.

I know too little of thee, my dear friend,
Or else too much,—for nothing less than all
Were quite enough to guide me to the end
And fatal purpose of thine earthly call.
I know thy will is stubborn as a wall
Against all acts that trespass or offend.
I know there is no sin or fault so small
Wherewith the current of thy soul would blend;
But yet I know that there is something yet
Which I know not, a burden on thy breast
No joy of earth can make thy heart forget;
The sleepless thought that will not be at rest,
That, like a wee bird struggling in the net,
Still whines and twitters of its distant nest.

XXII. TO DR. DALTON.

This world so beautiful cannot produce
A thing more beauteous than a head of snow,
Or smoothly bald and bright with sunny glow,
That has been busied still in things of use.
The adventurous restlessness of Scottish Bruce
Led him to trace the backward course of Nile;
But I would rather trace that serious smile,
That seems habitual to a lip, not loose,
Nor yet constrain'd; a brow not wrinkled much,
An eye not dimm'd but disciplined by age.
I could not know thee when thou wast the page
Of the young Lady Science, ere the touch
Unfelt of years had worn thy youth away;
I cannot trace thee to thy youthful day.

XXIII. TO JOANNA BAILLIE.

Long ere my pulse with nascent life had beat,
The ripe spring of thy early Paradise
With many a flower, and fruit, and hallow'd spice,
Was fair to fancy and to feeling sweet.
Time, that is aye reproach'd to be so fleet,
Because dear follies vanish in a trice,
Shall now be clean absolved by judgment nice,
Since his good speed made thee so soon complete.
But less I praise the bounty of old Time,
Lady revered, our Island's Tragic Queen,
For all achievements of thy hope and prime,
Than for the beauty of thine age serene,
That yet delights to weave the moral rhyme,
Nor fears what is, should dim what thou hast been.

XXIV. ON READING THE MEMOIR OF MISS GRIZZLE BAILLIE.

Genius, what is't? A motion of the brain.
And valour is the toughness of a nerve,
And the strong virtue that will never swerve
Is but the “lazy temperance” of a vein.
And what is pity but a twitching pain,
Seeking its own relief in pious acts?
Thus wisdom, seeking all things to explain,
Out of all good the soul of good detracts.
The simple woman that records the worth
Of the brave saints to whom she owed her birth,
Confutes a doctrine that she never knew.
For goodness, more than ever was perceived
By sense, or in the visible world achieved,
By might of mere believing, she makes true.

XXV

While I survey the long, and deep, and wide
Expanse of time, the Past with things that were
Throng'd in dark multitude; the Future bare
As the void sky when not a star beside
The thin pale moon is seen; the race that died
While yet the families of earth were rare,
And human kind had but a little share
Of the world's heritage, before me glide
All dim and silent. Now with sterner mien
Heroic shadows, names renown'd in song,
Rush by. And, deck'd with garlands ever green,
In light and music sweep the bards along;
And many a fair, and many a well-known face,
Into the future dive, and blend with empty space.

XXVI.

Ah me! It is the saddest thing on earth
To see a change where much is yet unchanged,
To mark a face, not alter'd, but estranged
From its own wonted self, by its own hearth
So sadly smiling, like the ghost of mirth,
That cannot quite desert its long abode.
The very sigh that lifts the weary load
Of pain, and loosens the constraining girth
Within the breast, a semi-tone of laughter;
Though joy to woe, as light to shade is turn'd,
The trick of joy is not so soon unlearn'd:
The substance flits, the shadow lingers after.
The soul once rich in joy, though poor it be,
Will yet be bounteous in its poverty.

XXVII.

Accuse not gracious Nature of neglect,
Nor doubt the wise intent of Providence,
Because a human thing not quick of sense,
With scarce a twinkling spark of intellect,
With much of body's, more of mind's defect,
Hath hobbled upon earth for eighty years;
And now, unconscious of the hopes and fears
That the past life of wiser men dissect,
Is dozing deathward. Deep and dark immured
The corn-seed in the dead-throng'd catacomb,
From light shut out, was yet from blight secured
And Turk and Mam'luke, in oblivious tomb:
And thus, for eighty years, good man, in thee
The seed has slept, sepulchred in simplicity.

XXVIII. MUSIC.

Sweet music steals along the yielding soul,
Like the brisk wind that sows autumnal seeds;
And it hath tones like vernal rain that feeds
The light green vale, ordain'd ere long to roll
In golden waves o'er many a wealthy rood;
And tones it hath, that make a lonely hour
The silent dwelling of some lovely flower,
Sweet Hermitess of Forest solitude.
I loved sweet Music when I was a child,
For then my mother used to sing to me:
I loved it better when a youth so wild,
With thoughts of love it did so well agree;
Fain would I love it to my latest day,
If it would teach me to believe and pray.

XXIX.

Oh! that a tone were lasting as a thought,
A feeling joy, eternal as a truth!
Then were my spirits charm'd to endless youth,
All time enrich'd with what a moment brought.
That one sweet note, so sweet itself, and fraught
With all the warbled sweetness of the stream
Of rippling sound, continuous as a dream —
A dream of song, that waking turns to nought.
I cannot find it, I cannot resume
The thrilling calm, the gladness so intense,
So simple, perfect, neither soul nor sense
For hope had need, for hoarding thought had room:
Yet shall the moral heart for aye retain
The once-seen songstress, and the once-heard strain.

XXX.

I would, my friend, indeed, thou hadst been here
Last night, beneath the shadowy sycamore,
To hear the lines, to me well known before,
Embalm'd in music so translucent clear.
Each word of thine came singly to the ear,
Yet all was blended in a flowing stream.
It had the rich repose of summer dream,
The light distinct of frosty atmosphere.
Still have I loved thy verse, yet never knew
How sweet it was, till woman's voice invested
The pencill'd outline with the living hue,
And every note of feeling proved and tested.
What might old Pindar be, if once again
The harp and voice were trembling with his strain.

XXXI. DIANA AND ENDYMION.

It was a learned fancy, that bestowed
A living spirit and a human will
On those far lights that, whether fixt and still,
Or moving visibly along the road,
Were mighty to predestine, rule, forbode;
Yea, to disclose, to long observant skill,
Not season's course alone, but good and ill,
For aye appointed in no changeful code.
A freer, yet a gentler wit, devised
That quaint old Fable, that beheld the moon
Gazing for hours on her Endymion,
Till she turned pale, by jocund morn surprised;
While he, wrapped up in trance or vision dim,
Sleeps in her sight that ever wakes for him.

XXXII. ECLIPSE.

So pure, so clear, amid the vast blue lake,
Sole regent of the many-scattered isles,
Making of myriad million, billion miles
One beauty, floats she brilliantly awake,
Unconscious of the doom that must o'ertake
Her maidenhood before the night goes by,
And make a lurid blot upon the sky,
And all her cheer transform to dim opaque.
But happy art thou, Moon; no fault of thine,
No just displeasure of thy lord, the Sun,
Clothes thee in weed of penance, murk and dun;
For thine own self thou still art free to shine.
That earth which moves between mankind and thee,
Inflicts no stain upon thy purity.

XXXIII. TO AN AGED BEAUTY.

Once thou wert young, 'twas very long ago,
Yet some there are to whom thy fixt idea,
Even now, is fresh as sea-born Cytherea.
The waves of time, that ever backward flow,
Behind them leave the quiet tints that glow
On each successive billow. Months, nor years,
Nor maddest mirth, nor dim heart-wasting tears
Attaint the truths that true minds truly know.
Once thou wert young, and still art young to me,
Though fifty summers faded since we met;
Thy timid glance I cannot cease to see,
Thy bird-like voice to me is piping yet.
If Time turn back to say that thou art old,
I'll swear he lies, and will thy youth uphold.

XXXIV.

I saw thee in the beauty of thy spring,
And then I thought how blest the man shall be
That shall persuade thy maiden modesty
To hearken to his fond soliciting.
Thou wert so fair, so exquisite a thing,
I thought the very dust on which thy feet
Had left their mark exhaled a scent more sweet
Than honey-dew dropt from an angel's wing.
I see thee now a matron and a mother,
And I, alas! am old before my day.
Both to myself and thee I owe another—
A holier passion, a devouter lay.
Each spark of earthly fire I now must smother,
And wish for nought for which I dare not pray.

XXXV. TO MISS MARTHA H—.

Martha, thy maiden foot is still so light,
It leaves no legible trace on virgin snows,
And yet I ween that busily it goes
In duty's path from happy morn to night.
Thy dimpled cheek is gay, and softly bright
As the fixt beauty of the mossy rose;
Yet will it change its hue for other's woes,
And native red contend with piteous white.
Thou bear'st a name by Jesus known and loved,
And Jesus gently did the maid reprove
For too much haste to show her eager love.
But blest is she that may be so reproved.
Be Martha still in deed and good endeavour,
In faith like Mary, at His feet for ever.

XXXVI. SECOND NUPTIALS.

There is no jealousy in realms above:
The spirit purified from earthly stain,
And knowing that its earthly loss was gain,
Transfers its property in earthly love
(Tho' love it was she does not yet reprove)
To her by Heaven appointed to sustain
The honour'd matron's part; to bear the pain,
The joy, the duty, all things that behove
A Christian wedded. She that dwells on high
May be a guardian angel to the wife
That her good husband chooses to supply
Her place, vacated in the noon of life;
With holy gladness may support the bride
Through happy cares to her by death denied.

XXXVII.

Not in one clime we oped the infant eye
To the blank light of yet unmeaning day;
Nor in one language timely taught to pray,
Did we lisp out the babies' liturgy.
But even then, we both alike did sing
Our joys and sorrows in the self-same way,
Instinct the same sweet native tune did play,
From laugh to smile, from sob to chasten'd sigh,
Our tutor'd spirits were alike subdued.
What wonder, then, if, meeting in this isle,
We eke imperfect speech with sigh and smile,
The catholic speech of infancy renew'd.
True love is still a child, and then most true
When most it talks, and does as children do.

XXXVIII.

Two nations are there of one common stock;
One in the heart of Europe fortified,
The other freshen'd by the daily tide
Shaping from age to age her bulwark rock.
Two faithful members of the holy flock,
In the most holy bond of love allied,
United the valour, worth, and selfless pride
Of two great kindreds, like a braided lock—
A braided lock, I've seen—so nicely braided,
With softest interchange of brown and gold,
Each into each so exquisitely shaded,
That they were ever twain could not be told.
E'en so for thee, sweet daughter of my friend,
May Albion and Allmain their virtues blend.

XXXIX.

Right merry lass, thy overweening joy
Turns an old man into a merry boy.
One hour with thee pays off the long arrears,
The heavy debt of almost fifty years.
Oft have I view'd that lake so beautiful,
And felt its quiet power, benign, to lull
The inward being to a soft repose;
Patient, yet not forgetful of the woes
That are the heritage of mortal breath,
As if one note divided life and death.
But thou, sweet maid, with ready mirth dost fill
The wide survey of water, wood, and hill.
I feel a pulse of pleasure newly born,
And scarce believe that “man was made to mourn.”

XL. KESWICK.

The Church is holy still, and consecrate
To mute attention and meek whispering prayer,
Though he,—the mighty voice, no more is there,
That gave the high roof a religious weight,
And the tall shaft upraised with hope elate,
And hallow'd all the holy well of air.
With duteous footstep to the church repair
Where lies the good, the kind, the wise, the great.
Old Skiddaw stands upon his base so long,
And Wallow Crag is yet a bastion proud,
And rough Lodore with thunder-rain is loud,
And Greta murmurs yet her ancient song.
Revere the vale, where Southey's corpse is laid,
Nor fear to pray—where he so long has pray'd.

XLI. EDWARD—CHILD AND MAN.

I saw thee, Edward, when thy baby cries
Sounded in mother's ears a swift alarm;
I saw thee cradled on thy father's arm,
When he, with many smiles and many sighs,
Guess'd in the quick gleam of thy new wak'd eyes
The inward stirrings, not matured to thought,
Not broken to the curb of must and ought,
And yet instinct with all thy destinies.
I see thee now a far experienced man,
Who from late boyhood to the rear of youth
Hast seen in many lands new forms of truth,
And haply learned with foreign eye to scan
Old England's faults; yet dost thou fondly love her,
And with a true friend's boldness, dost reprove her.

XLII. TO MISS ISABELLA FENWICK.

Fain would I put my meanings in the tongue
Familiar, lady, to thy earliest years,
That gives the finest edge to social jeers;
The language, which by merry bard was sung
In times of old, to ladies fair, among
The courts devoted to sublime amours
By gay trouveurs, and knightly troubadours,
Accents o'er which the Scottish Mary hung
Her beauteous head enamour'd. Yet I trust
Thou wilt not scorn the talk of this old isle,
The tongue which Milton raised to themes sublime,
On which keen Pope bestowed his poignance just,
Which Cowper graced with melancholy smile,
And Spenser hallowed with immortal rhyme.

XLIII. WRITTEN IN A SEASON OF PUBLIC DISTURBANCE.

Calm is the sky: the trees are very calm.
The mountains seem as they would melt away,
So soft their outline mingles with the day.
Surely no sound less holy than a psalm
Should interrupt the stillness and the balm
Of such a morn, whose grave monastic grey
Clothes the meek east in garment meek to pray
With sweet humility, without a qualm.
And yet, even now, in this most blessed hour,
Who knows but that the murderous shot is sped
In the fell jar of poverty and power?
The man but now that lived, may now be dead.
Has Nature of her human brood no care,
That on their bloody deeds she smiles so fair?

XLIV. TO MRS. CHARLES FOX.

Now the old trees are striving to be young,
And the gay mosses of the Christmas days
To the fresh primrose must forego their praise:
Now every flower by vernal poets sung,
And every bird the [bursting] woods among,
And all the many-dappled banks and braes,
Recal remembrance of immortal lays,
But speak to me in a forgotten tongue.
Yea, dearest lady, they do speak to me
As to a banish'd man that hath forgot
Almost his mother's language, and cannot,
Without sore pain and stress of memory,
Reply to words that yet he hears with joy,
And by their strangeness make him half a boy.

XLV. TO MRS.---

Sweet lady, thou art come to us again:
The mountains still are in their ancient seats;
Still on the turfy mound the young lamb bleats,
Whose coat of March is washed with April rain.
But since no Philomel can here complain,
Let, lady, one poor bard lament to thee
The murderous death of many a noble tree,
That wont to shade thee in the grassy lane.
Would that religion of old time were ours,
(In that one article, not all the others,)
Which the first Romans held, who reared the towers,
Nigh the moist cradle of the Foundling Brothers,
The faith that did in awe and love instal,
For many an age the Fig-Tree Ruminal.

XLVI. TO LOUISE CLAUDE.

I would not take my leave of thee, dear child,
With customary words of compliment:
Nor will I task my fancy to invent
A fond conceit, or sentence finely filed;
Nor shall my heart with passionate speech and wild,
Bewail thy parting in a drear lament.
Wit is not meet for one so innocent,
Nor passionate woe for one so gaily mild.
I will not bid thee think of me, nor yet
Would I in thy young memory perish quite.
I am a waning star, and nigh to set;
Thou art a morning beam of waxing light;
But sure the morning star can ne'er regret
That once 'twas grey-haired evening's favourite.

XLVII. HOPE.

Hope, I have seen thee oft by pilgrim hand
Of vagrant artist vividly pourtray'd
In the sweet likeness of a wishing maid,
Content from day to day on ocean strand,
Loving the long-drawn wrinkles of the sand
Wrought by the incessant ingress of the sea,
Because the waves are rolling from the land
Where the dear lad is now, where'er it be.
See how the maid upon the anchor leans,
Gazing beyond the long horizon's bound.
Rude is the picture, but a truth profound
Wakes in the heart to tell you what it means;
For Hope still stands beside the vast dark sea,
Watching the tides of blank futurity.

XLVIII. FREEDOM.

Say, what is freedom? What the life of souls
Which all who know are bound to keep, or die,
And who knows not is dead? In vain we pry
In the dark archives and tenacious scrolls
Of written law, tho' Time embrace the rolls
In his lank arms, and shed his yellow light
On every barbarous word. Eternal Right
Works its own way, and evermore controls
Its own free essence. Liberty is duty,
Not license. Every pulse that beats
At the glad summons of imperious beauty
Obeys a law. The very cloud that fleets
Along the dead green surface of the hill
Is ruled and scatter'd by a Godlike will.

XLIX. TO H. W.

In days of old, if any days be old,
Beneath the shadow of the ancient hill,
We roam'd together by the wandering rill;
Thou a light-footed hunter, free and bold,
And I a straggler from the self-same fold,
Rough, ragged, wild, with haggard looks that still
Dwelt on the ground, as if predestined ill
Blighted the joy of youth. Twelve years are told,
And now we meet again; thou, like the wind
That drives the grey cloud to the infinite sea,
Hast traversed all the world's variety,
From Western Isles to Oriental Ind;
I am the lazy pod among the heather
That slumbers sound in spite of wind and weather.

L. TO H. N. COLERIDGE.

Kinsman—yea, more than kinsman—brother, friend,—
O more than kinsman! more than friend or brother!
My sister's spouse, son to my widow'd mother!—
How shall I praise thee right, and not offend?
For thou wert sent a sore heart-ill to mend.
Twin stars were ye, thou and thy wedded love,
Benign of aspect as those imps of Jove,
In antique faith commission'd to portend
To sad sea-wanderers peace; or like the tree
By Moses cast into the bitter pool,
Which made the tear-salt water fresh and cool;
Or even as spring, that sets the boon earth free—
Free to be good, exempt from winter's rule:
Such hast thou been to our poor family.

LI. FAITH.

How much thy Holy Name hath been misused,
Beginner of all good, all-mighty Faith!
Some men thy blessed symbols have abused,
Making them badge or secret shibboleth
For greed accepted, or for spite refused,
Or just endured in fear of pain or death.
To some, by fearful conscience self-accused,
Thou com'st a goblin self, a hideous wraith!
With such as these thou art an inward strife,
A shame, a misery, and a death in life,
A self-asserting, self-disputing lie;
A thing to unbelief so near allied,
That it would gladly be a suicide,
And only lives because it dare not die.

LII. FEAR.

Dim child of darkness and faint-echoing space,
That still art just behind, and never here,
Death's herald shadow, unimagined Fear;
Thou antic, that dost multiply a face,
Which hath no self, but finds in every place
A body, feature, voice, and circumstance,
Yet art most potent in the wide expanse
Of unbelief,—may I beseech thy grace?
Thou art a spirit of no certain clan,
For thou wilt fight for either God or Devil.
Man is thy slave, and yet thy lord is man;
The human heart creates thee good or evil:
As goblin, ghost, or fiend I ne'er have known thee,
But as myself, my sinful self, I own thee.

LIII. PRAYER.

There is an awful quiet in the air,
And the sad earth, with moist imploring eye,
Looks wide and wakeful at the pondering sky,
Like Patience slow subsiding to Despair.
But see, the blue smoke as a voiceless prayer,
Sole witness of a secret sacrifice,
Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies
Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare
Capacious ether,—so it fades away,
And nought is seen beneath the pendent blue,
The undistinguishable waste of day.
So have I dream'd!—oh, may the dream be true!—
That praying souls are purged from mortal hue,
And grow as pure as He to whom they pray.

LIV.

There was a seed which the impassive wind,
Now high, now low, now piping loud, now mute,
Or, like the last note of a trembling lute,
The loved abortion of a thing design'd,
Or half-said prayer for good of human-kind,
Wafted along for ever, ever, ever.
It sought to plant itself; but never, never,
Could that poor seed or soil or water find.
And yet it was a seed which, had it found,
By river's brink or rocky mountain cleft,
A kindly shelter and a genial ground,
Might not have perish'd, quite of good bereft;
Might have some perfume, some faint echo left,
Faint as the echo of the Sabbath sound.

LV. FROM MICHAEL ANGELO.

The might of one fair face sublimes my love;
For it hath wean'd my heart from low desires,
Nor death I need, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepart of joys above,
Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For oh! how good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove.
Forgive me if I cannot turn away
From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,
For they are guiding stars benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light.

LVI.

Still for the world he lives, and lives in bliss,
For God and for himself. Ten years and three
Have now elapsed since he was dead to me
And all that were on earth intensely his.
Not in the dim domain of Gloomy Dis,
The death-god of the ever-guessing Greek,
Nor in the paradise of Houris sleek
I think of him whom I most sorely miss.
The sage, the poet, lives for all mankind,
As long as truth is true, or beauty fair.
The soul that ever sought its God to find
Has found Him now—no matter how, or where.
Yet can I not but mourn because he died
That was my father, should have been my guide.