University of Virginia Library

I. VOL. I: POEMS

POETICAL WORKS

EASTER HOLIDAYS

DURA NAVIS

NIL PEJUS EST CAELIBE VITÂ

[_]

[IN CHRIST'S HOSPITAL BOOK]

SONNET TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON

ANTHEM FOR THE CHILDREN OF CHRIST'S HOSPITAL

JULIA

Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace:
Small poets lov'd to sing her blooming face.
Before her altars, lo! a numerous train
Preferr'd their vows; yet all preferr'd in vain,
Till charming Florio, born to conquer, came
And touch'd the fair one with an equal flame.
The flame she felt, and ill could she conceal
What every look and action would reveal.
With boldness then, which seldom fails to move,
He pleads the cause of Marriage and of Love:
The course of Hymeneal joys he rounds,
The fair one's eyes danc'd pleasure at the sounds.
Nought now remain'd but ‘Noes’—how little meant!
And the sweet coyness that endears consent.
The youth upon his knees enraptur'd fell:
The strange misfortune, oh! what words can tell?
Tell! ye neglected sylphs! who lap-dogs guard,
Why snatch'd ye not away your precious ward?
Why suffer'd ye the lover's weight to fall
On the ill-fated neck of much-lov'd Ball?
The favourite on his mistress casts his eyes,
Gives a short melancholy howl, and—dies.
Sacred his ashes lie, and long his rest!
Anger and grief divide poor Julia's breast.
Her eyes she fixt on guilty Florio first:
On him the storm of angry grief must burst.
That storm he fled: he wooes a kinder fair,
Whose fond affections no dear puppies share.
'Twere vain to tell, how Julia pin'd away:
Unhappy Fair! that in one luckless day—
From future Almanacks the day be crost!—
At once her Lover and her Lap-dog lost.

QUAE NOCENT DOCENT

THE NOSE

TO THE MUSE

Tho' no bold flights to thee belong;
And tho' thy lays with conscious fear,
Shrink from Judgement's eye severe,
Yet much I thank thee, Spirit of my song!
For, lovely Muse! thy sweet employ
Exalts my soul, refines my breast,
Gives each pure pleasure keener zest,
And softens sorrow into pensive Joy.
From thee I learn'd the wish to bless,
From thee to commune with my heart;
From thee, dear Muse! the gayer part,
To laugh with pity at the crowds that press
Where Fashion flaunts her robes by Folly spun,
Whose hues gay-varying wanton in the sun.

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE

[OMITTED]

LIFE

PROGRESS OF VICE

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON

AN INVOCATION

Sweet Muse! companion of my every hour!
Voice of my Joy! Sure soother of the sigh!
Now plume thy pinions, now exert each power,
And fly to him who owns the candid eye.
And if a smile of Praise thy labour hail
(Well shall thy labours then my mind employ)
Fly fleetly back, sweet Muse! and with the tale
O'erspread my Features with a flush of Joy!

ANNA AND HARLAND

TO THE EVENING STAR

PAIN

Once could the Morn's first beams, the healthful breeze,
All Nature charm, and gay was every hour:—
But ah! not Music's self, nor fragrant bower
Can glad the trembling sense of wan Disease.
Now that the frequent pangs my frame assail,
Now that my sleepless eyes are sunk and dim,
And seas of Pain seem waving through each limb—
Ah what can all Life's gilded scenes avail?
I view the crowd, whom Youth and Health inspire,
Hear the loud laugh, and catch the sportive lay,
Then sigh and think—I too could laugh and play
And gaily sport it on the Muse's lyre,
Ere Tyrant Pain had chas'd away delight,
Ere the wild pulse throbb'd anguish thro' the night!

ON A LADY WEEPING

Lovely gems of radiance meek
Trembling down my Laura's cheek,
As the streamlets silent glide
Thro' the Mead's enamell'd pride,
Pledges sweet of pious woe,
Tears which Friendship taught to flow,
Sparkling in yon humid light
Love embathes his pinions bright:
There amid the glitt'ring show'r
Smiling sits th' insidious Power;
As some wingéd Warbler oft
When Spring-clouds shed their treasures soft
Joyous tricks his plumes anew,
And flutters in the fost'ring dew.

MONODY ON A TEA-KETTLE

GENEVIEVE

Maid of my Love, sweet Genevieve!
In Beauty's light you glide along:
Your eye is like the Star of Eve,
And sweet your voice, as Seraph's song
Yet not your heavenly beauty gives
This heart with Passion soft to glow:
Within your soul a voice there lives!
It bids you hear the tale of Woe.
When sinking low the sufferer wan
Beholds no hand outstretch'd to save,
Fair, as the bosom of the Swan
That rises graceful o'er the wave,
I've seen your breast with pity heave,
And therefore love I you, sweet Genevieve!

ON RECEIVING AN ACCOUNT THAT HIS ONLY SISTER'S DEATH WAS INEVITABLE

The tear which mourn'd a brother's fate scarce dry—
Pain after pain, and woe succeeding woe—
Is my heart destin'd for another blow?
O my sweet sister! and must thou too die?
Ah! how has Disappointment pour'd the tear
O'er infant Hope destroy'd by early frost!
How are ye gone, whom most my soul held dear!
Scarce had I lov'd you ere I mourn'd you lost;
Say, is this hollow eye, this heartless pain,
Fated to rove thro' Life's wide cheerless plain—
Nor father, brother, sister meet its ken—
My woes, my joys unshared! Ah! long ere then
On me thy icy dart, stern Death, be prov'd;—
Better to die, than live and not be lov'd!

ON SEEING A YOUTH AFFECTIONATELY WELCOMED BY A SISTER

I too a sister had! too cruel Death!
How sad Remembrance bids my bosom heave!
Tranquil her soul, as sleeping Infant's breath;
Meek were her manners as a vernal Eve.
Knowledge, that frequent lifts the bloated mind,
Gave her the treasure of a lowly breast,
And Wit to venom'd Malice oft assign'd,
Dwelt in her bosom in a Turtle's nest.
Cease, busy Memory! cease to urge the dart;
Nor on my soul her love to me impress!
For oh I mourn in anguish—and my heart
Feels the keen pang, th' unutterable distress.
Yet wherefore grieve I that her sorrows cease,
For Life was misery, and the Grave is Peace!

A MATHEMATICAL PROBLEM

To the Rev. George Coleridge

Dear Brother,

I have often been surprised that Mathematics, the quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid. Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unravelled the cause; viz. that though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved; whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily travelling on a dreary desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagination is the design of the following production. In the execution of it much may be objectionable. The verse (particularly in the introduction of the ode) may be accused of unwarrantable liberties, but they are liberties equally homogeneal with the

exactness of Mathematical disquisition, and the boldness of Pindaric daring. I have three strong champions to defend me against the attacks of Criticism: the Novelty, the Difficulty, and the Utility of the work. I may justly plume myself that I first have drawn the nymph Mathesis from the visionary caves of abstracted idea, and caused her to unite with Harmony. The first-born of this Union I now present to you; with interested motives indeed—as I expect to receive in return the more valuable offspring of your Muse.

This is now—this was erst,
Proposition the first—and Problem the first.

I

On a given finite line
Which must no way incline;
To describe an equi—
—lateral Tri—
—A, N, G, L, E.
Now let A. B.
Be the given line
Which must no way incline;
The great Mathematician
Makes this Requisition,
That we describe an Equi—
—lateral Tri—
—angle on it:
Aid us, Reason—aid us, Wit!

II

From the centre A. at the distance A. B.
Describe the circle B. C. D.
At the distance B. A. from B. the centre
The round A. C. E. to describe boldly venture.
(Third postulate see.)
And from the point C.
In which the circles make a pother
Cutting and slashing one another,
Bid the straight lines a journeying go.
C. A. C. B. those lines will show.
To the points, which by A. B. are reckon'd,
And postulate the second
For Authority ye know.
A. B. C.
Triumphant shall be
An Equilateral Triangle,
Not Peter Pindar carp, nor Zoilus can wrangle.

III

Because the point A. is the centre
Of the circular B. C. D.
And because the point B. is the centre
Of the circular A. C. E.
A. C. to A. B. and B. C. to B. A.
Harmoniously equal for ever must stay;
Then C. A. and B. C.
Both extend the kind hand
To the basis, A. B.
Unambitiously join'd in Equality's Band.
But to the same powers, when two powers are equal,
My mind forbodes the sequel;
My mind does some celestial impulse teach,
And equalises each to each.
Thus C. A. with B. C. strikes the same sure alliance,
That C. A. and B. C. had with A. B. before;
And in mutual affiance
None attempting to soar
Above another,
The unanimous three
C. A. and B. C. and A. B.
All are equal, each to his brother,
Preserving the balance of power so true:
Ah! the like would the proud Autocratrix do!
At taxes impending not Britain would tremble,
Nor Prussia struggle her fear to dissemble;
Nor the Mah'met-sprung Wight
The great Mussulman
Would stain his Divan
With Urine the soft-flowing daughter of Fright.

IV

But rein your stallion in, too daring Nine!
Should Empires bloat the scientific line?
Or with dishevell'd hair all madly do ye run
For transport that your task is done?
For done it is—the cause is tried!
And Proposition, gentle Maid,
Who soothly ask'd stern Demonstration's aid,
Has proved her right, and A. B. C.
Of Angles three
Is shown to be of equal side;
And now our weary steed to rest in fine,
'Tis rais'd upon A. B. the straight, the given line.

HONOUR

ON IMITATION

All are not born to soar—and ah! how few
In tracks where Wisdom leads their paths pursue!
Contagious when to wit or wealth allied,
Folly and Vice diffuse their venom wide.
On Folly every fool his talent tries;
It asks some toil to imitate the wise;
Tho' few like Fox can speak—like Pitt can think—
Yet all like Fox can game—like Pitt can drink.

INSIDE THE COACH

'Tis hard on Bagshot Heath to try
Unclos'd to keep the weary eye;
But ah! Oblivion's nod to get
In rattling coach is harder yet.
Slumbrous God of half-shut eye!
Who lovest with limbs supine to lie;
Soother sweet of toil and care
Listen, listen to my prayer;
And to thy votary dispense
Thy soporific influence!
What tho' around thy drowsy head
The seven-fold cap of night be spread,
Yet lift that drowsy head awhile
And yawn propitiously a smile;
In drizzly rains poppean dews
O'er the tired inmates of the Coach diffuse;
And when thou'st charm'd our eyes to rest,
Pillowing the chin upon the breast,
Bid many a dream from thy dominions
Wave its various-painted pinions,
Till ere the splendid visions close
We snore quartettes in ecstasy of nose.
While thus we urge our airy course,
O may no jolt's electric force
Our fancies from their steeds unhorse,
And call us from thy fairy reign
To dreary Bagshot Heath again!

DEVONSHIRE ROADS

The indignant Bard composed this furious ode,
As tired he dragg'd his way thro' Plimtree road!
Crusted with filth and stuck in mire
Dull sounds the Bard's bemudded lyre;
Nathless Revenge and Ire the Poet goad
To pour his imprecations on the road.
Curst road! whose execrable way
Was darkly shadow'd out in Milton's lay,
When the sad fiends thro' Hell's sulphureous roads
Took the first survey of their new abodes;
Or when the fall'n Archangel fierce
Dar'd through the realms of Night to pierce,
What time the Bloodhound lur'd by Human scent
Thro' all Confusion's quagmires floundering went.
Nor cheering pipe, nor Bird's shrill note
Around thy dreary paths shall float;
Their boding songs shall scritch-owls pour
To fright the guilty shepherds sore,
Led by the wandering fires astray
Thro' the dank horrors of thy way!
While they their mud-lost sandals hunt
May all the curses, which they grunt
In raging moan like goaded hog,
Alight upon thee, damnéd Bog!

MUSIC

SONNET ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR COLLEGE

Farewell parental scenes! a sad farewell!
To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,
Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings
Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell.
Adieu, adieu! ye much-lov'd cloisters pale!
Ah! would those happy days return again,
When 'neath your arches, free from every stain,
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale!
Dear haunts! where oft my simple lays I sang,
Listening meanwhile the echoings of my feet,
Lingering I quit you, with as great a pang,
As when erewhile, my weeping childhood, torn
By early sorrow from my native seat,
Mingled its tears with hers—my widow'd Parent lorn.

ABSENCE

A FAREWELL ODE ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Where graced with many a classic spoil
Cam rolls his reverend stream along,
I haste to urge the learnéd toil
That sternly chides my love-lorn song:
Ah me! too mindful of the days
Illumed by Passion's orient rays,
When Peace, and Cheerfulness and Health
Enriched me with the best of wealth.
Ah fair Delights! that o'er my soul
On Memory's wing, like shadows fly!
Ah Flowers! which Joy from Eden stole
While Innocence stood smiling by!—
But cease, fond Heart! this bootless moan:
Those Hours on rapid Pinions flown
Shall yet return, by Absence crown'd,
And scatter livelier roses round.
The Sun who ne'er remits his fires
On heedless eyes may pour the day:
The Moon, that oft from Heaven retires,
Endears her renovated ray.
What though she leave the sky unblest
To mourn awhile in murky vest?
When she relumes her lovely light,
We bless the Wanderer of the Night.

HAPPINESS

A WISH

WRITTEN IN JESUS WOOD, FEB. 10, 1792

Lo! through the dusky silence of the groves,
Thro' vales irriguous, and thro' green retreats,
With languid murmur creeps the placid stream
And works its secret way.
Awhile meand'ring round its native fields
It rolls the playful wave and winds its flight:
Then downward flowing with awaken'd speed
Embosoms in the Deep!
Thus thro' its silent tenor may my Life
Smooth its meek stream by sordid wealth unclogg'd,
Alike unconscious of forensic storms,
And Glory's blood-stain'd palm!
And when dark Age shall close Life's little day,
Satiate of sport, and weary of its toils,
E'en thus may slumbrous Death my decent limbs
Compose with icy hand!

AN ODE IN THE MANNER OF ANACREON

As late, in wreaths, gay flowers I bound,
Beneath some roses Love I found;
And by his little frolic pinion
As quick as thought I seiz'd the minion,
Then in my cup the prisoner threw,
And drank him in its sparkling dew:
And sure I feel my angry guest
Fluttering his wings within my breast!

TO DISAPPOINTMENT

A FRAGMENT FOUND IN A LECTURE-ROOM

Where deep in mud Cam rolls his slumbrous stream,
And bog and desolation reign supreme;
Where all Boeotia clouds the misty brain,
The owl Mathesis pipes her loathsome strain.
Far, far aloof the frighted Muses fly,
Indignant Genius scowls and passes by:
The frolic Pleasures start amid their dance,
And Wit congeal'd stands fix'd in wintry trance.
But to the sounds with duteous haste repair
Cold Industry, and wary-footed Care;
And Dulness, dosing on a couch of lead,
Pleas'd with the song uplifts her heavy head,
The sympathetic numbers lists awhile,
Then yawns propitiously a frosty smile. . . .

ODE

A LOVER'S COMPLAINT TO HIS MISTRESS

WHO DESERTED HIM IN QUEST OF A MORE WEALTHY HUSBAND IN THE EAST INDIES

WITH FIELDING'S ‘AMELIA’

Virtues and Woes alike too great for man
In the soft tale oft claim the useless sigh;
For vain the attempt to realise the plan,
On Folly's wings must Imitation fly.
With other aim has Fielding here display'd
Each social duty and each social care;
With just yet vivid colouring portray'd
What every wife should be, what many are.
And sure the Parent of a race so sweet
With double pleasure on the page shall dwell,
Each scene with sympathizing breast shall meet,
While Reason still with smiles delights to tell
Maternal hope, that her loved progeny
In all but sorrows shall Amelias be!

WRITTEN AFTER A WALK BEFORE SUPPER

Tho' much averse, dear Jack, to flicker,
To find a likeness for friend V—ker,
I've made thro' Earth, and Air, and Sea,
A Voyage of Discovery!
And let me add (to ward off strife)
For V---ker and for V—ker's Wife—
She large and round beyond belief,
A superfluity of beef!
Her mind and body of a piece,
And both composed of kitchen-grease.
In short, Dame Truth might safely dub her
Vulgarity enshrin'd in blubber!
He, meagre bit of littleness,
All snuff, and musk, and politesse;
So thin, that strip him of his clothing,
He'd totter on the edge of Nothing!
In case of foe, he well might hide
Snug in the collops of her side.
Ah then, what simile will suit?
Spindle-leg in great jack-boot?
Pismire crawling in a rut?
Or a spigot in a butt?
Thus I humm'd and ha'd awhile,
When Madam Memory with a smile
Thus twitch'd my ear—‘Why sure, I ween,
In London streets thou oft hast seen
The very image of this pair:
A little Ape with huge She-Bear
Link'd by hapless chain together:
An unlick'd mass the one—the other
An antic small with nimble crupper—’
But stop, my Muse! for here comes supper.

IMITATED FROM OSSIAN

THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHÓMA

FROM THE SAME

How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathlóma
In the steps of my beauty I strayed;
The warriors beheld Ninathóma,
And they blesséd the white-bosom'd Maid!
A Ghost! by my cavern it darted!
In moon-beams the Spirit was drest—
For lovely appear the Departed
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But disturb'd by the tempest's commotion
Fleet the shadowy forms of delight—
Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the Ocean!
To howl through my cavern by night.

SONGS OF THE PIXIES

THE ROSE

KISSES

Cupid, if storying Legends tell aright,
Once fram'd a rich Elixir of Delight.
A Chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd,
And in it Nectar and Ambrosia mix'd:
With these the magic dews which Evening brings,
Brush'd from the Idalian star by faery wings:
Each tender pledge of sacred Faith he join'd,
Each gentler Pleasure of th' unspotted mind—
Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow,
And Hope, the blameless parasite of Woe.
The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise,
The steamy Chalice bubbled up in sighs;
Sweet sounds transpired, as when the enamour'd Dove
Pours the soft murmuring of responsive Love.
The finish'd work might Envy vainly blame,
And ‘Kisses’ was the precious Compound's name.
With half the God his Cyprian Mother blest,
And breath'd on Sara's lovelier lips the rest.

THE GENTLE LOOK

Thou gentle Look, that didst my soul beguile,
Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile!
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam:
What time, in sickly mood, at parting day
I lay me down and think of happier years;
Of joys, that glimmer'd in Hope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of Hope—for ever gone!
Could I recall you!—But that thought is vain.
Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone
To lure the fleet-wing'd Travellers back again:
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam
Like the bright Rainbow on a willowy stream.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER

Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of Childhood! oft have ye beguil'd
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!

AN EFFUSION AT EVENING

WRITTEN IN AUGUST, 1792

LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING

TO FORTUNE

[_]

To the Editor of the ‘Morning Chronicle’

Sir,

—The following poem you may perhaps deem admissible into your journal—if not, you will commit it εις ιερον μενος Ηφαιστοιο.—I am, with more respect and gratitude than I ordinarily feel for Editors of Papers, your obliged, &c.

Cantab.—S. T. C.

---

55

On buying a Ticket in the Irish Lottery

Composed during a walk to and from the Queen's Head, Gray's Inn Lane, Holborn, and Hornsby's and Co., Cornhill.

Promptress of unnumber'd sighs,
O snatch that circling bandage from thine eyes!
O look, and smile! No common prayer
Solicits, Fortune! thy propitious care!
For, not a silken son of dress,
I clink the gilded chains of politesse,
Nor ask thy boon what time I scheme
Unholy Pleasure's frail and feverish dream;
Nor yet my view life's dazzle blinds—
Pomp!—Grandeur! Power!—I give you to the winds!
Let the little bosom cold
Melt only at the sunbeam ray of gold—
My pale cheeks glow—the big drops start—
The rebel Feeling riots at my heart!
And if in lonely durance pent,
Thy poor mite mourn a brief imprisonment—
That mite at Sorrow's faintest sound
Leaps from its scrip with an elastic bound!
But oh! if ever song thine ear
Might soothe, O haste with fost'ring hand to rear
One Flower of Hope! At Love's behest,
Trembling, I plac'd it in my secret breast:
And thrice I've view'd the vernal gleam,
Since oft mine eye, with Joy's electric beam,
Illum'd it—and its sadder hue
Oft moisten'd with the Tear's ambrosial dew!
Poor wither'd floweret! on its head
Has dark Despair his sickly mildew shed!
But thou, O Fortune! canst relume
Its deaden'd tints—and thou with hardier bloom
May'st haply tinge its beauties pale,
And yield the unsunn'd stranger to the western gale!

PERSPIRATION. A TRAVELLING ECLOGUE

The dust flies smothering, as on clatt'ring wheel
Loath'd Aristocracy careers along;
The distant track quick vibrates to the eye,
And white and dazzling undulates with heat,
Where scorching to the unwary traveller's touch,
The stone fence flings its narrow slip of shade;
Or, where the worn sides of the chalky road
Yield their scant excavations (sultry grots!),
Emblem of languid patience, we behold
The fleecy files faint-ruminating lie.

ON BALA HILL

LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S ARMS, ROSS, FORMERLY THE HOUSE OF THE ‘MAN OF ROSS’

Richer than Miser o'er his countless hoards,
Nobler than Kings, or king-polluted Lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O Traveller, hear!
Departed Merit claims a reverent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth;
He heard the widow's heaven-breath'd prayer of praise,
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze,
Or where the sorrow-shrivell'd captive lay,
Pour'd the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray.
Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass:
To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl.
But if, like me, through Life's distressful scene
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been;
And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-tossed in thought;
Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt,
And dream of Goodness, thou hast never felt!

IMITATED FROM THE WELSH

LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A VILLAGE

IMITATIONS

AD LYRAM

(CASIMIR, BOOK II. ODE 3)

TO LESBIA

My Lesbia, let us love and live,
And to the winds, my Lesbia, give
Each cold restraint, each boding fear
Of age and all her saws severe.
Yon sun now posting to the main
Will set,—but 'tis to rise again;—
But we, when once our mortal light
Is set, must sleep in endless night.
Then come, with whom alone I'll live,
A thousand kisses take and give!
Another thousand!—to the store
Add hundreds—then a thousand more!
And when they to a million mount,
Let confusion take the account,—
That you, the number never knowing,
May continue still bestowing—
That I for joys may never pine,
Which never can again be mine!

THE DEATH OF THE STARLING

Pity! mourn in plaintive tone
The lovely starling dead and gone!
Pity mourns in plaintive tone
The lovely starling dead and gone.
Weep, ye Loves! and Venus! weep
The lovely starling fall'n asleep!
Venus sees with tearful eyes—
In her lap the starling lies!
While the Loves all in a ring
Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.

MORIENS SUPERSTITI

MORIENTI SUPERSTES

Yet art thou happier far than she
Who feels the widow's love for thee!
For while her days are days of weeping,
Thou, in peace, in silence sleeping,
In some still world, unknown, remote,
The mighty parent's care hast found,
Without whose tender guardian thought
No sparrow falleth to the ground.

THE SIGH

THE KISS

TO A YOUNG LADY

WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

TRANSLATION OF WRANGHAM'S ‘HENDECASYLLABI AD BRUNTONAM E GRANTA EXITURAM’ [KAL. OCT. MDCCXC]

TO MISS BRUNTON

WITH THE PRECEDING TRANSLATION

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care:
The opening Bud to Heaven convey'd,
And bade it blossom there.

PANTISOCRACY

No more my visionary soul shall dwell
On joys that were; no more endure to weigh
The shame and anguish of the evil day,
Wisely forgetful! O'er the ocean swell
Sublime of Hope, I seek the cottag'd dell
Where Virtue calm with careless step may stray,
And dancing to the moonlight roundelay,
The wizard Passions weave an holy spell.
Eyes that have ach'd with Sorrow! Ye shall weep
Tears of doubt-mingled joy, like theirs who start
From Precipices of distemper'd sleep,
On which the fierce-eyed Fiends their revels keep,
And see the rising Sun, and feel it dart
New rays of pleasance trembling to the heart.

ON THE PROSPECT OF ESTABLISHING A PANTISOCRACY IN AMERICA

Whilst pale Anxiety, corrosive Care,
The tear of Woe, the gloom of sad Despair,
And deepen'd Anguish generous bosoms rend;—
Whilst patriot souls their country's fate lament;
Whilst mad with rage demoniac, foul intent,
Embattled legions Despots vainly send
To arrest the immortal mind's expanding ray
Of everlasting Truth;—I other climes
Where dawns, with hope serene, a brighter day
Than e'er saw Albion in her happiest times,
With mental eye exulting now explore,
And soon with kindred minds shall haste to enjoy
(Free from the ills which here our peace destroy)
Content and Bliss on Transatlantic shore.

ELEGY

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK-VERSE INSCRIPTIONS

THE FADED FLOWER

Ungrateful he, who pluck'd thee from thy stalk,
Poor faded flow'ret! on his careless way;
Inhal'd awhile thy odours on his walk,
Then onward pass'd and left thee to decay.
Ah! melancholy emblem! had I seen
Thy modest beauties dew'd with Evening's gem,
I had not rudely cropp'd thy parent stem,
But left thee, blushing, 'mid the enliven'd green
And now I bend me o'er thy wither'd bloom,
And drop the tear—as Fancy, at my side,
Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Abra's tomb—
‘Like thine, sad Flower, was that poor wanderer's pride!
Oh! lost to Love and Truth, whose selfish joy
Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy!’

THE OUTCAST

Pale Roamer through the night! thou poor Forlorn!
Remorse that man on his death-bed possess,
Who in the credulous hour of tenderness
Betrayed, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn!
The world is pitiless: the chaste one's pride
Mimic of Virtue scowls on thy distress:
Thy Loves and they that envied thee deride:
And Vice alone will shelter Wretchedness!
O! I could weep to think that there should be
Cold-bosom'd lewd ones, who endure to place
Foul offerings on the shrine of Misery,
And force from Famine the caress of Love;
May He shed healing on the sore disgrace,
He, the great Comforter that rules above!

DOMESTIC PEACE

ON A DISCOVERY MADE TOO LATE

Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress
Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile
And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while
Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland?
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
When Jealousy with feverous fancies pale
Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?
Faint was that Hope, and rayless!—Yet 'twas fair
And sooth'd with many a dream the hour of rest:
Thou should'st have lov'd it most, when most opprest,
And nurs'd it with an agony of care,
Even as a mother her sweet infant heir
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!

TO THE AUTHOR OF ‘THE ROBBERS’

Schiller! that hour I would have wish'd to die,
If thro' the shuddering midnight I had sent
From the dark dungeon of the Tower time-rent
That fearful voice, a famish'd Father's cry—
Lest in some after moment aught more mean
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout
Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene!
Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity!
Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood
Wandering at eve with finely-frenzied eye
Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!
Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood:
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy!

MELANCHOLY

A FRAGMENT

TO A YOUNG ASS

ITS MOTHER BEING TETHERED NEAR IT

LINES ON A FRIEND WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY CALUMNIOUS REPORTS

TO A FRIEND

[_]

[Charles Lamb]

TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM

Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling: yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wandering far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-lov'd Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister—
She lov'd me dearly, and I doted on her!
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows
(As a sick Patient in a Nurse's arms)
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That e'en from Friendship's eye will shrink asham'd.
O! I have wak'd at midnight, and have wept,
Because she was not!—Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year:
Such warm presages feel I of high Hope.
For not uninterested the dear Maid
I've view'd—her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepar'd, when he his healing ray vouchsafes,
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart,
And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's Joy!

SONNETS ON EMINENT CHARACTERS

CONTRIBUTED TO THE ‘MORNING CHRONICLE’ IN DECEMBER 1794 AND JANUARY 1795

I
TO THE HONOURABLE MR. ERSKINE

II
BURKE

III
PRIESTLEY

IV
LA FAYETTE

V
KOSKIUSKO

VI
PITT

VII
TO THE REV. W. L. BOWLES

VII
TO THE REV. W. L. BOWLES [SECOND VERSION]

VIII
MRS. SIDDONS

IX
TO WILLIAM GODWIN AUTHOR OF ‘POLITICAL JUSTICE’

X
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY OF BALIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD, AUTHOR OF THE ‘RETROSPECT’, AND OTHER POEMS

XI
TO RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, ESQ.

[XII]
TO LORD STANHOPE ON READING HIS LATE PROTEST IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS

TO EARL STANHOPE

LINES TO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY LETTER

TO AN INFANT

TO THE REV. W. J. HORT

WHILE TEACHING A YOUNG LADY SOME SONG-TUNES ON HIS FLUTE

PITY

Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled
To see thee, poor Old Man! and thy grey hairs
Hoar with the snowy blast: while no one cares
To clothe thy shrivell'd limbs and palsied head.
My Father! throw away this tatter'd vest
That mocks thy shivering! take my garment—use
A young man's arm! I'll melt these frozen dews
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast.
My Sara too shall tend thee, like a child:
And thou shalt talk, in our fireside's recess,
Of purple Pride, that scowls on Wretchedness—
He did not so, the Galilaean mild,
Who met the Lazars turn'd from rich men's doors
And call'd them Friends, and heal'd their noisome sores!

TO THE NIGHTINGALE

Sister of love-lorn Poets, Philomel!
How many Bards in city garret pent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen
(Those hoarse unfeather'd Nightingales of Time!),
How many wretched Bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd Queen that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O! I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft,
I hymn thy name: and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, Minstrel of the Moon!
‘Most musical, most melancholy’ Bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd Lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
Are not so sweet as is the voice of her,
My Sara—best beloved of human kind!
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness,
She thrills me with the Husband's promis'd name!

LINES COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBING THE LEFT ASCENT OF BROCKLEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE, MAY 1795

With many a pause and oft reverted eye
I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet songsters near
Warble in shade their wild-wood melody:
Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear.
Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock
That on green plots o'er precipices browze:
From the deep fissures of the naked rock
The Yew-tree bursts! Beneath its dark green boughs
(Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white)
Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats,
I rest:—and now have gain'd the topmost site.
Ah! what a luxury of landscape meets
My gaze! Proud towers, and Cots more dear to me,
Elm-shadow'd Fields, and prospect-bounding Sea!
Deep sighs my lonely heart: I drop the tear:
Enchanting spot! O were my Sara here!

LINES IN THE MANNER OF SPENSER

THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN

(Composed during Illness, and in Absence.)

Dim Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar,
O rise and yoke the Turtles to thy car!
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering Dove,
And give me to the bosom of my Love!
My gentle Love, caressing and carest,
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest!
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and medicine me with sighs!
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek.
Chill'd by the night, the drooping Rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely Day;
Young Day returning at her promis'd hour
Weeps o'er the sorrows of her favourite Flower;
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs,
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels:
His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals!

LINES WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SEPTEMBER 1795, IN ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM BRISTOL

THE EOLIAN HARP

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE

TO THE AUTHOR OF POEMS

THE SILVER THIMBLE

THE PRODUCTION OF A YOUNG LADY, ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR OF THE POEMS ALLUDED TO IN THE PRECEDING EPISTLE

She had lost her Silver Thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by him, her Friend, he immediately sent her four others to take her choice of.

REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT

RELIGIOUS MUSINGS

A DESULTORY POEM, WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1794

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON

THE DESTINY OF NATIONS

A VISION

VER PERPETUUM

FRAGMENT

From an unpublished poem.

The early Year's fast-flying vapours stray
In shadowing trains across the orb of day:
And we, poor Insects of a few short hours,
Deem it a world of Gloom.
Were it not better hope a nobler doom,
Proud to believe that with more active powers
On rapid many-coloured wing
We thro' one bright perpetual Spring
Shall hover round the fruits and flowers,
Screen'd by those clouds and cherish'd by those showers!

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY 1796

Sweet flower! that peeping from thy russet stem
Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month
Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee
With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
Even now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth
Nipp'd by consumption mid untimely charms?
Or to Bristowa's bard, the wondrous boy!
An amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own,
Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's hope,
Bright flower of hope killed in the opening bud?
Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine
And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
From anxious Self, Life's cruel taskmaster!
And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame and harmonize
The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

TO A PRIMROSE

THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON

VERSES ADDRESSED TO J. HORNE TOOKE AND THE COMPANY WHO MET ON JUNE 28TH, 1796, TO CELEBRATE HIS POLL AT THE WESTMINSTER ELECTION

Britons! when last ye met, with distant streak
So faintly promis'd the pale Dawn to break;
So dim it stain'd the precincts of the Sky
E'en Expectation gaz'd with doubtful Eye.
But now such fair Varieties of Light
O'ertake the heavy sailing Clouds of Night;
Th' Horizon kindles with so rich a red,
That tho' the Sun still hides his glorious head
Th' impatient Matin-bird, assur'd of Day,
Leaves his low nest to meet its earliest ray;
Loud the sweet song of Gratulation sings,
And high in air claps his rejoicing wings!
Patriot and Sage! whose breeze-like Spirit first
The lazy mists of Pedantry dispers'd
(Mists in which Superstition's pigmy band
Seem'd Giant Forms, the Genii of the Land!),
Thy struggles soon shall wak'ning Britain bless,
And Truth and Freedom hail thy wish'd success.
Yes Tooke! tho' foul Corruption's wolfish throng
Outmalice Calumny's imposthum'd Tongue,
Thy Country's noblest and determin'd Choice,
Soon shalt thou thrill the Senate with thy voice;
With gradual Dawn bid Error's phantoms flit,
Or wither with the lightning's flash of Wit;
Or with sublimer mien and tones more deep,
Charm sworded Justice from mysterious Sleep,
‘By violated Freedom's loud Lament,
Her Lamps extinguish'd and her Temple rent;
By the forc'd tears her captive Martyrs shed;
By each pale Orphan's feeble cry for bread;
By ravag'd Belgium's corse-impeded Flood,
And Vendee steaming still with brothers' blood!’
And if amid the strong impassion'd Tale,
Thy Tongue should falter and thy Lips turn pale;
If transient Darkness film thy aweful Eye,
And thy tir'd Bosom struggle with a sigh:
Science and Freedom shall demand to hear
Who practis'd on a Life so doubly dear;
Infus'd the unwholesome anguish drop by drop,
Pois'ning the sacred stream they could not stop!
Shall bid thee with recover'd strength relate
How dark and deadly is a Coward's Hate:
What seeds of death by wan Confinement sown,
When Prison-echoes mock'd Disease's groan!
Shall bid th' indignant Father flash dismay,
And drag the unnatural Villain into Day
Who to the sports of his flesh'd Ruffians left
Two lovely Mourners of their Sire bereft!
'Twas wrong, like this, which Rome's first Consul bore,
So by th' insulted Female's name he swore
Ruin (and rais'd her reeking dagger high)
Not to the Tyrants but the Tyranny!

ON A LATE CONNUBIAL RUPTURE IN HIGH LIFE

SONNET ON RECEIVING A LETTER INFORMING ME OF THE BIRTH OF A SON

When they did greet me father, sudden awe
Weigh'd down my spirit: I retired and knelt
Seeking the throne of grace, but inly felt
No heavenly visitation upwards draw
My feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.
Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I brought
Th' unquiet silence of confuséd thought
And shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelméd heart
Trembled, and vacant tears stream'd down my face.
And now once more, O Lord! to thee I bend,
Lover of souls! and groan for future grace,
That ere my babe youth's perilous maze have trod,
Thy overshadowing Spirit may descend,
And he be born again, a child of God.

SONNET COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796

Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said
We liv'd, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.
O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead,
(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear)
I think that I should struggle to believe
Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere
Sentenc'd for some more venial crime to grieve;
Did'st scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve,
While we wept idly o'er thy little bier!

SONNET TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scann'd that face of feeble infancy:
For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my child might be!
But when I saw it on its mother's arm,
And hanging at her bosom (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile)
Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm
Impress'd a father's kiss: and all beguil'd
Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seem'd to see an angel-form appear—
'Twas even thine, belovéd woman mild!
So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.

SONNET

The piteous sobs that choke the Virgin's breath
For him, the fair betrothéd Youth, who lies
Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries
With which a Mother wails her darling's death,
These from our nature's common impulse spring,
Unblam'd, unprais'd; but o'er the piléd earth
Which hides the sheeted corse of grey-hair'd Worth,
If droops the soaring Youth with slacken'd wing;
If he recall in saddest minstrelsy
Each tenderness bestow'd, each truth imprest,
Such grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!
And from the Almighty Father shall descend
Comforts on his late evening, whose young breast
Mourns with no transient love the Agéd Friend.

TO A YOUNG FRIEND

ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR

Composed in 1796

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

[_]

[C. Lloyd]

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave Life's commonweal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

TO A FRIEND

[_]

[Charles Lamb]

WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR

THE RAVEN

A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE THEATRE

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN

WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE

OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON

With some Poems

ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD

TRANSLATION OF A LATIN INSCRIPTION BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES IN NETHER-STOWEY CHURCH

THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON

THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT

Foster-Mother.
I never saw the man whom you describe.

Maria.
'Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly
As mine and Albert's common Foster-mother.

Foster-Mother.
Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be,
That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,
As often as I think of those dear times
When you two little ones would stand at eve
On each side of my chair, and make me learn
All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk
In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you—
'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been!

Maria.
O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me
Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon
Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
She gazes idly!—But that entrance, Mother!

Foster-Mother.
Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

Maria.
No one.

Foster-Mother.
My husband's father told it me,
Poor old Leoni!—Angels rest his soul!
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging wall of the old Chapel?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And rear'd him at the then Lord Velez' cost.
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
A pretty boy, but most unteachable—
And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,
But knew the names of birds, and mock'd their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself:
And all the autumn 'twas his only play
To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them
With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who gather'd simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man—he lov'd this little boy,
The boy lov'd him—and, when the Friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,
Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
So he became a very learnéd youth.
But Oh! poor wretch!—he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turn'd—and ere his twentieth year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never lov'd to pray
With holy men, nor in a holy place—
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the Chapel
They stood together, chain'd in deep discourse,
The earth heav'd under them with such a groan,
That the wall totter'd, and had well-nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frighten'd;
A fever seiz'd him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seiz'd
And cast into that hole. My husband's father
Sobb'd like a child—it almost broke his heart:
And once as he was working in the cellar,
He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning entrance I describ'd:
And the young man escap'd.

Maria.
'Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
His rosy face besoil'd with unwiped tears.—
And what became of him?

Foster-Mother.
He went on shipboard
With those bold voyagers, who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni's younger brother
Went likewise, and when he return'd to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arriv'd in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seiz'd a boat,
And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis suppos'd,
He liv'd and died among the savage men.

THE DUNGEON

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

IN SEVEN PARTS

I. Part I

II. Part II

III. Part III

IV. Part IV

V. Part V

VI. Part VI

FIRST VOICE

SECOND VOICE

FIRST VOICE

SECOND VOICE

VII. Part VII

SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

I

[Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd]

Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the Moon
I gaz'd—and sigh'd, and sigh'd!—for, ah! how soon
Eve darkens into night. Mine eye perus'd
With tearful vacancy the dampy grass
Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray;
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on those wretched ones who pass
O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of Myself I thought: when it befell
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath'd in mine ear—‘All this is very well;
But much of one thing is for no thing good.’
Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!

II
TO SIMPLICITY

O! I do love thee, meek Simplicity!
For of thy lays the lulling simpleness
Goes to my heart and soothes each small distress,
Distress though small, yet haply great to me!
'Tis true on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad
I amble on; yet, though I know not why,
So sad I am!—but should a friend and I
Grow cool and miff, O! I am very sad!
And then with sonnets and with sympathy
My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall;
Now of my false friend plaining plaintively,
Now raving at mankind in general;
But, whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all,
All very simple, meek Simplicity!

III
ON A RUINED HOUSE IN A ROMANTIC COUNTRY

And this reft house is that the which he built,
Lamented Jack! And here his malt he pil'd,
Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak so wild,
Squeak, not unconscious of their father's guilt.
Did ye not see her gleaming thro' the glade?
Belike, 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn.
What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn,
Yet aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd;
And aye beside her stalks her amorous knight!
Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,
And thro' those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white;
As when thro' broken clouds at night's high noon
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb'd harvest-moon!

PARLIAMENTARY OSCILLATORS

CHRISTABEL

PREFACE

The first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. It is probable that if the

poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggerel version of two monkish Latin hexameters.

'Tis mine and it is likewise yours;
But an if this will not do;
Let it be mine, good friend! for I
Am the poorer of the two.

I have only to add that the metre of Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless, this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, for for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or passion.

I. Part I

The Conclusion to Part I

II. Part II

LINES TO W. L. WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC

While my young cheek retains its healthful hues,
And I have many friends who hold me dear,
L—! methinks, I would not often hear
Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose
All memory of the wrongs and sore distress
For which my miserable brethren weep!
But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
My daily bread in tears and bitterness;
And if at Death's dread moment I should lie
With no belovéd face at my bed-side,
To fix the last glance of my closing eye,
Methinks such strains, breathed by my angel-guide,
Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,
Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

A WAR ECLOGUE

The Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendée. Famine is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter Fire and Slaughter.
Fam.
Sisters! sisters! who sent you here?

Slau.
[to Fire].
I will whisper it in her ear.

Fire.
No! no! no!
Spirits hear what spirits tell:
'Twill make a holiday in Hell.
No! no! no!
Myself, I named him once below,
And all the souls, that damnéd be,
Leaped up at once in anarchy,
Clapped their hands and danced for glee.
They no longer heeded me;
But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters
Unwillingly re-echo laughters!
No! no! no!
Spirits hear what spirits tell:
'Twill make a holiday in Hell!

Fam.
Whisper it, sister! so and so!
In a dark hint, soft and slow.

Slau.
Letters four do form his name—
And who sent you?

Both.
The same! the same!

Slau.
He came by stealth, and unlocked my den,
And I have drunk the blood since then
Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Both.
Who bade you do 't?

Slau.
The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

Fam.
Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled,
Their wives and their children faint for bread.
I stood in a swampy field of battle;
With bones and skulls I made a rattle,
To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow
And the homeless dog—but they would not go.
So off I flew: for how could I bear
To see them gorge their dainty fare?
I heard a groan and a peevish squall,
And through the chink of a cottage-wall—
Can you guess what I saw there?

Both.
Whisper it, sister! in our ear.

Fam.
A baby beat its dying mother:
I had starved the one and was starving the other!

Both.
Who bade you do 't?

Fam.
The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

Fire.
Sisters! I from Ireland came!
Hedge and corn-fields all on flame,
I triumph'd o'er the setting sun!
And all the while the work was done,
On as I strode with my huge strides,
I flung back my head and I held my sides,
It was so rare a piece of fun
To see the sweltered cattle run
With uncouth gallop through the night,
Scared by the red and noisy light!
By the light of his own blazing cot
Was many a naked Rebel shot:
The house-stream met the flame and hissed,
While crash! fell in the roof, I wist,
On some of those old bed-rid nurses,
That deal in discontent and curses.

Both.
Who bade you do 't?

Fire.
The same! the same!
Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

All.
He let us loose, and cried Halloo!
How shall we yield him honour due?

Fam.
Wisdom comes with lack of food.
I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude,
Till the cup of rage o'erbrim:
They shall seize him and his brood—

Slau.
They shall tear him limb from limb!

Fire.
O thankless beldames and untrue!
And is this all that you can do
For him, who did so much for you?
Ninety months he, by my troth!
Hath richly catered for you both;
And in an hour would you repay
An eight years' work?—Away! away!
I alone am faithful! I
Cling to him everlastingly.

FROST AT MIDNIGHT

FRANCE: AN ODE

THE OLD MAN OF THE ALPS

TO A YOUNG LADY

[_]

[Miss Lavinia Poole]

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER

LEWTI

OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVE-CHAUNT

FEARS IN SOLITUDE

WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF AN INVASION

THE NIGHTINGALE

A CONVERSATION POEM, APRIL, 1798

THE THREE GRAVES

A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON'S TALE

[Part I—From MS.]

[Part II—From MS.]

III. Part III

IV. Part IV

TO ---

I mix in life, and labour to seem free,
With common persons pleas'd and common things,
While every thought and action tends to thee,
And every impulse from thy influence springs.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE

A FRAGMENT

KUBLA KHAN:

Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.

The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity [Lord Byron], and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits.

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill

health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in ‘Purchas's Pilgrimage’: ‘Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.’ The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Then all the charm
Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each mis-shape['s] the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes—
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.
[From The Picture; or, the Lover's Resolution, II. 91-100.]

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had

been originally, as it were, given to him. Σαμερον αδιον ασω [Αυριον αδιον ασω 1834]: but the to-morrow is yet to come.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

RECANTATION

ILLUSTRATED IN THE STORY OF THE MAD OX

HEXAMETERS

I forget the beginning of the line:

There was a great deal more, which I have forgotten. . . . The last line which I wrote, I remember, and write it for the truth of the sentiment, scarcely less true in company than in pain and solitude:—

TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED'S METRICAL PARAPHRASE OF THE GOSPEL

She gave with joy her virgin breast;
She hid it not, she bared the breast
Which suckled that divinest babe!
Blessed, blessed were the breasts
Which the Saviour infant kiss'd;
And blessed, blessed was the mother
Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes,
Singing placed him on her lap,
Hung o'er him with her looks of love,
And soothed him with a lulling motion.
Blessed! for she shelter'd him
From the damp and chilling air;
Blessed, blessed! for she lay
With such a babe in one blest bed,
Close as babes and mothers lie!
Blessed, blessed evermore,
With her virgin lips she kiss'd,
With her arms, and to her breast,
She embraced the babe divine,
Her babe divine the virgin mother!
There lives not on this ring of earth
A mortal that can sing her praise.
Mighty mother, virgin pure,
In the darkness and the night
For us she bore the heavenly Lord!

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES

Hear, my belovéd, an old Milesian story!—
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it.
From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,
Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it
Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER

DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE

DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

ON A CATARACT

FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE

TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG

THE VISIT OF THE GODS

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER

FROM THE GERMAN

Know'st thou the land where the pale citrons grow,
The golden fruits in darker foliage glow?
Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky!
Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high!
Know'st thou it well, that land, belovéd Friend?
Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend!

WATER BALLAD

ON AN INFANT

WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM

‘Be, rather than be called, a child of God,’
Death whispered! With assenting nod,
Its head upon its mother's breast,
The Baby bowed, without demur—
Of the kingdom of the Blest
Possessor, not Inheritor.

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

HOME-SICK

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE HARTZ FOREST

THE BRITISH STRIPLING'S WAR-SONG

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG

NAMES

THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM

WESTPHALIAN SONG

HEXAMETERS

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM XLVI

Gōd ĭs oŭr Strēngth ănd oŭr Rēfŭge: thērefŏre wīll wĕ nŏt trēmblĕ,
Thō' thĕ Eārth bĕ rĕmōvĕd ănd thō' thĕ pĕrpētŭăl Moūntaīns
Sink in the Swell of the Ocean! God is our Strength and our Refuge.
There is a River the Flowing whereof shall gladden the City,
Hallelujah! the City of God! Jehova shall help her.
Thē Idōlătĕrs rāgĕd, the kingdoms were moving in fury;
But he uttered his Voice: Earth melted away from beneath them.
Halleluja! th' Eternal is with us, Almighty Jehova!
Fearful the works of the Lord, yea fearful his Desolations;
But He maketh the Battle to cease, he burneth the Spear and the Chariot.
Halleluja! th' Eternal is with us, the God of our Fathers!

HYMN TO THE EARTH

HEXAMETERS

MAHOMET

Utter the song, O my soul! the flight and return of Mohammed,
Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing,
Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution,
Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan
And idolatrous Christians.—For veiling the Gospel of Jesus,
They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest.
Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca,
Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness.
Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol;—
Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid—the people with mad shouts
Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation
Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river
Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd,
Rushes dividuous all—all rushing impetuous onward.

LOVE

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE

ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER ‘PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD’

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

TALLEYRAND TO LORD GRENVILLE

A METRICAL EPISTLE

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA

The poet in his lone yet genial hour
Gives to his eyes a magnifying power:
Or rather he emancipates his eyes
From the black shapeless accidents of size—
In unctuous cones of kindling coal,
Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe's trim bole,
His gifted ken can see
Phantoms of sublimity.

THE KEEPSAKE

A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A VIEW

OF SADDLEBACK IN CUMBERLAND

On stern Blencartha's perilous height
The winds are tyrannous and strong;
And flashing forth unsteady light
From stern Blencartha's skiey height,
As loud the torrents throng!
Beneath the moon, in gentle weather,
They bind the earth and sky together.
But oh! the sky and all its forms, how quiet!
The things that seek the earth, how full of noise and riot!

THE MAD MONK

INSCRIPTION FOR A SEAT BY THE ROAD SIDE HALF-WAY UP A STEEP HILL FACING SOUTH

Thou who in youthful vigour rich, and light
With youthful thoughts dost need no rest! O thou,
To whom alike the valley and the hill
Present a path of ease! Should e'er thine eye
Glance on this sod, and this rude tablet, stop!
'Tis a rude spot, yet here, with thankful hearts,
The foot-worn soldier and his family
Have rested, wife and babe, and boy, perchance
Some eight years old or less, and scantly fed,
Garbed like his father, and already bound
To his poor father's trade. Or think of him
Who, laden with his implements of toil,
Returns at night to some far distant home,
And having plodded on through rain and mire
With limbs o'erlaboured, weak from feverish heat,
And chafed and fretted by December blasts,
Here pauses, thankful he hath reached so far,
And 'mid the sheltering warmth of these bleak trees
Finds restoration—or reflect on those
Who in the spring to meet the warmer sun
Crawl up this steep hill-side, that needlessly
Bends double their weak frames, already bowed
By age or malady, and when, at last,
They gain this wished-for turf, this seat of sods,
Repose—and, well-admonished, ponder here
On final rest. And if a serious thought
Should come uncalled—how soon thy motions high,
Thy balmy spirits and thy fervid blood
Must change to feeble, withered, cold and dry,
Cherish the wholesome sadness! And where'er
The tide of Life impel thee, O be prompt
To make thy present strength the staff of all,
Their staff and resting-place—so shalt thou give
To Youth the sweetest joy that Youth can know;
And for thy future self thou shalt provide
Through every change of various life, a seat,
Not built by hands, on which thy inner part,
Imperishable, many a grievous hour,
Or bleak or sultry may repose—yea, sleep
The sleep of Death, and dream of blissful worlds,
Then wake in Heaven, and find the dream all true.

A STRANGER MINSTREL

WRITTEN [TO MRS. ROBINSON,] A FEW WEEKS BEFORE HER DEATH

ALCAEUS TO SAPPHO

THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE

THE SNOW-DROP

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE

AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY

TO ASRA

Are there two things, of all which men possess,
That are so like each other and so near,
As mutual Love seems like to Happiness?
Dear Asra, woman beyond utterance dear!
This Love which ever welling at my heart,
Now in its living fount doth heave and fall,
Now overflowing pours thro' every part
Of all my frame, and fills and changes all,
Like vernal waters springing up through snow,
This Love that seeming great beyond the power
Of growth, yet seemeth ever more to grow,
Could I transmute the whole to one rich Dower
Of Happy Life, and give it all to Thee,
Thy lot, methinks, were Heaven, thy age, Eternity!

THE SECOND BIRTH

LOVE'S SANCTUARY

This yearning heart (Love! witness what I say)
Enshrines thy form as purely as it may,
Round which, as to some spirit uttering bliss,
My thoughts all stand ministrant night and day
Like saintly Priests, that dare not think amiss.

DEJECTION: AN ODE

THE PICTURE

OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION

TO MATILDA BETHAM FROM A STRANGER

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI

THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH

This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,—
Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed
May all its agéd boughs o'er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,
Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here Twilight is and Coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

AN ODE TO THE RAIN

COMPOSED BEFORE DAYLIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHOM IT WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN

A DAY-DREAM

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove,
The Linnet and Thrush say, ‘I love and I love!’
In the winter they're silent—the wind is so strong;
What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving—all come back together.
But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,
That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he—
‘I love my Love, and my Love loves me!’

THE DAY-DREAM

FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE

THE HAPPY HUSBAND

A FRAGMENT

THE PAINS OF SLEEP

THE EXCHANGE

AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM

AN EXILE

Friend, Lover, Husband, Sister, Brother!
Dear names close in upon each other!
Alas! poor Fancy's bitter-sweet—
Our names, and but our names can meet.

SONNET

Lady, to Death we're doom'd, our crime the same!
Thou, that in me thou kindled'st such fierce heat;
I, that my heart did of a Sun so sweet
The rays concentre to so hot a flame.
I, fascinated by an Adder's eye—
Deaf as an Adder thou to all my pain;
Thou obstinate in Scorn, in Passion I—
I lov'd too much, too much didst thou disdain.
Hear then our doom in Hell as just as stern,
Our sentence equal as our crimes conspire—
Who living bask'd at Beauty's earthly fire,
In living flames eternal these must burn—
Hell for us both fit places too supplies—
In my heart thou wilt burn, I roast before thine eyes.

PHANTOM

All look and likeness caught from earth,
All accident of kin and birth,
Had pass'd away. There was no trace
Of aught on that illumined face,
Uprais'd beneath the rifted stone
But of one spirit all her own;—
She, she herself, and only she,
Shone through her body visibly.

A SUNSET

WHAT IS LIFE?

Resembles life what once was deem'd of light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute self—an element ungrounded—
All that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?—
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?

THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE-TREE

A LAMENT

I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew writers, an apologue or Rabbinical tradition to the following purpose:

While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed: ‘Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so! for the man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise.’ And the word of the Most High answered Satan: ‘The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself.’

The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnaeus, of a date-tree in a nobleman's garden which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from another date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting: and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the Author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite metre.

1

Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. ‘What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own.’ The presence of a ONE,

The best belov'd, who loveth me the best,

is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and All without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen and crushes it into flatness.

2

The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them?

3

Imagination; honourable aims;
Free commune with the choir that cannot die;
Science and song; delight in little things,
The buoyant child surviving in the man;
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky,
With all their voices—O dare I accuse
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,
Or call my destiny niggard! O no! no!
It is her largeness, and her overflow,
Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so!

4

For never touch of gladness stirs my heart,
But tim'rously beginning to rejoice
Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start
In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice.
Belovéd 'tis not thine; thou art not there!
Then melts the bubble into idle air,
And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.

5

The mother with anticipated glee
Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair
And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee,
Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare
To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight
She hears her own voice with a new delight;
And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes aright,

6

Then is she tenfold gladder than before!
But should disease or chance the darling take,
What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore
Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake?
Dear maid! no prattler at a mother's knee
Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee:
Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?

SEPARATION

THE RASH CONJURER

A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
God grant me grace my prayers to say:
O God! preserve my mother dear
In strength and health for many a year;
And, O! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due;
And may I my best thoughts employ
To be my parents' hope and joy;
And O! preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other
Our friends, our father, and our mother:
And still, O Lord, to me impart
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my great sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day! Amen.

METRICAL FEET

LESSON FOR A BOY

Trōchĕe trīps frŏm lōng tŏ shōrt;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slōw Spōndēe stālks; strōng fōōt! yet ill able
Ēvĕr tŏ cōme ŭp wĭth Dācty̆l trĭsȳllăblĕ.
Ĭāmbĭcs mārch frŏm shōrt tŏ lōng;—
Wĭth ă lēāp ănd ă bōūnd thĕ swĭft Ānăpæsts thrōng;
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Ămphībrăchy̆s hāstes wĭth ă stātely̆ stride;—
Fīrst ănd lāst bēĭng lōng, mīddlĕ shōrt, Am̄phĭmācer
Strīkes hĭs thūndērĭng hōōfs līke ă prōūd hīgh-brĕd Rācer.
If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these metres to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,—
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his Father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. Coleridge.

FAREWELL TO LOVE

TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND

AN ANGEL VISITANT

Within these circling hollies woodbine-clad—
Beneath this small blue roof of vernal sky—
How warm, how still! Tho' tears should dim mine eye,
Yet will my heart for days continue glad,
For here, my love, thou art, and here am I!

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE

TO TWO SISTERS

[_]

[Mary Morgan and Charlotte Brent]

A WANDERER'S FAREWELL

PSYCHE

The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name—
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life!—For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow Puppets of a hollow Age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time,
(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war
Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintained
The citadel unconquered, and in joy
Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had traced it upward to its source,
Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled
Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts!
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher! contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love!
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

FOR A MARKET-CLOCK

(IMPROMPTU)

What now, O Man! thou dost or mean'st to do
Will help to give thee peace, or make thee rue,
When hovering o'er the Dot this hand shall tell
The moment that secures thee Heaven or Hell!

THE MADMAN AND THE LETHARGIST

AN EXAMPLE

THE VISIONARY HOPE

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A ROMAN CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY

ENGLISH

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, balmily!

TO A LADY

OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN HAVE NO SOULS

Nay, dearest Anna! why so grave?
I said, you had no soul, 'tis true!
For what you are, you cannot have:
'Tis I, that have one since I first had you!

REASON FOR LOVE'S BLINDNESS

THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

AN ALLEGORY

On the wide level of a mountain's head,
(I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place)
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails out-spread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,
A sister and a brother!
This far outstripp'd the other;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind:
For he, alas! is blind!
O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed,
And knows not whether he be first or last.

AN INVOCATION

From REMORSE [Act III, Scene i. ll. 69-82.]

THE NIGHT-SCENE

A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT

Sandoval.
You loved the daughter of Don Manrique?

Earl Henry.
Loved?

Sand.
Did you not say you wooed her?

Earl H.
Once I loved
Her whom I dared not woo!

Sand.
And wooed, perchance,
One whom you loved not!

Earl H.
Oh! I were most base,
Not loving Oropeza. True, I wooed her,
Hoping to heal a deeper wound; but she
Met my advances with impassioned pride,
That kindled love with love. And when her sire,
Who in his dream of hope already grasped
The golden circlet in his hand, rejected
My suit with insult, and in memory
Of ancient feuds poured curses on my head,
Her blessings overtook and baffled them!
But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance
Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.

Sand.
Anxiously, Henry! reasoning anxiously.
But Oropeza—

Earl H.
Blessings gather round her!
Within this wood there winds a secret passage,
Beneath the walls, which opens out at length
Into the gloomiest covert of the garden.—
The night ere my departure to the army,
She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom,
And to that covert by a silent stream,
Which, with one star reflected near its marge,
Was the sole object visible around me.
No leaflet stirred; the air was almost sultry;
So deep, so dark, so close, the umbrage o'er us!
No leaflet stirred;—yet pleasure hung upon
The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.
A little further on an arbour stood,
Fragrant with flowering trees—I well remember
What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness
Their snow-white blossoms made—thither she led me,
To that sweet bower! Then Oropeza trembled—
I heard her heart beat—if 'twere not my own.

Sand.
A rude and scaring note, my friend!

Earl H.
Oh! no!
I have small memory of aught but pleasure.
The inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams
Still flowing, still were lost in those of love:
So love grew mightier from the fear, and Nature,
Fleeing from Pain, sheltered herself in Joy.
The stars above our heads were dim and steady,
Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us:
We were all life, each atom of our frames
A living soul—I vowed to die for her:
With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
Relapses into blessedness, I vowed it:
That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,
A murmur breathed against a lady's ear.
Oh! there is joy above the name of pleasure.
Deep self-possession, an intense repose.

Sand.
(with a sarcastic smile).
No other than as eastern sages paint,
The God, who floats upon a Lotos leaf,
Dreams for a thousand ages; then awaking,
Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble,
Relapses into bliss.

Earl H.
Ah! was that bliss
Feared as an alien, and too vast for man?
For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead.
I caught her arms; the veins were swelling on them.
Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice;—
‘Oh! what if all betray me? what if thou?’
I swore, and with an inward thought that seemed
The purpose and the substance of my being,
I swore to her, that were she red with guilt,
I would exchange my unblenched state with hers.—
Friend! by that winding passage, to that bower
I now will go—all objects there will teach me
Unwavering love, and singleness of heart.
Go, Sandoval! I am prepared to meet her—
Say nothing of me—I myself will seek her—
Nay, leave me, friend! I cannot bear the torment
And keen inquiry of that scanning eye.—

[Earl Henry retires into the wood.
Sand.
(alone).
O Henry! always striv'st thou to be great
By thine own act—yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves; from Earth to Heaven they stand,
As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honour!
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled: the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins!

A HYMN

TO A LADY

WITH FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK

HUMAN LIFE

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She formed with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,
The counter-weights!—Thy laughter and thy tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
And to repay the other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood?
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none;
Thy being's being is contradiction.

SONG

[A sunny shaft did I behold]

HUNTING SONG

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY

FROM THE ITALIAN OF GUARINI

FAITH
Let those whose low delights to Earth are given
Chaunt forth their earthly Loves! but we
Must make an holier minstrelsy,
And, heavenly-born, will sing the Things of Heaven.

CHARITY
But who for us the listening Heart shall gain?
Inaudible as of the sphere
Our music dies upon the ear,
Enchanted with the mortal Syren's strain.

HOPE
Yet let our choral songs abound!
Th' inspiring Power, its living Source,
May flow with them and give them force,
If, elsewhere all unheard, in Heaven they sound.

ALL
Aid thou our voice, Great Spirit! thou whose flame
Kindled the Songster sweet of Israel,
Who made so high to swell
Beyond a mortal strain thy glorious Name.

CHARITY AND FAITH
Though rapt to Heaven, our mission and our care
Is still to sojourn on the Earth,
To shape, to soothe, Man's second Birth,
And re-ascend to Heaven, Heaven's prodigal Heir!

CHARITY
What is Man's soul of Love deprived?

HOPE. FAITH
It like a Harp untunéd is,
That sounds, indeed, but sounds amiss.

CHARITY. HOPE
From holy Love all good gifts are derived.

FAITH
But 'tis time that every nation
Should hear how loftily we sing.

FAITH. HOPE. CHARITY
See, O World, see thy salvation!
Let the Heavens with praises ring.
Who would have a Throne above,
Let him hope, believe and love;
And whoso loves no earthly song,
But does for heavenly music long,
Faith, Hope, and Charity for him,
Shall sing like wingéd Cherubim.

TO NATURE

It may indeed be phantasy, when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

LIMBO

NE PLUS ULTRA

Sole Positive of Night!
Antipathist of Light!
Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod—
The one permitted opposite of God!—
Condenséd blackness and abysmal storm
Compacted to one sceptre
Arms the Grasp enorm—
The Intercepter—
The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!—
The Dragon foul and fell—
The unrevealable,
And hidden one, whose breath
Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!
Ah! sole despair
Of both th' eternities in Heaven!
Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,
The all-compassionate!
Save to the Lampads Seven
Reveal'd to none of all th' Angelic State,
Save to the Lampads Seven,
That watch the throne of Heaven!

THE KNIGHT'S TOMB

Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?
Where may the grave of that good man be?—
By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,
Under the twigs of a young birch tree!
The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,
And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,
And whistled and roared in the winter alone,
Is gone,—and the birch in its stead is grown.—
The Knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;—
His soul is with the saints, I trust.

ON DONNE'S POETRY

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

ISRAEL'S LAMENT

FANCY IN NUBIBUS

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS

O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes
Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low
And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold
'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go
From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!
Or list'ning to the tide, with closéd sight,
Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

THE TEARS OF A GRATEFUL PEOPLE

YOUTH AND AGE

THE REPROOF AND REPLY

Or, The Flower-Thief's Apology, for a robbery committed in Mr. and Mrs.—'s garden, on Sunday morning, 25th of May, 1823, between the hours of eleven and twelve.

FIRST ADVENT OF LOVE

O fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind!
As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping;
And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind.
O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping,
And Ceres' golden fields;—the sultry hind
Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.

THE DELINQUENT TRAVELLERS

WORK WITHOUT HOPE

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY 1825

SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S ‘BOOK OF THE CHURCH’ (1825)

POET

FRIEND
Enough of Milner! we're agreed,
Who now defends would then have done the deed.
But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway,
Who but must meet the proffered hand half way
When courteous Butler—

POET
(aside)
(Rome's smooth go-between!)

FRIEND
Laments the advice that soured a milky queen—
(For ‘bloody’ all enlightened men confess
An antiquated error of the press:)
Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds,
With actual cautery staunched the Church's wounds!
And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur
We damn the French and Irish massacre,
Yet blames them both—and thinks the Pope might err!
What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield
Against such gentle foes to take the field
Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?

POET

SONG

[Though veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath]

Though veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath,
Love is a sword which cuts its sheath,
And through the clefts itself has made,
We spy the flashes of the blade!
But through the clefts itself has made
We likewise see Love's flashing blade,
By rust consumed, or snapt in twain;
And only hilt and stump remain.

A CHARACTER

THE TWO FOUNTS

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

AN ALLEGORY

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE

A SOLILOQUY

Unchanged within, to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In solfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st—shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:
And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

HOMELESS

LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS OB. ANNO DOM. 1088

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope
Soon shall I now before my God appear,
By him to be acquitted, as I hope;
By him to be condemnéd, as I fear.—

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE

EPITAPHIUM TESTAMENTARIUM

Το του ΕΣΤΗΣΕ του επιθανους Epitaphium testamentarium αυτογραφον.

Quae linquam, aut nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt mea. Sordes
Do Morti: reddo caetera, Christe! tibi.

Ερως αει λαληθρος εταιρος

In many ways does the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal;
But in far more th' estrangéd heart lets know
The absence of the love, which yet it fain would shew.

THE IMPROVISATORE

---

466

OR, ‘JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO, JOHN’

Answer, ex improviso

TO MARY PRIDHAM

Dear tho' unseen! tho' I have left behind
Life's gayer views and all that stirs the mind,
Now I revive, Hope making a new start,
Since I have heard with most believing heart,
That all my glad eyes would grow bright to see,
My Derwent hath found realiz'd in thee,
The boon prefigur'd in his earliest wish
Crown of his cup and garnish of his dish!
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,
When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy!
Dear tho' unseen! unseen, yet long portray'd!
A Father's blessing on thee, gentle Maid!

ALICE DU CLOS

OR THE FORKED TONGUE A BALLAD

LOVE'S BURIAL-PLACE

Lady.
If Love be dead—

Poet.
And I aver it!

Lady.
Tell me, Bard! where Love lies buried?

Poet.
Love lies buried where 'twas born:
Oh, gentle dame! think it no scorn
If, in my fancy, I presume
To call thy bosom poor Love's Tomb.
And on that tomb to read the line:—
‘Here lies a Love that once seem'd mine,
But caught a chill, as I divine,
And died at length of a Decline.’

LINES TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABUSIVE REVIEW

What though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking chorus
From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak:
So was it, neighbour, in the times before us,
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak,
Romp'd with the Graces; and each tickled Muse
(That Turk, Dan Phœbus, whom bards call divine,
Was married to—at least, he kept—all nine)
Fled, but still with reverted faces ran;
Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse,
They had allured the audacious Greek to use,
Swore they mistook him for their own good man.
This Momus—Aristophanes on earth
Men call'd him—maugre all his wit and worth,
Was croak'd and gabbled at. How, then, should you,
Or I, friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew?
No! laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee,
‘I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me!’

COLOGNE

In Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks!
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURE

FROM THE SAME CITY

As I am a Rhymer,
And now at least a merry one,
Mr. Mum's Rudesheimer
And the church of St. Geryon
Are the two things alone
That deserve to be known
In the body-and-soul-stinking town of Cologne.

THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION

TO MISS A. T.

Verse, pictures, music, thoughts both grave and gay,
Remembrances of dear-loved friends away,
On spotless page of virgin white displayed,
Such should thine Album be, for such art thou, sweet maid!

LINES WRITTEN IN COMMONPLACE BOOK OF MISS BARBOUR, DAUGHTER OF THE MINISTER OF THE U.S.A. TO ENGLAND

Child of my muse! in Barbour's gentle hand
Go cross the main: thou seek'st no foreign land:
'Tis not the clod beneath our feet we name
Our country. Each heaven-sanctioned tie the same,
Laws, manners, language, faith, ancestral blood,
Domestic honour, awe of womanhood:—
With kindling pride thou wilt rejoice to see
Britain with elbow-room and doubly free!
Go seek thy countrymen! and if one scar
Still linger of that fratricidal war,
Look to the maid who brings thee from afar;
Be thou the olive-leaf and she the dove,
And say, I greet thee with a brother's love!

SONG, ex improviso

ON HEARING A SONG IN PRAISE OF A LADY'S BEAUTY

'Tis not the lily-brow I prize,
Nor roseate cheeks, nor sunny eyes,
Enough of lilies and of roses!
A thousand-fold more dear to me
The gentle look that Love discloses,—
The look that Love alone can see!

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP OPPOSITE

Her attachment may differ from yours in degree,
Provided they are both of one kind;
But Friendship, how tender so ever it be,
Gives no accord to Love, however refined.
Love, that meets not with Love, its true nature revealing,
Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs:
If you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling,
You must lower down your state to hers.

NOT AT HOME

PHANTOM OR FACT

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE

AUTHOR
A lovely form there sate beside my bed,
And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven,
That I unnethe the fancy might control,
'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
Wooing its gentle way into my soul!
But ah! the change—It had not stirr'd, and yet—
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

FRIEND
This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR
Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
But say, that years matur'd the silent strife,
And 'tis a record from the dream of life.

DESIRE

Where true Love burns Desire is Love's pure flame;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.

CHARITY IN THOUGHT

To praise men as good, and to take them for such,
Is a grace which no soul can mete out to a tittle;—
Of which he who has not a little too much,
Will by Charity's gauge surely have much too little.

HUMILITY THE MOTHER OF CHARITY

Frail creatures are we all! To be the best,
Is but the fewest faults to have:—
Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.

[COELI ENARRANT]

The stars that wont to start, as on a chace,
Mid twinkling insult on Heaven's darken'd face,
Like a conven'd conspiracy of spies
Wink at each other with confiding eyes!
Turn from the portent—all is blank on high,
No constellations alphabet the sky:
The Heavens one large Black Letter only shew,
And as a child beneath its master's blow
Shrills out at once its task and its affright—
The groaning world now learns to read aright,
And with its Voice of Voices cries out, O!

REASON

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Γνωθι σεαυτον!—and is this the prime
And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!—
Say, canst thou make thyself?—Learn first that trade;—
Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.
What hast thou, Man, that thou dar'st call thine own?—
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known?—
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
A phantom dim of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm,—life, death, soul, clod—
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!

FORBEARANCE

Gently I took that which ungently came,
And without scorn forgave:—Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that—the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,
Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it;—thine the gains—
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

TO THE YOUNG ARTIST

KAYSER OF KASERWERTH

MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY

God's child in Christ adopted,—Christ my all,—
What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather
Than forfeit that blest name, by which I call
The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father?—
Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee—
Eternal Thou, and everlasting we.
The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death:
In Christ I live! in Christ I draw the breath
Of the true life!—Let then earth, sea, and sky
Make war against me! On my heart I show
Their mighty master's seal. In vain they try
To end my life, that can but end its woe.—
Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies?—
Yes! but not his—'tis Death itself there dies.

EPITAPH

Stop, Christian passer-by!—Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.;
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame
He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!