Miscellaneous Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I knew thee as a blooming child,
While yet thy little life was new;
I knew thee as a maiden mild,
To all thy tasks of duty true.
And I was with thee, when there came
Soft breathings of diviner flame,
A voice once heard, and heard no more,
“Thy work is done, thy rest begun,
The Master waiteth at the door.”

A. B.

[Count not my years, nor ask how long]

Count not my years, nor ask how long
I dwelt on earth, a homeless guest;
But ask if hope and faith were strong,
To lead me to eternal rest.

Ask not, if with the poor, and meek,
Or rich, and great, I had my share;
But hear me of my treasure speak,
My only treasure—faith and prayer.

I found, what, stranger, thou wilt find,
How poor the world, how rich the grave;
And earthly treasure all resign'd
For that one promise,—“I will save.”

A. B.

[Her brief and blameless life in mercy closed]

Her brief and blameless life in mercy closed,
Ere sin had smote her, and her beauteous birth
Become a theme for sorrow;—she reposed
A moment here,—then vanished from the earth.

This was no world for her, and so her prayer
Rose to the fount of love—“Thou knowest best,
Lord, let Thy will be done—yet take me there,
There, with Thy Holy Ones and Thee to rest.”

A. B

[Fair hopes and sunny visions once were hers]

Fair hopes and sunny visions once were hers,
That mov'd along the silver chords of life,
As youth impell'd them with her breath of joy,
Who saw no cloud beneath the morning sky
To dim its lustre;—so to me she seem'd
Like to an angel on the earth who stands
Waiting with eye uprais'd, to reascend,
Entering the gates of heaven; and thus divine
Mercy restored her to a better home
Than Earth can give the children of her love,
Herself create in sorrow,—yea a poor
And widowed mother, who with troubled eye
Bends dimly o'er her book of living woe.

A. B.

[One said—“He counted it a crime]

One said—“He counted it a crime
To mourn for any overmuch.”—
Alas! it is in mourning such
As her I lov'd, I conquer Time.

Who loves the living—he must see
What most he cherish'd, disappear;
They fade, change, vanish year by year;
Earth's sorrow is o'er all that be.

Sweet bells, that welcome home the bride,
On silver wings of music flown;
For her to-morrow change your tone,
Who in her morn of gladness died.

Then let me sit beside her grave,
Mid those pale violets blooming there;
And think, like them, as sweet, as fair,
Was she, whose presence now I crave.

A. B.

[They call'd my Grief an idle tale]

They call'd my Grief an idle tale,
They said such weakness leads to woe;
I said,—“that substance passeth show,
And truth doth evermore prevail.”

They said,—Death even now doth stand
'Twixt her and you, and still you grieve,
As one unwillingly doth leave
The hopes that elsewhere he hath plann'd.

They told me, these were fancies wild,
Wild fancies of the wilder'd brain;
And then I answered them again;—
One knelt beside a dying child,

He listened to her latest prayer;
He heard on earth her closing sigh,
To him she turn'd her fainting eye,
No marvel,—if his heart be there;

Life's lengthening shadows deeper grow,
What most I love, is in the grave;
Oh! memory! ever faithful, save,
The thoughts of those I lov'd below.

A. B.

[A ring of silver clouds above]

A ring of silver clouds above,
Floats round the moon in circles light;
As they were come, like handmaids bright,
To gaze, and wait on her they love.

So holiest thoughts did round thee stand,
Nurs'd in their sweet and silent nest;
They said—as to thy bosom prest,
“Her soul is ever in her hand.”

Her prayer—it in her meekness lies,
In meekness of the heart profound;
With eyes submissive to the ground;
So pray “the children of the wise.”

Psalm cxix. 109. “My soul is always in my hand.”

The Talmud directs the more devout Jews, and “the Disciples of the Wise,” to pray with their eyes downward. The humility of the Publican, says Grotius, made that submissive manner be imitated by Christians. He refers to Tertullian and to Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer. The usual attitude was, “In cœlum suspicientes, manibus expansis, capite nudo.”—1 Pauli Ep. Tim. ii. 8.

A. B.

[Through what sweet paths of Nature, wert thou drawn]

Through what sweet paths of Nature, wert thou drawn,
That so meek Wisdom best might come to thee,
Bringing her gifts divine, her treasures free,
With lights to lead thee, through Life's early dawn!

Earth has no flowers that bloom'd not to thy tread;
The melodies of birds from bough to bough,
Aërial music—louder heard, and now
As gently following, where the echoes led.

And thus the world of beauty round thee rose,
And from afar the viewless Spirits came,
Filling each sense with that diviner flame
Of inward life, that still increasing flows.

The vernal clouds, the motions of the sea,—
The trembling lustre of the stars were thine;
Soft fall of waters heard at eve's decline,
And sounds remote of winds, that wander free.

Nor less the Seasons in mysterious change,
Rose to thy view; young Spring his leafy crown
Wore with a smile of pride, or Autumn brown,
Among his tawny forests lov'd to range.

Such were thy gentle teachers—round thee so,
Link'd in their bands harmonious, would they move;
While clad in all his roseate colours, Love
Gave to Life's golden morn a brighter glow.

A. B.

[By day, by night, I mourn'd, as it is meet]

By day, by night, I mourn'd, as it is meet,
For one I lov'd so well, who could not stay
Longer amid the common light of day;
The pretty flow'ret smiling at my feet,
My little Rose of beauty fled away.

My heart is wean'd from all I see below;
Small sympathy exists 'twixt earth and me;
We walk in pathways of our own—to be
Belov'd of her, is all I craved to know.
Blind to the outward world, I would not see.

Henceforth the world I lov'd, and I, are twain;
I've traced its mask of falsehood through and through,
And I have brush'd it from me, as the dew
That morning gathers in the vernal plain;
Then said I—“I will search, and find the True.”

A. B.

[Oh! call not this an unregarded grave]

Oh! call not this an unregarded grave,
Where innocence, and youth, and beauty lie
Secure from sorrow and the things that die
And perish—powerless themselves to save.

Nor blame me, if to soothe my sorrows deep,
Yea in my troubled spirit, and the strife
And conflict moving betwixt death and life,
I built a sacred grotto for her sleep.

I thought of the small pearl who loves to dwell
(Such dreams would cross the weak, afflicted heart),
So that the gentle creature could not part,
With the small palace of its lonely shell.

I thought of the soft star, whose dewy ray,
Mid clouds and covering darkness slept unknown,
At length, on wings of light away hath flown,
And rose, and brighten'd to eternal day.

And so within Earth's gentle bosom slept
This little Saint, and I my grief beguil'd,
For that I placed the pure and spotless child
Where all sweet works of nature o'er her wept.

Then said I—“I will strive as duty can,
Burying my grief forlorn, my earthly pain;
Forgive them! oh! forgive, my sorrows vain,
Thou, the great Master of the mind of man.”

Origen calls the place of our Saviour's birth αντρον. Hence the text of Eusebius should be corrected, which absurdly reads αγρον. Histor. lib.iii. This did not escape the critical eye of Casaubon. See his Exercit. in Baronii Annales, p.147.

A. B.

[A little child lies sleeping here]

A little child lies sleeping here,
A creature made divinely wise;
Her heart was ever in the skies;
Approach, and bless her—with a tear.

Who said?—“I cannot find relief;—
My soul is a forgotten thing;
Where can I, where, my comfort bring?”—
Oh! words of sorrow! words of grief!

Oh! voice of sadness to the ear!
Oh! language of despair profound!
Forget, forgive the fatal sound;
And kneel for hopes of mercy here.

Kneel here, and let this humble grave,
A sacred Temple prove to thee,
Poor broken heart! oh! haste and flee,
Where lives the Pow'r—the will to save.

Thy wants—thy weakness best He knows,
Thy vain desires—thy fancies wild;
Be pure and faithful as a child,
And thou shalt find a child's repose.

“My soul is a forgotten thing.” See one of Cowper's earlier Letters, ed. Southey.

A. B.

[The gentle playmates of her youth are near]

The gentle playmates of her youth are near,
The soft companions of her earlier days;
Yet she, of all the fairest, is not here,
And Love, beside her grave, in sorrow prays.

“Return, alas! return,”—in vain they cry,
Why, in thy maiden sweetness, art thou fled?
Why leave the realms of life, and gladness?—why
Doth youth's bright morning waken for the dead?

Vain sorrows—fond complaints—and weeping vain!
For she hath reached her beauteous home above;
Recalled by heavenly voice, and free from stain,
To join the kingdom meek of joy and love.

In the “blest kingdom meek.”—Milton's Lycidas, vs. 177.

A. B.

[Heaven's pavement strewn with roses was the floor]

Heaven's pavement strewn with roses was the floor
On which she trod—the crystal skies above—
And those sweet angels, sisters of her love,
In their soft arms their beauteous burden bore.

They bore her to the Paradise of souls,
Promised to those, the sinless things, that be
Taken from Time into Eternity
While warm the tide of life within them rolls.

Then wrong her not with sad lament, they say—
Who to her home of happiness is fled,
Early redeemed in glory from the dead,
To dwell 'mid regions of eternal day.

But I am of the Earth on which I live,
And so Earth's common suff'rings will be mine;
And ever o'er her grave at eve's decline,
My sorrows to her gentle shade I give.

A. B.

[Her gentle voice no more is heard]

Her gentle voice no more is heard,
Her little heart will beat no more;
Her soft eye, blue as Summer skies,
Is closed beneath the grassy floor.

Beside the grave a shadow sits,
A mother's cheek is pale with woe;
The tears that darken round her, tell
How deep the fountains whence they flow.

I knelt beside her, and I bent
To kiss that sweet and sinless brow;
Forgive me, in my prayer, I cried,
'Tis best, I feel, as it is now.

'Tis best to be with those that rest,
Amid thy holy ones, and thee,
Within thy paradise to dwell,
And live beneath Life's blessed Tree.

See Revelation xxii. 14. “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life,” &c.

A. B.

[“So young, so fair, and must we lose thee now]

“So young, so fair, and must we lose thee now,
Child of our fondest love, and must we part?”
Such was the grief that dimm'd a father's brow,
And such the anguish of a mother's heart.

Ah! felt they not, that in that fatal day,
To her a new immortal life was given;—
That the free soul threw off its load of clay,
And the young Seraph took her flight to heaven?

A. B.

[Stranger, in this small grave there lies]

Stranger, in this small grave there lies
All a mother's heart could prize;
It was a little treasure, lent
For some few years, with wise intent,
By Him, who in his mercy gave
To innocence an early grave;
Yet He left not in despair
All that fond maternal care,
But promise made, with parting breath,
That could force unwilling death,
His gentle burden to restore,
When at heaven's opening door,
All pain and sorrow reconciled,
Should meet the mother and the child.
Child and mother, happy twain,
Never more to part again;
Each by suffering purer made
For that blest life, that ne'er shall fade.

Leads to the Land where sorrow is unknown.”

Cowper.

A. B.

[“Sweets to the sweet.”]

“Sweets to the sweet.” —Then let the seasons bring
Their tributary gifts to deck her tomb;
Call from their sleep the earliest buds of Spring,
Let Summer's breath awake her roseate bloom.

From every moss-grown dell, and leafy nook,
Let the wild flowers their colour'd wings expand;
And what beside the murmurs of the brook
Build their sweet bowers, by whisp'ring zephyrs fann'd.

What the green orchards of their glory shed;
What the soft winds from blushing thickets bear;
All that the silver dews of April fed,
There strew—the sorrow of our hearts is there.

So leave them in their beauty;—let them be,
Emblems, though frail, of Mercy, bringing down,
Dear child, its bright and fadeless wreath to thee,—
The immortal verdure of the Amaranth crown.

Hamlet, Act v. Sc. 1.—“Sweets to the sweet,—farewell.”

A. B.

[Look once more, ere we part!—What is, is best.—]

Look once more, ere we part!—What is, is best.—
So Wisdom her mild counsels brings about,
In ways unsearchable—nor let us doubt,
Seeing that she, the lov'd one, is at rest.

Her face is veil'd; —beside her, Faith and Love,
The appointed watchers sit;—Death comes not near;
In calm and sinless peace she sleepeth here,
Shelter'd by wings of mercy from above.

Like to some heavenly guest to earth she came,
To bless us with her innocence, and die;
Bearing her little lamp into the sky,
Which she had fill'd with pure celestial flame.

Farewell! farewell! now let me part, alone;
Thick clouds around are gathering, and the gloom
Of coming woes, like night, doth o'er us loom,
With sorrows darker than the earth should own.

See Milton's Sonnet xxv. on his wife's death. Also Dante, Rime xvii. “Vedea che donne la covrian d'un Velo.”

A. B.

[The silver dove is sleeping in her nest]

The silver dove is sleeping in her nest,
As sleeps the flow'ret in its little cell;
And she is now, a breathless thing, at rest,
And earth has listened to her last farewell.

'Tis said, that silence is not dumb,—'tis said,
That marble lips are eloquent, and speak
With voice resistless,—Language of the Dead,—
And I, the Living,—I alone am weak.

Yet striving in my weakness,—though too late,
Her gentle virtues to the world I gave;
The last to linger by life's closing gate;—
Then placed this wreath of cypress on her grave.

A. B. THE FAREWELL.

She was to me a consecrated thing,
Sever'd from all that grows upon the heart
Of ordinary life, and set apart,
As is the Star, that in the Western sky
Amid sidereal splendours of its own,
A beauteous palace builds, remote from all,
And unapproachable, yet wanting not
Companionship, so sent, divine.—I thought
A Spirit still was with her, as she went,
Slept by her side, knelt by her at her prayer,
Keeping her sacred from the common breath
Of earth; as one that from its native clime
Had stray'd into another element
Of grosser being. So this thing of love,

This child in her mysterious birth, was sent
Among us. Where the gentle creature mov'd,
Love followed, mixt with wonder; and fear came,
That one so young, so fair, should disappear,
Like to a beauteous shadow gliding by,
Then lost in darkness.—So she pass'd away
By that sweet Spirit led—that with her went,
The dear companion of her life,—I saw
Ever with smile ineffable it look'd
Upon the child, nor briefest absence bore;
For, as the last pale leaf of autumn fades,
Prophetic of its end, so these two friends
Must journey now together,—never more
Within these transitory scenes be found
At early morn, or eve, or when reclined
Beneath the noonday shadows—so they stood
List'ning the voice divine, that to them came,
Bringing its high commission from the skies;
And they lay down together, side by side,
In robes of saintly lustre—slept, not died.
The young, the pure, the good:—they cannot die.
They pass from earth.—Life meets them in the sky.

St. Matthew xviii. 10. See the note of Grotius. Petavius de Angelis and St. Jerome, quoted by Whitby, held, that each of these little ones had an angel delegated to them from their birth. See Wetstein's notes on the passage in his edition. Those who may not agree in the truth of the doctrine, will acknowledge the tender piety of the feeling conveyed in it.

A. B.

['Tis in her constancy, and truth]

'Tis in her constancy, and truth,
And faith,—her beauty lives, they say;
With gentle fears, that round her play,
The chaste companions of her youth.

The dew that gleams in Pity's eye,
Loves fondly on her grave to dwell;
And those sweet tears that o'er it fell,
Were tears, alas! that will not dry.

“Fear and niceness,
The handmaids of all women.”

Cymbeline.

LINES TO BE ENGRAVED ON A STONE IN THE CHURCHYARD OF ------

Thou shalt not go into thy grave unknown,
If voice of mine be heard; for it shall say,
Speaking our sorrows from this humble stone,
How in the morn of life, when all was gay
Around thee, and thy bridal robes were new,
And one sweet infant on thy bosom smiled;
Slowly the wind of death around thee blew,
And all our cherish'd hopes of love, up-piled
For years to come of happiness, were cast
Down to the ground; so earthly treasures end.
But thou art gone where, pain and sorrow past,
Faith finds, though friendless upon earth, a friend.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE GARDEN OF THE RECTORY AT WELWYN, ONCE THE RESIDENCE OF YOUNG THE POET.

Mourn not a leaf that strews the linden shade
Of Welwyn's faded bower;—and if the year
Hath touched her sunny foliage with the sere
And yellow lock of Autumn, it hath laid
A fitlier residence for her the maid,
Divine Urania! so let nought appear
Of the world's transitory glories near
This consecrated roof, nor thou upbraid
With thoughtless speech, Time's ministers with wrong,
Done to the Muses dwelling—not a thing
But blooms immortal here; to all belong
Perennial verdure, and an endless spring,
Brought from the poet's consecrated song
Around this sacred temple blossoming.

AT DOVER CASTLE.

Look upward on yon desolated pile,
And as you mark its ruins lone and grey,
Mourn not, O mourn not, for its long decay!
But see—how gentle Nature, with a smile,
Sweet as a mother's, anxious to beguile
Her infant to her bosom, gone astray,
Calls on the ocean gales from yonder bay,
To breathe upon its mouldering towers; the while
The fox-glove and the wild flower, o'er the walls
Drop silently their seeds; and sun, and rain,
And summer dews, with fairy hands unchain
Each granite-link; and then anon it falls,
Obedient to that voice, which once again
So tenderly her offspring lost recalls.

LINES WRITTEN AT LINTON, DEVONSHIRE.

Impatient of his sojourn on the hills,
The Lin comes thundering down his mountain way
From rock to rock, 'mid clouds of gathering spray,
And with stern voice the tributary rills
Calls to his course impetuous;—then he fills
The hollow concave of the vale; delay
Is none from silent cove, or root-bound bay,
That with the whirling current ceaseless thrills—
Yet safe beside each dripping stone its bells
The fox-glove hangs; the green fern smiles to see
The headlong surges in their anarchy
Bathing its feet; and 'mid their mossy cells,
Each sweet and solitary flow'ret dwells
As in the bosom of tranquillity.

TO CHARLES LAMB,

ON HIS POEM CALLED “LEISURE.”

Leisure is Wisdom's nurse and Virtue's child;
Her home she buildeth amid sylvan nooks,
By hedgerow paths, or 'mid the leafy brooks
Wandereth at will,—hymning her wood-notes wild.
Within her cheerful memory she hath pil'd
Rich thoughts, that tell of pictures, and of books!
And absent friends—with calm and beautiful looks,
Of worldly cares she walketh undefil'd;
In cities too, or 'mid suburban shade;
At mask, or theatre, with flowers and wine,
Holding her lyre, moveth this gentle maid;
Nor seldom seen, when evening embers shine
On the cheerful hearth—in musing slumber laid;
Such was sweet Shakespeare's friend, and such is thine.

TO CHARLES, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,

ON HIS TRANSLATION OF MILTON DE RE CHRISTIANA.

As he whose footsteps by some ancient stream,
Tibur, or old Ilissus chance upturn
Of time-forgotten, sculptured trunk, or urn,
Work of the Phidian chisel, as may seem
Inimitable,—straight as from a dream
Waketh, nor hasteneth onward, till he learn
Wondering, each grace, each beauty,—so did burn
My heart, when first by thee disclosed, the gleam
It caught of Milton's page, by envious Crime
And dust and worms deform'd—Oh! well hast thou
And fitliest, paid the debt though late—that prime
And holy song requiting —by old Time
Remembered, which twin lustre sheds e'en now
On thee, and elder Winton's mitred brow.

“Milton wrote, in his seventeenth year, an elegy on the death of this blameless Bishop,—Bishop Andrews; which Mr. Mitford well characterises as Milton's ‘prime and holy song!’ See his Sonnet to the Aldine edition of Milton.”—Bishop Jebb, in his edition of Burnet's Iives, p. 284.

TO ------

Who to the injured spirit can atone,
Unhappy victim of the Tyrant's fears—
Or what to thee recall thy perish'd years,
Nature's sweet boon destroyed—when one by one
The blossoms of thy vernal life were strewn
Along that dungeon floor? Ungentle ears
Heard not, poor Tasso, thy lament: no tears
Unlock'd Ferrara's sepulchre of stone.
Like captive, my own bard, art thou;—yet he
Had time, thought, feeling, free to count his chain;
While thine is heavier bondage, double pain,
Prisoner at once and slave.—Oh, thoughtless ye!
Who make the gifted mind, that should be free,
A monumental Lamp to burn in vain.

SONNET.

[It cannot be that in the Muse's bower]

It cannot be that in the Muse's bower
Are men, who bartering for their private gain,
The lustre of that ancient house would stain,
And, following those who still for place and power
Are striving, forfeit all the beauteous dower
Bequeathed them—and the Virtues' peaceful train
Desert, and Wisdom with her countenance plain
And meek, and Learning through the midnight hour
Still in his studious hermitage. Who then
Seeing the Muses' haunts by ruthless feet,
Are trodden, and by bold and violent men,
Would wonder if the bard for scenes more meet
For the lone valley, and the quiet glen,
Should quit each venal hall and crowded street?

TO UGO FOSCOLO.

Who be the mighty of the land, but they,
The Poets, eloquent of truth divine?
And that high meed, my Foscolo, be thine,
For peerless dost thou wear Italia's bay.
And though in vain for many a weary day
Thine eye hath gazed along the ocean line,
Yet mark! how bursts the flame from Freedom's shrine,
And Venice chides, though late, thy lingering stay.
So home returned, whose soft and pensive tale,
By far Avignon, and the hermit-stream
Of Sorga, listening to the love-sick dream,
Like thine was heard—so He, an exile pale,
Saw from the gates of morn, the golden beam
Burst o'er the Euganean hills, and Arqua's vale.

LINES

WRITTEN IN TURNER'S “LIBER VERITATIS.”

[_]

See 2 Samuel xxi. 10.

She sate with face averted from the Dead;
That hooded woman!—dark she sate with woe,
Nor dar'd to gaze upon the sight below:
Yet ever with uplifted arm she shed
Funereal lights on those, who head to head,
And foot alike to foot, in ghastly row
There lay.—Seven goodly sons—all at one blow
Cut off, demolished.—Then, she made her bed
The chambers of the rock; and when by night
Was heard the wolfish howl—the eagle's call,
She turn'd her cowled countenance, and all
Fled its unearthly aspect—for the light
Glar'd upon him, the dark Meholathite,
And him, that childless woman bare to Saul.

SONNET

BY RAPHAEL D'URBINO.

[_]

This is the only specimen of the poetry of Raphael with which I am acquainted. I am ignorant of any other English translation, in verse, though probably such may exist.

A sweet thought is the memory, and the joy
Of that our meeting; but the more I feel
My loss, being separate: for I am as one
At sea, who seeth neither star nor shore.
Now tongue, unlock thy speech, that thou mayst tell
Of that unused deception, when deep grief
Love brought to me; yet not the less, for this
I thank him, and obey his power below.
'Twas eve—and westering o'er the hills, one sun
Had sunk, another in its place uprose.
Fit time for deeds, not words—but I the while
Stood conquered by the inward fire that now
Consumes me;—when a man persuasive speech
Most needs—then most it fails, and he is dumb.

“Un pensier dolce è Remimbrare, e godo di quell' assalto,” &c.

ON THE STATUE OF LORENZO DUKE OF URBINO,

BY MICHAEL ANGELO.

Long must he sit within his regal chair,
Bending to earth that thoughtful brow of pain,
And long! oh! long, the never-sleeping twain
Keep their allotted watch to guard him there,
By night—by day—wake the gigantic pair
Within the portals of this marble fane,
Lest that a single spark of life remain
To light and animate that brow of care.
One moment could he rise—oh! could they sleep,
One moment only of all future time,
Then would he from his throne of marble leap,
And blot for ever out that fatal crime
Which hung as black as midnight o'er his prime,
And sank the one he lov'd, in slumber deep.

One summer noon I saw the late Mr. S. Rogers, seated under the shade of a large cypress tree in the Boboli Gardens at Florence, with a volume of the Marchioness of Pescara's Poems in his hand—“Look,” he said, “what a spot I have chosen! There (pointing down to Florence) there is Giotto's tower,—there are Lorenzo Ghiberti's gates,—the gates of Paradise,—there is Dante's marble chair beside the Arno,—and there is Michael Angelo's own house.” And then we walked to the chapel of the Medici, and on our way home he gave an interesting sketch of the life of the Duke d' Urbino in his brief, animated, and poetical manner.

SONNET.

[Oh, beauteous angel! who, if poet's song]

Oh, beauteous angel! who, if poet's song
Rightly report, didst make mankind thy care,
And wont in Adam's friendly bower to share
Mild converse with him.—Angel! be not long
If yet thou lov'st us (though misrule and wrong,
Of heavenly good, well-nigh has left us bare)
Down to these earthly mansions to repair
With stern rebuke and admonition strong.
Yet wherefore shouldst thou come? have we not had
Voices of deepest tone, and mightiest power,—
Yea, God himself hath spoken,—oh! bold and bad
Who from that sound have turn'd,—nor knew each shower,
Earthquake, and storm, and pestilence were made,
God's voice of old, to slay, destroy, devour.

SONNET WRITTEN IN HOLWOOD PARK, FORMERLY THE SEAT OF THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT,

Friday, August 8, 1851.

His was the conflict, yet not his to share
The victory, so late and hardly won,
When over Europe rose the righteous sun
Of Law and Freedom—mid the World's despair
Match'd in unequal warfare, hard to bear
Singly amid the faithless, and undone
The allotted task to leave, ere yet was run
His long career of glory closed in care.
Oh! had he lived, till that dark night forlorn
Had fled—and with it to return no more,
With foul disordered rout, and ensigns torn,
The baffled foe was seen—the cannons' roar
Gave the glad sound, to distant Ebro borne
From Tagus and the Lusitanian shore.

THE MOTHER AND CHILD.

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE.

As having clasp'd a rose,
Within my palm, the rose being ta'en away,
My hand retains a little breath of sweet,
Holds still a faint perfume of his sweet guest.
Marston.

It seem'd like some sweet child, who smiling dies,
Leaving a kiss upon the mother's lips
She means to keep for ever.—There she sate
Silent in grief, and looking down, beheld
The marriage-ring that on her finger shone;
A gem of mystic beauty, which Love gave,
When he stood by her, crown'd with flowers;—and then
With gentle eye uprais'd, again she gaz'd
Upon that little image sleeping there,
Her bright and beautiful child, who had to her
Seem'd as the messenger of love divine
Whom she had nurs'd within her living heart;
And now transform'd to marble by the power
Lent to the sculptor's chisel—then she felt

Her life had pass'd into another sphere
Of being: and all pleasures, all delights,
Yea, and the common offices of life,
Essential duties, e'en as laws rever'd,
Were to her but as shadows, come to mock
Her loneliness—the very earth had lost
Its own substantial presence—its old powers
Were vanished—all she saw before her, were
Two cold, pale lips,—“a piece of childhood,” —torn
From the warm tenement that once it held.
And so she call'd on Memory, who came
With step too faithful, to her task;—again,
And yet again, responding to the call
Incessant,—still unsatisfied—once more
Of that fair creature questioned—still once more—
What of his pretty looks,—his words,—his acts
In all the graceful attitudes of youth,—
Her sweet and beautiful child.—Again, she thought,

How oft he wept, or smil'd, or sang his songs
In childish joy, carolling like the lark,
When the blue morning spreads into the sky,
Its feathers wet with dew—or when her knees
He clasp'd in infant tenderness,—so wild
With joy, as if his very soul would fly
Into his mother's bosom, and the tongue
Was still too feeble for the heart to give
Its fulness utterance.—So she sate and mourn'd
Her bright and beautiful child.—

The mother's look
Is still before me—'twas the look of all
That speaks the earthly tenement forlorn,
When Hope hath fled its home—it tells of that
The heritage which weeping Nature gives
Unto the helpless children of her love,
“To suffer and be silent.”—

“A piece of childhood.” —An expression taken, with much loss of its original beauty, from Fletcher's Philaster. Euphrasia, as the page, speaking of her life, which Philaster threatens to take from her, says,

“'tis not a life,
'Tis but a piece of Childhood thrown away.”

See Mr. Dyce's edition, vol.1, Act v. Sc.2.

PRUDENTIUS.

CATHEMERINON.

[_]

Liber i. Prefatio.

“Per Quinquennia jam decem ni fallor, fuimus!” &c.

Twice thirty years along the moving sky
Have flown (scarce less) since I
Drank the sweet vital air, the solar beam,—
And was my life a dream,
A blank and useless void, unmarked by good?
Since first a child, I stood
Beneath the master's chastening rod, or when
Mixing, a man, with men,
I took the youthful toga, and the boon
Of boundless freedom—soon
Ah! sullying soon, the modest cheek of youth,
Its innocence and truth.
Then mixing in the forum, and the war
Of words;—made worse appear
The better reason, arguing for a lie,
The pleader's sophistry.

Thence soon removed (glad change) and far away
O'er many a goodly city, sway
I held of Prefect, tempering the law discreet,
Evil and good to meet.
Till now advanced, so did the Prince's eye
My weak deserts descry,
Second in rank I stood by Cæsar's throne.—
Ah! me! for life had flown
Swiftly the while, and silent;—Of the speed
Of time not taking heed,
Or how far back the lengthening annals date
Of Salias' Consulate,
Stamp of my birth!—These scattered locks declare
How many a season fair,
Fresh with the vernal rose, the summer bloom
I've seen;—anon the tomb
Shall level all my glory—all shall be
Erewhile alike to me.
Therefore, mature in wisdom, now be heard
My monitory word.
“The world thou lovest, surely thou shalt lose;”
Unwisely didst thou choose.
But let the sinful soul i' the dying day,
Its follies past away,

Fly to the Lord, forgiveness seek, his name
With song and praise proclaim.
The Lord Jehovah—let thine anger strike
The Heretic alike
And Heathen superstition—let thy voice
With tidings glad rejoice
Through Rome; and the brute gods and idols be
Scattered in dust.—A cry
Lift up to heaven; hymning with harp and psalms
The robes, the waving palms,
The wreath of glory round the Apostles' brows,
And her—the Virgin spouse.
So rapt my soul in penitence and praise,
Gladly my mortal days
Would I shake off—and when my dying tongue
And falt'ring speech have sung,
E'en to its latest accents—then in Heaven
May I be found—forgiven.

CONTRA. SYMMACHUM.

[_]

Lib. ii. Sec. 245.

“Quare age mortalis, soli mihi construe Templum,” &c.

Me let thy worship serve—Sole God—to me
Raise the confiding prayer, and bend the knee.
I ask no gilded roof, no fretted shrine,
Where the rich spoils of distant quarries shine,
Far Sparta's emerald stone, the roseate glow
Of Afric's rocks, or slabs of Parian snow
Dragg'd from the deep to deck each orient cell,
Be mine no purple from the Tyrian shell;
To me small joy such marble shrines impart,
My home—the temple of the human heart.
Faith shall its strong foundation lay, while near
Sweet Love and Piety the call shall hear;
The roof, firm Justice build; along the floor
Strewing her blushing flowers from door to door,
Shall meek-eyed Modesty the Portress be,
Herself the fairest, of the temple free.

Such be the mansion where I love to rest,
Such roof is worthy its celestial guest.
Nor strange the site I choose, for once before
A mortal shape immortal glory wore.
With plastic hand, well-pleas'd the Godhead made
On Earth a tenement his beams to shade,
In his pure bosom pour'd celestial breath,
The incarnate Word—the Man of Nazareth.

Περι Στεφανων.

[_]

Liber 1, Hymn xii.

Passio Apostolorum Petri et Pauli.

“Plus solito coëunt ad gaudia,” &c.

Woke is the festal morn, unwonted crowds
Pass and repass—the streets of Rome are fill'd;
All wear a look of joy. The day arrives,
The day of triumph, sacred to behold,
Rich with the apostles' blood—brethren in death
They were, as in their life. On either brow
The martyr's crown of glory now is seen.
Old Tiber knew (his neighbouring waters roll'd
Fast by the spot) where the twin-trophy rose
(One did the cross, and one the sword destroy),
Marking the blood-besprinkled grass. He fell
The first, by impious Nero's tyrant hand,
Named of the rock, he fell. When Peter knew
The tree his Lord had sanctified by death,
“Oh! not for me,” he cried, “oh! not for me,
The glory of a martyrdom like his;

A humbler death be mine.” And so he bent
Earthward his visage prone—exalted more
The more depress'd. Now, the revolving sun,
Drawn through his annual circle, hath return'd
To the same punctual spot. Again for death
The insatiate tyrant call'd.—Then did he fall
Beneath the headsman's axe, e'en he the light,
The great apostle of the Gentile world.
He saw, as with a prophet's eye, the shade
Of death, how soon to come—he saw and hail'd
The anticipated doom. “To Christ I go,
Yea, unto Christ.”—Sooth were his words, nor day,
Nor hour deceiv'd him. Now on either shore
They lie, divided but by Tiber's wave.
On the right bank, a sepulchre is seen
Lifting its golden roof,—the ashes there
Of him, the elder of the brethren lie;
The olive waves its branches, and the flow,
The silent flow of waters murmur round,
That forth from the Mamertine fountain drawn,
Gush thro' the marble channel.—Thence with lapse
Sonorous, led within the tomb, they give,
As in a glassy mirror, every form,
Each hue, the fretted cornice, and the walls,

Empurpled with celestial colours, all
Like some rich field tapestried by spring awakes,
To live reflected in the trembling wave.

Through either street the Roman multitude
Presses with pious step; the festal day
One and the same in grateful memory
Is held.—Now pass we on to either shrine,
Chanting the hymns of praise—the further bank
Crossing the Hadrian bridge, so call'd, we gain
Beyond the Tiber. Then on reverted step,
Before the sacred tomb of Paul we kneel;
Thus Rome its pious duties hath fulfilled.
Homeward now bend thy feet, and let thy mind
Hive up these treasur'd thoughts to memory dear.

LINES

WRITTEN UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF MILTON.

“Sic honor, et nomen divinis Vatibus, atque
Carminibus venit.”
Horat. A. P. vs. 400.

Praise be to him, whose faithful touch reveal'd
That countenance serene, on which we gaze,
And on each venerable feature trace,
Shaded with years, with pensive labours worn,
The illuminating Spirit, that within
Fed all as with a lamp's perpetual glow,
In its own light unquenchable—and thus
Calm thoughts, substantial duties, and the voice
Of Conscience, that with no irreverent aim,
Mid fiercest strife of passions blind, when good
And evil in unnatural concord met,
Had fought for truth and freedom.—They were his,
In the strong manhood of his life, and his
In the majestic solitude of age,

With danger and with darkness compass'd round,
In awful subjugation to the will
Of violence and wrong—yet not the less
With self-respect on self-reliance built,
Unshaken, undejected, undismay'd,
His were the silent hopes of one who knew
The consolations of a heart approved,
Perplexed but not distrusting,—well prepared
For conflict to endure, as one who fights
Beneath the banners of a righteous cause
That cannot be withstood—and cheer'd with thoughts
Of recompense for toil, though long withheld,
Yet safe beneath the law divine, which gives,
Early or late, as best beseems its will,
Its justice equal—given or delay'd.

HEVER CASTLE, KENT.

[_]

Hever Castle was the residence of Sir Thomas Boleyn; and Anne Boleyn resided here when courted by Henry VIII. I saw her chamber, with the bed and furniture, as when inhabited by her. The tomb of Sir Thomas Boleyn is the only one belonging to the family remaining in the church of Hever.

“Strange dream for one so young!” I musing said,
As, with slow step, I climb'd the turret-stair;
Her toilet by the casement stood, her bed
Of curtain'd silk, and tapestried couch, were there.
It was the very chamber where she lay,—
Unchanged, though changeful years had pass'd away.

“Strange dream for one so young!” yet fancies wild,
We know, unsought for, cross the wearied brain,
When Sleep has Reason of her power beguil'd,
And comes, with all her wild fantastic train,
Mocking the mind with semblance.—Let her weep,
If sorrow comes, it comes but in the dreams of sleep.

But why of sorrow speak? Herself she saw,
In her own hall, mid festal lamps serene,
Leading the dance; and he, whom all with awe
Beheld, knelt to her as to Beauty's queen;
Hung on her crimson'd cheek, and whisper'd there
Words that breath'd o'er her like enchanted air.

He spake of love that nothing could destroy,
Mocking all time and change; he kiss'd the tear
That dimm'd her soft and downcast eye:—“Enjoy,”
He said, “a monarch's love, unmix'd with fear:”—
And something, too, he spake of one in pain,
Who long enthralled had worn an old and galling chain.

It fled; but when again in sleep repos'd,
Sitting with dark and clouded brows, she saw
Grave bearded Churchmen, in long synod clos'd,
With wrinkled fingers pointing to the law;
And Legates, posting over land and sea:
And much she marvell'd then, for whom those things could be.

But lo! to brighter scenes the conclave chang'd,
For sound of silver clarions shook the air,
And joust, and tournament, and champions, rang'd
In order due, the bridal feast declare;
And one of princely form approach'd the maid,
And, bending, at her feet the regal sceptre laid.

A regal crown her beauteous forehead graced,
And he she lov'd was with her on the throne;
But ever those whom smiling Fortune placed
On flattering heights, has fickle Chance o'erthrown;
Or envious Time, or Destiny, who hides
In awful clouds the hand that o'er man's fate presides.

For once again the changeful vision show'd
An aged queen array'd in weeds of woe;
Stern was the look she wore, deep sorrows flow'd
From that great heart, and deathly was the blow:
And so, in injured majesty, she laid
Her steadfast eye of scorn upon the trembling maid.

And still her eye was fix'd; yet never word
From those pale lips, nor living accent came;
Nor marvel if no shade of pity stirr'd
That queenly mind,—for violated fame
Was hers,—insulted majesty and pride,
And on her rightful throne sate the incestuous bride.

But fair the star of love still o'er her rose;
And Youth, what bright and golden hours are thine!
Shielding, for so thou canst, from earthly woes,
By transitory gift of powers divine;
Nor speak of wrongs by her, but let her be,
As in her maiden bloom, unblemish'd still and free.

But soon that blooming cheek like marble grew,
And quench'd how soon was love's ethereal flame;
And ever, as each wandering rumour flew,
Sudden and dark the clouds of evil came.
Estrangèd eyes she met, perplexing fears,
And those whom most she loved, pass'd by with tears.

And then they spake of one, as false as fair,—
False to her virgin vows; nor did they rest
Till they had led her on in wild despair,
And her poor heart was breaking in her breast.
How could it be, that sland'rous tongues in scorn
Could wound a maid like her, so fair and so forlorn?

The earth grew dark beneath her feet with shade
Of coming ills, and dark the morning sky
To one in clouds of deepest thought betray'd,
Plunging from woe to woe in agony.
And so she wander'd on, in grief and shame,
While still on heavier wing the night of sorrow came.

For then, in dream or vision once again,
Confusèd sights and shapes mysterious rose,—
Shadows she knew not what, and forms of pain,
And fearful moanings heard at evening's close.
Grim towers appear'd, and many a dungeon-stair,
Winding in darkness far into the misty air.

A lidless coffin at her feet was seen;
His gleaming axe the sullen headsman bore;
Strange sounds and sights forlorn rose up between:—
But lo! the Morn unbars her silver door;
The earth is glittering bright with vernal dew,
And from her trembling couch the affrighted maiden flew.

And all to soothe a troubled mind was there,
In sight or sound. The lark his early song
Of joy was trilling in the morning air;
The stock-dove's voice was heard the woods among;
While, one by one, from out the sedgy brake,
The swans came sailing down the bright and silvery lake.

Green rose the Kentish hills;—in rich array
The forests spread their leafy umbrage round;
Hawthorn and hazel-copse were blooming gay,
And orchard-crofts with fragrant woodbine crown'd.
How pleas'd she saw, leading his waters pale,
Her own sweet Eden glide adown that pastoral vale!

All things awoke to life in earth and air,
Low murmurs crept along the wooded dells;
The wild deer stirr'd from out their ferny lair;
The bee was humming in the cowslip bells.
And now to sylvan lodge, or hamlet grey,
Slowly the wandering kine were moving on their way.

But, like the victim of some lonely spell,
Slow from her mind the dreams of darkness fled;
And still those cold and deathly breathings fell,
That late had brooded o'er her midnight bed;
Speaking of sorrows pass'd, of gloomy fears,
And things remember'd dim, through long and unknown years.

“Oh! give me back my vernal hours again—
My hours of youth and peace,” the maiden cried;
“Give me the beechen grove, the woodland strain,
And violets blooming by the brooklet's side;
And that sweet bower of eglantine,—the shade
Where, through long summer-days, my careless childhood stray'd.

“'Twas there I watch'd the glittering insects play,
Circling, with sportive flight, yon sunny rill;
While the tall shadows of those turrets grey
Slept in the moated waters, calm and still,—
Nor ceas'd to linger there, while Evening pale
Drew o'er the shadowy scene her soft and dewy veil.

“Unclouded thus my days of gladness pass'd,
Sweet words and gentle greetings still were mine;
Pleasures to me from hands unseen were cast,
Bright as the azure heavens that o'er me shine;
So fairest thoughts from every heart I drew,
While peace and tenderest hope, like flowers, around me grew.

“Then take me to your shelt'ring arms again,
Ye lov'd companions of my earlier days,—
Green copse, and primrose-bank, and winding lane,
Rich with the golden treasure autumn lays;
And thou, forsaken Streamlet, let me be
Free as the summer winds, to wander still with thee.”

But see how slants the sun's departing ray,
Bright clouds are travelling o'er the western hills;
And hark! the hunter's horn and staghound's bay,
Peal after peal the echoing valley fills.
And now, through Hever's gates, in kingly pride,
Led by the monarch's self, the trampling horsemen ride.

And is this but a Poet's tale that's told?—
For see, the wild flower on the castle wall
Spreads its small banners through the ruins old;
Tall grass is waving in the roofless hall.
One lone and solitary tomb, 'tis said,
In silent guard preserves the secrets of the dead.

So musing in the churchway paths I stood,
That look upon those ancient turrets grey,
Wearing their verdant crown of hill and wood;
Then homeward bent my lone and pensive way.
And still I turn'd to gaze and linger there,
Mid those sweet woodland scenes, and shadowy landscapes fair.

MATER DOLOROSA.

“The affections are their own justification.”
Wordsworth.

“Oh! give me children, or I die!”
It was the Hebrew mother's prayer;
And Nature pleaded for herself
In accents of despair.

By angels led, to earth they came,
In blushing clouds of roseate hue;
Mysterious gift! that glided down
As silently as dew!

For weeks, for months, through hope and fear,
The fond maternal love is tried:
Is it a dream? She wakes, and sees
A sleeping Cherub at her side.

Angelic motions—tenderest smiles—
Its waking joys, its tranquil rest,
Sweet emblems of the infant's years,
Are mirrored in the mother's breast.

And must they part? can aught remain
In steadfast permanence below?
Again reluctant Nature points
The desolated home of woe.

She look'd her sorrows in the face,
As one who could not be beguiled;
Her heart it had no other place
But in the bosom of her child.

She heard the clock's slow pulses beat,
Night after night, the livelong year:
The stifled voice, the muffled tread,
Sole sounds that met a mother's ear.

Night after night she sate and watched
The glimmering taper's shaded ray,
With sleepless eye for ever fixed
On that lov'd image of decay.

But ever as the taper sank,
And here and there you might espy
The glimpses of the morning light
Come upward in the sky;

Might see the stars fade one by one.
Beneath the cold clear eye of morn;
'Twas then within her heart she felt
Another day was born.

So month by month passed slowly on
The Spring came from his early bower,
And Summer with her garlands smiled
On all, but on that fading flower.

Then Autumn's suns went down: how slow
Mov'd on each long autumnal day!
And now she from the casement looked
Upon the Wintry landscape grey.

Oh! blessed love! that still was fixed
On that pale couch a second Spring;
And now a second Summer came
On sorrow-laden wing.

And still she gazed on all she loved,
Upon that wasted cheek of snow;
Day after day it was the same,
Unutterable woe.

But when she saw the golden sun,
On the bright grass the children play,
And songs and shouts of laughter rose
To welcome in the May;

The common light of Nature sent
Into her heart a deeper gloom,
For sorrow like a shadow loves
The silence of the tomb.

Songs that from happy childhood came,
Spake of the couch where sickness lay.
Hide that resplendent sky of flame!
Those thoughtless sounds in pity stay!

But, fixed for ever on her form,
More dim the eye of love became,
And feebler grew that gentle voice
That breathed a mother's name;

And feebler moved those little hands
Around a mother's bosom thrown,
The painful day, the sleepless night
Had claimed her for their own.

Yet Time, to the despairing heart,
Its last best gift of mercy brings;
She sees the expecting seraphs watch;
She hears the rush of angel wings.

Their eyes of tenderest love they bent
On that sweet floweret faded there;
They knew their high commission sent
To waft her through the realms of air.

They placed their soft hand on her heart;
They listened for the coming breath;
Then looked into each other's eyes,
And whispered “It is death.”

And now for thee the future lies
Wrapt in the image of the past;
Beneath its shadows thou wilt live
While time and thought shall last.

It were a sinful thing to wish
One smile within thy heart to rise,
Where now, in melancholy calm,
Thy child's reflected image lies.

But Hope, and Love, and Faith, shall live
When envious Time has passed away;
And there are Spirits sent to guard
The helpless children of the clay.

Oh! this is Truth! and there is One
As kind to give, as strong to save;
If not—why let us go and die
Upon the loved one's grave.

TO ------

Πορευου και μηκετι αμαρτανε.

Sorrow hath been companion of thy life,
E'en from the morn thou left thy native vale,
Left to return not.—Sorrow, and inward strife,—
Leaning on him who told too well his tale
Of flattering love.—“Oh! be thou only mine,
I know no life but in that heart of thine!

“I breathe, I live for thee!”—The voice was heard,
Heard through the woodbine casement ere it clos'd;
Alas! no friendly sound the silence stirr'd
Where they, who bless'd thee in their prayer, repos'd.
“Oh! haste! for Love,” it cried, “brooks no delay;
These arms await to fold thee,—haste away.”

Tears speak the rest.—The tears of love betray'd,
And guileless innocence, and memory still
Wakening from depths of her mysterious shade
In that poor heart the images of ill;
Regret,—remorse,—and many a wish in vain,—
“Oh! give me back my russet weeds again.”

A grief there is, the human heart can know,
Forlorn, and dark, and hopeless as the grave;
Ask of the Earth,—“Oh! give relief from woe
Too great to bear!”—it has no power to save.
But there's a voice for those, who, like to thee,
Poor and forsaken, cries—“Return to me.”

Not comfortless, but rear'd with tender hand
And looks of gentle love, the while, with tears
Watering the ground beneath, are they who stand
Submissive, yet in trust, amid their fears
Of Him, who well they know, the meek of heart
Has bless'd, and chosen to himself apart.

Then Time, the friend of all, shall come to thee,
With sweet oblivion of each sorrow past;
Bidding the timid heart again be free,
By injury and fear long overcast.
Or if some pensive thoughts at times will stray,
Like those soft clouds that wander west away,

Then counsel, and restraint, the friends of youth,
And patience ever working good through ill,
Be covenants of thy new-born faith and truth,
And meek submission to the Heavenly will:
Till, worldly passion spent, and sorrows wild,
Sweet peace restor'd be thine, and consolation mild.

A second morning on thy life shall bloom,
And flowers be round thy path; and thou shalt share,
Beneath thy native roof, and that dear room
Shaded with roses, all a mother's care,
Watching thy wasted cheek,—and she shall bless
Her lost one late restor'd, with many a fond caress.

A sister's hand thy evening couch shall spread,
And thou shalt hear the songs of other years
Sound, like the pensive voices of the dead,
That faintly speak of long-departed fears;
While that sweet orphan child shall creep to thee,
“Feed me, as thou wert wont, with kisses on thy knee.”

Come, then, forgetful of each former pain,
From these dark shades of grief and misery fly;
Come, with each fresh-awaken'd hope again,
As the blue morning brightens in the sky,
See, thy lov'd vale awaits thee!—Thou shalt rest
Within a father's arms,—upon a mother's breast.

For thee, for thee, their supplicating hands
They lift aloft, and weary Heaven with prayer,
And say, “Beside the eternal portal stands
A trembling and repentant sinner there.”
And lo! the gates of mercy open wide
To all, but unto man's rebellious pride.

Then shalt thou live, as by a second birth,
Again in virgin modesty of thought;
In dignity, and conscious of thy worth,
Retiring,—loveliest once again,—and sought
Mid nuptial blisses to that bow'r which Love
Emblem on Earth has made of purer joys above!

But see how soft e'en now the roseate cloud
Of evening smiles upon the dewy vale;
Oh! linger not!—for they who love thee, bow'd
With age, are list'ning for thy footsteps.—“Hail!
Hail! to our lov'd, our lost,”—in tears they cry,
“Come to these trembling arms, and bless us ere we die.”

CAMILLA.

[_]

FROM VIRGIL, ÆN. VII. AND XI.

Next from the dark and Volscian hills,
Their Queen, the young Camilla, came;
Heading her squadrons bold, she rode
In brazen armour bright as flame.

Brave heart was hers, that warlike maid:
She knew not of the arts of peace;
And ever did her hand disdain
The distaff and the fleece.

But, when the breath of battle rose,
Steadfast she stood amidst the fight;
Nor could the viewless winds that blew
O'ertake her in her flight.

When skimming o'er the billowy grain,
How light her winged footsteps flew!
Her tread above the tenderest stalk
Was softer than the summer-dew.

Suspended on the swelling wave
Her floating image glides away;
And then her small and ivory foot
Just glances o'er the feathery spray.

Where'er she pass'd—from field or fold,
From hamlet or from town—
Matron and child—the young and old—
In troops came flocking down.

With open mouth, with eager eye,
Each wond'ring village throng'd to gaze;
Unwonted sight—nor e'er beheld
In all the length of aged days.

They saw across her ivory arms
How fell the mantle's purple fold;
How that rich length of raven hair
Was gather'd in its clasp of gold.

They saw the sounding quiver bear
Its Lycian shafts of deathly flight;
And in her hand, with steely gleam,
The myrtle javelin glitter bright.

Heading her Volscian cavalry
She pass'd in stern and virgin pride;
While round their Queen—a princely guard—
Her troop of maiden warriors ride.

Oh! say, Latonian Phœbe, say
If, mid thy nymphs of mortal train,
Is one as well-beloved as she?
Oh, be she not beloved in vain!

Along the banks of Anasene
You lov'd her when her years were few;
And faithful to each favouring smile,
Her youthful life was vowed to you.

A huntress bold, like you, she lov'd
The rocky glen, the wood unshorn,
And, on the mountain's kindling brow,
To meet the opening eye of Morn.

Smote by her spear, the felon wolf
Lay bleeding in his savage lair;
And swift must be the wing that sav'd
The tenants of the air.

A kingly race was hers! her sire
O'er old Privernum held the sway,
And oft upon thy sylvan shrine
His infant child a suppliant lay.

Then guard, fair goddess of the woods,
Thine own chaste maid from hostile hand,
And waft her back, in life or death,
Uninjur'd to her native land.

Unspoil'd, uninjur'd, unprofan'd,
Oh! bear her from war's bleeding plain;
Lov'd best on earth, and soon to be
Best lov'd of thy celestial train.

LINES SUGGESTED BY A REQUEST TO WRITE AN INSCRIPTION FOR THE MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED ON THE TERRACE OF RICHMOND HILL,

TO THE MEMORY OF THOMSON.

Ipsæ te, Tityre, Pinus,
Ipsi te fontes, ipsa et arbusta, vocabant.

Of no heroic enterprise of war,
Or laurels gather'd mid ensanguined fields,
Did he delight to sing, whose honour'd name,
Grateful memorial of a nation's praise,
This monumental column proudly bears.
But him the Muse, studious of song divine,
Led to her favourite haunts, with genial dews
Refresh'd, and with the peaceful olive crown'd;
There with benignant hand to him disclosed
Her secret springs. The Genius of the woods,
The Naiad by her silent fountain laid,
The Nymphs, her lov'd companions, in their groves
Received him; then of Nature's richest stores
They chose—for him the melodies of morn
Awoke, and on the green earth's flowery lap
Flung their purpureal splendours; to his ear
The stream in sweeter numbers seem'd to flow;
The dewy landscape glitter'd to his view

In more than vernal freshness. Of each shape
Of beauty, spread interminable, none
Was wanting; while to his enraptured eye,
Through every varying season of the year,
Majestic forms, the ministers of Time,
Each in its duteous order moved along.
First Spring upon the sleeping flow'rets breathed
With tenderest smile—then Summer, as she pass'd,
Blush'd mid her roseate dews—rich Autumn fill'd
The vales with golden splendour—latest came
Pale Winter, gazing on his sunless skies.

So, mid these studious scenes, his blameless harp
Was heard, by every rural power belov'd,
Loved by each sylvan deity—to them
His heart was as a consecrated shrine,
A grateful altar built for richest gifts
Of Wisdom, to his calm retirement led,
And Truth and Virtue by the Muse bestow'd.

Then waft his name, ye winds that murmuring pass
Through these soft groves; and thou, beloved stream,
Gliding between thy verdant banks of bloom,
Bear to each distant vale the Poet's song.

HELEN:

A DIRGE, WRITTEN FOR A MASQUE.

Ουκ ελενην ζητειν νυν εδει, αλλα ταφον.

Let the hart his thicket keep,
The moon her dews of silver weep,
In his cage the small bird sing,
Softest airs the Summer bring;
When the bloom is on the tree,
Gentle Love, then come to me.
Alas, my heart! for Love is dead,
Or away to Heaven is fled,
Or by yonder little heap
Lies, where I must sit and weep,
From the morning dawn till eve
Bids the thrush the berries leave,
And the welcome hour of rest
Sends the cushat to her nest.

Where shall my sorrow comfort gain?
None answer: only one—“Complain,”
He said, “not in extremest pain
Or anguish, nor thy weakness speak;
The treasure gone, there thou must seek.”

He knew me well, who thus could urge
My trial to the extremest verge
Of will. Then said he, “She did stand
Shielding thee ever with her hand;
Being gone, why tarry in the land?”

All the ground is wet with dew
Of tears I've rain'd the Summer through;
And see—already there is set,
Where the flowers and tears be met,
A wood of purple violet.
The gentle land-winds, how they blow
From orchard-blossoms tufts of snow,
Scattering o'er my loved one's bed
Their little pall of flowers! I said—
“Meet emblems were they of the dead.”
Nor less the ev'ning dirge I hear
Of those small fountains warbling near,
With their soft and silver feet
Tripping by in music sweet,
While each low murmur seems to say,
“He weeps for her who could not stay.”
Oh! but Love will come no more;
He has fled my cottage door,

Ever since my sweet one died.
He said—“I lov'd her in my pride;
'Twas for myself,” he said, “I sigh'd.”
So he left me in my woe:
He cares not what may chance below;
But how I loved her best I know.
I built for her a palace bright
Within my heart; and full of light
Her image dwelt there day and night.
It was her love that made my life;
Without her all is inward strife,
Like waters when the winds are rife.
My grief it never can be told;
I've nothing left but books and gold;
My little Helen sleeps in mould.

So Love hath ever fled my door,
And I must weep for evermore.
He hath gone to take his rest;
His cheek is laid on Psyche's breast,
Their little hands together press'd;
And in each other's eyes they see
Their pretty forms. Oh! woe is me!
With her I never more shall be.

In the cold earth one is laid
Rich as ever Nature made;
Whate'er she look'd on—to each place
Her beauty lent a living grace.

Love like our's alone the name
Deserves, that never comes to shame;
We loved without reproach or blame.
She was to me a sweet thing lent
By Heaven; but when the Master sent,
Thoughts had I which I now repent.
Seeing she was so chaste—so pure,
She could not wrong nor grief endure;
Nor, like a bright and beauteous star,
Dwell in earth's dark sepulchre.
Nature strove her best to find
All perfections for her mind.
Sweet child! too good for earth,—so Heaven
A second birth to thee hath given,
Letting down the golden chain
Of Sleep, to draw thee up again
Softly, without distress or pain;
For Sleep hath kiss'd away thy breath,
And stole thee from his brother—Death.

RECORDATIO RIVORUM.

The gentle rivers of the earth,
What are they but the gems that bind
Her beauteous bosom from its birth,
The mirrors of each form refined?

Now, half unseen, the shadowy streams
Their sylvan coves and hollows lave;
Now evening's rich purpureal gleams
Are flashing o'er the phosphor wave.

I know them all; no waters kiss
Their haunted cliffs or caverns old;
But I the amber flood have drank,
And trod their sands of fabled gold.

On Tiber's yellow shores I've stood;
Rich Brenta's marble halls I know;
And oft my little boat hath sailed
Along the silver Po.

How dear beneath thy banks of wood,
Loved Arno, hast thou been to me!
For by thy wave has Dante stood,
And sunny Florence looks on thee.

I've seen the Rhone, with bridal haste,
Rush onward to the ocean bay;
And I have seen where in his cave
The giant infant lay.

The Baden hills are steep to climb,
And dark their piny forests swell;
Beneath their shadows I have knelt,
Beside the Danube's well.

Elbe, mighty Elbe, thou roll'st along,
The heart of Germany is thine;
And well may I thy mountains love,
Thou castle-covered Rhine!

Old Drance, he hath a giant's step,
And tramples on from steep to steep;
And pale, oh! pale, the moonlight snows
Around the young Arveiron sleep.

I've seen thy blue wave glide beneath
Each mirror'd hue of rock and tree;
And it was as a fairy dream,
Delightful Meuse, to gaze on thee!

Ah, golden Treves! how like a queen
Thou sitt'st amid thy flowery dell,
And twin'st around thy regal brow
The vine-wreath of thy lov'd Moselle.

A little month, a little month,
I roam'd among thine islets gay,
While o'er each wild and winding marge
Gleam'd mould'ring tower and turret grey.

But hark! what evening music floats
Rich with the South's voluptuous air?
And who are they, the angel forms,
That wave their long resplendent hair?

Dark are their brows, and light their step,
Who call the banks of Loire their own,
And they who touch the soft guitar
Along thy hills, thou loved Garonne.

If Beauty were a fadeless flower,
If Love were more than poet's dream,
With them I'd build my chosen bower,
Where Sorga winds her wizard stream.

For I have sat in Petrarch's chair,
Have trod with awe the poet's room,
And one cold kiss these lips have laid,
Chaste Laura, on thy marble tomb.

Now let these gentle rivers glide,
Their own sweet path to choose or leave;
For see how softly Thames reflects
The silver lights of eve.

When hopes are bright, when hearts are young,
By other hills and streams we roam,
Content if in our later age
On Thames's shores we find a home.

The lamented Dante's favourite seat.

Wordsworth.

THE POET.

SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN THE MEMOIRS OF GOETHE.

Well did the Sage from Wisdom's shrine
Declare what choicest gifts must meet;
Her blessings rare how fortune join
To form the Poet's mind complete.

Ah! where the child of Genius strays,
Breathe gales from soft Ionia's shore!
The genial pulse of Nature plays,
Content to be—he asks no more.

And then to meet his eagle eye,
Outspread a land of lustre bright;
Embath'd in Noon's crystàlline sky,
Or flush'd with Eve's reflected light.

Ah! rise! ah! young Aurora, rise,
To meet the Bard's insatiate gaze;
And pour along the morning skies
Thy richest sheaf of opal rays.

From yonder green hill's shelving side
He marks the seaward rivers flow;
And opening all its glories wide
The laughing landscape gleams below.

A land of faëry bliss it seems,
Sweet woods, and lakes, and pastures gay;
While, lit by Morning's orient beams,
The aërial mountains trend away.

The vision sinks!—earth, seas, are fled,
Intenser flame his bosom burns;
And o'er the shadows of the dead
The Poet's eye enraptur'd turns.

He stands upon the Tyrant's grave;—
What soul-ennobling thoughts are near!
Wave! child of song and genius, wave
The flowers to thee and freedom dear.

And see where Phidias' breath has warm'd
To life the all but vocal stone;
And in the depth of ages form'd,
The immortal temple frowns alone.

How bright with Truth's reflected face
Great Titian's world of lustre gleams;
How pure in Raphael's virgin grace
The form of Love celestial beams.

But ah! what sky-born form descends,
What more than mortal glories shine!
To crown her blessings Nature sends
The spell of beauty's smile divine.

Come in thy matchless lustre rare
Before the bard's enraptur'd sight;
And wave that rich resplendent hair,
And bend those eyes of dewy light.

The spell is wove!—the charm complete,
Now Rapture strikes the awaken'd lyre;
And see, where Love and Music meet
To feed the Promethéan fire.

Thus Nature round her favourite child
Assembles all her gifts divine;
And Genius brings his offspring wild
To watch in Wisdom's deepest shrine.

The conscience clear,—the spirits gay;
By Faith, the latest boon is given;
And, lit on earth, the ascending ray
Points upward to its home in Heaven.

See Erinnæ Epigramma ix.

Il vero Natural di Titiano, v. Son. di Ag. Caracci.

See Corinne de Mad. de Staël.

THE OWL.

[_]

THE FOLLOWING LINES WERE WRITTEN IN REFERENCE TO THE MURDER OF MR. WEARE, AT THE TIME.

Owl! that lovest the boding sky!
In the murky air,
What saw'st thou there?
For I heard, through the fog, thy screaming cry!
“The maple's head
Was glowing red,
And red were the wings of the autumn sky;
But a redder gleam
Rose from the stream,
That dabbled my feet, as I glided by!”

Owl! that lovest the stormy sky!
Speak, oh! speak!
What crimsoned thy beak
And hung on the lids of thy staring eye?
“'Twas blood, 'twas blood!
And it rose like a flood,
And for this I screamed as I glided by!”

Owl! that lovest the midnight sky!
Again, again,
Where are the twain?
Look! while the moon is hurrying by!
“In the thicket's shade
The one is laid;
You may see, through the boughs, his moveless eye!”

Owl! that lovest the darkened sky!
A step beyond
From the silent pond
There rose a low and moaning cry.
“On the water's edge,
Through the trampled sedge,
A bubble burst and gurgled by:
My eyes were dim,
But I looked from the brim,
And I saw, in the weeds, a dead man lie!”

Owl! that lovest the moonless sky!
Where the casements blaze
With the faggots' rays,
Look! oh look! what see'st thou there?
Owl! what's this,

That snort and hiss,
And why do thy feathers shiver and stare?
“'Tis he! 'tis he!
He sits mid the three,
And a breathless woman is on the stair.’

Owl! that lovest the cloudy sky!
Where clank the chains
Through the prison panes,
What there thou hearest tell to me!
“In her midnight dream,
'Tis a woman's scream,
And she calls on one—on one of the three!”
Look in once more,
Through the grated door:
“'Tis a soul that prays in agony.”

Owl! that hatest the morning sky!
On thy pinions gray,
Away—away!
I must pray, in charity,
From midnight chime
To morning prime,
Miserere, Domine!

THE SEASONS,

A PENCIL SKETCH ON THE RIVER ALDE.

There's soft green moss beside the brook;
There's golden fruitage on the bough;
Earth casts to Heaven a grateful look,
And Wisdom comes . . we know not how.

SPRING.

To life the vernal flow'rets wake,
In countless bands o'er hill and dale:
Winds of the West! your slumbers break,
And fold them in your dewy veil.

SUMMER.

Mid blue unclouded skies above,
Yon lustrous arch of light is seen;
And, touch'd with roseate hues of love,
Earth spreads her robe of emerald green.

AUTUMN.

The woods their darkening foliage bow,
As round the fitful breeze is roll'd;
And mark! how flames yon moorland's brow
With all the autumn's wealth of gold.

WINTER.

The hills uplift their helms of snow,
And high their glitt'ring lances wield;
The river stays his sullen flow,
And sleeps upon his icy shield.

L'ENVOI.

So speed the duteous hours along,
From orb to orb, their march sublime;
Declaring, as in choral song,
The sacred destinies of time.

The varying day, the changeful scene,
Proclaim the fated world of strife;
Mid fadeless groves, and skies serene,
The immortal spirit finds its life.

For what is Spring, or Summer's glow,
Or purple Autumn's rich decline,
And what the Winter's crown of snow,
If but the eternal year is thine?

Still Nature through each change retains
The primal law that knows no fall;
And still essential Love remains,
In one communion binding all.

THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.

“Domus Paterna!”
Ennii, Iphig. vs. 547.

Far rising 'bove the foliage of the wood,
An antique mansion might you there espy,
Such as in days of our forefathers stood,
Carved with device of quaintest imagery.
Long terraces and rich arcades were there,
And stateliest galleries made for walks and converse fair.

Within the court a marble fountain stream'd
With showers of silver radiance night and day;
Above the linden grove the wild heron scream'd,
And in the lake the swan's bright shadow lay.
While glancing through trim hedge and thicket green,
The peacock's jasper neck and emerald plumes were seen.

Stretch'd in the shade, the giant mastiff lay,
Whose midnight bay his faithful guard declar'd;
The aged hunter roam'd the pasture grey,
And here secure the timid pheasant pair'd.
How soft the foot of time had pass'd along,
Guarding his lov'd domain from injury and wrong.

The gilded vanes were glittering in the sun,
Turning, as Beauty turns to Flattery's breath;
And hark! the Turret-clocks one after one
Tell out the ceaseless hours;—with voice like death
Startling the silent noon—o'er wood and hill
Their iron-knell is heard—and all again is still.

Gray, in his Ode to Eton College, has authorized the use of the word “antique,” for “ancient,” in modern poetry: “Ye antique towers”; though the word was in constant use in Shakspeare, Spenser, and our older poets.

The startling effect, powerfully arresting the attention, of a large Clock, like those belonging to churches, striking the hour, amid the deep undisturbed silence of a summer noon, was more than once observed by the late Lord Grenville to an intimate friend who used to accompany him in his declining years, among his favourite scenes, walking by the side of his garden-chair, or reposing on the seats; and this observation was by him repeated to me near the very spot where it last occurred—the gardens at Dropmore. “The sound of that clock,” he said, “produces a very great impression on my mind.—Ah! there you will go on, and strike as usual, and your sound will continue to pass over these hills and groves, when I shall be no longer here to hear it!” This was the pensive and natural reflection of one then in extreme bodily weakness, and nervous debility; and he who listened to it from those lips, which he so much respected, is now also silent: and what passed in many of these familiar hours between the venerable statesman and the Poet, has probably remained in my memory alone, among other recollections of the same illustrious persons. I may here mention that Mr. Fox had his favourite exclamation when he first caught sight of the woods of St. Anne's Hill, to which he was so much attached, as they emerged from the autumnal mists, when he approached them; and there also was one present, who carefully remembered the words, he used to utter on that occasion.

THE PARISH GIRL.

A dew-drop in the sunny beam;
A wither'd leaf in Autumn's blast,
A flow'ret on its broken stem,—
The little dream of life is past.

Yon linden-alley spreads along,
With leafy shadows broad and fair;
Oh! take me from the worldly throng,
And lay the Child of Sorrow there.

And lay me where the brooklet flows
Through violet banks of purple bloom;
And weep not when the wintry snows
Are whitening o'er my early tomb.

For I am sick of ling'ring here,
These scenes of want and woe to see;
The earth is broad, the earth is fair,
But in it, is no room for me.

That little stream that warbles by,
Will find a home in Ocean's breast;
Those clouds within the western sky,
Will fold their wearied wings to rest.

But I, a houseless wanderer roam,
By day in want, by night in fears;
A stranger's hearth—my only home,
My only couch—a bed of tears.

Mysterious law! whose stern decree
My life to shame and sorrow gave,
Thy wings of darkness close o'er me,
And give—'tis all thou can'st—the Grave.

SONNET.

[There was a time, when England, fresh and strong]

1840.

There was a time, when England, fresh and strong,
And like a tree, forth to the summer air
Would spread her beauteous leaves and blossoms fair:
Then each man follow'd that which did belong
To his own boundary; nor fraud, nor wrong
Was witness'd, still demanding fresh repair:
Seamen the battle, churchmen at their prayer
Were seen; and soldiers loyed the trumpet's song.—
All now is altered!—Senators the gown
Cast off, that wisdom we may better learn
From babes and sucklings;—beardless youths pull down
Laws that were framed by brains, both strong and stern;
And all from far and near, from bower and town,
For place, and gain, and venal title burn.

100

CUPID AND PSYCHE.

FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM.

They painted Love a beauteous boy,
With purple wings and torch of flame;
They lit his laughing eye with joy,
And flush'd his burning cheek with shame.

His mother's smiles, her sighs, her tears,
Her witching spells, her wond'rous zone,
The languish of her blushing fears,
Too well, alas! to him were known.

The bane of many a Grecian maid,
He roam'd by rock and haunted stream;
And smiled, when through the myrtle shade
He saw their long dark lashes gleam.

Oh! then as swift, as light as thought,
On lifted foot away he stole;
And in his hand, returning, brought
The youth who was their life, their soul.

101

He pointed where, like violets, gleam'd
The lustre of the deep blue eye;
Or where their length'ning tresses stream'd
Like waves of ocean floating by.

To cool his pulse's fever'd play,
In silence of the noontide hour,
The lovely boy half covered lay
With blossoms in the orange-bower.

He wakes! he starts! What wing so white
Comes sailing through the dark blue sky?
That little speck of moving light—
It is a silver butterfly?

A wandering flower—a beauteous star;
It climbs the mountain's purple crest,
Skims the green wave, then darts afar
To fall upon the Rose's breast.

“She comes! she comes!”—alas! it clung
Upon the citron's rich perfume;
And, pois'd, its fluttering pinions hung,
To sip the jasmine's opening bloom.

102

Yet still it moves; still nearer now
Mounts on yon grotto's ivied wall;
Ah! see how throbs his burning brow!
Ah! listen to his murmuring call!

“Come, Psyche, come;” his moving hair
Its dewy odours breath'd around;
She flew,—she dropt—she nestled there,
Then sank exhausted on the ground.

103

LINES

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE MEMOIRES DE MADEMOISELLE MONTPENSIER, MAY, 1849.

The page is clos'd, and thou hast left
No common pang of sorrow here;
How could I see a heart bereft
Of hope, and give it not a tear.

And such a heart as thine! so deep
In passion's truest, tenderest tone;
Thine only wish in joy to steep
A breast responsive to thy own.

Birth, beauty, fortune, all were thine,
The world's best gifts obey'd thy call;
Pure was thy thought—a heart to join,
One grateful heart, and give it all.

And still affection's anxious eye
Its long unwearied search upheld;
And love still check'd the rising sigh,
And still the boding tear repell'd.

104

But ah! those gentlest wishes join'd,
For ever sought, yet knew no rest;
Alas! that woman too must find
'Tis hard to bless, as to be blest.

105

HAMPDEN.

WRITTEN IN VIEW OF THE PATRIOT'S HOUSE.

There is a time when gentlest thoughts are ours,
When like one long and summer day of ease,
We wear on month and month, and as may please
The chimings of the fancy, in our bowers
Disport, or, mid the wood-paths wild with flowers,
Roam in the heart's glad sunshine, whether the breeze
Be heard at morn, or mid the noonday trees
Repose, or Night light up her starry towers.
And there too is a time for other mood,
When we must dwell among the walks of men
With eye of loftiest aspect,—fortitude
And sternness on our front;—and wearing then
That patriot sword, which Hampden, unsubdued,
Wore at his side, though in the tyrant's den.

106

BURNHAM BEECHES.

1850.

Prophetic of the coming storm of woes,
The forest-giants shook their tresses wild;
And ever as the shout of battle rose,
With clash of arms, and spear on spear uppiled,
Sounds from each aged trunk were heard to bear,
Tidings of flight and war along the troubled air.

Scathed by the lightning's bolt,—the wintry storm,
A giant brotherhood, ye stand sublime;
Like some huge fortress, each majestic form
Still frowns defiance to the power of Time.
Cloud after cloud the storm of war has roll'd,
Since ye your countless years of long descent have told.

Say, for ye saw brave Harold's bowmen yield,
Ye heard the Norman's princely trumpet blow;
And ye beheld, upon that later field,
Red with her rival's blood, the Rose of Snow;
And ye too saw from Chalgrove's hills of flame,
When to your sheltering arms the wounded soldier came.

107

Can ye forget, when by yon thicket green,
A troop of scatter'd horsemen cross'd the plain;
And in the midst a statelier form was seen,—
A snow-white charger yielded to his rein;
One backward look on Naseby's field he cast,
And then, with anxious flight, and speed redoubled, past.

But far away these scenes have fled, and now—
Sweet change! the song of summer-birds is thine;
Peace hangs her garlands on each aged bough,
And bright o'er thee the dews of morning shine:
Earth brings with grateful hand her tribute meet,—
Wild flowers, and coloured weeds, to bloom around thy feet.

Here may unmark'd the wandering Poet muse,
Through these green lawns the Lady's palfry glide;
Nor here the pensive nightingale refuse
Her sweetest, richest song at eventide;
The wild deer bounds at will from glade to glade,
Or stretch'd on mossy fern his antler'd brow is laid.

Farewell, beloved shades! enough for me,
Through each wild copse and tangled dell to roam,
Amid your forest-paths to wander free,
And find, where'er I go, a sheltering home:
Earth has no gentler voice to man to give,
Than “Come to Nature's arms, and learn of her to live!”

108

LINES

WRITTEN AT LAYER-MARNEY TOWER, ESSEX.

“Sic fautor Veterum.”
Horat. Ep. ii. 1. 23.

“A ruin'd Tower,” . . . in its decay,
It speaks of glories pass'd away;
All the builder's fancies quaint,
In carv'd device of scroll or saint,
Shield or scutcheon, now are seen
Mouldering on the mossy green;
All that bore a glorious birth,
Above the common things of earth,
Are fallen now. Alas! that power
Hath vanish'd from the ancient tower!
A spell is on it, and it wears
A tender sadness in its years;

109

With what a pensive brow it looks
On the fields, and on the brooks,
As it would recall its prime,
By gathering thoughts from elder time;
And that calm river too is seen,
Flowing beneath its margin green,
Ever as it flowed of yore,
Mid oaken copse, and forest hoar;
And here and there, on either side,
Coves where the abbot's barge might glide,
Gaining St. Osyth with the tide.

Beside its chestnut-shaded screen,
Where yon grey chapel-roof is seen,
There the Lords of Marney lie,
Beneath their stately canopy.
There they slumber side by side,
Dreaming of their ancient pride,
When in old ancestral power
They dwelt within that stately tower.
All was theirs,—both far and near,
Herd and flock, and fallow-deer,
And what beside the forests old
Within their leafy coverts hold,

110

When with sounding bugle they,
And hound and falcon, in array,
Were chasing down the summer day.
All the wealth of hill and dale,
Far as Mersey's distant vale,
Tower, keep, and hamlet, where the name
Of Darcy still survives in fame,
All was theirs—where eye could range
Its moving flight o'er farm and grange;
Each inland weir, and stream-fed mill,
Owned no other master's will;
Nor harbour could the ocean boast,
But theirs,—along its subject coast.

So lived they in their ancient state,
As became the rich and great.
With the Lord of Marney's bread,
Old and young alike were fed;
And each maiden had a shower
Of blushing gifts—her maiden dower.
So lived they, as brave men should do,
To their high achievements true,
From their wealthy stores to all,
Letting bounties round them fall;

111

Theirs was the aged widow's bread,
By them the orphan child was fed;
And what if something for delight
Was set apart, as if of right?
May had her honours—Winter bore
A garland on his tresses hoar;
And who would blame the poppy flower
That mix'd with Autumn's golden dower?
Then wide was spread the ancient hoard,
The wine-cup and the wassail board,
With soaring hawk, and bloodhound's bay,
Laughter and voices light—“'Tis May
Come to us in her green array.”

Then old and young with blessings meet,
Came forth, each one, their lord to greet,
While from many a kerchief'd cheek,
The blushing rose its thanks would speak;
And all along the village green
(That year young Edith was the Queen)
May games and merry masques were seen.
Through the soft and summer night,
The casements gleam'd with lustre bright;
From each one, a star of flame,

112

Sounds of lute and cittern came;
And in the moonlight, watching late,
For one expected at the gate,
A Lady at her lattice sate.

Alas! and must these glories range
Through a dark and sunless change,
Drifting ever down,—the earth
Lose the blessings of her birth,
And her golden moments haste
To a cold and dreary waste?
All the sympathies that ran
'Twixt Nature and the heart of man,
All faithful ties and thoughts be rent;
Each gentle purpose and intent
Chang'd to tyrannous control;
Impatient will, that would unroll
The future, and for empire bright,
Not borrow'd of supernal light.

And see the subject Earth in pain,
Is groaning with an iron chain;
The river gods within their caves,
May look on their neglected waves,

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And from her bed of pensive reed
Her timid urn the naiad feed;
Oh! awful change! that Nature still
Must work but at the human will,
Forego her rightful power, and be
A thing for use and mastery.
The earth shall yield her strength,—the ocean
Bend down in sullen awe his motion,
And shake his wreathed mane in scorn,
To be a captive thing forlorn;
E'en the wild unchartered wind
Links of a power unseen shall bind,
When high above the azure tides
Of air, the ark of conquest rides,
And the daring vessel braves
Against their will, the wrathful waves.

Whence comes it?—for a potent spell
Is heard along each secret cell
Of Nature—calling to obey
The thraldom of tyrannic sway.
Oh! vain dominion, late obtained,
Oh! power by artful conquest gain'd,
Who will, may praise—and yet 'twere wrong
To greet thee with the muses' song;

114

An element in bondage, bent
Slave like, to work for man's intent,
Bearing with thee as a shroud,
The smould'ring fire, the lurid cloud;
Where erst the white-wing'd bark was seen
Gliding o'er the blue serene,
In beauty, like the Ocean Queen.
Rise then, ye ancient powers that sleep,
Forgotten in your caverns deep;
Rise, ocean winds! and let the waves
Be loosen'd from their angry caves,
Trampling in indignant scorn
The craft of human weakness born.
Let the subject realms obey
Once again their ancient sway,
The tall mast rear its regal head,
The sail its graceful bosom spread:
By cape or headland, let it go,
Opening wide its wings of snow,
And every wandering breeze be free,
To waft it o'er the pathless sea.
Then wake no more to scenes of pain,
Ye Lords of Marney's old domain;
With your beards upon your breast,
Lie like good men taking rest.

115

Ye have liv'd, while life could last,
In the glories of the past.
Wake not beside your stately tower,
Ruin'd by Time's relentless power;—
Lords of Marney's ancient race
Together sleeping face to face,
Wake not now to dreams of pain—
Time hath dropt his golden chain,
Chain of rightful power, that still
Held rule o'er man's submissive will;
Aimless as the winds that range
To the wild unfetter'd change;
Custom hath loos'd her gentle yoke,
Her willing bondage Duty broke:
So ill from ill doth ever flow,
The harvest comes in bitter woe,
And ere many a year shall flee,
Yon grey and ruin'd tower shall be,
Oh! thoughtless land, a type of thee—
Sad emblem of what once had been,
Like thee, and now no more is seen;
A shadow of an old and mighty sway,
That cover'd half the world,—then slowly pass'd away.

“At some distance from the river Colne (which gives the name to Colchester), is Lair Marney, so called from the Lord Marney, to whom it belonged, and who, with some others of the name, lies interred in very fair tombs in the church there. St. Osyth was the chief seat of the Lords Darcy, styled Lords of Chich, and advanced to the dignity of Barons by Edward the Sixth.”—v. Camden's Britannia.

116

THRENODIA.

“En etiam tibi Virginei servantur honores.”

Oh! faded flower! oh! beauteous Rose of May!
I would bestow as fair a wreath on thee,
As ever Poet in his fancy wove
For her,—the gentle mistress of his song.
And art thou gone? and does this little grave,
This low and little grave, contain thee now,
Where weeping Sorrow sits?—Thy tomb hath been
To thee, as 'twere a marriage bed, and Death
The jealous bridegroom, envious of thy charms,
Plucking the gracious blossom ere it spread
Its beauty to the summer. Oh! sweet child!
How did I miss thee mid the flowers of Spring,
Then wakening round thy lattice,—how I look'd
Mid the young flow'rets for thee—where the boughs,
Crown'd with their mossy garlands, wept beside
The silver brooks, or by the tender gleams
Of twilight shadows, in the summer woods,

117

Where the long valleys wind into the main!
'Twas there my pensive pilgrimage I made
From early dawn—unwearied search—until
The star of eve was glittering in the West;
Nor yet my wanderings ended, nor I ceas'd
To question every gentle thing I met,
If it had seen thy footsteps in the dews
Of morn, or traced thee to the leafy cave,
Where the slow trickling streamlet lov'd to lead
Its slender waters, stealing from the sun
Into the depth of shadowy trees, and there,
Unseen and undisturbed, in silence sleep.
Wild music heard I from the groves—methought
It spake of thee, and gentlest echoes came,
Delusive sounds—mocking my search. But when
They ceas'd their airy warblings,—how the weight
Of that deep silence smote upon my heart,
And things it were a misery to know,
Came with a nearer pressure, nay uprose,
Bringing a trouble to the afflicted mind
Like to the strong realities of truth,
And then they vanish'd!

So all hope had fled,—
Hope was there none, the drooping heart to cheer.

118

The empty and the grief-exhausted heart
Was sinking in its sorrows—with it died
The charms that Nature, ever tender, gives
To the sweet offspring of her love—the song
Of the wild brooks—the music bursting forth
From the resounding woodlands, and the depth
Of waters silver'd by the summer-moon,
With what the spangled heavens, with other gems
In golden splendour show'd—in vain they shone:
All life, all beauty fled—the rose had lost
Its lustre, and the violet's eyes were dimm'd,
Wanting thy presence. As I call'd, methought
The low, deep murmur of the stream that flow'd
Around our flower-enamelled meadows, spake
As if a dirge funereal smote the ear,
Telling of one now absent—one that was—
And is not—every flow'ret, so it seem'd,
Along the silent pathways that I trod,
Dropt its sweet eyelids fill'd with tears, and wept.
And then, as from the Genius of the woods,
A voice lamenting came, a voice that spake,
Or seem'd to speak, in listening Fancy's ear,
Yet timidly restrain'd, like one who prays
In meek interpretation of his thoughts,

119

Beseeching—“Oh! ye guardian saints above,
Beautiful spirits, to whom she was dear;
Let her revisit earth,” it seem'd to say,
“Angels of love, oh! lend her from the tomb.”

I knew her from her childhood! from the days
Her little cradle blossom'd with the smiles
That visionary Fancy brought in dreams,
Wakening the infant world within. She was
The mildest and the maidenliest creature born,
So gentle, and so gracious—in serene
And tender hope, the opening blossom grew.
I knew her when so young, while yet her eyes
Follow'd the glittering insects of the sky
Laughing in wonderment. All things were hers
She saw:—the gilded butterfly and moth,
Whose soft wings fann'd the summer's moveless air,
Were as her little playmates; what a joy
Came to her, when, from forth its fairy light,
The emerald lamp first glittered to her eye,
Rejoicing in its treasure!

A little star
Perchance it seem'd—an elfin taper lit

120

In some small home Earth's airy spirits held
For moonlight pleasures—or a moving gem
In its green lustre twinkling through the grass.
The Bee that murmur'd round the summer hive
Had privilege peculiar—'twas a claim
Domestic, recogniz'd with double love,
For its enduring confidence in man,
Its long unwearied energies, its fond
Grateful attachment to its natal home,
And all its happy toils through duty won.
And so this little Child of Nature grew,
As round its parent-stem the tender branch
Puts forth its vernal sweetness;—the sure pledge
And promise of its birth, seem'd all fulfill'd,
As summer's florid wealth maturely glows
From out the soft and opening blooms of May.

Oft have I seen her of a summer noon,
Beside the brooklet, launching her little fleet
Of daisies and of king-cups from the bank;
And as they floated idly down the stream,

121

Or lodged amidst the water-flags and weeds,
And windings of the current, she would then,
After some vain resistance useless found,
In disappointment turn aside, and haste
To other pastime, where the hawthorn glow'd
With coral berries—or the wild-rose flung
Her scented tresses lavishly around,
Amidst unnumber'd rivals for her love;
And happy was the child, that of her will
So changeable, could find wherewith to feed
Its slender wants, its transitory dream.
Nor less the vocal music of the fields,
Breathed from a thousand little voices, rose
In choral harmony to charm the ear.
The small wren's gentle twitter, and the sweet
Familiar warble of the robin's song,
First claim'd her youthful choice; a louder call,
Heard through the summer-day, then came, nor ceas'd
Till evening drew her shadowy mantle round
The neighbouring elm, its seat, whose leafy boughs
Gave shelter to the thrush's sylvan home,
The little pleasant citadel it fram'd
Among the ivy's fostering arms. But now
Another Minstrel rose—e'en thou, divine

122

Enchantress of the woods, whose matchless stream
Of melody was heard resounding loud,
The moon the sole companion of thy song,
When, rising like a bright and crystal orb,
Through the blue depth of heaven she mov'd along
In self-suspended majesty supreme;
Then Silence, listening with her sister Night,
Welcom'd thy glad return, and with them led,
Attendant of their joy, the youthful May,
Crown'd with the laughing garlands, which the Spring,
The blue-eyed Spring, had gather'd for her brow,
With all her breathing tresses unconfined.

So in the silent tenderness of life,
In modest wisdom, through her gentle growth,
Amid these soft, sequestered vales she dwelt,
And flowering fields—in piety and love,
And gratitude for mercies given, that take
From our brief days their transitory form,
And lend them an endurance not their own;
Nourished by grace divine she grew, and then
In sweet, unspotted innocence was called,
Ere that her youthful beauty reached its bloom
Mature, or her pure lip had other touch

123

Received, than from maternal fondness came;
Leaving its gentle pressure, as a seal
For night to guard, till morning rise again.—
To other realms, and nearer to the fount,
She went, divine of glory. 'Twas not here
She could remain, in timid thought I said,
As one whose eye first opens from a dream
Delusive; it was then indeed I felt
Rebuke, which from reflecting conscience rose,
Recalling in repentant sorrow, what
My hasty grief unsanctified had breathed
Of its own misery;—forlorn it spake
The language which unchastened nature gave,
And thoughtless, as the gales of passion sway'd
The world-benighted heart.

But then I looked,
Gazing around me with contracted brow,
And lo! amid the desolated scene
Of suffering, Earth rose, pleading for her lost,
And with imploring eye to Heaven uprais'd,
Her perished children.—

124

It is well, I said—
And in the enlightened, renovated heart,
Renewed obedience never speaks in vain—
Well, that she left a world like this, a weak
And sordid world around her—that she fled
Ere she became its prey—a world of grief
Itself has made—a subtle selfish world,
Now brooding o'er its savage thirst of gain,
Now in blind thraldom, what it hates, to serve
In that worst evil—self-inflicted woe;
Well, that she left the earth—the venal crowd
Of voluntary slaves, and using still
In deep concealment of its thoughts, the low
And simulated language that the eye
Has borrowed from the tongue; and thus it lives,
Forgetful of the mercies it receives,
And cruel, midst the love by which 'twas made.
But now through lonely meditation form'd,
Methought before the dreaming eye there rose
A picture, as it were by Fancy built,
Amid the stern realities of truth,
With colours less substantial, yet of power
To wake reluctant Memory, as she slept
Amid her earlier stores.

125

A beauteous dove,
Slumbering upon her snowy breast was seen,
Her roseate feet in softest plumage couched,
As she were Love's own bird, perchance returned
With message from celestial mansions sent.
But then the rush of heavier pinions came,
Swiftly descending—nearer still it moved,
And lo!—the vulture's sullen eye was fix'd
Upon the turtle's nest—its cruel gaze,
Cold, pitiless, relentless, o'er it hung,
Watching its prey like Death.

Methought I saw,
As more intently on the thing I look'd,
With wonder still increasing, the dim shape
Of human features o'er the creature spread,
I once remembered; such as wont to leave
Indelible impressions on the sense,
What most it loath'd, unable to remove
From the mind's presence; and the bird became
As 'twere a thing of earth before me brought
By art, or power mysterious; now recall'd
To a new life with nature not its own.—
Passing the limitation of the laws
That gave to it existence, it partook

126

The semblance of a form that I had seen
In other years long past, and now beheld
Rise into actual presence.

Mute I gaz'd,
Wondering by strength of what transforming power
The creature to its earlier life had joined
That of another being, from itself
In order of creation all distinct,
And why of him, I most had fear'd to see?
But now dim vapours slowly round it rose,
E'en while the eye perused it, and it lost
The fearful recognition of the false
And treacherous feeling which the bird had brought
Unto its former nature; it became
An airy phantom from the wildered sight
Melting away. “Ah! why had she,” I said,—
Awe-stricken at the wild, fallacious dream,
That from the troubles of the mind arose,—
“Ah! why had she to do with things like these?”
And why have we, who loved her, and would shape
Our thoughts unto the perfectness of hers,
Through strong affection striving to attain
Similitude of that which we admire?

127

It was not here, oh! injured earth! not here
In this enthralled and subjugated world,
Her happiness could find its home:—far hence,
Far, to another country was she call'd,
Such as the visionary eye alone
Of Faith beholds, unseen and unrevealed,
To all beside. A fairer, lovelier land
Was hers—a world where purest Truth is known
In all the radiant majesty serene,
Which Heaven upon her queenly brow has placed;
A land like that the favoured prophet saw
Opening before him, ere the volume clos'd
Of dark futurity to man reveal'd.
Ask of it, him of Tarsus, when he rode
Down towards Damascus and the bordering vales,
When, back upon their sapphire hinges roll'd,
Heaven's gates flew open, and a voice divine
Came to him from the realms of glory, bearing

128

Tenderest reproaches,—Love's own voice—that spake
As sorrow listened; and he heard, remote
From earthly apprehension, to his ear
Astonish'd, words of inspiration, words
No human tongue could utter,—heart conceive,
Heaven's latest words to man, and heard no more.
So she lay down, as one lies down to sleep,
A spirit summoned to the bridal feast
Of her dear Lord;—who softly pass'd away,
By virtue of the gift that Heaven bestows,
Surrounded with her pure celestial grace.

How oft, when wearied Fancy had retired
To her own cell, in leisure there to build
Around her a small pile of cherish'd thoughts,
And images congenial to the mind,
I framed a little Zodiac of her life,
Through which, as travellers under changeful skies,
Amid the pictured semblances of things,
Or imitations of the shape bestowed
By Nature, for the various use it serves,
I saw her move—divinest forms were there,
Yet wanting not similitude direct,
If well interpreted, of that which gives
Ideal things the character of truth.

129

But here I may not linger—for her life,
Oh! Pity! that humanity doth show
The weakness of its mortal texture, wrought
Out of the perishable things of sense;—
Yea, that substantial presence that I felt
Rising before me, like a dream is now
Slow-fading through the shadowy veil of time
Remote; e'en that which had so long been dear,
As 'twere a thing celestial, priz'd above
All other, and containing in itself
All which the mind could ask, the thought receive,
Comes with a fainter and less real shape
Than when enduring Memory held the key,
Once faithful guardian of my cherish'd stores,
Through the long morning hours of life, when Hope
Liv'd in the cheerful future,—all its form
Bright with the hues of youth, nor dimm'd as yet
With restless thoughts that hover round our life,
As changeful as the wind-controlled skies,
Beneath whose fickle canopy we dwell.
So liv'd she then in guardianship of all
I held on earth—the accumulated wealth

130

Of studious hours,—the jewell'd heaps of thought
And knowledge, early sought and hoarded up,
The long-collected treasures of the mind;—
All soon to vanish, as the surge of time
Rolls onward, and the printless sands are seen,
Or mutilated forms alone remain,
And scatter'd fragments hastening to decay,
And I beside my perished labours mourn.

Not seldom in my solitude I've thought,
Mid these grey years, that, slowly moving, look
With countenance severer as they pass,
And oft imparting that which Fancy drew,
Well pleased with the similitude it made;
Likening my Life, as 'twere a Tent, that rose
On the green margin of some flowery isle,
Seen in the lucid waters, shining there
Smooth as a mirror, or as molten glass
As bright, reflecting in its azure depths,
Each transitory form that seem'd to float
Suspended mid the element serene,
In visionary beauty. Thus it stood
Proud of its palmy shadows—sweet the sound
Of waters murmuring down the mountain side,

131

And beautiful when o'er the sun-gilt wave,
Spreading its snowy-wings, and streamers gay,
The little fairy pinnace glides along,
Wafting its living freight from isle to isle,
And over all the rich cærulean sky
Shedding its golden lustre.

Some few years
Are fled—and lo! amid the arid waste
Of the wild desert, fountainless and bare,
A solitary ruin stands, despoiled
And shatter'd by the storm.—We vainly ask
For life, nay pray for it, as for a gift
That He whose heart is mercy, hand is love,
Bestows upon His creatures at His will;
He listens, and with bounteous hand He gives,
And man receives, ere yet his prayer be closed,
The seal of everlasting weal or woe.

The world is, as it is, —nor less, nor more.
'Tis as we make it for ourselves—the cloud
That the wind carries with it, as it moves,

132

Is not more changeable; it is the slave
Of millions, all combining, and all skilled
To shape it for their uses; this one takes
The clay and builds a pyramid, and makes
An image of himself that shall outlast
His brief mortality; at his bidding all
Fall down and worship.—Lo! another comes,
And in presumptuous emulation strives
To follow, as ambition leads him on;
And he lies buried underneath the pile
He gathered for his glory.

Oh! Life! thou art
Unto thy children, blinded as they are,
In worse than heathen darkness—worse, because
A purer light,—the Dayspring from on high,
From them withheld, to thee was given—thou art
An airy dream, an unsubstantial thing,
Taking each varied shape opinion holds,—
Each colour, as it dictates or persuades;
A palace built upon the summer cloud,
Melting, ere yet its vaporous surface moves
Condensed, and floating in the evening sky.
Thou art like some tall promontory hung
O'er the wild waves, whose uncontrollèd tide

133

Hastes to submerge it, and its verdant crown
Of Cedars, erewhile frowning at the storm
Angry defiance, headlong from the height,
Lies weltering in the waters.

What other worlds
There are, I know not; but experience says,
The heart responding to the voice it bears,
This is “the World of Tears”—and never yet
Was the earth free of sorrow. Its waters lurk
Beneath the sunshine of the face, beneath
The prodigal and careless brow—the dew
That glistens in the eye of beauty shows
The fullness of the source from which it springs.
'Tis born with us—the heritage we take
From Nature's hand, that follows to the tomb.—
“This is the World of Tears”—oh! ye who dwell
Above us, in your tenderness to man
Making the sorrows of the earth your own,
Oh! ye, the mild inhabitants of air,
Answer with voice consentient to the plaint
I breathe,—if grief celestial be not felt
For this afflicted race, that dwelleth here,
Under displeasure deep, exiled from home,—
A home, that once descending angels trod,

134

Encompass'd by its verdant walls, which then
Smil'd in perpetual spring, create for Thee,
Crown'd as Earth's Lord supreme—from thee, to us
By mournful change inherited; —each bears
The accumulated weight, that to him comes,
Age after age succeeding:—yet how small
The amount we know of sorrow, that the heart,
The bleeding and the lacerated heart
Of man, in this broad world around us, bears;
Or feel the woe that through the soundless depths
Of pain, by its own weight of suffering, moves
O'er the pale earth, that trembles as it comes.

We ask for Life.—Our prayer is still the same,
To the last sigh, departing Nature yields—
Long life, the promise of our birth confirmed,
Full prolongation of the vernal year.
We ask for life—implore—with words that Death
Himself suggests, in mockery of our false
And impious wishes.—Ascending wings upbear
The fatal scroll, and heaven's wide gates are fill'd

135

With vain petitions from the world of woe;
“Let not the sunset of our days be clos'd
Beneath the breath of darkness.—Powers supreme!
Suspend your laws in mercy!—oh! not yet,
Unlock not yet, the chambers of the grave!”
Then as we grasp with trembling hand the gift,
Forget the awful terms on which it rests;
Each syllable uncancelled, to appear
In judgment of a bond that's unfulfilled.

Thus do I, leaning on the stone that yields
Memorial of thy presence erewhile here;
Now waken'd to a deeper thoughtfulness,
With admonitions coming from the heart,
Submissive, and repentant, and renew'd,
Pronounce thee happier, who wert early call'd
To thy soft rest within thy Saviour's love,
Safe from the storms of life, while yet the smile
Of youth, oblivious of the past, nor less
Of future ills unmindful, on thy cheek
Spread like the glow of morning, such as seen,

136

When first it brightens through the Eastern sky,
Shedding Elysian gleams of beauty round,
Nor heeds the tempest, that with threat'ning brow
Lies couch'd, and waiting for his evening prey.

This line is from Thomson.

The Bee is beautifully and characteristically described by the Greek poets, as αποιμαντον ποιμνιον, “the flock that goes out to pasture without a shepherd.”

To whom the angel with contracted brow!

Milton, P.L. viii. 860.

“Ah! why,” &c. See Wordsworth's Robbers, A. iv.

“For Love is Lord of Truth and Loyalty,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust
On golden plumes into the purest sky.”

Spenser, Hymn i.

Saint John and the Apocalypse.

Saint Paul's conversion.

Celestial as thou art; oh! do not love that wrong.

Shaksp. Pass. Pilgrim, ix.

Oh, my good Lord! the world is but a world,
Were it all yours.

Timon of Athens, act ii. sc. 2.

“Garden of God! how terrible the change!”

Cowper.

Perevnt et Impvtantvr, . . . . is the fearful language of the Dial.

‘That hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.’ Gray's Bard, ii. 2.

137

THE RIVER.

Perspicuas volvens sine sordibus undas.

I trac'd it from its cradle—from the day
It left its Alpine solitudes, and so
Like to a bird on silver pinions borne,
Winding its path at will, through sun and shade,
Deep wood, or rock-bound desert, onward pass'd
Into the bosom of the vale, whence song
Of birds, from leafy thickets came.—Its stream
Unmix'd amid the alien waters flow'd;
Gliding between the crystal walls that rose
On either side—a river moving on
In virgin majesty, which never touch
Of earthy bondage knew; no banks upraised
Their limitary arms, but still it bore
Its unpolluted waters, pure and free,
As from their primal fountains to the main.

138

ON A PORTRAIT BY TITIAN.

“Egregium formâ juvenem, et fulgentibus armis,
Sed frons læta parum.”
—Virg. Æn. lib. vi. t. 842.

There was a silent eloquence that spake
From out that thoughtful brow, that still I gaz'd,
Held in its gentle bondage, like to one
Loth to resign a pleasure that had dwelt
With admiration on the willing mind.
It was the countenance of one who came
Victorious from the battle-field, yet bore
A sadness on his brow,—who knew too well
At what a cost these things of death were won,
Earth mourning for her children.—So he went,
Weary of human suffering, human pain,
Sorrows, that held man's life to be their own,
And passions trampling o'er the troubled mind,
Like to the vultures on the battle-field
Seeking their prey, or autumn winds that rise
And smite the vale with sadness—so he went,
Amid the silent paths of peace to dwell
In thoughtful meditation, self-rebuked,

139

Doubtful, and mourning o'er the past—like one
Who had lost the world within, and with that loss,
All that he lov'd, had vanish'd;—yet was he not
Hopeless, his fearful task of duty done,
A patriot's task in freedom's cause achiev'd,
That he these scenes of grief no more might see,
Grave closing over grave where'er he trod,
Nor hear along the moonlight solitudes,
The sound of wailing trumpets as they breath'd
Their melancholy dirges o'er the dead,
Sending their plaintive voices down the wind,
Borne on the wings of night, till Earth itself
Seem'd the abode of woe.—But then a voice
Came to him, such as gentle Wisdom brings
To cheer the afflicted spirit.—Linger not
Amid these pensive shadows of the past:
Go, on thy path of duty! Thou hast had
Stern warfare to accomplish amid those,
Sporting with wrong and fear.—Oh! falter not,
Nor grieve for what thy destiny has wrought
Through laws to thee unknown. Thy task is done,
Nor faithless wert thou found, nor weak the sword
Borne by thee through the battle; so live on
Thy allotted days in peace, distrusting nought,

140

Nor in the princely chambers of thy mind,
Aught wavering; for, disposed by laws divine,
Mysterious to thy bounded vision now
The ways of Heaven appear;—nor wilt thou want
Gentle companions duly sent to cheer
The pale and faltering spirit, and far off
Desponding cares remove; live on, and learn
How o'er the dark and gloomy surge the bark
Of faith rides on triumphant—how by laws
Immovable, the powers of evil yield
To man's unconquerable will, and thus
Safety on danger follows, Life on Death
Builds its immortal home. So reads the page
Whose voice, by many a stern decree proclaimed,
The children of humanity obey.
Go then in aid of those, by evil power
Opprest, nor less expectant of the time
When soon again the day-star shall arise
Serene, above the congregated gloom,
Promising mild and gentle hours;—and so
Within thy peaceful dwelling, mid the band
Of sweet domestic virtues blooming round,
The tenderness of life return to thee.

141

TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

A votive tablet has been oft engraved,
Interpreter of wishes that had else
Silently vanish'd ere they were express'd;
And oft surviving Piety has shaped
Ideal images of love, that lack'd
But longer time to have united those
Who in no brief communion would have lived
Of kindred genius, mind attach'd to mind,
Honouring each other—so would Gray to thee
Have felt, who ever in thy life hast been
Faithful to every Muse.—Nor wilt thou scorn
From mine, a humbler hand, this pensive wreath
Of flowers unnoticed, blooming by his grave.
For I have shared thy friendly board, have heard
Grateful thy converse; where the hawthorn flings
Its blossoms round thy casement, and the spring,
Studious to deck thy loved suburban shade,
Comes with his earliest garlands pleased to thee.
Nor have I not with eye entranced beheld
Such forms as started from the living wall

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When Titian breath'd upon it—landscapes bathed
In soft Italian splendour. Nor less thine
What of auxiliar art in elder time
Rose from the Phidian chisel, bust, or urn,
Transcendent forms, and such as Petrarch saw
When first he trod within Colonna's Hall.
Take then, not unpropitious to the page
Traced by his hand, who on the Theban lyre
Pour'd flame divine, nor less the fount unlock'd
Sacred to sorrow:—take these scatter'd lines
Relenting Time has spared; beneath thy smile
Approving they shall live, and thou shalt be,
For I have chosen one, whom long I've known,
The friend and guardian of the Poet's fame.