University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

ON A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET.

The Sun is sinking, and, as he doth sink,
He kisses the green brows of Earth once more,
Seeming to linger over sea and shore,
And, as endowed with sense, to pause, and think
How lovely his own work, on ocean's brink!
As if he sorrowed that his time was o'er,
And gathered all his loveliness in store
Into one parting glory, thence to drink
Rapture unspeakable! Oh lovely sight!
E'en as some angel, parting in the light
And glory of his presence, from the side
Of one with whom he journeyed as a guide,
So sinks yon' Sun, in glory infinite,
And leaves the Earth behind him sanctified!

TO MY OLD FRIEND, G. S.

Thou art of the salt of the earth, old friend,
Thou wearëst but one face, open as day:
A heart as open too! full of wise play,
As is a child: yet therewith dost thou blend
The deeper wisdom, which towards the end
Looks ever—every flower by the way
Thou pluck'st, yet go'st not for the flowers astray,
But on the path of duty still dost wend!
As simple as the infancy of truth:
As woman mild, yet manly as a man,
Mingling the lights and shades of age and youth;
So tolerant, that even evil can
Not vex thee: and so full of love and ruth,
That thou to good turn'st what in ill began!

WISDOM, HOW IT WORKS.

The wise man does not wish to force things all
At once to his own purpose, tho' the best:
Their obstinate resistance would arrest
Its progress, or it, if effectual,
These break, not mend, and so the good be small—
He takes things as they are, and leaves the rest
To Time, the Adapter: till, grown manifest,
The imperfections of their own selves fall.
He works like Nature: quickens at the root,
Heedless what worn-out leaves hang on the bough;
Well knowing that fresh leaves and flowers will shoot,
When the sap rises, tho' they seem dead now;
That all will wear a livery to suit
The happy time, and bear appropriate fruit!

ON A NIGHTINGALE IN A CAGE, AND BLINDED.

The world hath suffered much from these small things,
And rued it bitterly—much cruelty,
On a large scale, hath flowed unconsciously
From these first, small beginnings, these first springs
Of social evil, which make openings
For greater—men put out the offending eye
Of a poor bird, that it may gratify
Their ear more sweetly, and make of its wings
(Emblems of very freedom, joy, and light)
A punishment! and, at the same time, too
Put out the eye of pity, blind the sight
Of mercy, in themselves—so, as they do,
They suffer, evil: evil infinite;
For want of love to all ill is the clue!

LONDON.

This rush perpetual confounds the sense,
This everlasting scramble for the goods
Of earth, this jar of busy multitudes!
At the first view one loses confidence,
For all seems chance, and nothing Providence—
But look again: the inner plan eludes
A casual glance: and not in fields and woods
Alone doth God take up his residence!
All this confusion soon doth disappear:
Fixed laws are found at work, and Man doth Man
Check and subservient keep to Heaven's great plan,
While vice doth draw forth virtue and endear;
And God, too great at first for human span,
We clasp almost to heart, more dear and near!

ERROR.

Oh, there is no such thing as error, no!
Nor falsehood, in the working and the frame
Of Nature—nothing oversteps its aim,
Nor yet falls short of it: nor couldst thou show
A misplaced streak upon the daisy, tho'
Thou took'st a microscope to find the same!
Nothing pretends to be (the more Man's shame)
What 'twas not meant, nor is it ever so—
God hath not erred in aught, nor has He made
One falsehood in his works so infinite.
'Tis Man who mystifies the broad daylight
Of Truth, and dresses things in masquerade;
And calls them by false names, the hypocrite!
That he may sin, and yet seem to go right.

ON GIFFORD'S PRAISE OF BEN JOHNSON'S PLAYS,

“That the representation occupies scarcely an hour more on the stage, than the action would require in real life.”

ON THE CHURCH CALLED “ST. JOHN'S IN THE WILDERNESS,” NEAR EXMOUTH.

There is a church, in which men pray no more,
Nor any voice of preacher now is heard,
Save when some casual tenant is interred,
Who with his fathers, buried there of yore,
Would rest! yet thoughts of what it was before
Invest it still with sanctity—the bird
Seems stiller there, and hushed the careless word:
And there Man's better thoughts, as at the door
Of heaven, pause and tremble! Nature seems
To hold it in her bosom, as it were,
And cherish it, amid her quiet streams
And hills—for holy she all things esteems,
In which the thought of God has had a share,
And bears in mind, that Man in mind may bear!

CHEAP ENJOYMENTS.

How many luxuries from day to day
Have I, which cost me nothing yet at all!
The very winds to me are musical,
And, 'mid the leafless forest branches play
Great Nature's requiem, or measures gay,
Preparative to her great festival,
Among the budding leaves, and pastoral
Beyond the reach of the Bucolic lay—
A flower to me is all the loveliness
Of Nature, and a single little child
The beauty of Man's life, its holiness,
Its hopes and fears, its springhead undefiled;
Nor can gold buy these pleasures, for the less
We value gold, the more we these possess!

A SEA VIEW.

There loomed a sail, whitening the distant blue
Of ocean: like the solitary wing
Of some sea-bird, that, at his lowest swing,
Brushes the foam, with flight so swift and true;
No sooner did I see it than it drew
My heart towards it, and, at once, did bring
The ocean lone home to me, like a thing
Familiar, nay, almost human too!
Before, it stretched a mighty solitude,
A desert of the soul, that seemed to part
And sever utterly; but then my heart
Seemed the great world of waters to include
In its affections, and that work of art
Impressed the waste with Man's similitude!

GREAT POETS.

The greatest minds have most of common sense,
Of common feeling, and all common things;
And still, beneath their high imaginings,
They are as gentle and without pretence,
As tho' unconscious of the difference;
And still their heart capacious cleaves and clings
To common ties, and, from life's household springs,
Drinks, like the rest, with thirst but more intense!
And tho' they, like the mountains, lift their heads
Far out of reach, and out of sight, sometimes,
Their unambitious greatness meekly spreads
Its gentle skirts towards those lower climes,
With valleys of domestic bliss, and meads
Accessible, and flowery as their rhymes!

TO WORDSWORTH.

Thro' clouds and darkness to meridian height
Of glory thou hast upward climbed, and now,
In empyrëan blue, with cloudless brow,
Look'st o'er a prospect clear and infinite—
Rejoicing by, rejoicing in, thy light!
The vapours, which at first would not allow
Full view of thee, are gone, we know not how,
Absorbed into thy splendour and thy might!
And now, great Spirit, thou unto thy close
Art hastening, and trails of glory make
The heavens gorgeous for thy repose—
Thou hast made day for all men to partake,
And, having thought of others and their woes,
Shalt be remembered now for thy own sake!

ON A BUST OF DEAN SWIFT, AFTER HIS MIND FAILED HIM.

Thou goodly shrine, whose roof has fallen in,
Thro' its' own weight, from that majestic height!
Thro' whose wide rent the intellectual light
Of heaven unimpeded way doth win
To desolation infinite, akin
To the wreck of a world! soul-saddening sight,
Of pity and of wonder infinite,
A chaos, whence worlds might have origin!
The lightning of thy genius smote the shrine
Erected to itself, and so it lies
In ruin, yet in ruin still divine,
And pointing proudly upward to the skies;
Whose heavenly fires alone could in such guise
Deface that conjoint work of theirs and thine!

MY POETRY.

My verse is like the ivy, for it grows
Around neglected things: to beautify
The commonplace, and touch with poesy
The Daily and the Homely—and it throws
Its large affections, tendril-like and close,
Round the familiar hopes and fears whereby
The household bosom of Humanity
Is touched, as round the cottage-porch the rose!
And like the many-breasted Venus is
My Muse—yea! she has paps and teats for all
Earth's children: neither suckles she for this
Or that one sect, but for Man's general
Humanity at large: that none may miss
Of nurture at her breasts poetical!

THE TEMPLE OF TRUTH.

Fling open wide the portals of the mind,
And make a temple there for Truth—clear thence
The pews of cold, sectarian difference,
Break down the narrow lines which have confined
The faith of Man, and draw up every blind
Of prejudice or scant intelligence,
That would shut out, from our poor, mortal sense,
The light of God, for all alike designed.
For, lo! Truth cometh with a multitude
Behind her, and the gates must be flung wide,
That she may enter in, and none exclude,
But have free room to move from side to side,
And spread abroad unto the general good,
Wide as the daylight, from which nought can hide.

TO SHAKSPEARE.

Great Soul, that turnest to the healthy light
Of truth not one side only, but all sides,
Of thy strong mind, that nothing from it hides,
But lets it, from all points, pervade it quite—
Oh, thou art like the earth, with infinite
Variety, yet nothing that resides
Therein is out of place: with times and tides
For all things, howsoever opposite!
Thou hast no corners dark in thy great soul:
That, like some dome majestic, from above
Receives sufficient light to light the whole!
Thou hast an overflowing heart of love
Besides, to which, as towards the ocean, roll
All streams of life, and, mingling there, improve!

ON AN OLD DEFACED SIGN-POST.

Point on, with silent finger, still, old post,
The road to—dusty Death! thou didst ere while
Point out the highway, serving to beguile
The traveller's weary steps, and now may'st boast
To point a moral—thou art like some ghost
That starts up on a sudden in our path,
Pointing at what we know not; for Time hath
Defaced thee: so thy first intention 's lost.
But still he puts thee to a higher use—
For now thou dost mark out Life's great highway,
Which all must travel still, whether they chuse
Or not; so thou art still, 'midst thy decay,
A solemn thing: pointing to nobler views
Than statue'd columns' cloud-high tops survey!

NATIONAL POWER; TO ENGLAND.

Some men have won thee victories with the sword,
And visible accessions of command,
So that thou hold'st an empire in each hand,
And east and west of men art styled Lord.
But I would win thee victories with the Word,
The meek and gentle Word, yet not less grand:
And conquests, over more than sea and land,
And triumphs, beyond any on record!
Some have built up thy glory outwardly,
But I would build it inwardly, on things
Like the foundations of the earth and sky;
Not upon gold, which maketh itself wings,
But Truth and Justice, Love and Charity,
The pillars of His throne, who makes and unmakes kings!

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Old Saxon tongue, old speech my fathers spake,
For earnest thoughts and earnest men right fit,
Thou hast a sanctity, like Holy Writ,
To me, old Tongue, wherein my heart did make
Its first, articulate essays; for the sake
Of many a “household word” endeared to it,
And for the Muses' founts, where I would sit,
(The wells of English undefiled) and take
My fill! dear art thou, as the name of home,
Which I first learn'd to call upon in thee;
Dear for the stores which thou, their golden key,
Didst open: and, oh! may I be struck dumb,
When thou dost, in my mouth, aught else become
But what thou art, the language of the free!

MY MUSE.

My Muse is Janus-faced, and looks both ways,
To past and future, with an equal eye:
The one being like the early morning sky,
Prophetic kindling with the sun's first rays;
The other, like the subdued light which plays
Around him, when his golden fires die,
And crimson clouds, like glowing embers, lie
Along the west, reflecting still his face.
Upon her twofold countenance she wears
Both Hope and Memory, and, so, in view
The past and all the pledges which it bears,
Life's setting glories and its rising too,
Still keeps—all that the furthest Future dares
To hope, all Man has done, or has to do!

ON THE BELIEF IN HUMAN GOOD.

'Tis better to be cheated out of gold,
Than out of noble feelings and high views—
This is to dry the fountains of the Muse,
Lay waste, with desolation manifold,
The grace of life, and loosen thy heart's hold
Of all its best supports, and to refuse
Thyself and all men (by one wide abuse)
A recognition of the divine mould
In which God made us. Loss of gold again
Thou may'st replace: but not the faith divine
In human worth: for this all wealth were vain;
This gone, the Godhead soon forsakes the shrine,
And leaves thy soul, as 'twere, a place profane,
Which God and Man alike to scorn consign!

POETRY OF REAL LIFE.

My stream of song gushed, torrent-like and rude,
From Heliconian heights, 'mid mist and cloud:
Haughty at first, as tho' its pride it bowed
To humbler things and lowlier neighbourhood—
But now, with greater depth and plenitude
Of waters, hushed it flows, and meek, not proud:
With voice more reaching far, tho' far less loud,
The still, deep voice of human brotherhood!
Nor does it scorn, with household stream, to flow
Thro' cities, or where e'er men toil for bread:
Nor e'en to turn a mill! in doing so
More useful far than thundering overhead;
And, oh! how far more godlike, bending low
To human wants, than causing idle dread!

COMMON SENSE.

TO CERTAIN PERSONS.

TO THE THAMES, ABOVE RICHMOND BRIDGE.

Oh, gentle stream, that takëst with an arm
Of love the meadows green by thy fair side,
Encircling their verdure with a wide
Embrace, and giving them their crowning charm;
Far hast thou come, not spreading rude alarm,
As doth a torrent, in its sudden pride
Of place, but like a gentle, faithful guide,
A messenger of peace, who none doth harm!
Thou dost embrace the beauty of this scene
As loth to part, and yet constrained away;
For, 'neath the glory and the outward sheen
Of Nature, she hath duties, day by day,
And from her loveliest works her heart doth wean,
To teach Man, like herself, how to obey!

INDIVIDUAL GRIEFS.

My heart hath personal sorrows to none known,
Frail, selfish, fleeting, which I would not share
With thee, my reader. Others, too, there are,
Of higher nature, and on which is thrown,
As on clouds past the eternal sun light-blown,
A glory, from what we alike all share,
And gleams of truth, which make them rich and rare,
Even from that humanity we own
In common! these are they which round the sun
Of Life, with cloudlike splendors, and with trails
Of glory, gather when its course is run.
Yet still th' eternal light, which gilds them, fails
Not even then—but, hallowing them, and none
But such as they, still o'er all clouds prevails!

RELIGION.

'Tis not the bending of the knee—the prayer
By rote rehearsed, and, soon as said, forgot;
'Tis not to pray in one particular spot,
And think profane and void all said elsewhere.
It is the kneeling of the heart, as 'twere:
The homage of the inmost thought, which not
The majesty alone of kings, begot
Of fear, could cause, nor therewithal compare.
The good man hath his temple in his soul,
And God to him is everywhere, but most
In that same soul, there never dimned or lost:
He prays too everywhere: for this great Whole
Is one vast temple, to such as believe,
Where they “communion” always may receive!

TO CERTAIN CONVENTIONAL CRITICS.

ON A STANDARD ROSE, JUST PRUNED.

See'st thou yon rose, which looks as though it were
A naked stick, with thorns upon its stem—
So little promise gives it! yet contemn
It not: though thou would'st think it ne'er could bear
The lovely rose, which, twined in Beauty's hair,
With kindred beauty, beyond gold or gem,
Enriches it: like Nature's diadem,
Whose subjects are all fancies sweet and fair.
But wait awhile, and it will be a thing
Of beauty, the mute air then ravishing!
A poet's simile for what he feels
All words unequal to. So heav'n reveals
Its blessings oft: which, like the desert-spring,
Still meet us, where it most their source conceals.

SUNSET IN THE FIRTH OF CLYDE.

1831.

The sun, with golden finger, one by one,
Doth touch the islands, marking out, as 'twere
On a vast dial, the hours, as they wear
Away in beauty; while the Day doth run
Its downward course, like one who has nigh won
The goal of all his glory and his care,
And gathers all his splendor, to declare
His coming, and the great deeds he hath done!
One after one they sink back into shade:
Like beacon-fires on the mountain-heights,
Which tell great news, and in rotation fade;
While he moves onward, making gorgeous sights,
And, at his parting, in rich clouds arrayed,
Blends in one glory all their shades and lights!

TO ------

[Oh paragon of beauty! the brute Earth]

Oh paragon of beauty! the brute Earth
Seems proud to bear her,—so surpassing fair!
And holds her up to heaven, as it were,
A sight for angels to look at, and worth
Seraphic vision: proud to have given birth
To so much beauty! all be-worshipp'd, there
She stands, as on an eminence none dare
Approach, of admiration making dearth
To all besides! Is it a trick of sight,
Or does the earth not lift her up on high,
Exalting her, and by her infinite
Perfections as exalted? In her eye
And gesture she all beauty doth unite,
And, gone, behind her leaves but vacancy!

A SUNSET-THOUGHT.

The sun is kindling with intensest light
Behind yon grove, which, in the golden glow
Of unconsuming fire, burns: as though
It were the bush in which to Moses' sight
The Lord appeared! And, oh! am I not right
In thinking that he re-appears e'en now,
To me, in that old glory? So I bow
My head, in wonder hushed, before His might!
Yea! this whole world so vast, to Faith's clear eye,
Is but that burning bush, full of His power,
His light, and glory! not consumed thereby,
But made transparent: till, in each least flower,
Yea! in each smallest leaf, she can descry
His Spirit shining through it visibly!

WRITTEN UPON READING THE PRECEDING SONNET, LONG AFTER IT WAS COMPOSED IN ITALY.

Oh, well do I remember it: the day,
The time, the clime, the spot, where I first wrote
Those lines, on which my tearful eyes now dote!
The mere remembrance of it still will play
Like a bright halo round my head, when grey
My hairs are grown, and nought else I can note!
Like a remembered glory doth it float
Round me, and, as transfigured, on my way
I move, in blessedness unspeakable!
Those lines to others are mere common-place,
To me they seem, and are, a miracle:
In heaven's fire I dipped my pen, to trace
The words, when on me that bright vision fell,
That calm, subduing glance of God's own face!

WHEREIN ALL MEN MAY BE GREAT.

The greatest man is not so great but we
May imitate him, so far as he is
A man; for to be quite a man, this, this
Is in the reach of all! howe'er he be,
In wealth, power, genius, raised above us, he
Is but our equal as a Man: nay, his
Best glory is to be so! Let him miss
This brightest crown of true humanity,
And he is no more great! In doing good
None need be little: for the poorest can
Give most, though but the crust which is his food!
And he whom Fancy , towering in her van,
Made greatest Poet, by a pure heart could
Become, and was, far more—a great, good Man.

THE STARS.

The stars come forth, a silent hymn of praise
To the great God, and, shining every one,
Make up the glorious harmony, led on
By Hesperus, their chorister: each plays
A part in the grand concert with its rays,
And yet so stilly, modestly, as none
Claimed to himself aught of the good thus done
By all alike, each shining in his place;
Each has his path, there moves unerringly,
Nor covets empty fame. Do we as they:
Let each soul lend its utmost light, each play,
In the grand concert of humanity,
Its destined part: then mankind on its way
Shall move as surely as those stars on high!

ON BEING MUCH ALONE.

'Tis ill to be alone: at least, in thought,
Be never thou so: fancy that by thee
A guardian Angel ever stands: that he
Is sent by Providence, to note down aught
Unworthy, thought or done, when thou deem'st naught
Is near, to mark. Thus will an Angel be
Really close at thy side, though thou canst see
His form not; and his presence will be fraught
With blessings, as if he were visible!
Thus thine own thoughts grow to pure Angels here,
Thy best, thy guardian Angels! and quite near,
Yea, in thee, Heaven, with all its joys, may dwell!
Oh, wonder! yet familiar and clear,
As that each in himself doth bear the spell!

LIFE.

SELF-GREATNESS.

The beggar's staff has often wider sway
Than the king's sceptre! higher empire far,
Far nobler subjects—his own thoughts, which are
Best ministers of good from day to day!
Content with these, still ready to obey,
He, in his sphere, moves stilly, like a star
Which makes all light about it, 'bove the jar
Of earth's vain cares, on his eternal way.
Till, thus become a spirit, spirits wait
Upon him, ever 'round that viewless throne,
Which He, on passions, early taught to own
Wisdom's supremacy, has raised: a state
Wherein celestial powers have sway alone;
The Lord of his own Soul is truly great!

STRONG FEELING.

'Tis well to feel on some point with both deep
And during feeling—but take first good heed
What that point be. Strong feeling is the seed
Of all true action; if thy feelings sleep,
Then thou art as the dead. Now, wouldst thou reap
A harvest from thy feelings rich indeed,
Wouldst thou from all vain hopes and fears be freed,
Which paralyze right action, and make steep
And hard the path of Virtue, then, I say,
Feel deeply, but upon eternal things
Alone! then will thy thoughts be like strong wings
To lift thee from this Earth—thus, day by day,
Wilt thou grow calmer, for the Eternal brings
Its own unchangeableness with it for aye!

A SUN-SET SCENE.

Once more, oh! once more, let me fill mine eyes,
My heart and soul, with all I gaze upon;
One moment, and the vision will be gone:
The gorgeous pageantry swept from the skies,
As wantonly, as though but to surprise
With these her wonder-works, thus briefly shown,
Then snatched away, were Nature's aim alone.
The stars, like lamps, in the vast dome will rise,
But, where those pictures hung, light vacancy!
As noiselessly as Thought all melts away;
Night draws her curtain, and the landscapes die.
This glorious poem of another Day,
In which my Soul's a hymn, fades off for aye,
This silent harmony, this music for the eye!

MONEY-THIRST.

Laugh on and sneer, ye money-making crew;
Ye who, than wealth, no worthier aims can see:
Sweeter than gold are my day-dreams to me,
Though empty-pursed, yet richer far than you,
Who have no use of yours; oh! tell me, who
Deserves by Wisdom's lips to be called free,
That unto Mammon sells himself, to be
A two-fold thrall, in body and soul too!
He, who to its possession would confine
The ends of Life, the worth of heart and head,
Deserves to taste of nothing more divine
Than Gold can buy: and, in his hour of pain,
To find it turn to what it is, again,
To common dust, like that on which we tread!

THOUGHT.

What is the Warrior's sword, compared with thee?
A brittle reed against a Giant's might!
What are the Tyrant's countless hosts? as light
As chaff before the tempest! though he be
Shut in with guards, and by the bended knee
Beworshiped, like a god, thou still canst smite,
E'en then, with viewless arm, and from that height
Hurl him into the dust! for thou art free,
Boundless, omnipresent, like God, who gave
Thee for his crowning-gift to Man: and when
Thou work'st with thy best weapon, Truth's calm pen,
To punish and reform, exalt and save,
Thou canst combine in one the minds of men,
Which strength like that of God, united, have!

THE POET'S HARP.

Oh, change the harp-strings, change them once again:
For those of old, those of my heart, are now
Nigh broken, and the music which would flow
From them, would be so steeped in utter pain,
That, if ye've hearts, ye could not bear the strain.
Oh, that my soul might never speak of woe,
But, like the sea-shell, echoing, here below,
The might and gladness of the changeless Main,
Tell of the blessedness and peace alone,
And changeless durableness, of whence it came,
Nor take from Man's so troubled life one tone!
Like this so lovely world, which, to his Name
Who made it, sings its hymn of joy, the same
As at Creation's dawn, ere Man made moan?

A SUNSET THOUGHT.

What is it that mine eyes look on? some bright
And radiant Angel, from the setting sun,
Alighting on yon hill? No: 'tis but one
Of Earth's poor dwellers, whom the Heaven's light
Has steeped in its own glory, till to sight
He seems transfigured: but the glory's gone,
And there he stands, a simple Man alone,
The halo faded from his brow. Like might,
Yea! more, hath virtue! She can lasting make
That glory: can transfigure, inwardly,
The Mortal, till the Angel's form he take,
And be, not seem—till, ever in God's eye,
From his whole being its clear light will break,
And he be as a prism to test truth by!

WHAT MAKES US RICH?

TO ------

[O lips to shape sweet sounds formed so, express]

O lips to shape sweet sounds formed so, express,
I would I were a smile, the happy smile,
About them ever, so to be the while
Near them, and in reach of such blessedness!
Methinks the commonest words, as no, or yes,
From them like heavenly résponses beguile,
And make of other lips the music vile,
Seeming deficient, or else in excess!
Like the lark are they in their notes of gladness,
And like the nightingale in their sweet sadness:
Thrilling the soul, in each delicious measure,
With sense of rapture almost to sweet madness:
Unlocking all the avenues of Pleasure,
And many a secret door to hidden treasure!

SOLITUDE.

O Solitude! divinest Solitude!
Long, at thy genial breasts, have I drawn in
The milk of wisdom, far from all vain din
Of the World, fretting in its noisy mood!
Long nourished upon that celestial food,
I feel each troubled pulse, which throbbed within
My heart, grow quiet, and, at length, begin
To comprehend the sublime plenitude
Of charms severe which dwell in that calm face!
No wonder that the crowd should fly from thee,
Since I myself but now begin to trace
Beauties unfelt before—from the vain chace
I turn aside to where, by the great sea,
Thou sitt'st alone, thou and Eternitie!

THE TWO-FOLD LIFE.

Oh, happy time, ere yet the youthful heart
Has quite subsided in the sober tone
Of manhood, yet can call those joys its own
In which that sober manhood claims most share!
Those thoughtful pleasures, mingled, with fine art,
With the naîve impulses which loosed the zone
Of all life's virgin charms, which make them (known
And tasted) sweet as at the first, fresh start!
Oh, happy time! when, children at heart still,
Yet with the sobered soul and well-schooled will,
We of the child retain the innocence
And simpleness, with the maturer sense
Of many years, and from life's flowers distill
The essence, to make sweet hours long, long hence!

A NIGHT-THOUGHT.

There shines a star in, like a loving eye,
In at the window, solemn, still, and bright,
Gazing down on me from its azure height,
On me! an atom in infinity:
A little dust, the winds anon will dry
And scatter, while it shines on with calm light!
And yet it is a world, though to my sight
So little: yet the little am but I!
And yet, O God, there is a mighty chain,
Which links me with yon star, small though I be,
And which from world to world vibrates again,
However lightly touched, aye, e'en by me—
Aye, vibrates onward through the starry train,
And stops, and recommences still, with Thee!

THE SEEMING BEGGAR.

A tatter'd, wayworn beggar! verily
To sight it seems so; but how do ye know
That gifts of glory, passing outward show,
May not be hid 'neath rags and poverty?
He hath asked nought of thee, and passes by
Like one who reverence to himself doth owe,
A soul built up with that which makes most low!
And haply he hath more, than you or I,
To give of that wherein all worth doth dwell;
If we were stripped, we might the poorer seem.
And God, when he would work a miracle,
Even with such as these, whom men esteem
The outcasts of society, loves well
Poor, scorned Humanity from insult to redeem!

THE WISE MAN CANNOT BE IMPOVERISHED.

Talk not of loss! the wise man can lose naught,
So long as he is himself! nay, the more
He loses of those hollow goods, before
Which weak minds bow, the more his soul is taught
That wealth alone is during, which is wrought
From his own bosom's mine of divine ore;
The more he is himself, the richer store
Springs from the native soil of his own thought!
'Tis but when forced into ourselves, that we
Find and become the Godlike we should be;
Then no more upon Fortune's brittle reed,
Shaken by every breath, we lean, but free
And fearless, with Faith's steady staff proceed,
Which bears us up secure in life's worst need!

THE PEN.

With this, as little as it seems, can one
Work wonders! build up cities, plough the waste,
Alter costumes and laws, and change the taste
Of nations, set up thrones, and pluck them down!
What privilege then claims it as its own?
Or what strange subjects 'neath its sway are placed,
That thus, with a few strokes, can be effaced
Things grey as Time, familiar as the sun?
Men's thoughts! these move all! act but on the thought
And will of Man, and then thou may'st apply
The lever which has mightiest changes wrought,
With thy one, poor, weak hand! lost to Man's eye
Perhaps, like God, by few or known or sought,
Thou with two fingers mov'st the world's machinery!

TIME.

Oh Time, who musest by the grave, and on
The brink of dark Forgetfulness, in whose
Unfathomable depths thou fling'st all those
Vain records still, which testify alone
Of thy gifts misapplied, on that grave-stone
Why sitt'st thou with thine hourglass, which shows
But few, small grains, yet measures out all woes,
Cares, toils, how great-soe'er, beneath the sun:
Whose moments, busy workmen! forge the chain
Of stern necessity, that binds as well
The bosom-cradled babe through joy and pain,
As the vast life of nations; thou could'st tell
Strange secrets of that grave, which must remain
Voiceless, and with the worms for ever dwell!

FOLLY AND WISDOM.

Thus may one know the fool from the wise man:
Give to the former all that hope can crave,
All that, between the cradle and the grave,
The ever-busy fancy's brain can plan,
The end will find him such as he began,
Unformed within, unchanged in all things, save
Grey hairs and wrinkles; let the other have
Of stern reality the scantiest span,
With means commensurate, yet therein he
Can fashion forth a world of beauty, make
Mere earthly things subserve Eternity:
He, in sublime content, Want's bread will break
As 'twere the bread of immortality,
Yea! Faith to that can change it for his sake!

DEATH.

Oh Death! no poet ever called on thee
For inspiration, or thy cypress-bough
Plucked, in the Laurel's stead, to crown his brow;
Yet thine is of the two the best, 'tis free
From poison: and those who have learnt to see
Aright will tell thee also, there is no,
No place where the true evergreen will grow,
Surer than on the grave, where Flattery
Is dumb. Truth's ear is in the inmost heart,
And the loud voices of the world are there
Unheard: nor over-joy nor blank despair
To it true revelations can impart;
But thou, oh Death, when softened thy first smart,
Canst whisper things unutterably fair!

CHILDREN, HOW TO BE TREATED.

How lovely! lo! the sunbeams 'round the head
Of yon' soft-sleeping child are thrownd, as 'twere
An halo 'round a new-born Angel! dare
To think so: and, when that bright wreath has fled,
Let bold Imagination, in its stead,
Behold that far diviner crown, still there,
Of its own innocence! this let it wear
Constantly in thy sight, that thou may'st tread
As in an angel's presence, ever so
Regarding it; nor, then, wilt thou be wrong:
For treated as such, such 'twill really grow,
And then a little angel will belong
To thee; and, as one flower doth spring fore-show,
So 'round thee with thy child all heaven shall throng!

WE HAVE ALL WE CAN HAVE, IF WE PLEASE.

Who thinks that future gains or goods will make
Him happier than he is, or can be, now,
Though living by the sweat of his own brow,
Is much mistaken—all things from us take
Their value: and the coarse bread, for whose sake
We toil, does to that very labour owe
Blessings the bread of ease can never know:
What is more sweet than water, if it slake
Real thirst? and what can slake so well the real
And divine thirst of heart, as feelings pure
And simple? the sole thirst that can endure:
In calm self-consciousness lies Man's true weal:
And with this thou art neither rich nor poor,
But godlike! for 'tis God that thou dost feel!

ON DOING GOOD.

Who thinks that with gold only he can do
Real good is half a fool—alas! what would
Be then the lot of all the poor: the good
And suffering spirits, left too oft to rue
The tender mercies of the rich?—the true
Well-doers are not those who really should
Do most for their poor brethren, and who could,
If God had planned this fair world so that through
Wealth only its chief blessings could be won;
The poor are the well-doers: they still aid
Each other feelingly, without parade,
Nor make an insult of the good thus done.
The beggar gives the penny he has laid
By for himself—godlike, as God alone!

TRUE STRENGTH.

ON THE COLUMNAR APPEARANCE OF THE SUN SETTING OVER THE SEA.

There is a column, such as was not wrought
For Solomon's grand temple, stone and gold,
And marble, though most wondrous to behold:
Though taxing human power and human thought,
And all earth's treasures, for its glory sought!
O God, if I to ask may make so bold,
What wondrous temple was it made to uphold,
There lying, as not to completion brought!
And my soul whispers: it was made for this
Day's holy temple, fading soft away,
While the light wind its cloud-cap'd dome doth kiss,
And breaks it into gorgeous disarray—
Yet still that golden column witnesses
Of its surpassing glory, in decay!

THOUGHTS IN THE SUNSHINE.

The sun is shining, and he turns to gold
The sand, the common dust, beneath my feet,
Great Alchymist! with his transforming heat
Subliming all things into something grand
Or beautiful: with power beyond the hand
Or thought of Man; vain dreams, now obsolete,
Thus realizing, in a way more meet
And true, for those who will but understand!
Then understand it, Reader—oh behold
It so, and thou all things transformed to gold
Shalt see—to something far more precious too,
Into the Beautiful, the Good, and True!
A higher Alchymy than that of old,
Applied to uses as sublime as new!

THE SCHOOLING OF THE HEART.

How hard it is to school the human heart
To that sublime—no! not indifference,
For that is but a death with the pretence
Of life—but to that patience, which takes part
In all Man's cares and griefs, yet has the art
To draw its noblest triumphs even thence:
From every sacrifice its recompence,
And from the wound a med'cine for the smart!
Till (like some old cathedral-tower, high
In air, that, when the hymn hath left the ears
Of men below, its music heavenlier hears,
Unmixed with aught of earth, far up the sky)
We catch the music of Humanity,
Without the jar of its brief cares and fears!

ON THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY.

Were all these means and rich appliances
Meant merely to enable Man to make
More money, not for the diviner sake
Of his immortal Being, that, through these,
It might enlarge with spiritual increase!
Then could I wish that ye might ever wake
And watch, and Mammon's wages only take,
And make but gold, who for it mar your peace—
These things were meant to give Man's soul more time
To look about it, and unto the heights
Of spiritual Being oftener climb—
To bring within the reach of all delights
Confined yet to the few, and give sublime
Direction to the Spirit's daily flights!

MY PLEASURE-GROUND.

I covet not your gardens—what these are
Unto the flowers in your window-sill,
Or drawing-room, themselves are (and not ill
So likened) to that garden, larger far,
And fairer, where I walk without a bar
Or hindrance: where I pay naught, yet am still
More richly entertained than kings, with skill
Divine, and splendor truly singular!
Rivers flow for me, mountains lift their heads,
And in their laps her flowery skirts Earth spreads
Accessible—the clouds for me are sights
Beyond kings' pageants, and, where-ever treads
My foot, as at its touch, spring new delights,
And music, filling earth's depths and heaven's heights!

ON A CHURCH, COVERED WITH IVY AND VIRGINIA CLIMBERS, AND OTHER PLANTS.

Oh blessed union of holiest things,
The innocence of Nature hand in hand
With all that is in Man most pure and grand!
Oh marriage beyond all imaginings,
Whence offspring, and most lawful issue, springs,
Beauty and Holiness, as from the wand
Of magic: yet by no such vain command,
But by His power who, only, such spells flings!
Oh outward emblem of an inward bond
And union between things close-allied,
Whose form should with their spirit correspond—
So in our inward worship, side by side
With all its awfulness, a grace, beyond
E'en that, should be, through love, not fear, to guide!

ON LEAVING A PLACE WHERE I HAD PASSED SOME YEARS.

Dear Spot, I now must leave thee, and forsake
The scene of many labours and much love—
Gold have I spent, and Labour, far above
All Gold: which makes what Gold could never make,
Nor itself do, if but for Gold's poor sake—
And Love, the crown of Labour, which doth move
And quicken it, on itself to improve,
And after its divine exemplar take!
But richly hast thou paid me back for all
My labour and my love: aye, thousandfold,
With more than idle fame, or idler gold—
By thus enabling me, in natural
And useful wise, my Being to unfold,
To love and labour still, Man's twofold call!

GOD, THE GREATEST POET.

God is the greatest poet, and, like all
True poets, maketh weekday poesy—
He paints the clouds of heaven gorgeously,
As if to paint them were his only call:
Yet 'tis their use makes them poetical!
Their use great as their beauty to the eye,
Needful to earth as lovely to the sky;
And so through all His labours, great or small!
He seeks not vain display, but blendeth Use
With Beauty, in a twofold loveliness:
That thus one thing in many ways may bless,
Serve many ends—so, after Him, the Muse:
Who teaches Truth divine, but in the dress
Of Fancy, that she wider may diffuse!

ON THE OCCUPATION OF SINDE.

Thine honor is an Ægis more secure
Than fleets or armies, O my Country dear:
And faith and justice cause more righteous fear
In the offender and the evildoer,
Than the brute terrors which not long assure
(And only while their instruments are near,)
An unjust usurpation: whose career
Hath ending violent and premature,
Like its beginning—thou wilt soon repent
Thine error, in the loss of confidence,
Which doth a kingdom more than arms cement;
Yet, whatsoever be the consequence,
One loss is certain: loss of that high sense
Of justice, which is thy worst punishment!

ON DANBY'S PICTURE OF “CALYPSO'S GROTTO.”

The sun is sinking, and o'er sea and shore
Throws the long shadows of the cliffs and trees,
With gleams of lingering brightness betwixt these,
Like pillars of pure gold, that erewhile bore
The dome of day up, which is now no more,
Fallen in gorgeous fragments—ill at ease,
Lo! towards her grotto sad Calypso flees,
For she her lost Ulysses doth deplore—
A solemn sadness breathes poetical
O'er all: and we, unconscious of the art,
Which human griefs to things material
Transferring, makes them suffer with Man's heart,
Grow sad, and in that sorrow too take part,
Until the grief of one grows that of all!

REAL VALUE;

SUGGESTED BY A FIGURE IN CLAY, OR “TERRA COTTA,” BY M. ANGELO.

Things have a spiritual worth, beside,
And far beyond, all money-value too—
Thus, e'en a piece of clay, which has passed through
A Michael Angelo's fingers, beautified
By his allmighty touch, to God's allied,
(For it creates, and breathes Soul into new
And godlike forms, and vileness doth endue
With value) hath a worth which will abide—
E'en in this worldly traffic it is worth
More than its weight in gold, though paltry earth;
Gold is but mere brute metal: but it bears
God's impress in its Beauty, and thenceforth,
So long as in aught heavenly Man shares,
'Twill touch his heart, and breathe celestial airs!

TO MILTON.

I am but as a star that in the sky
Doth lowly shine, just on the horizon's rim,
Lighting a scanty space, and that but dim;
The whereabouts of meek Humanity,
The little, household circle, which doth lie
Within reach of the least: aye, e'en of him
Whose daily life doth make his God a hymn
Divine, though heard not by the passer by!
A little nook, encompassed by the heart
And its affections, as in God's own arms!
But thou dost shine high up, and far apart,
Gilding our troubled Life's alternate calms
And storms, and as a beacon there thou art,
Beheld of all, mighty in many charms!

POETRY OF REAL LIFE.

My Muse's wings are clipped, and, Reader, so
A sort of household and poetic Lar,
Whose whereabouts are all familiar
And homewards, she has grown—she does not go
To distant lands, nor debts to fancy owe,
For things which at her feet already are—
Where Men are, themes poetic are not far:
Hard by the door her springs Castalian flow!
They are the household wells we use each day:
The streams by which the children gather flowers,
With towns and cities on their further way—
All Heliconian streams, with gifts and powers
Of song divine, although those powers may
Turn factory-mills, or work at stated hours!

CHILDREN.

A little child is as a fount of good:
A well in the waste places on life's way,
The sad Zaharas where love doth decay—
He is a mediator, and endued
With pow'r to bring together hearts that stood
Apart: a bridge across life's gulfs—with gay
And artless weaning turning into play
And pleasure tasks on which we else should brood.
He makes one laugh, another play, and all
(Who feel aught) love: Love itself good immense;
His smiles too on our way like sunshine fall,
The sunshine of the heart: thawing the sense
Of all life's beauty, and things apt to pall
Refreshing to our worn experience.

WORLD-MUSIC: ESOTERIC.

There is a music which I love to hear
Beyond all other music 'neath the sky,
The deep, sweet music of Humanity;
Falling for ever on mine inward ear,
From ages past, and choiristers now here
No longer, yet whose voices, sweet and high,
Like a “Te Deum” to the Deity,
Fill the wide world, his temple, far and near!
Long had I, at the gates, sat listening,
Not daring yet to enter in, nor quite
Conceiving whence those blessed sounds could spring.
But now I, with a concourse infinite,
Have entered in at last, and with them sing
And shout Hosannas, worshipping aright!

SEARCH OF TRUTH.

Of moral Truth the “mare magnum” I,
Far-traversing, have sailed o'er many-a day,
Since first I voyaged on my lonely way,
Embarking hopes of immortality
And fame in this frail bark of poesy!
Far out of sight of land, and those who play
With danger near the shore, I still essáy
The venture, sailing ever by the sky!
Yet, on my course, I touch at many-an isle,
And water at each Heliconian spring,
Whose fresher taste the voyáge may beguile—
That so the end of my adventuring
May pleasure bring as well as use, the while
Of Truth's yet undiscovered lands I sing!

HAMPTON-COURT-PALACE, AT SUNSET; AUGUST.

Another holy day is dying out—
Gilding the towers of Hampton with new gold,
Fresh from the eternal pallet, as of old,
When Wolsey bade them with their presence flout
The palaces of kings, and put in doubt
Whether great Nature in more regal mould
Than that of kings themselves cast not his bold
And scheming mind, great ends to bring about—
How quiet on those towers the last rays
Of sunset linger! as if, for awhile,
Great Nature paused to hallow the displays
Of human genius with a parting smile!
So will she linger still, Man and his ways
To gladden, and with hers to reconcile!

ON A NEW-DISCOVERED AND UNINHABITED LAND.

Here, in her first, untouched virginity,
The fresh Earth laughs—here never woo'd by less
Than the all-circling Air, who doth possess
Her ear at all times with his flattery;
And by the Ocean in his majesty,
Who now, with sighs, her wave-kissed feet doth press,
And now, when winds his azure brows caress,
Shakes with his nod, like Jove, both Earth and Sky!
Here heaves she upward to Air's warm embrace
Her many-breasted bosom, like a new
Venus of old Mythology, whose place
She better fills—and, as the Sea doth woo
Her feet, she on him downward bends her face
Divine, her favours sharing 'twixt the two!

WHOM TO PLEASE.

True men and upright, of whate'er degree,
With sweating brow, or crown upon your head,
True sons of your great Father, missionëd
To do his work of love, to bind and free,
Who, like Saint Peter, hold the mystic key;
Who work his miracles, but words instead
Of spells make use of, quickening the dead,
The dead in soul, who deadest of all be!
Dearer to me your good opinion is
Than the poor plaudits of the ignorant crowd,
Groundless as hasty, brief as they are loud;
For Conscience, which but echos Him in this,
Who lifts the meek up, and puts down the proud,
Approves your sentence, and confirms it His!

ON THE DEATH OF AN OLD DOG.

Thou honest servant, friend, of many years,
Thy loss doth that of worldly goods transcend—
I loved thee: and we love not to no end
Or use, nor twine our human hopes and fears
Round the least thing in vain, nor shed vain tears
Even for thee—for so my heart doth send
A recognition after thee, old friend,
Due to thy love, and of mine the arrears!
Thou hast departed, and thy clear, frank eye,
Void of suspicion as of guile, no more
Looks up into my face inquiringly—
Yet that in thee which loved, as it before
Thy time existed, will eternally,
For Love 's of God, whatever shape it bore!

TO THE MUSE OF POETRY.

O Muse, thy nourishing, which unto some
Is but as manna in the wilderness:
Found but in seasons of their strange distress
And sorrow, which unseal lips elsewhile dumb,
And make the waters in dry places come,
The heart's Castalian springs! to me is less
Than this, yet more, the daily bread I bless
And live on, household bread and made at home!
And if, with no profane comparison,
Reader, I break and offer it to thee,
'Tis as a sacrament, a sublime one,
The sacrament of Man's Humanitie!
Of which partaking, I would have thee none
But as thy Brethren view, whate'er they be!

BY THE SEA-SIDE, ON A STORMY DAY.

What might and majesty is in their path!
Onward and onward come the bounding waves,
Still making, as they rise and sink, new graves,
For their own brief-lived selves, yet with fresh wrath
Rerising, as who a new spirit hath
Gained even from his fall—each, sinking, paves
His fellow's path, and then a like fate braves,
Still trembling in the scales of life and death!
Thou many-voicëd Ocean, thou, who hast
The gift of mighty utterance, speak thou true
To Earth, and bid her think upon the past—
Bid her kneel down before thee, as men do
In penance, as God were about to cast
Thy spray upon her brow, baptizing her anew!

ON DANTE.

O Dante, when I gaze on that stern face,
Where seated Grief sits mocking Sympathy,
The smileless lip, the glazed, long-tearless eye,
Which for its own ills never wept, I trace,
Graved as in marble, not the commonplace,
And hourly sorrows of humanity,
But those which all the founts of tears updry,
And turn the forc'd smile to a sad grimace—
And were not these enough? did then thy foes
Seek other triumphs? yes! they would thy soul
In heav'n, thine ashes in the grave, controul!—
But from their depths, solemn and stern, there rose
A voice, an echo of the mighty Whole,
Forbidding Man 'twixt Man and God to interpose!

MIDNIGHT. OCTOBER 24TH.

The moon has sunk—unutterably bright,
Meanwhile, the stars have gathered, one by one,
And never, to my eye, so bright they shone;
How stilly each, content with its own light,
Moves onward, not obtruding on the sight
Its glories, as if it alone had done
Its mission, but so modestly, as none
Were less or greater, claiming but its right!
O God! how still is ocean, land, and sky!
As Contemplation held her breath to pray;
On Air's soft breast Earth seems as if it lay
Hushed like a child, and the great Sea doth lie
With it, like twins, that slumber after play,
And o'er all looks, still as a star, God's eye!

LOVE.

PREMIER-REVOLUTIONISTS: ON THE CORN-LAWS.

They most a state's foundations sap, who take
From Law its reverence, from Power its love:
Their highest attributes, from Him above
Derived direct, and holy for His sake!
Samsons, who, with misguided power, shake
That temple, which not might of hosts could move:
And that which most upholds, by which it throve,
The pillar of Justice (putting all at stake)
Pluck on themselves and others—these alone
Are truly revolutionists: who burst
Asunder, with mad strength, the holy zone
Of Order, which nought else could do or durst;
Which round Man's life, like Venus' Cestus, thrown,
Hath all its social charms and graces nurst!

HOW TRUTH WORKS.

Although not theoretically best,
Nor yet embodying the truth entire,
Some social forms are to be kept, till higher
And purer spring from Truth more manifest—
To speak large truths demands a mighty chest,
Expanded to the full by high desire,
With strong-breathed lungs, and sustained voice of fire,
And the large utterance of the social breast.
A larger Truth enlargëd forms demands,
The work of no one, individual Will,
But of unnumbered, ceaseless hearts and hands—
And, as in one broad stream flows many-a rill,
The boundary-line, which washes mighty lands,
So truths the channel of Opinion fill!

THE VERY RICH.

TO SIR JOHN HANMER.

MAMMON.

There's blood upon thee, thou accursed Gold!
And yet thou goest free, and current art,
As thou in all these social ills no part
Hadst ever taken; as thou hadst not sold
And bought up slaves, nor given Greed firm hold
Of his poor victim: nor plucked out the heart
Of true love, sold like vile wares i' the mart,
Nor murdered, with pains slow and manifold,
Thine o'erworked thralls! get hence, thou hypocrite,
That look'st so open-faced, so pure, and bright:
Thou legal coin of the realm, that yet dost break
The law which makes thee current: for whose sake
Men sell their fellows, body and soul, outright,
And flesh and blood by the pound, like Shylock, take

ANSWER TO A QUESTION.

SPRING.

The trees are bursting as in rivalry:
Blossom gets start of leaf, yet, while I speak,
The leaf appears—yon' rose its glowing cheek
Leans on the honeysuckle sisterly,
And, hiding, makes its beauty more thereby!
The birds have cleared their pipes, as if to seek
Their sweetest notes, and harmonize their beak
To the dear season and its witchery.
Methinks the universal heart around
Doth beat most audibly: as not alone
Things animate, but senseless, feeling found.
The air seems like the just unloosened zone
Of Earth's virginity, the which, unbound,
Diffuses all her charms at once, full-blown!

TO A FRIEND; ON AN OLD TREE, WITH PRIMROSES GROWING OUT OF IT.

OCTOBER 24, 1833.

Old oak, upon thy mossy surface grow
Sweet primroses, like Beauty on the arm
Of Power leaning, an unwonted charm
Imparting to thy leafless trunk, to show
How gentlest things from strongest sources flow!
Destroy them not—perhaps at April's warm
Approach, when bees and birds begin to swarm,
Thou wilt rejoice at heart to see them blow!
On such an eve, beneath that very tree,
Thou may'st be seated, thinking on the past,
Thy wife beside, thy child upon thy knee—
Then may'st thou pluck those sweets thou now would'st cast
Away, taught thus to let the least thing be,
By the delight which thou from wise forbearance hast!

ON M. ANGELO.

It is the grey of morning—from his wing
The lark its dew is shaking—the last star
Glimmers upon th' horizon's verge afar,
'Twixt night and morn, like a dream lingering
Upon Aurora's eyelids, ere she fling
Slumber quite off! amid the cypress-trees
And pines, which round the city's brows, the breeze
Stirs, like a coronal, the dome doth spring—
More like the baseless fabric of a cloud,
Floating in air, than aught conceived by Man,
And now with golden halos from the shroud
Of night emerging—back he turned to scan
The sight sublime, and saw, with faith endowed,
Afar, the rival dome's sublimer span!

ON A LOVELY SUNSET.

Soft o'er the earth the rosy eye of Day,
Like God's, once more is closing: gently as
The daisy shuts beneath me in the grass!
A few light cloudlets linger on their way,
To gold and crimson turning, then to gray,
As onward, one by one, they slowly pass—
The last, rich touches the great painter has
Imparted to them, as it were, in play!
How lavishly the poorest, work-day cloud
In richest tints is steeped, until it seem
A mantle of which monarchs might be proud—
Each has fulfilled its task in the great scheme
Of things, yea, e'en the least: and God aloud
Proclaims it, as this fair day's closing theme!

ON THE THAMES, NEAR HAMPTON COURT.

Here glides the Thames 'twixt meadows still and green,
Unconscious of the turmoil and the fret
Which, further on, his prouder path beset—
Here Nature reigns, an undisputed queen,
Art dares not trespass on her still demesne;
Or, if she does, 'tis as an anchoret,
The world and the world's ways so to forget,
And grieving that such follies should have been—
The hills, with cloud-like undulations, make
Th' horizon vague, while the stream, far away,
Lingers, as loth our sight yet to forsake—
Not yet doth Commerce in thy broad lap play,
Thy foster-child, old Thames, nor strive to break
His leading-strings, and higher flights essáy.

TIME-SERVERS.

Who lives upon opinion, lives but by
The breath of others' mouths, not by his own—
His very soul, by which Man lives alone,
Is pawned, and hourly gives itself the lie—
He dares not lift his hand, or laugh, or cry,
Save upon precedent—yet such I've known,
Who tune their shallow pipes to every tone,
Playing all stops with like facility—
'Twere worse than death such borrowed air to draw;
In their own nostrils such men's breath must smell—
'Tis rank: for it must first have passed the maw
Of commonest opinion, ere they (faugh!)
Will breathe it, whose souls are the vehicle
Of that at which a beggar's gorge would swell!

POPULARIS AURA.

Statue in temples want not I, nor crown
Of bay-leaves on my brow, to spread my name
Abroad, and make me heir to vulgar fame—
By the loud trumpet of full-tongued Renown
I would not have my praises rankly blown,
With popular breath, which, as it oft will blame
Lightly best things, oft praises worst the same,
Its smile more fatal ever than its frown—
These want I not—but when, on their proud height
Of triumph, great ones fill the world's weak eye,
Let me glide through the crowd, unnoticed, by,
Like my least fellow-men—for to God's sight
Not cloud-high columns point out worth aright,
But the still finger of Humanity!

ON RE-VISITING THE OLD CRAG AT THE “VALLEY OF ROCKS,” LINTON.

Cast off those clouds from thy hoar brow, old Rock,
And let me gaze upon thy face again—
There sit'st thou still, and look'st, with calm disdain,
On Ocean: spurning, with fixed foot, the shock
Of his encroaching waves; though, block by block,
Beneath he saps thee, thundering might and main,
While, pillar-like, thy brows above sustain
The thunder cloud, thou both alike dost mock!
Thou art unaltered since I saw thee last—
Thou hast no struggles of the feverish will:
Grief wears thee not, nor phantoms of the past;
The task God set thee thou performest still;
Thou hast not gone astray, hast done no ill,
But, like th' eternal sea, art as thou wast!

THE HARMONIES OF LIFE.

O music of old thoughts, still unforgot:
Familiar stops of Life's first harmony!
The pipe hath, long-unfingered, been laid by,
And tears, like crusted salt, its surface blot—
But Time hath deeper melodies begot
Upon it: he hath played it stealthily
Meanwhile, and made its tones more full and high,
With hopes and fears of this our common lot!
He has called forth new notes, and made the old
More mellow—he has touched it oft since then,
To all Life's themes so rich and manifold,
And tuned it to the living hearts of men!
So now I take it up, with hand more bold
And firm, and play Life's music o'er agen.

THE FUTURE.

Down climbing Thought, that at thy prison-bars
Gasp'st for a little breath of heavenly air:
For one brief glimpse of those abodes so fair,
Which thou hast pictured 'bove yon' clear, calm stars,
That, in the deep, blue vault, like cavern-spars,
Gleam with divine intelligence, as 'twere,
Heav'n's conscious eyes—as if they had a care
Of human things: the tutelary Lars
Of those diviner homes! but 'tis not so—
They are but cressets in the hall of night:
The moving lamps, that ever come and go,
Strewing their golden fires in the sight
Of Mortals, wondering why the hall should show
So empty, lit with such a pomp of light!

THE LABOURER'S HOLIDAY.

The poor Man's Sabbath-happiness how great!
'Twould gild the surface of a rich Man's week,
Hackneyed and worn, with gold, like that doth streak
The heavëns, when the sun gets up in state:
Pure gold without alloy! that day heaven's gate
Morn opes for him express—for him, though meek
And lowly, Earth doth all her joys bespeak,
And Pleasure on his steps, that day, doth wait,
As on a king's! for him the flower blows,
For him the bird doth sing, as forth he goes
Into his Father's mansion, like an heir;
And well may he be blessed, if this he knows
And feels: and know he must, if that day's prayer,
“Our Father, which art in heav'n,” in mind he bear!

WRITTEN AT LINMOUTH; NORTH DEVON.

Whence cam'st thou, lovely spot, that liëst here
In Desolation's lap, so fresh and green?
She is a rude nurse, but to thee hath been
Full-tender: with her hills thy little sphere
Of beauty, arm-like, circling—she doth rear
Her rocky forehead from the deep to screen
Thy loveliness, and, in her wildest mien,
Awes back the rude sea with a look severe!
Whence cam'st thou? didst thou rise from out the Deep,
Like some Hesperian land, long sought in vain?
Of which the seaman gets a passing peep,
As, on a summer's eve, his bark doth creep
Along the quiet shore: where thou hast lain,
Like some uncar'd-for gem thrown by the main!

REAL LIFE.

Live in the present—thou art, in the past,
A shadow 'mongst old Charon's freight of shades:
An unsubstantial being, which evades
The ties of flesh and blood: a shadow cast
By Fancy's magic-lantern! so thou hast
No life but now; the rest is: masquerades,
Shadows and shows of things, the fitful aids
Of Fancy, gilded clouds, and gone as fast!
Thou would'st not in the Future live, e'en though
Thou should'st be born again: thou would'st be there
A mere anachronism, and would'st stare
At things the veriest little child would know;
Man's happiness is, with the mass to go,
And not with those “who are to be” or “were!”

ON A CRAG, WITH A VAST NICHE-LIKE CAVITY IN ITS FACE.

There is a niche in yon' old rock, which seems
By Nature left for some great statue; yet
How few are worthy therein to be set,
Of all with which each mortal temple teems!
Man rears up statues to himself, and dreams
That he is great: with pompous epithet
Inscribing them, as Nature were in debt
To him, for lending her his petty themes!
But she is of another mind, and in
Her temple—this fair World—admits but few,
But very few—the Meek, the Good, the True,
Who labour for their fellow-men to win
Th' eternal truths of God: regardless who
May reap the godlike work which they begin!

ON A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET.

It is a lovely ev'ning!—over day's
Blue eye the night is closing noiselessly,
Like a soft eyelid—'tis as if the eye
Of God himself, delighted, ceased to gaze
Upon the wonders his great work displays;
As if He saw that all was good, and, by
The stars, each as his silent deputy,
Watched o'er the earth, which through them he surveys!
A few, faint clouds still linger on their way:
They have fulfilled their mission, and, awhile,
Loiter on night's dim verge, as 'twere, in play!
O Man, and canst thou too not reconcile
Thy duties with thy pleasures, and, like day,
Thus on thy closing labours, godlike, smile!

FREE-MASONS.

Free-mason are you? aye, and I as well!
Free, by a higher and an older rite
Of ordination far than ye, who write
Yourselves free-masons, and who dare not tell
Your secret, lest you break thus the poor spell;
Free of this world so fair and infinite,
Labouring in all men's view, and in the light
Of God, wherein no idle secrets dwell!
There are no secrets in the masonry
Which good men use: no signs, save those which Love
Employs, its presence lovingly to prove—
Day-labourers are they, who beautify
The temple of God's truth, and from above
Derive the sanction of their ministry!

ON A FAVOURITE DOG.

He's worth his weight in gold, you say! ay, more—
He has a heart full capable of love,
And that, methinks, is far all wealth above,
For that thou could'st not buy with all thy store!
Spread out thy glittering treasures all before
His eyes, yet he no joy thereat will prove,
Not even wag his tail! yet may'st thou move
His very heart, with one kind word, to pour
The treasures of its love out at thy feet!
How more divine must love then be than gold,
Since e'en a brute thy love with love doth meet,
Divinely answering! learn then to hold
Mere wealth of small account, since 't will not cheat
E'en that poor hound, whose love cannot be bought or sold!

AGAINST PRIDE OF INTELLECT.

ON THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

Sweep on, thou mighty stream magestical,
Monarch of waters, broad, and still, and deep,
That, in the consciousness of strength, dost keep
As yet proud silence, and take from thy fall
Sublime voice mighty and poetical,
To tell the world, as headlong o'er the steep,
With foaming thunders, thou dost bound and leap,
That mightiest things are calmest still of all!
Then sink to sublime silence as before—
As if it cost thee nought to speak as though
Thou could'st outvoice the mighty Ocean's roar,
Whene'er occasion called on thee to show
The power which thy silence in it bore,
Not lightly roused, but mightiest when so!

AN ANSWER.

A foolish dreamer! well, e'en be it so—
And yet I am awake, or, waking, dream
Things truer, or which so unto me seem,
Than those who wake o' nights and no rest know,
Till they get rich, and life for money throw
Away: and Love, its crowning-grace supreme,
And God (Love's essence,) openly blaspheme,
Mocking him, in his temple, with vain show!
Perhaps I dream—I dream the world is fair,
Fairer than heart can know or tongue can say!
That Love doth greater treasures with it bear
Than wealth—and that no wealth were thrown away,
Could it a sense procure ye, though it were
But of a flower's beauty, for one day!

TO MILTON.

Oh noble spirit, like a mountain-peak,
Lifting thy calm head up above the clouds:
While all these lower regions darkness shrouds,
Thou in the sunshine of God's truth dost seek
Thy light! yet, at that elevation, meek
And lowly, as though thou hadst no such view,
Looking before and after, but wert too
A daily labourer, resting once a week!
In the far vista of the past, sublime,
To my memorial fancy thou dost seem
Above all neighbouring heights of fame to climb
(Upbearing, pillar-like, the heavens) supreme!
The while thy glory, like the sunset's gleam,
Casts thy long shadow beyond space and time!

TO ARTISTS WHO LOOK WITH JEALOUS EYES ON ARTISTICAL PROCESSES, SUCH AS CHROMALITHOGRAPHY, ETC. ETC.

The mind of Man can never supersede
Itself by its inventions: though it make
“Machines to calculate,” and from it take
The mere mechanic processes, which need
But little, save attention, to succeed—
And this, in Nature's course, for its sole sake
Was so ordained: that thus all bonds 't might break,
And freer move, as 't were with wings indeed!
Fear not—the great, creative mind of Man
Takes a far wider scope than sense can span;
And all these rare inventions have but worth
As means and instruments, whereby he can
Mould more completely to his will this earth,
And give his own divine conceptions birth!

ON A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET, WITH NEWLY-GATHERED CLOUDS.

Why do ye kindle up, ye Heavëns, now,
Those gratulatory fires in the sky?
Is it because this sweet day hath gone by
Without a passing shade upon its brow,
That ye those clouds, which have, I know not how,
Gathered meanwhile, themselves scarce knowing why,
Light up with gold and crimson tracery,
To make them thus your triumph more avow?
The festival ye keep is innocent,
And your rejoicings holy in God's sight—
For they are not for the accomplishment
Of Man's blind ends, the triumph over Right
Of Wrong, but for the celebration meant
Of truths enduring as the firmament!

TO THE SEA, AFTER A GREAT STORM.

JANUARY 15TH.

Thou hast been drunk, thou Sea, but not with wine:
With power, and with consciousness of might
Invincible! and, as it were a slight
And broken slumber, like a libertine,
Thou hast arisen, in thy strength divine,
And cast thy rest from off thee, making light
Of Man and his vain works, with infinite
Contempt, as sharing not with thee or thine!
But now thy Saturnalia again
Are done, and thou liest listless on the shore,
A melancholy stillness brooding o'er
Thy majesty, a sense almost of pain,
And, 't might seem, of remorse, for power in vain
Exerted, to destroy, not to restore!

HOPES FROM THE SPREAD OF PHRENOLOGY.

Phrenology! lay thy broad hand upon
The forehead of the coming Time, and say
What now is working at the brain—which way
The mighty thoughts, that will transform anon
The face of earth, are tending—mark'st thou, on
That so capacious brow, no new display,
No fresh developments, no signs, which may,
To thy prophetic eye, make clearly known
What shape the coming age will take? there is
An hum of mighty changes! Hope takes cheer:
And Expectation stands on tip-toe; 'tis
A time of promise: prophecies we hear
Of Man reclaimed by Nature to her sphere,
And mutual knowledge causing mutual bliss!

POETRY OF LIFE.

He is the greatest Artist who is so
In his own daily life: who draws, in truth,
His Art's materials from thence—whose youth,
Manhood, and age, in one grand series flow,
Living designs and groupings, such as no
Mere artist ever framed, nor e'en the hand
Of Michael Angelo himself e'er plann'd!
He is the greatest poet, who can go
Forth in his singing-robes, not on high-days
Alone, but as his every-day attire;
Who, though he, like the lark, each dawn aspire
Unto the heaven of song, like him, no-ways
Disdains the earth, though borne on wings of fire,
Nor the least duty which she on him lays!

COMPOSED IN THE WHISPERING-GALLERY AT ST. PAUL'S.

Here stand I, and receive into my ear
The threadlike lines of sound: not brokenly,
Nor yet confused, but gathered, as they fly,
To their true focus, in one utterance clear;
For here, from all points of the hemisphere,
The lines converge, coinstantaneously;
And, though so many, yet all these do I
But as one, single sound harmonious hear.
So in this vast world to Faith's ear, if true,
There is a point, where all its whispers too
Converge—where all that speaks in earth and skies
Is gathered in one mighty Word, which through
All Nature thrills, to which each heart replies,
The burthen of her endless harmonies!

ON DOING NO INJURY.

Wrong thou no living being, though but by
The least ill thought; for, though sure that it ne'er
Can be discovered, yet there is, I fear,
Still one to whom it must, unfailingly,
Be known: thyself! and thus the injury
Is done to thee! and this will become clear,
Wilt thou but think what Man should hold most dear,
His soul, and all else for it! now, if thy
Own self-respect be lessened, by a thought
Or act of thine, hast thou not thereby done
Thyself a lasting injury, which nought
Can make good to thee? thou hast in thine own
Eyes lessened thyself: the worst ill! and one
Which none, but thou thyself, could e'er have wrought!

ON SELF-DENIAL.

Deny thyself, and what thou dost deny
Thyself will be a godlike gain—will be
As measurelessly more, both in degree
And kind, than all thy wish could e'er supply,
If granted, as the Godlike is (which thy
Heart through it feels) more than all else to thee:
For, if felt, all else but as naught thou'lt see,
Compared therewith; make thou ungrudgingly
The will of others, and their pleasure, thine;
Thus wilt thou have the enjoyment, not of one,
But many hearts, yet all still as thine own!
In doing good, give thou thereof no sign:
Be viewless, as the wind: pass on unknown,
Merged, like thy Maker, in thy work divine!

SIMPLICITY.

Think thou no evil, and none shall there be,
For thee, in this wide world; be as a child,
So innocent, that thou may'st pluck the wild
Field-flowers, and in them far, far more see
To value, than in all the baubles we,
We grown-up fools, by the world's gauds beguiled,
Still set our hearts on; keep thine undefiled,
And in the holy well of Memory
Mix thou no bitterness: for thou, in thy
Old age, thereof, when Hope's bright cup is dry,
Must drink right oft; be still a child at heart:
And, though cold Reason turn to mockery
Love's young dreams, yet the best need not depart,
Itself, which thou, when most awake, most hast and art!

ON STARTING FROM LONDON AT SIX IN THE MORNING.

Now with the growing light the lamps contend,
The Heavenly mastering the Earthly: Day,
Like a plain labourer, in hodden gray,
Comes forth to overlook, and to right end
Direct, the World's vast labours; he doth send
All others to their toil, and well he may,
Who is the greatest—on his sublime way,
In sober majesty, he now doth wend,
His godlike eye fixed on his daily task!
O Man, then be thou like him—though so great,
That all the stars, which gild the morning, wait
Upon, and give place to, him: he doth ask
No service of these handmaids, but both late
And early toils, too great for idle state!

UPON TITIAN.

When Titian brought his pictures to a close,
“Faciebat” merely he beneath them wrote,
Thereby their incompleteness to denote;
No wonder that he to Art's summit rose,
And, from the topmost round, looked down on those
Who started with him for that goal remote!
An hundred years thereto did he devote,
As others days, and, sinking to repose,
Like some tall column towering 'gainst the sky,
Threw his vast shadow o'er a century!
And, at his setting, he was like the sun,
(His fame being equalled by his modesty)
As if he thought not of what he had done,
Nor of the darkness which on earth would lie!

TO ENGLAND, ON HER TREATMENT OF GENOA.

ST. ANTONY'S DAY.

ON MILTON.

I love to read the bard of Paradise
By the great sea: the waves' majestic swell
Marking the time, and answering so well
The pauses of the verse, that, in their rise
And fall continuous, its harmonies
Seem echoed back; as though, voicefull, and clear,
They were repeating them in Nature's ear,
Things with which heaven and earth might sympathise.
With such accompaniment I could think
That Nature, moved by that great argument,
To the still music of Man's thoughts had lent
Utterance, and set thereto the waves, that sink
And rise, like epic verse magnificent,
Creation's music! in acknowledgment.

A CALM, SEASIDE SUNSET.

The Mightiest too is gentlest—the great Sea
Lies like a thing with which a child might play,
As a tame Lion, on whose back men lay
Their hands familiárly, as though he
Were never otherwise—Earth seems to be,
After day's labour, resting on her way,
Through the blue ether—on the closing day
Silence attends, as by the deathbed we
May watch of one we love—a ball of red
And fiery splendor yonder sets the sun,
Steeping all things in beauty: Heaven's vast hall
Is cloudless: sky and ocean round are spread,
In one unbroken Blank, leaving but one
Pervading sense of vastness over all!

TRUE GREATNESS.

True Greatness hath no strivings for effect:
It rises like the mountains to the sky,
Lifting its head in simple majesty;
A firm, deep base with Nature doth connect
It ever, solid breadth of intellect;
And, as the peaks of highest mountains by
The same hard granite, which doth fortify
Their depths, are formed, so the true architect
Of greatness builds his fortunes of a piece
Throughout, and still, at each extreme, the same
Is found—and therefore takes he such long lease
Of glory; like the mountains shall his name
Endure, and still from age to age increase,
Gathering the long arrears of well-earned fame!

TO THE SEA.

Thou ne'er-unloosed and all-embracing zone,
That gird'st the virgin-waist of Earth: not e'en
The famed and fabled belt of Beauty's queen
Possessed one half the charms which thou dost own,
Thou glorious girdle! by the Almighty thrown
Round the work of his hands, as if to screen
It from defilement! loveliness hath been
Thine attribute, and, as upon a throne,
Doth majesty dwell in thee, from the first!
Still, fresh as morning, thou flow'st on around
The world, naught yet thy guarding cirque hath burst
Asunder—not the Earthquake, with his sound
Of thunder, nor the Tempest—nothing durst
Lay hands on, or approach, thee, without awe profound!

THE LARK.

What quit-rent should the lark to Nature pay
Save his own song? She is content with less
Than thanks—with his, which is her, happiness;
Yet most melodious thanks he pays each day,
And, while dull Earth still slumbers, far away
The ear of Morning with a strain doth bless,
That Sadness of herself would dispossess,
And make her almost with her sorrows play!
Of all her choristers he pays her best:
Dissembling never, with a mocking tongue,
The overflowing joy that swells his breast;
The whiles the Nightingale doth her some wrong,
By notes that seem sad: yet he does but jest
At grief, to make his joy more keen and long!

THE WISH.

Oh that I had a giant's stride, to make
My stepping-stones the mountains—in his pride,
Forth with the sun to go, 'till even-tide:
To see him on a thousand hills awake
The songs of Morn, and of Earth, blushing, take
His leave with smiles, as bridegroom of his bride;
See Night's star-glittering zone the world divide,
And young-eyed Morning o'er the one half break,
More rosy than a new-waked cherub! then
The music of a thousand streams I'd list,
The thunder on a hundred hills; and, when
The storm raged, I would, as a denizen
'Mid equals, lay my hand on, and untwist,
His fiery locks, and play with them as with my pen!

PRIDE.

Pride is the stubbornest sin with which Man has
To struggle—it assumes so many shapes,
And, at the moment when 'tis caught, escapes,
Disguised like virtue! if you hold the glass
Of truth to it, and show it therein as
It is, it seems to stand rebuked, and apes
Humility: and thus thy virtue saps
The surer—thou hast put on the cuirass
Of spiritual warfare 'gainst a foe,
Who, in thy very triumph, doth o'erthrow
His victor, and in secret doth deride:
For thou art proud of having conquered Pride;
And, when thou seem'st most humble, he will glide
Into thy heart, proud still of being so!

ON A RICH AUTUMN-SUNSET.

Lo! on yon intervening hill the wood,
Which intercepts the setting sun, burns bright,
With unconsuming foliage, in his light;
Each leaf is turned to fire by the flood
Of radiance, and hues the rainbow could
Not rival mix and change each moment—sight
Suffices not to trace their exquisite
Comminglings—soul and sense are both subdued
Alike thereby—a solemn stillness holds
The air, as Nature paused upon the scene:
Heaven in its embrace the Earth enfolds;
And, in yon' wood, which hides him as a screen
Of living fire, mine eye the sun beholds,
Like God transfiguring, himself unseen!

ON THE CLIFFS NEAR LINMOUTH, NORTH DEVON.

Here Earth and Ocean meet direct, without
Parley or compromise, and full, in bold
Defiance, 'gainst the rocks the waves are rolled,
Urging each other on with answering shout,
Af if th' eternal barriers they would flout;
But with her rocky feet, of giant mould,
Earth stands her ground, spurning her manifold
Opponents from her, hurtling in their rout!
She veils her lofty head in clouds, and thence
Looks down afar, with calm indifference,
On the mad waves that 'neath her boil and hiss;
Gazing, prophetic, o'er the void immense
(Which but the agent of her greatness is)
On visions of her own magnificence!

WRITTEN ON THE SEA-SHORE.

By the roused Ocean I do love to stand,
And, to the billows' loud dash, as they break
Beneath, and with their foamy thunders shake
Earth's basis, set my verse, in pauses scann'd
Not by the pedant's finger, but the grand
Self-cadenced measure of the waves, which make
By their own motion melody, and take
Poetic licence beyond Man's command.
And, as the billow, with unconscious might,
Dashes the seaweed in its scornful play,
Would that my weak verse, surging to the height
Of its great purpose, so might sweep away
Earth's bubbles and worn prejudices, light
As weeds, before the great truths it would say!

ON THE DEPARTING YEAR: CHRISTMAS.

Now, like a beggar, the decrepid year
Crawls on in tatters, which the rude wind turns
Up at each step—once more the eye discerns
That face turned briefly back, which Man shall ne'er
Behold again, as, gathering his sear
And faded garments round him, patched with ferns
And leaves, with such rude art as Misery learns
From dire constraint, he totters to his bier!
What would he not give now for the mere waste,
Superfluous finery of Summer, for
A few green leaves to screen him from the war
Of elements, whose rage hath so defaced
His goodly form! Oh thou, his heir at law,
Take of thine heritage a wise foretaste!

ON A SOVEREIGN.

ON A SUNSET LANDSCAPE, SEEN OVER WATER.

AGAINST OVERSEVERE RELIGION, ALIAS NONE.

The world is not a hermit's cell—e'en by
The bare rock, where th' Ascetic seeks repose,
From what he call's life's conflicts and vain throes,
By vanity supplanting vanity,
The flower cheers his sense and charms his eye;
Seeming, with silent comment, to expose
His joyless creed, and teach him, as it grows
In loveliness, the mild theology
Of Nature! were this Earth a wilderness,
Then haply we in such a creed might trace
A fitness; but its wealth and loveliness
Are such, that she doth Solitude displace
With songs of joyance, and with flowers dress
The waste, that Man may smile, and love her face!

ON SEEING A POOR PERSON, TO WHOM I HAD GIVEN CLOTHING.

I met the old man, now so warmly clad
'Gainst winter, and, rejoicing, asked him how
He felt—he answered “better,” while his brow
Kindled with gratitude, as though he had
Received the benefit, not I! what bad,
What sorry reckoners the rich must be,
In Joy's arithmetic, who unmov'd see
The face, which they with smiles might make so glad,
In sorrow steeped! then to myself I said,
The clothing warms not him, but me—and yet
Not outwardly, it warms my heart instead!
Yet he, as though his only were the debt,
Thanks me still! see! how gently is Man led
To Good, thus more than all he gave to get!

CONTENTMENT.

Not to enjoy things, and not to possess,
Are much the same—nay, haply, in the end,
The last to our real happiness will tend
Far more—it makes us use more, lay more stress
On those we have; which, tho' in themselves less,
Thus more enjoyment yield, since we depend
On self more—and this one doth comprehend,
In its sole self, enjoyments numberless!
Enjoyment is the sole possession which
Deserves the name—the Earth, with all her charms,
Belongs not to the mighty or the rich,
But unto him whose heart a flower warms
To prayer—whose eye a daisy can bewitch—
He clasps her, like a bride, within his arms!

UPON RAILWAY TRAVELLING.

One would think this were the high road to heaven,
So like to milestones the church-steeples show,
Pointing, with silent finger, as we go,
To their far goal; as tho' they would have given
Vain Man a warning, had he not been driven
Too swiftly by to heed it, or to throw
Even a passing glance upon Time's slow,
Sure finger—Time, from whose dominion even
He feels half freed, while thus, with borrowed wings
Of mechanism, Time seems left behind!
These moments saved, the soul's alms, Science brings
To o'erworked Man, to the true halt and blind;
Abridgments of the sense to énlarge mind,
To give it time to pause, and ask the end of things!

ON A LOVELY GIRL OF HUMBLE BIRTH.

WRITTEN AT SUNSET, AFTER RAIN.

Now on the forehead of the dying Day
Hath God his rainbow set, in sign of peace,
Ethereal pledge, that, after brief surcease,
He shall arise with purer, brighter ray!
Lo! Twilight momently extends his sway,
Shadowy, save where, behind yon antique trees,
Transparent 'mid the golden light, the breeze
Wafts the empurpled clouds upon their way;
Which, as they slowly fade and pale, the Thought
Moulds into living imagery for this
Grand hymn, awhile now closing, 'till it is
Commenced again, ere Morning's star hath sought
The West, with songs of love, in praise of His
High name, whose spirit thro' the hymn hath wrought!

WRITTEN AFTER BUYING SOME FLOWERS IN LONDON.

THE LILY OF PALESTINE.

Proud lily, thou hast sown not, neither spun
The garments of thy loveliness, and yet
Thine airy brows instinctively beget
Respect in all the flowers; there is none
But to thy beauty bends its head, as one
On whose high forehead Nature's hand has set
A kingly imprint, like an amulet,
That unto thee no treason should be done—
The proud earth bears thee as a goodly thing:
She lavishes upon thee every gift
Of beauty, and around thy form doth fling,
As if forgetful of her usual thrift,
More majesty than waits upon a King,
Above thy painted compeers thee to lift!

HUMAN FEELING.

Here have I sojourned only a few days,
And yet how much already have I found
To love, to hope, and do! the very ground
Man treads on of his ways a feeling has!
The music of a good man's steps earth lays
Her ear to listen to, and at the sound
Is glad—all things rejoice in, and around,
His presence, there is music in his ways!
This poor, old man, who on the road breaks stones,
Gives me good day each morning—these small loans
Of kindness I delight to pay back, aye,
With interest—'tis well to have each day
Such debts—and who has most, who soonest owns,
E'en by the debt doth best the debt repay!

ON HEARING SOME ONE SPEAK WITH INDIFFERENCE OF A POOR CHILD.

“'Tis but a common child!”—thou'rt wrong, my friend!
'Tis an uncared-for outcast—but of Man,
Not Nature: she casts none off thus—and can
You to a prejudice so foolish lend
An added weight, and help thus to suspend
It like a yoke about his neck? a ban:
A stern necessity: which first began
In words, but in a pow'r like Fate doth end!
There is naught common—Nature hath made naught
So common, but 't may easily be wrought
Up unto some undreamt-of aptitude,
With but a little love, a little thought!
Yea! into something, too, uncommon good
And beautiful! God's own similitude!

ON A VERY OLD, BUT STILL FLOURISHING, OAK.

Would I might bear my old age even so—
So greenly, like thee, thou time-honoured oak!
Thou, who hast borne so long the lightning's stroke,
And rude winds, powerless to lay thee low;
Standing, a Sylvan Terminus, to show
The bounds of Time, while 'mid thy branches croak
The centenarian ravens, and convoke
Their meetings, as their sires long ago!
The greenness of thy strength is in thee yet—
And the young leaves, so fresh and delicate,
That clothe thy rugged stem, suggest a date
Far short of that which time has on thee set.
So, on unyielding firmness still should wait
The gentler attributes which love beget!

ON A FROSTY SUNSET.

Ye gorgeous clouds, which on the setting sun
Attend, how gloriously usefulness
And beauty, in your tints, combine, to dress
The heav'ns with robes so wonderfully spun,
That questioning Science, when she has undone
The dazzling tissue, finds it to possess
More charms, to her inquiring thoughtfulness,
Than all it had from dreaming Fancy won!
Those golden hues, to orange deepening,
Then into crimson melting slow away,
With no unmeaning pageant deck the day—
Their beauties from sublimest uses spring!
So Science wider scope gives to the wing
Of Poesy, and still extends her sway!

ON SEEING A FRIEND AFTER FIVE YEARS' ABSENCE.

ON AN ANCIENT CASTLE IN RUINS, SAVE ONE PORTION, WHICH FORMS A KIND OF DWELLING.

Nature hath been at work on these old walls—
The turf has grown, in green mounds, up their sides—
And the thick ivy (as seaweed the tides
Of ages) here the rises and the falls
Of Time's great ocean, the successive calls
Of Nature, registers: as each year hides,
With its fresh growth, some emblem that divides
Man's ways from hers, and throws its leafy palls
Stilly o'er their forgotten destinies!
So let them pass: while the soft summer-winds
Sigh out their dirge—for nothing good e'er dies!
Nature, who with her flowers yon' loopholes blinds,
Still fosters more enduring sympathies,
And gently from old errors Man's heartstrings unwinds!

ON THE HAPPY PROSPECT OF PEACE WITH AMERICA.

Lo! the dark clouds, which threatened angry war,
Once more are scattered, and the bow of peace,
Spanning the heavens, promises increase
And joy to Earth: Peace, the true household Lar
Of Man, and Heaven's steward! o'er the far
Atlantic, like a glorious frontispiece,
On the fair face of heav'n, to this new lease
Of civilization, lo! it spans the air!
A bridge for Peace to cross the ocean wide,
One end on England's seabuilt buttress rests,
The other on America's strong side;
While all between Peace with her wings invests,
Sheltering the fleets that far beneath her glide,
And speeding them upon their sacred quests!

ON SOME FLOWERS IN A POOR PERSON'S WINDOW IN LONDON.

Flowers, that in the city's dim haunts grow,
Enriching them with sweetness little known,
And giving joy, at the price of your own
Existence, like the poet—as men go
Past ye, how many yearn, and upward throw
Their eyes, recalled to feelings they've outgrown,
The while their heart-strings, touched to some old tone
Of Nature's primal music, thrill and glow!
Ye are the poor man's unbought poesy—
Ye to the city's jaded denizen,
The freshness of green fields bring healingly;
And, in this peopled solitude, where men
Without a greeting pass each other by,
Have power to stir beyond the poet's pen!

ON A SHIPWRECK, OFF BEACHY-HEAD, BY COPLEY FIELDING.

Darkness behind, as of th' o'ershadowing wings
Of blank Despair, and dim, pale light before,
Like Hope expiring on the wreckstrewn shore!
Like a wild Bacchanal, roused Ocean flings
His foamy locks upon the wind, and sings
A hymn of triumph, marking, with the roar
Of each successive wave, some hope no more,
Snatched like the plank, to which the struggler clings!
The winds are toying with the mighty waves,
Wild playfellows, careless how many graves
Their mad mirth makes—while, on their quivering crests,
The seagull, Danger's playmate, fearless rests,
Mocking the wretch, who mercy vainly craves,
With safety's image, while Death all invests!

TO KEATS.

Thou art the truest poet, Keats, for thou
Sing'st but for love, not guerdon: even as
The lark in morning's ear, whose music was,
And is, and ever will be, still as now,
Unconscious of an effort, as the bough
Is of its perfume—but the world doth pass
Such by: 'tis hard of hearing, and, alas!
Harder of heart, and takes no count of how
A poet lives and dies, till he be gone;
Still, when he asks for bread, it “gives a stone!”
And accurate biographers search out
His life's least details, when his name has grown
A word of power, and a light about
It gathered, that attends not a King's throne!

UPON SEEING A STAR IMMEDIATELY OVER THE HEAD OF THE STATUE ON THE DUKE OF YORK'S COLUMN, LONDON.

See! how yon' bright star, for a moment, crests
With light that emblematic statue's head,
And, as if heaven did reverence to the dead,
With solemn majesty its form invests!
Yet that high-rearëd effigy arrests
Not lastingly the glory on it shed—
On moves the star, upon its divine quests,
And darkness falls, funereal, in its stead!
Not on such brows the light of Heaven dwells
Abidingly—tho' high that column soar,
But a vain tale the passing winds it tells,
Of claims remembered by mankind no more—
While, far above, Fame's steady star dispels
The mists from some meek head, forgot before!

ON THE SEMPLON.

Napoleon, thou'st raised a monument
Here of thy pow'r and genius, greater far
Than aught the wake of thy triumphal car
Could leave behind—great intellect mis-spent,
And boundless means but folly's aliment!
And, as I view it, the false bays of war
Wither from thy proud brow, and yon' calm star
(Not that of bloody Mars, which ever went
Before thee, evilboding) but the clear,
Calm star of peace, from its untroubled sphere,
One ray divine has lent that brow instead!
Then learn from hence how soon doth disappear
False glory: and that this same road I tread,
Must be thy only path to Fame, when dead!

ON THE THAMES, NEAR HAMPTON-COURT.

Here flows the Thames unostentatiously—
Unmindful of the glories which await
His progress, he doth not accelerate
His current, with unseemly haste, nor eye
E'en the least stream that owes him fëalty
Askance, altho' his bosom will dilate
Anon, and he, with kingly pomp and state,
Proud cities, kneeling at his feet, pass by!
Anon, and airy bridges will his brow,
Like mural crowns, encircle, as he goes,
On towards the mighty Deep, above the woes
Of this brief generation lifting, now
As ever, his eternal voice, which knows
No change, howe'er Man's fortunes ebb and flow!

THE TRUE DIGNITY OF MAN.

The highest tribute that a man can have
Is, to be loved—and he who is, though by
His meanest fellow creature, stands more nigh
To God by this alone, than if Kings gave
Him titles manifold, his way to pave
To life's false greatness—little dignity
Can he from titles gain, however high,
Who cannot make himself, amongst the brave
And good, far higher titles than kings can,
Or would, bestow! he who cannot do this,
Must want the highest still—the name of “Man”—
And he who can, thereby far greater is,
Without them, than if dukedoms he could span,
For, by accepting those, he that must miss!

ON MACHINERY.

Ye Poets, who from steam and railroad shrink,
And, with poetic maledictions, ban
All that falls not at once into your plan,
Ye have mista'en your calling, if ye think
That Art and Science have not power to sink
Fresh shafts into the Muses' mine, nor can
Lay open new Castalian founts to Man,
Whence greatest Poets will be proud to drink!
Nought e'er on earth shall Poesy's high place
Usurp, but e'en to Matter her embrace
Divine should spiritual offspring bear—
Then here, between them, with all heavenly grace,
The banns of holy wedlock I declare,
Whom God hath joined let none asunder tear!

ON RETURNING TO LONDON.

I love to visit the great Babylon
Each year, but first I let the snowdrop blow:
That with the promise of the spring I so
May leave, and, with the swallow, come anon,
Joying my heart with the comparison!
For thus I feel that with Mankind I go,
Upon life's solid ground, and well I know
That Man lives only by such union—
The mighty pulse I like myself to feel:
And, by the Metropolitan heart, correct
The beatings of my own—not to this sect
Or that addicted with onesided zeal,
But labóuring the true pulse to detect,
Which the great heart's real movements should reveal!

ON TWO THORNS IN LEAF, ONE ON EACH SIDE THE PATH.

MARCH 27TH.

Portals of living green, ye are the gates
Of spring—ye lead to all the loveliness
Of the new year, and with rich promise bless
This path, yet bare—with promise which creates
A sense of coming beauty, and foredates
Its own fulfilment. Therefore do I press
Onward, through ye, to all the happiness
Beyond, like some rich heir to his estates!
And, lo! another full-sure pledge is here—
Though small, yet of great promise—in the root
Of yon' old oak, with leaves embrowned and sere,
Primrose and violet, at Beauty's suit,
Do pledge themselves that leaves shall reappear,
When she has found for them a substitute!

TO CRITICS.

Ye Dullards, who with precedents would bind
The wings of Genius, and so prevent
His soaring to the top of his high bent;
Know ye not that his soul is as the wind,
And blows where'er it lists, to quicken Mind
And Matter at its will: omnipotent,
And touching all the stops (to find a vent)
Of Harmony, responsive to mankind!
Think ye old Homer drew from your dead code
Of rules the living spirit of his verse,
Or that his soul required the critic's goad?
Fools! the great Spirit of the universe
Had taken up within him its abode,
And bade him to all times his tale rehearse!

ON A ROBIN.

APRIL 20TH.

There sits the Red-breast on that budding thorn,
Singing it into leaf, for so 't might seem:
The whiles unto the music of the stream,
Below, he keepeth time, and with the morn
Rejoiceth, as it were in very scorn
Of all the ills of which we Mortals dream,
And fret our hearts at—neverending theme
Of vain lament to all of woman born!
And he is right—there sits he on the bough,
And sings as if it had been ever green,
And ever would be, though it has but now
Burst into leaf—no more remembering how
He fluttered at the window, cold and lean,
When all his feathers scarce from frost could screen!

ON THE ROUGHNESS OF MY VERSE.

My Muse is harsh, they say—ay, so 't may be
Perhaps: how could it well be otherwise,
When every morn she hears a People's cries
For bread? and Nature itself scarce seems free
From the wide taint of human misery!
She cannot pick her phrases, and be nice,
When toiling Virtue stands rebuked by Vice,
And Nations starve to keep up pedigree!
She's not the silken Muse of drawing-rooms—
'Mid life's stern, bitter truths, she walks the streets,
The idle hammer, and the empty looms,
By which sits lank Despair, and Hunger cheats,
Gnawing his rivelled knuckles: 'mid the seats
Of Commerce, which bad laws now make its tombs!

ON SEEING THE MOON RESTING ON A HIGH HILL.

The Moon, from heaven stooping, the green brows
Of Earth salutes, and, mounting to her throne,
Whereon she sits most bright and most alone,
And nothing near her but the stars allows,
Which, at a reverent distance, pay their vows,
Upon her sister-planet (so to own
A fellowship divine, and make it known
To all her stars) a kiss of peace bestows!
Lo! for a moment on that hill she rests,
Which, dark, and duskier by comparison,
Like jewel on an Æthiop's brow, she crests—
And now, in glory rising, she anon
Of earthly vapours her bright form divests,
As though not brooking longer union!

AGAINST THOSE CRITICS WHO CAVIL AT THE UNCHRONOLOGICAL JUXTAPOSITIONS OF THE OLD PAINTERS, AND CONDEMN A PLAY OF SHAKSPEARE, BECAUSE HE REPRESENTS ANTIGONUS LANDING WITH PERDITA ON THE SEA-COAST OF BOHEMIA.

The Muse has other charts than yours—she has
Lands not yet marked, Hesperian isles (in vain
Sought for by ye) in Poesy's wide Main:
(For these Geography not yet doth class
'Mongst her discoveries!) at which she, as
She voyages, touches ever, to obtain
Fresh water from some new Castalian vein,
Which Commerce, in her dull routine, would pass!
O happy, happy he, who with her sails,
Her compass true to the great pole of Truth,
Though, now and then, she deviate in details—
Through literal error reaching purest sooth,
She time and space at will doth join and change,
To give Truth universal wider range!

TO SIR JOHN HANMER, ON FIRST READING HIS SONNETS,

JULY, 1842.

TO ENGLAND.

My Country dear; my dear, dear Fatherland!
Of all thy many children there are none
That love thee more than I do—no, not one!
Thou on the mighty Sea hast laid thy hand,
And tamed him, like a lion—thou hast spanned
The Earth therewith, from rise to set of sun—
The mighty winds to do thy bidding run,
And o'er the elements thou hast command!
Yet do I flatter not, not even thee—
Far brighter had'st thou been, star of the Sea,
That flam'st upon the forehead of the deep,
Had'st thou shone only for Humanitie!
A light for all Mankind in view to keep,
The star that watches while the World doth sleep!

HOW TO SEEK TRUTH.

Before a daisy in the grass I bend
My head in awe: I could not pluck it thence
Without a feeling of deep reverence,
As something God has made for a wise end!
My whole mind it requires to comprehend
The least work of Divine Intelligence,
My whole heart, with all feelings deep, intense,
Expression to its loveliness to lend!
But not so is it with the works of Man—
On these I boldly lay my hand, on creeds
And dogmas, for these come within my span—
Therefore with these articulate blasts I fan
The chaff of Custom from Truth's genuine seeds,
Like the great wind, that where it listeth speeds!

THE PURPOSE OF A LIFE.

E'en in my boyish days, ere yet a cloud
Of sadness rested on my path, except
To make it brighter, when away 't was swept
By the strong breath of Hope, so gay and proud,
E'en then I've turned aside from the vain crowd,
The forms and ceremonies, which intercept
The heart's diviner beatings, and have wept
For suffering Humanity aloud!
Aye, even then I made a boyish vow,
In Nature's own grand temple kneeling down,
Who set her sign, in token, on my brow,
That I allegiance only would avow
To him, who wears upon his head the crown
Of genuine Manhood, be he king or clown!

SUNSET-THOUGHT.

Behold yon golden path across the sea,
That seems to lead to heaven—unto each
And all, from every point, 'tis shown, to teach
That even so the path to heaven is free
To all men equally, let their degree
Be what it may—thus, without aid of speech,
By illustration clear, doth Nature preach
High truths, and vindicate Humanitie!
On a like golden path, to all thus shown,
Strewing each step with flow'rs, she leads Man still
Up to his Being's height, as to a throne—
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and, Ill
From Good still gently parting, she makes known
And more the Good, till Man finds Good alone!

AMBITION.

Glory enough 'twere for the greatest man
To write what men should in their mouths still have,
Day after day, when he is in his grave—
To be identified with things of span
And scope perdúrable, that since began
The world high mention of mankind still crave:
Things with a soul of good in them, to save
Them from oblivion, which naught else can—
Aye, glory 'twere enough to write a song,
That e'en the child upon its mother's knee
Should love to sing, and still remember long,
Long after, in the days that are to be!
And which to mind recalling, he feels strong,
Within, the heart of his Humanitie!

A CITY, AT SUNSET.

The sun is sinking, gorgeous, o'er the hill,
And, with his parting smile, lights up the reek
Of the great city, rising without break,
With quiet motion gently upwards, 'till,
Touched by his rays, it seems the air to fill
With golden incense, and the heavens to seek:
An offering unto God, from many-a meek,
Pure, household altar, burning daily still!
Yes, that great city, with its thousand homes
And hearths, and gentle household fires, is
A goodly altar, such as well becomes
The God invoked—an altar built to His
Religion, and the fair Humanities
Of social Life, which there join hands and kiss!

ON IMAGINATION.

Imagination, godlike faculty,
When unto ministering Reason brought
To yield obedience, and wings to Thought!
To Thought, who, without thee, can not soar high
Enough to be sublimed to poesy—
Thou art the inspiring heat from heaven caught,
In which the dross of earth is fused, and wrought
To shapes of beauty, worthy of the sky.
Thou art the poor man's treasure—thou canst turn
The stones in sunshine on the road to gold—
And make his heart e'en at a daisy yearn—
While Earth her cornucopia seems to hold
For him, and all its riches manifold,
When but an ear of corn he can discern!

VIEW OF HALDON-HILL, FROM EXMOUTH.

Fair hill, that, like a meadow-queen, dost sit
By Exe's waters, spreading out thy green
And meady skirts down to the stream between
Thee and thy sister-hills, a mirror fit
To glass such beauty—o'er which come and flit
Thy shadows, who art 'mongst the hills a queen,
And of thy verdant coronal, with sheen
Of sunset, like a crown of emeralds, lit!
Lovely art thou, and adding loveliness
To all around thee thro' thy silvan reign;
But now the thickening shades of twilight press
Thine airy brows, and thou dost sink again
To rest: while gathering stars, above thee, bless
Thee, and, stretched at thy feet, the mighty Main!

THE TRUE BENEFACTORS OF MANKIND.

Unnoticed goes the great Man thro' the crowd,
And yet he is a mighty Influence,
Taking a wide sweep and circumference
Of Man and Nature—Influence not loud,
But deep, and felt where it is least avowed
And known—like the great wind, which, scarce to sense
Perceptible, nor whither nor yet whence
It blows, and yet with power divine endowed,
Is known but by the freshness of the earth,
To which, when it has passed by, it gives birth!
So thro' the crowd he passes, caring not
Whether, or how, it estimate his worth—
Well knowing that he cannot be forgot,
Who with his kind identifies his lot!

ON READING SIR J. HANMER'S SONNETS.

Great Poet, thou hast scarce yet fledged thy wing,
Yet tak'st so wide a sweep of poesy,
That thou art lost already to my eye,
Upsoaring 'bove the Heliconian spring!
Thou need'st no breath of my administering—
Yet, with these few, articulate blasts, would I
Thy bolder flight urge on admiringly,
'Till, larklike, thou far out of sight dost sing!
Sufficient unto me, if I can hear
Thee still, tho' longer able not to see,
Nor bear thee, so far heavenwards, companie—
And, when again to earth thou drawëst near,
My herald-song once more shall welcome thee,
Joying the earth with music from the sphere!

ON REVISITING THE SEA.

Roll on, thou mighty Ocean, roll: and fill
Mine ear with thy memorial harmony,
Once more, as in the days which are gone by:
When first thy mighty voice my heart did thrill,
Making it gush, as from the rock the rill;
And, in thy lap, as in a cradle, I
Lay, listening to thy mighty lullaby,
The everlasting song thou singëst still!
Roll on, and let me think myself the same
As when first, in its freshness and its power,
Over thine azure brow the great Wind came,
Mingling its free breath with thy mighty roar.
Two voices, uttering díversely one name,
The name of Him, whom they alone adore!

ON AN INTELLIGENT ARTIZAN, IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY;

OR, TRUE TASTE AND TRUE HUMAN FEELING THE SAME THING.

Rude art thou in thy dress, thy fustian-coat,
Thy coarse, cloth-trowsers, and thy well-worn hat:
Rude art thou in these things, yet what of that?
Thou art not rude in soul—thou hast a vote
'Mongst those whose voice the coming age will quote,
As of authority to mar or make—
The Mass, whose mighty breath alone can wake
Fame's trump, and blow a correspondent note!
Yes, in thine unassumed Humanity,
Thou hast a sanction beyond that of kings,
And speak'st, unknowingly, ordainëd things,
Which are enduring as the earth and sky—
Thy heart within is one of many strings,
Touched by the Master's hand unerringly!

POETRY.

Not only there where rural beauty teems,
Stretched at his ease in Nature's fostering lap,
The poet thrives, and, as the tree its sap,
Draws health and strength, and sweet, congenial themes—
But in the throng'd resorts, where men no dreams
Indulge, still poring o'er the living map
Of human passions, true Parnassian streams
Are wanting not.—Humanity her pap
Holds to the poet's lips, and he sucks in,
From their divinest, truest origin,
Both Poesy and Life—yes, even there,
With the first beatings of the heart, begin
Poetic yearnings: and the highest are
Those which Man with his fellow-man doth share!

ON LIGHTING MY FIRST FIRE AT HOME, AFTER A CHEERLESS JOURNEY.

O genial flame, thou gatherest around
Thy household smile the light of other days;
This room, (erewhile so vacant) in thy blaze
(As these inanimate objects here had found
Remitted being, and about me wound
With arms of love) draws round me, to displace,
With Home's most homesome, dear, memorial face,
The stranger-aspect which from all things frown'd—
Welcome my old arm-chair: stretch out thine arms,
Old friend, and take me to thyself again;
Thou hast borne with me in mine hour of pain:
There art thou still, 'mid all life's hurts and harms,
Haven of rest—the throne, on which I reign
O'er Man's best empire, Home, with all its charms!

A HARVEST-SKETCH.

Ye green hills, circling in your sunny lap
Ripe Summer, basking at his length, with crown
Of wheaten spike about his forehead brown,
And head upon a new-cut sheaf, mayhap,
Just laid, and drowsiëd to a noontide nap
By its near poppies, freshly ye look down,
Cooling the eye, whilst noon all else doth wrap
With fiery mantle, gilding field and town—
Perennial verdure clothes ye, as it were,
A garment, whose green skirts the waters kiss,
Keeping it fresh below; whilst, high in air,
The cooler winds, whose task it is, repair
To fan your queenly brows, lest Earth should miss
Your beauty, and her eye lose one great bliss!

ON SEEING A VIOLET IN FLOWER,

25TH OF JANUARY.

O sweet-breath'd flower, the perfume of the Spring
Lingers about thee still—the wandering air
In passing, as it toys with thee, doth bear
Memorial sweetness with it on its wing:
Rude playfellow for such a springtide thing
As thou, whom Winter out of love would spare—
A pledge, (of which the elements have care)
To which the yearning Earth doth blindly cling!
So have we something with us to remind
Us still of sweets gone by, or yet to come—
There is a voice prophetic, never dumb—
The gulf is not so wide or deep behind,
But Hope and Memory can find out some
Device to join hands still, and cheer Mankind!

ON BEING TOLD THAT I OVERADVOCATED THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.

Not so, my fellowmen! though I have been
Brought up in wealth and bred to luxury:
By strong associations bound, which tie
Men down to place and circumstance: I've seen,
And see, the outline of Man's godlike mien,
Like some colossal statue, calm and high,
Around whose head the glories of the sky
Still linger, though his feet Earth's shadows screen!
And, having seen, I see it evermore—
A portion of that glory lingers yet
E'en on the meanest brow; and I before
It bend, (as though God's hand were lightly set
On mine own head and bent it down, that debt
Sublime to pay,) and God in Man adore!

ON PRESENTING A COPY OF MY POEMS TO A PAINTER-FRIEND.

Here would the Muse of Poesy (if I
Take not her name in vain, who on her call,
Whose voice at best is little musical,
And ill may charm her to its ministry)
Stretch out to her fair sister of the sky,
Who bears the rainbow emblematical
On her bright head, her hand enriching all,
And bid her through the music of the eye
Exalt Man and refine—then let each take
Him by the hand, and lead him on his way;
So shall eternal Beauty with him make
Her dwelling still, and, like a cherub, play
Before his path, and, as he goes, awake
For him fresh harmonies from day to day.

ON READING SIR JOHN HANMER'S SONNETS.

1842.

Dim, in the twilight, sitteth Poesy,
Like some old marble, still and motionless!
Upon her eyelids sleep doth lightly press:
She hath a dream—and, lo! far up the sky,
Climbs a bright star, so still and secretly;
And, as it rises, it doth dispossess
Her brow of its o'ershadowing thoughtfulness,
With calm reflections of eternity!
And, lo! she opens up her eyes divine—
Long hath she watched and waited for that star,
Which to all men henceforth shall be a sign;
With heavenly power commissioned to unbar
The gates of song, until the full day shine,
Which it brings with it, brightening from afar!

HOPES OF THE FUTURE.

We do not work our wonders with the sword,
Dear Countrymen, nor claim aught on such plea—
With mothers, and with children on their knee,
With patient Thought, and Love, that can afford
To suffer, and, by suffering, record
His power to atchieve all victorie,
With these, and with whatever else may be
Gentlest, and with the power of the Word,
We work our wonders, which none can gainsay!
Unfailingly, as from the grass the flower,
The seed divine we scatter by the way,
Shall spring, and ripen in its destined hour—
Then shout, ye Nations, for the harvest-day
Is coming, and the Sun of Truth gains power!

ON A LITTLE CHILD.

Into the garden came a little child,
Quite young in this old world, quite new to all
The stops of harmony, so musical,
So endless: which so many hearts have thrilled,
Long ere he came—yet from which his, by mild
And gentle schooling, shall, in its turn, call
Forth music too, fresh and original,
As though ne'er yet a heart had been beguiled
Thereby! delightedly he looked around,
Afraid to pluck the flowers for awhile,
As if he trod upon enchanted ground—
And, at each step, he listened, with a smile,
To the sweet music he awaked, profound
Yet simple, greatest, least, to reconcile!

TO MY MUSE.

Onward, my Muse, not backward, lies thy way:
Thy portion's in the future, not the past—
The sunset of the bygone day doth cast
A glory round thee: its last splendors play
On the hill-tops and steeples hoar and gray,
And the old heights of Time, shedding a last
And retrospective gleam on things now fast
Into oblivion fading, day by day!
Yet in that sunset and its glories old
Dost thou rejoice, though but a bygone thing—
For thereby is the brighter dawn foretold,
Which all that's fair and good in that shall bring
Back with it, in more beauty, with a hold
More during, that to these Man's heart may closer cling!

TO AN ACORN.

Thou tiny germ, small source of mightiest things—
Great heart in little body, like the Land
That bore thee: instrument, to its mighty hand
Fashion'd on purpose, that, with the wind's wings,
'T might lift her up to the first place 'mongst kings
And kingdoms, and invest her with command
Over the elements, for service grand,
And led at will, as 't were in leading-strings!
Glory to thee, so small as thou now art—
The powers of heaven have thy cradle blest,
With promised stores of Nature and of Art;
Soon shalt thou spread thine arms abroad, and rest
On the great sea, the world-uniting mart,
Where men meet for Man's common interest!

ON A WATERMILL, SEEN ON A SUNDAY IN SPRING.

Even inanimate Nature seems to share
The blessed quiet of this holy day;
The stream, uninterrupted, on its way
Glides gently, as if murmuring a prayer!
While, through the old elm's foliage, breathes the air
Inaudible, with unperceivëd play
And undulation, 'mid the pensile spray,
As if in Nature's worship part to bear!
Yon' wheel, which change and motion both unites,
Is now best emblem of their opposites,
A living metaphor, in Life's so strange,
Yet lovely, poem! so Nature Man requites
For keeping one day holy, and invites
To thoughts beyond the reach of chance and change!

ON HEARING “RULE BRITANNIA” PERFORMED IN ST. PAUL'S, IN CONNECTION WITH THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.

ON THE SEA, AFTER A STORM.

The sea comes booming with a hollow sound,
As he had muffled all his waves, for some
Funereal dirge—a melancholy hum
Fills all the poring air and earth, around:
As if, filled with one sentiment profound
Of grief, the elements had been struck dumb;
And this great globe were but a muffled drum,
Beating the hour which shall all things confound!
The winds are hushed, erewhile so wild: their wings
Are folded, and they brood upon the sea,
Which heaves beneath, as to and fro it swings,
Like some great deathbell, booming heavily!
Nature seems at a stand: and yet she clings
To life, though in her last, deep agonie!

ON LOVE.

The pomps and splendors of the world, I ween,
Have naught to do with Love—nay, they destroy,
And, when most deep, disfashion and alloy—
They thrust their cold and stately arms, with mien
Formal and ceremonious, between
Hearts that would meet and mingle in their joy;
And, for Love's sweet interpreters, employ
(Lest Nature, fine in Love, break down the screen
Of hollow forms which hides her holy face)
The master of the ceremonies, so
To train the heart, poor hack in Fashion's race!
While, in some cot, two hearts together grow,
With naught, save God, between them to displace,
God who is Love, the channel where they meet and flow!

ON SHAKSPEAR'S REPRESENTING ANTIGONUS LANDING WITH PERDITA ON THE SEACOAST OF BOHEMIA.

ON BURNS' HUMANITY.

Oh noble Burns! thy soul was like the lark,
That 'neath thy feet sprang up to greet the sky,
Yet singing of the earth eternally,
And pleading up to heavën—while yet dark
It lay beneath thee, thou afar didst mark
The Day that cometh in its majesty;
And, kindling up thereat thy poesy,
With its articulate blasts didst blow the spark!
That spark of Love divine, which in thy soul
God placed, and which, as still thou sang'st, did grow
And kindle, 'till it warmed this mighty Whole—
Until that Whole, transfigured in its glow,
Revealed to thee the one great Word, the sole
Abiding Truth: that Love is all below!

TO THE BIRDS.

Welcome, ye whom alike the earth and air
Rejoice in, welcome to all love and praise—
Ye are still with us in our daily ways,
And still, where-ever joy is, ye have share,
And make it sweeter, and, where 'tis not, bear
It with ye still, to many a forlorn place,
From healthy breathing and the unbought grace
Of Nature nigh shut out, save ye be there!
Welcome, for ye are with us day by day,
Giving the blessedness of Earth a voice,
While the months dance on to your roundelay—
The heart of Man, where ye are, doth rejoice,
Ye make his dwellings pleasant, like the noise
Of waters to the wanderer on his way!

AUTHORITY AND INFLUENCE.

Authority says unto one man, do
This, and he does it: to another, go,
And straight he goes—yet 'tis but outward show,
Not heartfelt—for an action has no true
Significance, save we perform it through
An inward prompting: save volition flow
Spontaneous as a stream, and round it grow
The flowers of Love, whence its sweet source it drew!
But Influence takes us gently by the hand,
And round our hearts twines close as does the rose
Round home's dear porch, with daily presence bland—
She is obeyed, and yet doth not command—
For she the flowers of duty only shows,
Whose thorns wound but the rash who press too close!

ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO EDINBURGH, ANNOUNCED BY BEACON-FIRES ON THE HIGHER HILLS.

[“Thou art no better than thy fellow men]

“Thou art no better than thy fellow men,
Yet would'st instruct them in the way to go!”
'Tis true I am not—but may I not show
The path, as does a signpost, even when
I follow not myself? if but some ten,
Nay one, the true path to Man's greatness so
Finds out, and puts in act what I but know,
Still as a signpost thou may'st thank my pen—
I am no better than the least: but yet,
After my kind, and in my poor degree,
I labour to repay the common debt,
Which all men owe unto Humanitie;
And, if my song from that root grow, its plea
Will hold good, and men store by it will set!

ON SENDING SOME SONNETS TO THE EDITOR OF THE EXAMINER.

If thy far-reaching telescope, which takes
So wide a compass of Humanity,
And the horizon of its farthest sky,
With stars of the first size, whose luminous wakes
Leave tracks of light (like streaks when morning breaks)
On Time's horizon, can mark such as I,
And this faint star of dawning poesy,
Which small show 'midst these greater glories makes:
If thou canst notice it, and let its ray
Shine on thy page, and light a glowworm space,
Though that be too much where each line hath grace
And force, and lends a tongue to Truth, to say
Her thoughts divine, 'twill labour to repay
The favour, and to shine with brighter face!

PARALLEL BETWEEN THE ARCHITECTS OF CATHEDRALS, AND OF THE MORAL FABRICS OF SOCIETY.

As, when some Genius hath planned a pile
Of scope perdúrable, where Faith her wings
May spread at large, and to the invisible things
Of God upsoar, the multitude meanwhile
The tool, the instrument, (though blind, not vile,
For it, though labouring darkly, cleaves and clings
To the great work it works out) which he brings
To bear, and doth adapt and reconcile
To his great hand—so the true architects
Of Time foreshape the age that is to be,
Which generations, each in its degree,
Opinions, creeds, religions, systems, sects,
The united labour of Humanitie,
Work out, whilst God, the Master, all directs!

ON SEEING, OR, RATHER, NOT SEEING, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

ON MOZART, WHO LIVED IN NEGLECT, AND DIED IN POVERTY.

O Genius, waiting in the courts of kings
With menials, who oft higher wages get,
As if thou, and not they, incur'dst the debt:
As if thy works sublime were but playthings
T' amuse an idle hour, and the strings,
On which thou dost all harmony beget,
And to the music of Creation set,
Were but a common fiddler's offerings!
Alas for thee: thou, who should'st eat the bread
Of Immortality, when thus constrained
To pick the crumbs that fall where fools have fed!
Thou, who wert made to utter things ordained,
To whom the world doth listen—whom, when dead,
It worships, though when living it disdained!

ON A LATE FLOWERING FORGETMENOT.

SEPTEMBER 14TH.

Forgetmenot!—no, I will not forget
Thee, little flower, by the bare roadside—
Thou dost recal the glories of springtide,
When the full stream of loveliness had set
In with its first, deep flow, from violet
And primrose, sweetening into maiden pride,
To the rich rose, and lily, which doth hide
Its drooping head in valleys moist and wet—
Stray flowër, that hast outlived all thy kind,
Reminder of those who themselves remind!
Thou call'st up that fresh time, when at the skies
Earth, through ye and your thousand azure eyes,
Gazed, like a blue-eyed child, as if to bind
Man's youth to her's by close affinities!

SCANDAL-MONGERS.

The fœtid breath of Scandal hits not me,
It fouls the foul, and in their nostrils stinks—
The prude, who at her sister's fault ne'er winks,
But, open-eyed, is still the first to see
The mote in her eye, in the same degree
Blind to the beam in her own vision, shrinks,
Affectedly, at pleasure's name, yet drinks
More of the “stolen waters,” on that plea!
Out on them, and their whole envenomed tribe,
That poison social intercourse divine—
The gall of Juvenal would scarce describe
Them fitly, though nought else so well could bribe
His pen splenétic to words masculine,
As Vice that would, as Virtue, Virtue undermine.

ON SOME OLD ARMOUR.

Old brand, hung up in hall memorial,
Hauberk and helmet with armorial crest,
The rust now eats ye, ye have seen your best
Of days, ye answer no more to the call!
Hard blows ye've seen and given, and the fall
Of many-a rider on earth's bloodstained breast,
In mortal strife: but now ye are at rest,
Like those ye witness of on this old wall!
Ye have a strife more mortal to wage now:
Ye, who long preyed on others, are the prey
Of Time, who moulds ye into spade and plough,
And ploughs up for Truth's seeds, which, through ye, lay
Unsown, your fields, and heals Earth's deep-scarr'd brow,
That Peace may kiss her cheek, and with her stay!

ON THE CLOSE OF A MOST BEAUTIFULLY CALM AND SUNNY DAY.

SEPTEMBER 13TH.

This lovely day, so full of life and love,
This summer in itself, nay, life almost,
Lingers on its sweet way, as if it cost
The earth below, and heaven itself above,
A pang to part from it! no thing doth move,
Save, in the sun, yon' flies, of change or frost
Not dreaming, but bent solely to exhaust
Their happy lives, and every hour improve,
As if such things could never be! and I,
Stilling th' importunate voice of consciousness,
Almost believe as they, undoubtingly
Enjoying this day's perfect loveliness;
For, if it were to last eternally,
Lovelier it could not be, and might be less!

ON THE ROSEMARY.

Sweet Rosemary, the tomb and altar claim
Joint shares in thee, for office different,
And yet both with a common sentiment:
Under the twofold aspect (yet one, same
Deep truth) of hope and memory—thy fame,
And that rare privilege, (as Nature meant
Thee for such service, Winter's ornament)
Have made for thee an old, memorial name!
Thou flowerest when old Christmas, all-a-cold,
Sits over comfortable fires, in mind
To keep thy painted compeers, not so bold—
So art thou for remembrance well designed—
Nor less for hope: as giving manifold
Assurance of renewal to thy kind!

ON THE CHRISTMAS CUSTOM OF LIGHTING THE NEW LOG AT THE REMNANT OF THE OLD.

At the memorial log of the last year
We light that of the next, and so hand on,
Theme of traditional comparison
And quaint remembrance, that old fire, clear
And strong, of household love and usage dear;
With a transmitted bond of union,
It links the days to come with those long gone,
A rallying-point for each domestic sphere—
So, in a wider sphere, but with like aim,
We light the Vestal fire, on which depends
The nation's welfare, at the antique flame,
And from the old the new to heaven ascends:
Stronger and purer burning, yet the same,
And lighting us more clearly to like ends!

ON THE DRUIDS CUTTING MISTLETOE WITH A GOLDEN SICKLE, FOR THEIR RITES.

With golden sickle emblematical,
For precious as the office was the make,
The Druids cut the sacred plant, and brake
It not in ruder fashion, at the call
Of their old worship quaint and mystical.
Deep truth lay in that rite, and, for its sake,
Let us, still labouring the good to take,
And leave the evil, not reject it all!
The golden sickle with which Man all good
May reap, is Love—and if he gather e'en
A branch of mistletoe, in loving mood,
To deck his house or temple, he has been
Using that golden sickle, understood
Aright, and not its mere similitude!

TO THE SCORNERS.

Sneer thou who hast a right to sneer at all,
Though at the meanest of thy fellow-men—
But I forget—forgive thee—and so then
We're quit: or, rather, thy dull sneer doth fall
Back on thyself, and its unchristian gall
Thy heart, thy life's springhead, embitters; when
Thou scorn'st a fellow-creature, thou art ten
Times worse: his fault compared with thine is small.
For he, who sins from want of Love alone,
Breaks all commandments, since they all are based
On Love: as almost all faults are effaced
Through it, for him who Faith with Love doth crown—
The circle, drawn from God, where lie embraced
All duties, from the cottage to the throne!

TO MAN.

O what is Man, that he should, poor, frail thing!
Walk on the greenwove carpet of the grass:
While flowërs, 'neath his steps, as he doth pass,
Shoot up, to make their scented offering?
What is he, that still, as he goes, the spring
Makes music for his hearing, and the mass
Of Nature's wonders strive which shall surpass
In doing him most service, like a King!
Wherefore all this, O Man? because thou art
Endowed with intellect majestical,
Looking before and after, and a heart
To love all things—therefore art thou of all
This lovely world sole lord—Nature and Art
Kneel at thy feet, and thee their master call!

ON A DEWDROP IN THE SUN.

TO IMOGEN.

ON A QUIET SUMMER-EVENING, BY THE SEA.

ASPIRATIONS.

Yes, I shall live, and men of me shall speak
In time to come, and, on its mother's knee,
The little child shall learn a verse from me;
Shall learn to love the flowers, with a meek
And gentle love, and all its pleasures seek
In Nature's lap: and all that it can see,
Yea, every living thing, in its degree,
To love and cherish, be it strong or weak!
Yes, I will be a household Lar, that o'er
The fireside still watches, and which there
With words and acts of love men best adore—
For I have wrought from love, and ask no more
For recompense than love, that men may wear
Me in their hearts, as them in mine I wore!

ON GOING A SHORT DISTANCE OUT OF LONDON, IN THE SPRING.

Far am I from all voice of citied life:
No sound thereof comes here; or, if it does,
'Tis like the ocean's, hushed and murmurous
In distance—all the petty care and strife,
The jar of sin and suffering, so rife
In peopled deserts, like an incubus
Upon the breast of social Man, are thus
Awhile forgot; and, like a loving wife,
Who takes her truant husband back again,
Though he hath lately played the libertine,
Me to her holy breast doth Nature strain,
With the old love, in its first force divine!
And round me all her new-grown flowers doth twine,
Like loveknots, the more sweetly to constrain!

TO THOSE WHO MEASURE MEN BY THEIR WEALTH AND APPEARANCE.

“He is an outcast”—aye, but more a Man—
A coin, which bears still on its much-rubbed face
That stamp, though tarnished of the minter's grace,
Which gives all currency—and would ye scan
It closer, and the dust of Custom fan
Away, which lies thick on it, ye might trace
God's image, which for Mammon's ye displace,
Effacing in the end what God began!
Go, weigh it in the scales: it is not light,
Save in your estimation, and should pass
Though 't were but for the figure's sake! what right
Have ye to mark as base that which God has
Put into circulation, and which might
Contain more gold, though worn, than ye have brass!

SELF-ENCOURAGEMENT.

Rise up, my Muse: a cloud on thee hath been,
While yet but crescive in thy faculty,
And, with the full moon of thy poesy,
Bear on with thee the clouds that intervene,
Which erst prevented thee from being seen:
Or gild them with thy light, in passing by,
And leave them on thy way forgetfully,
Calm in the strength of thine acknowledged sheen!
The Earth has sent up envious mists, from time
To time, to dim the brightness of thy face:
But thou to upper air meanwhile didst climb,
Freeing thyself from neighbourhood so base:
And now thou hast full scope to run thy race,
In bright companionship with things sublime!

RETROSPECTIVE.

Fortune hath stood between me and the plan
I fashioned for my youth and set apart—
Some one to love, in singleness of heart,
And Love me for myself, a simple man,
An unspoilt child of Nature—one who can
Not bear the chains of fashion or of art,
Still less the barter of the social mart,
Where Truth and Nature lie 'neath Custom's ban.
Yet could I love in very simpleness
Of heart, and dally with the innocence
Of Love, like the old age—for, I profess,
The world hath not another recompense,
Nor aught, in after-life, like Love to bless,
Sought for itself, without end or pretence!

ON PEACE BEWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

Oh England, to thy daughter of the sea
Stretch out thine hand, in pledge of faith renewed,
And let the great Sea, which doth both include,
Between ye natural mediator be,
To bring ye still together, on the plea
Of mutual welfare and similitude
Of blood and manners: linking ye, through good
And evil, like two sisters fair and free!
He hath a missionry of love between
Ye still to execute, his daughters twain:
To make ye greater than ye yet have been,
And give ye conjoint empire o'er the main—
For Peace divine he brings still in his train,
And Freedom ever at his side is seen!

STATECRAFT SIMPLIFIED.

The rules of individual life are clear—
And if, from their true centre, the one Man,
We stretch them, yet unforced, to their full span,
They will with ease embrace each widening sphere
Of human action, 'till they disappear
In endless circles, far, far wider than
Earth's range, 'till lost in God, who himself can
Not violate, nor with them interfere!
The interests of nations are the same
As those of the one Man: their duties too—
The Gordian-knots of statecraft, some cut through
With the sword, defeating, in the end, their aim,
Justice and Truth with gentle hand undo,
And out of difficulties triumphs frame!

THE PRIDE OF THE FOREST.

Old oak, that wear'st the glory of thy years
About thee, like a garment: thou art young
At heart, though in thy boughs the birds have sung
For many an age: and joy has been, and tears,
And changes on the earth, and hopes and fears,
Since thou wert planted; many a spring hath hung
Its green robes on thee, ages hast thou flung
A kingly shadow o'er thy forest peers!
Old Patriarch of many days, the wind
Amid thy branches takes a solemn tone,
Well suited to its powers and thine own:
Giving thee influence above thy kind,
And voice oracular, so to make known
Ordainëd things to whom it is assigned!

ON SEEING A FINE MERCHANT-VESSEL COMING OUT OF PORT.

Like a sea-bird she sits upon the sea:
And now unto the wind she opens out
Her white wings, wearing gracefully about,
As if she held the elements in fee:
And, stretching forward on her mission, she
Leans after it, as 't were, as if in doubt
Awhile which way to take; then, with a stout
Resolve, she seeks the main, with motion free
And high-magestical—about her play
The ministering winds, the waves make way,
As for some creature of the element,
And Ocean flings upon her brows his spray,
Baptizing her to full accomplishment
Of the great quests of Peace, on which she's sent!

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLISHING MY POEMS.

TO THE CHARTISTS, UPON THEIR SUPPRESSING PUBLIC MEETINGS.

Ye fools, who clamour for the “Charter” so,
And yet, in seeking it, defeat the end
Ye yourselves have in view—why would ye bend
The necks of others to your yoke? to show
How little ye true freedom love or know?
If such as ye were destined to ascend
Her social heights, your vision might extend
Beyond these views of party, and thence throw
A glance upon the great map of mankind;
Learning that Freedom is in reach of those
Alone, who, claiming free use of their mind,
The channels of Opinion never close:
Which with a thousand different courses wind,
And mix in Thought's great sea, from whence they rose!

ON SOME FLOWERS ABOUT A NEAT COTTAGE DOOR.

Oh sight beyond all others passing-dear!
The love of Nature is the love of all
That's good, and beautiful, and rational—
And he, who has but taken pains to rear
A rose about his door, extends his sphere
Of being and enjoyment—he a call
Has had, and caught the voice poetical,
Which speaks through all her lovely works so clear.
And, by that rose, she leads, in gentle guise,
Him, by the hand, as 't were, upon his way,
And round him all life's fair humanities
Calls by degrees; for she will not betray
The heart that trusts her, but, with closer ties,
Towards her draws, nor lets it go astray!

ON SEEING A BEAUTIFUL REVENUE-CUTTER PUT OUT TO ASSIST A VESSEL IN DISTRESS.

Sea-Swallow, skimming o'er the crested waves,
As if endued unto the element,
On what swift-wingëd mission art thou bent,
That, while the wind, at fiercest, 'round thee raves,
And the seamew alone the tempest braves,
Thou venturest forth, like hound upon the scent
Just loosed, and without one presentiment
Of ill, or that those billows can make graves?
All good be with thee: for the heart of Man
Wafts prayers and wishes after thee, to fill
Thy sails with breaths propitious, and to still
The tempest—nor could aught be likelier than
Man's prayer for Man to bend th' Almighty's will,
Could he, for such things, change the world's great plan!

TO SHAKSPEAR.

O godlike spirit, open as the day
To every influence of Humanity!
Heart, like the ocean in capacity,
That takest in, as if 't were but in play,
So great thine ease, so sovereign thy sway,
All streams of feeling, mingled healthfully
In thy broad bosom, and thence filtered, by
A thousand channels, into showers of May,
Quickening where-e'er they fall! oh soul divine,
To whom all streams are tributary here,
That tak'st all others, and yet mak'st them thine,
And send'st them forth again more pure and clear!
Deep reservoir of Good—exhaustless mine,
Rich as the earth, mankind at large to cheer!

ON MISTAKEN GRANDEUR.

Thou stately soul, so full of dignity,
That canst not stoop from thy surpassing height
Of greatness, to do once, in very spite
Of all thy state, an act of kindness! why
Would'st thou do good, pray, thus vicariously,
And rob thyself of that so dear delight,
Which else would have belonged to thee of right,
The still voice whispering sweetly from the sky?
Why must thou ring the bell, that servile hand
May take the thorn from out that poor hound's foot?
Wast thou not bid to do it, by command
Of thy Lord as of his? to execute
Whose least, least wish e'en kings should run or stand:
And whom thou servëst, serving e'en that brute!

ON A LOVELY REFLECTION IN WATER.

Hast thou, when, on their downy wings, the winds
Have lulled themselves to rest, like sea-birds, seen
A landscape pictured in a lake's calm sheen,
Where old, familiar objects the eye finds,
But glorified, as 't were: freed from those blinds
Of earthliness, through which, as through a screen
Of mist, we darkly saw? yet there, I ween,
The soul may be, though sense the body binds,
Translated also! yet the most real life
Is that of soul, for, where our souls are, what
Else want we? thus it is and it is not!
Like a bright bubble, which to sight doth live,
But not to touch—then touch it not—but give
It scope—'tis real, till thou hast this forgot!

MEANS OF CIVILIZATION.

With things of little cost, of every day,
As common as kind words and gentle looks,
And daily greetings, and familiar books,
That teach us wisdom while it seems but play:
With means at hand still by life's daily way,
As natural as flowers by the brooks,
As pleasant as field-paths thro' sylvan nooks,
And so cheap that the poorest can defray
The expense thereof: with these, and things like these,
We work our wonders by the fireside:
Our magic-charms, the kiss of love and peace;
Our magic-circles, small at first, but wide
Enough at last to grasp the world with ease,
Homes, where God, as in temples, doth reside!

ON THE SEASHORE, ON A STORMY DAY.

The wild wind, and still wilder sea, now make
Together chorus rude, yet passing-grand:
While the old, choral rocks, along the strand,
Forth, in harmonic concert, fitful break,
And from the winds and waves an utterance take;
Music, beyond the reach of mortal hand,
Well-suited to the tempest, which hath spanned
Ocean and Air, with power to awake
Their mighty melodies—yea, every wave
Hath now a voice, and, quiring, to the shore
It comes, then, rising from its vocal grave,
Joins to the next its congregated roar—
A multitudinous harmony, which cave
And cliff re-echo, making it still more!

TO TIME.

Oh Time, so deaf, and dumb, and blind, to all
Who would from the direct forthright, with bribes
Or flattery turn thee, Literature's pay'd Scribes
And Pharisees, who at the corners call
Aloud, and for the World's approval bawl,
While, in the vulgar race, the courtiers' kibes
The citlings gall, and swell the venal tribes,
Like buzzing flies, and as ephemeral,
That flyblow present Havings—thou an eye
Hast ever open to perceive Truth, where
So e'er she lurk, far down, or up-on high:
An ear to hear her voice, a tongue to cheer!
Therefore in thee I trust, and, without fear,
Still journey onward in thy company!

TO NAPOLEON.

Great instrument indeed, but not great Man—
Means of great good, by thyself not designed:
Unconscious giver of light unto the blind,
Of freedom unto slaves—thy course began
In purposed good, but widened, as it ran,
To headlong evil: leaving thee to find
Power with it, or to be left behind,
As one who could the storm he raised not span!
Thou wert a thunderbolt, that smit the thrones
Of Kings, dismaying all earth's crownëd drones,
And rousing nations who were half asleep.
So the much good, thou didst not mean, atones
The more ill thou didst mean: letting the deep,
True fountains of Man's Thought their free course keep!

ON PLUCKING A FLOWER.

Mine eyes are dim with tears, my heart is full:
This little flower hath subdued me quite!
It hath loosed all the fountains of delight
Within my heart, and not alone I pull
That flower, but all sweets of Nature cull
Therewith—enjoyment perfect, infinite,
Which opens up, in all its depth and height,
This world, so lovely and so wonderful!
O God, how rich must be the heart of Man!
When e'en a little flower by the way,
Brings, if its beauty's felt, within his span
This world, and all the harmonies that play
Throughout it: till he thinks he can, and can
Indeed, hear some new music every day!

WRITTEN WITH A STRAY FEATHER FROM CUPID'S WING.

She is another's p'rhaps, and has forgot
Me quite: so have not I forgotten her!
A flower she had worn I would prefer
To all the wreaths poetic for my lot
Reserved—a lock of hair to riches, not
To me so precious—yes, I will aver,
One kiss of hers, the very harbinger
And messenger of Love, by it begot
Ere well announced, would more than compensate
The frowns of all the Muses and of Fate!
Alas! the joyous and the flowery prime
Is past, and I regret the loss too late:
While th' Hesperian fruit, which I did climb
The tree of knowledge for, comes not in time!

SUNSET.

The golden foot-prints of departing Day
Are fading from the ocean silently,
And Twilight, stealing onward, halves the sky;
One after one they fade in light away,
While, with a thousand songs, the Earth doth say
Farewell, uplifting all her mountains high,
To catch the last reflections ere they die,
As, one by one, their peaks grow cold and gray.
Yon' orb, that hangs upon the ocean's rim,
Looks, Januslike, both back and forward too,
And, while it fades here to Earth's evening-hymn,
It brightens, from afar, o'er regions new,
Unto the songs of Morning, raised to Him,
Who thus 'twixt night and day the great line drew!

TO NELSON.

REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD.

TO AN ARBUTUS.

OCTOBER 1.

Fair shrub, thick-strewn with flowers and bunchëd fruit,
With hum of happy bees all-murmurous,
Spring lingers 'mid thy boughs, with Autumn, thus
A sweet comparison to institute,
And of thee the possession to dispute—
Bright butterflies enjoy thine overplus
Of sweets, and bees turn to still better use
Thy late abundance, and their hives recruit.
Thy berries mock the lip, flattering the eye
With the sweet strawberry's red livery—
Thy flowers, like fairy bells, stir lightly in
The odorous air, while the bees' merry din
Might seem the peal, for high festivity,
'Mongst them, and all their airy kith and kin!

ON THE BIRTH OF MY MUSE'S FIRST CHILD.

ON THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE PRIMROSE INTO NEW HOLLAND BY A LADY.

She comes, like Memory, calling up what each
Of dearest had, in other times and climes:
When the heart's springheads, tainted since by crimes,
Gushed fresh, and freshening all within their reach.
O flower, far more eloquent to teach
Repentance than the priest, the dear, old chimes
Of other days come up with thee, the times
Of innocence: a text from which to preach
Intelligibly to each softened heart!
Thanks, thanks, for teaching us that we may still
Find, in each human breast, through all, some part
Left of the virgin-soil: where, with small skill,
The seeds of Good, new-sown, may make fresh start
And root, and, by degrees, subdue the ill!

CONTENTMENT, IN WHAT IT LIES.

How many lovely things have I desired,
Which I could not have had, though I had all
The wealth of earth and power Imperial!
The fair maid for my wife, the all-admired,
Who trod the earth as if it was inspired
By her sweet footing, and grew musical!
The voice of power, the poet's pen, to call
Forth feeling, like a fountain, when required!
And yet how little did I truly need
Of all! but 'round me, wiser now, I draw
A circle, beyond which I never tread—
My heart! and there, of all I ever saw
Or heard of Beautiful, I keep indeed
The best part, and the rest nor miss nor heed!

TO CERTAIN FINGER-RHYMERS.

I cannot stop to pick shells by the way,
When the great sea is roaring wide and near—
I cannot do these things: they interfere
With the more present matter, and make play
Of the great thoughts that on my spirit lay
Divine constraint, and my soul onward bear,
Like the deep sea, forthright in its career,
Till it has given voice to what 't would say!
I cannot dwell on secondary things,
Nor minute-stop, to th' answering click of rhyme,
Exactly, each beat of my Muse's wings—
She takes a wide sweep of the air, to climb
The sphere, like Morning, and Creation's strings
So touch, at either end, with flight sublime!

ON A CHILD, SITTING IN THE SUMMER-GRASS.

There sits the little child, lost in deep thought:
Absorbed into complete unconsciousness
Of all save what doth so supremely bless!
All influences of sense and sight have wrought
Upon it sweetly—Nature's self has brought
It all her flowers, and, with a caress,
Poured them into its little lap, to dress
Itself withal, with ornaments unbought!
The bird hath sung to it the livelong day,
The sun shone on it, and the wind doth play
With its soft hair, a gentle play-fellow—
Its heart is full: so full it cannot say
One word—but, like a fountain, it doth flow
Within, and there makes music none may know!

ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE VESSEL ANNOUNCING THE SETTLEMENT OF DIFFERENCES WITH AMERICA.

There comes a gallant vessel, in full trim,
Into the haven, high-majestical,
With music in her motion, as if all
The waves, o'er which she doth so lightly skim,
Rose up and sank in cadence, to each whim
And playful fancy of her rise and fall!
The sun is sinking, gilding yon' dark pall
Of clouds, whose edges even now grow dim,
Ready to close around the grave of Day!
But whence comes she, with sails the sun makes gold,
To fit them golden missions to convey?
Brings she Hesperian fruitage, long foretold,
From the far West? Oh yes, she comes to say
She brings its best fruit, Peace, typed in that fable old!

TO SIR JOHN HANMER, ON READING HIS SONNETS.

Hanmer, a noble name may'st thou make thine—
Not with memorial brightness is it bright,
But, like the sun, with underivëd light:
That, lighting others, in its place doth shine,
At distance unapproachable, divine!
Thou hast not borrowed feathers to this height
To soar: but thine own wing thy lyric flight
Has wrought, and, like the lark, thou dost combine
The heights and depths of song: now up to heaven
Soaring, as if to thee alone 'twere given:
Now dropping, vocal, to familiar earth,
Joying, in thy descent, thy place of birth!
But, oh! thy Pegasus need not be driven,
No spur asks so much mettle and real worth!

THE IMPRESSION PRODUCED BY LONDON NEAR AND AT A DISTANCE.

ON A PECULIAR EFFECT OF THE SMOKE OVER LONDON, SEEN BY A FROSTY SUNSET.

The smoke of the immense metropolis
Hangs in the still air like a pillar vast:
Such as, when God-warned Israel had past
The sea that parted into an abyss,
With wavy walls, whose tops did nod to kiss
Each other, went with them upon the blast,
And round them its protecting shadows cast;
Such at a distance seems unto me this!
But now the sun has smit it, and it turns
To red, and like the pillar of fire burns,
That went along with them by night, as did
The cloud by day—and now the sun is hid
Once more: and naught my wondering eye discerns,
Except a huge, memorial pyramid!

TO HERODOTUS.

Herodotus, old, chatty, neighboursome,
And naive companion: of thine antique tale
The primitive, rich colors grow not pale
Or dim, though of its mythic graces some
Time has disproved, and others have become
Too simple for an age that holds all stale,
Flat, and unprofitable, of no avail,
Without immediate uses—yet, though dumb
Thy picturesque, old language, long outworn,
And spoken now by none of woman born,
Thy work, like some naive, early fresco, keeps
Its first, quaint charm—its feelings, fresh as morn:
Its mythic flowers, whose roots are in the deeps
Of Truth: and from which, though they seem t' adorn
Alone, deep, inward meanings Wisdom reaps!

RESPONSIBILITY OF AUTHORS.

With shame and sorrow I my work should see,
If aught that I had said or written could
Injure Religión or lessen Good—
For all, though great as Shakspear a man be,
Lie under deep responsibilitie
For what they leave on record—if I've woo'd
The Truth, and ta'en a vain similitude,
Instead, unto my heart, oh, let my plea
Be this: that I erred not from want of will
To love the Good, but power to part the Ill—
Yet let me hope that nothing I have writ
May tend to evil; for I but fulfill
Truth's own commands, when freely I submit
All things to proof, for her own benefit!

EXCULPATION OF CHAUCER'S UNIONS OR APPOSITIONS OF MYTHOLOGICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS, SUCH AS THE ANACHRONISM INVOLVED IN MARS BEING CALLED A KNIGHT, AND VENUS A SAINT.

The Poet lives not in mere time and space—
From that far height where, poised upon his wings
Of Past and Future, he surveys all things,
And the Before and After doth embrace,
The little accidents of time and place,
To which the humbler spirit cleaves and clings,
Fade from his view, while, like the lark, he sings
Far out of sight of earth, and leave no trace!
Therefore, high-priest of Art, he oft unites,
In bonds of holy wedlock, things remote,
Apt marriages of high Truths to promote!
And these, which vulgar minds call oversights,
Are but the larger views, which, from those heights
Of Truth he takes, like God, who all at once doth note!

A SUMMER REVÉRIE.

My heart is full, and almost sorrowful:
For Bliss, o'erleaping its own self, will fall
On t'other side—yet is it musical,
As though it were a flute, which, with her full,
Sweet breath, with many-a tremble, many-a lull
Of pausing harmony, Nature doth call
Forth into utterance poetical,
Likest the nightingale's, high-fanciful
And rapturous! this world, so fair and good,
Hath quite possessed me: it is in me as
Without me—yea, its sweet similitude
Is mirrored there, as in a magic-glass:
On which I gaze, as on some tranquil flood,
Not knowing how the wonder comes to pass!

A SUMMER-DAY'S RAMBLE.

I went forth with the morning in its prime,
To spend, like it, one day of innocent
Delight—I went forth to the first, sweet scent
Of flowers, to the song of birds, the chime
Of matin bells, all making pleasant rhyme
With brooks that, vocal, on their missions went:
One full, harmonious accompaniment,
To thoughts in keeping with the happy time!
I came back when the Evening, like a nun,
Had drawn her starry veil about her brow,
As if the rude World's notice she would shun,
And concentrate her whole soul on her vow!
And I too felt the holy influence bow
My heart, well-pleased to end as I begun!

PERSONAL FEELING.

A solitary-hearted soul am I,
Living in regions of my own apart,
Like some lone rock, that from the main doth start
On sailors far from land, 'twixt sea and sky,
While past me life's deep tides flow changefully!
And yet, though standing thus aloof, my heart
(Like vessel to some metropolitan mart)
Hath brought (and ta'en) full freights of sympathy,
To the great markets whither men resort,
For free exchange of commerce and of thought!
The sea hath been my playfellow: the winds
And waters; and, as with congenial minds,
I with the Elements converse, for naught
But, to my ear, a voice articulate finds!

TO THE PSEUDO-GREAT.

Great Poet, be not proud of being great—
True wisdom still is not more girt about
With power than with meekness: and without
Is but half-wisdom—for best things still mate
Together, and are not found separate!
Yet, should'st thou entertain of this a doubt,
Thou art not so much greater as to flout
And scorn thy fellows of a less estate—
And, after all, if we view things aright,
The end of all true wisdom's happiness—
And they, who this attain with so much less,
As well as thee with powers infinite,
The end of all thy powers still possess,
And find below what thou seek'st on a height!

ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REASON IMAGINATIVE AND UNIMAGINATIVE.

The poet and philosopher pursue
One Truth, but in a different way—the one,
By slow induction and comparison
Of facts, doth work it out in order due,
Link upon link, where if one fails all do—
The other, by an intuitión,
And an unerring instinct, lights upon
The Truth, and, feeling it as Beauty too,
Gives it a twofold worth—exuberant
His thoughts play out their surplusage in scent
And flower, with that feeling consonant,
Of Truth and Beauty knit, with one consent,
In bonds of holy wedlock, to enchant
Man more: and for more full accomplishment!

ON THE ADAPTATIONS OF PROVIDENCE.

How beautiful are the analogies,
The strong similitudes in difference,
The wonderful gradations of the immense
Design of Nature, throughout earth and skies!
One common type, with more or less disguise
And variation, yet with consequence
Most strict, and wonderful intelligence,
Through endless changes we may recognize!
Behold this sea-fish, in his element,
(Expanse as wide as air) as blest and free
As any bird—and, as if with intent
To draw a parallel between them, see
His fins are watery wings designed to be,
Like the fern-owl's, with grey and brown besprent!

MY MUSE IN HER TEENS.

My Muse was flying, in the full-blown pride
Of unfledged strength, with half-exerted wing,
As if to span Parnassian heights, and sing
At elevations where great Homer tried
His epic vans, and airs from heaven replied
Responsive to each beat, were but a thing
Of course, to which she needed but to bring
Her easy strength, thus carelessly applied.
But, from the cold and windy North, there came
A blast of critic breath that beat her back,
Far out of sight of her imagined aim.
But soon, her wings redressing, she her track
Resumed, and, sweeping through the stormy wrack,
The hindrance made her triumph, nor her shame!

ON SEEING A WHALE ON SHORE.

There lies the giant of the deep—the wave,
That made him choral music as he went,
And, 'neath his huge weight, lightly rose and bent,
Each movement seconding, now o'er his grave
Rolls out its muffled dirge, and seems to lave,
With sympathetic effort and intent,
The mighty form, but late its ornament,
Of him who of his watery realms doth crave
In vain mere space to die in! there's naught lives,
But Nature conscious seems of its decease,
And, in some sort, a recognition gives!
And, so believing, we, at least, increase
A wise regard for Life, which still survives,
To make us love all things and live at peace!

HOW GOD THINKS.

This world's the mind of God—throughout all space
He lives, and thinks, and operates—there's nought,
From greatest unto least, but is a thought
Of His: from the least flower, in its grace
And beauty, to the sun in his bright place!
Those orbs, with which all heaven above is fraught,
Are by an act of mere volition brought
Forth into being—each with radiant face,
As if it smiled again to be so bright,
And some with stars around them like a zone!
He thinks not as men do: mere thoughts alone,
Without effect; he thinks, and, as I write
The word, lo! worlds into their place have grown,
New satellites to render back his light!

CHILDREN'S QUESTIONS.

A shrewd child's questions are, in their quaint way,
Hardest to answer—they come to the “Why”
At once, and will not take, for a reply,
Vague explanations which but lead astray—
They break through all the cobweb-like array
Of words and technicalities, whereby
We darken e'en the windows of the sky,
And dim the very light of God's free day!
But they those lovely windows would fling wide,
And, like the flowers, turn still to the light,
Which through them streams, from morn till eventide!
Nature's the only book which they delight
To pore upon: with things, not words, which hide
And gloss them over, joying heart and sight!

AMBITION.

The votary of Ambition climbs the heights
Of power, and behind him leaves the flowers
Of life, the pleasant pathways, and the bowers
Where Love still dallies with his own delights,
And with more than he promises requites!
He leaves all these for careful-thoughted hours,
And his brief pleasures he by force deflours,
Not calmly weds! while through his satellites
The world receives his light, if he succeeds,
And thanks not him—receives it fainter, as
Men sunlight through the moon—so doth he pass
Onward, and his affections treads, like weeds,
Beneath his feet: to find Power but a glass
Which shows that still to Vanity all leads!

ON SOME FLIES IN THE SUNBEAMS.

Each fly, that dances in yon' setting sun,
Has got a glory from the plenitude
Of light, which it, exhaustless source of good,
Not misses, though so much, since he begun
His bounteous course, already he hath done!
Nature doth nothing from its share exclude
Of happiness—in her infinitude
Of ways and means, she hath for every one
More than enough in its degree and kind—
And by that halo she would teach us this:
That even so each in itself can find
(Of which that but the mere reflection is)
An inward light, for guidance, so designed
As to make its necessity its bliss!

MY OWN EPITAPH.

Here lies one who was in his faults a Man,
But in his virtues likewise, though but few—
Who, while he lived, strove still to keep in view
The grand essentials with which he began
This life: which God placed first in the great plan;
And to which still, if we would judge men true,
We must recur: when things that round them grew,
Mere parasitic growths, less during than
The ivy: accidents of time and place,
Have passed away, and left them bare to all
The influences which ceaselessly efface
Things of a day, to build up on their fall
The names which are to leave a lasting trace,
And in men's mouths be always musical!

TO THE CHARTISTS, UNDER FROST.

Deluded Men, who still from want of light,
Darkly pursue dark ends, or even good,
Turning them thereby to similitude
Of worse, in their own better nature's spite—
Why do ye yourselves violate the right,
Whose violation in your persons would
Exasperate ye? giving latitude
Of evil, unto those who take delight
Therein, by your example—opening thus
A door for other ills to creep thereby
Into the state—would ye your wrongs discuss
Calmly, and knit your minds to unity,
Ye would find that your Word unanimous
Was mightier than your Hand to rectify!

ON A GRECIAN BAS-RELIEF, REPRESENTING A SACRIFICE.

Lo! all is ready for the sacrifice!
The votive hymn hath but just died away,
And Silence, stealing back, with fitful play
And fraction, like the pause of waves that rise
And fall, with intermittent harmonies,
Hovers around the incense, which, with gray
And odorous smoke, curls upward to the day,
Joying the Gods, with worship, in the skies!
Oh odorous incense, thou must still remain
In air—oh priest, thy upraised hand must still
Be fixed—the victim still remain unslain!
And, as I gaze, by mere act of the will,
My spirit to old years is rapt again,
And Time may go his ways e'en as he will!

NATURE'S MUSIC.

Hast thou e'er seen a little child, who lays
His hand upon a harp, and sweeps the strings?
And, thronging 'neath it, come strange answerings,
Beyond the power of words to paraphrase:
Yearning, as if in pain, from their sweet maze
Of vocal sounds and airy wanderings,
To disentangle their confusëd wings,
And mount to heav'n, each in its proper place,
Whilst he amazed doth hear—e'en such am I—
For, when I strike the strings of Nature's lyre,
I know not half the chords of harmony
Which answer: vibrating till they expire
Beyond the imagined bounds of earth and sky,
Going both deeper and ascending higher!

THE POETS' JUDGMENT.

THE DANGER OF ATTEMPTING SUDDENLY TO ROOT OUT NATIONAL PREJUDICES.

The lesser accidents of time and place,
The old, memorial modes of thinking: all
The spider-threads of habit, which, though small,
Bind us insensibly, and our free pace
Break to the hackneyed step, devoid of grace
As freedom, into which the world doth fall,
That ass, which runs one round perpetual,
With pack upon its back, and formal face!
All these, as Samson his green wythés, I
Have rent in twain with ease—but some there are,
Deep prejudices, stronger, wider, far—
And they who would pluck up these suddenly,
As Samson did the temple-pillar, by
Their fall must fall, with those 'gainst whom they war!

BY THE SEA-SHORE.

Here sit I, like some God of the old prime,
Just wakened into divine consciousness:
Like Neptune, when his great hand did caress
The Ocean's mane first, at the dawn of Time,
Ere his dread name had passed into a rhyme!
Here sit I, while the sea, with wavy stress
And emphasis, and utterance nothing less
Than epic, lends a voice to thoughts sublime!
Here sit I, musing upon things to come,
Beyond all reach of mortal eloquence;
Till, unto that which had but struck me dumb,
The great Sea, giving articulate sound and sense,
Sublimes the mighty but confusëd hum
Into a voice as of Omnipotence!

MY MUSE.

TO MY COUNTRYMEN.

My countrymen, from many a venal pen
We've read your catalogue of ill, eked out
With feignëd faults, and virtues called in doubt—
But I am proud to call ye countrymen,
Laborious, thoughtful, brave, with sober ken
Fixed ever on life's solid goods: devout,
And reverencing the laws, e'en when without
Full sanction, for the good they cause e'en then,
The love of peace, the greatest good of all,
Without which to the ground the rest must fall,
Like fruit plucked ere it ripens—then my dear,
Dear countrymen, do ye but persevere,
And that same love of peace shall on ye call
Down far more blessings than all in arrear!

THE HEART'S PLACES OF WORSHIP.

How many shrines, for its affections there
To dwell, as in a temple, can the heart
Of Man for itself make, with little art,
E'en of the simplest things! how passing-fair
Seem to us all the spots, so cherished, where
We passed our boyish days: ere sorrow's smart
Had touched, or we had bartered, in life's mart,
Our heart's affections for a paltry share
Of the world's gold or favour—e'en the stone
We sat on by the streamside, in our bliss
Far richer than we since through gold have grown,
Seems to us, in our inmost hearts all this
Revolving, far, far better than a throne,
Whose feet, not innocent brooks, but false lips kiss!

ON AN OLD AND DIRTY COPY OF SHAKSPEAR.

There lies a little book much soiled and worn:
Yet hath it charms and spells potential—
It, from the depths of human Thought, can call
Forth answers: it hath treasures like the Morn,
Gladness, and songs, and light, and souls forlorn
Can cheer, with touches sweet and musical—
And ready sympathy it hath for all,
At all times: none doth it deny or scorn!
And many-a sublime brow hath o'er it bent,
With spiritual crown by hands not made,
Anointed to some great accomplishment
With chrism upon royal heads not laid:
To some great, corresponding argument
Singing “with voice memorial in the shade!”

ON THE NEGLECT OF NATIONAL EDUCATION.

Where, in this darkness, is the master-mind
To say, “let there be light:” to call forth day
And intellectual light, the fair array
Of peace and order, from this chaos blind
Of moral elements? in which confined,
Unquickened, all the germs of life decay,
Or work for ill: wanting the divine ray
Of knowledge, which has left the mass behind
Inert—alas! we have gone on too far,
And pérfected mechanics but not men:
Machines, neglecting Man, for whom they are.
So hath the stream of life become a fen
Of stagnant waters, tainting all the air,
Yet they who breathe it know it not e'en then!

TO ------ AFTER ABSENCE.

No line of favour, which adorned thee then,
Hath Time yet blurr'd—the snatches of thy voice,
Likest the nightingale's, as erst rejoice
The listener's ear, and, as thou passest, men
Stand still at gaze, and keep thee in their ken,
As they had seen a vision—the alloys,
Which Love, to temper his delights, employs,
And suit them to earth's duller denizen,
Thou hast not felt, thou angel without wings,
To whom the heaven thou hast left still clings!
The freshness of the morning lingers round
Thee still: oh thou art like the star that brings
In morn and eve, and both their charms are found
In thee, lightheartedness with thought profound!

ON THE AUTOMATIC TENDENCIES OF MACHINERY.

I would give all I have to see Mankind
What I would wish them—when each Man, each day,
From pleasure, not constraint, and health his pay,
Shall labour just so much as God designed
For needful unto strength of limb and mind—
And then, in human converse, holy play
With children, the glad hours to wile away,
To play them out, and make them leave behind
Sweetness, like music! and all this shall come
To pass—for this God placed at Man's command
Nature and all her wonders—not for some,
But all—that, in due time, the meanest hand
Might call forth harmonies which now are dumb,
And from a mightier lyre than Homer spanned!

NEGLECT OF POETRY.

On evil days I've fallen: not like him,
Who brushed with his archangel-like strong wing
The throne of God, and did His missioning,
Already numbered of the Seraphim—
Who, darkling, like the Night, did yet, though dim,
Like her, celestial dews in darkness fling
From his enriching wings, and heavenward sing,
Towards the light, and, larklike, towards it climb!
But yet on evil days I've fallen: days
In which the Muse can find no audience,
But by the wayside sits, by her own bays
O'ershadowed, and concealed from vulgar sense.
So be it; yet she taketh not offence,
But makes her “sunshine in a shady place!”

ON HEARING SOME SINGING BY NIGHT.

Whence comes that music, with its dying fall,
Which steals upon the dark, and so doth take
The Air, that it hangs tranced on its sweet wake?
And then from death to life doth straight recall
Itself, with resurrection musical
Beyond its death: as though 't would overtake
That dying close, ere, melting like a flake
Of snow, its súrcease caused an interval!
The mute air trembles with its ravishment,
Which hangs upon the darkness, like the scent
Of flowers from an arbour-roof down-weighed:
While Rapture, fearing to give himself vent,
Pores, like a lover, on the dark, afraid
To speak, lest one dear sound unheard should fade!

UTILITY.

Thou ask'st me, of what use is all this care
For one poor flower, which will bloom and die,
And nothing leave behind it when gone by!
O Friend, thou tak'st a mean view of what are
The ends of life, and little too dost bear
In mind the uses of Humanity:
For which all else hath its utility,
Useful but as with this great end they square!
Through this one flower, fleeting as it is,
I gain the feeling of the Beautiful;
And whosoever hath not gainëd this,
Hath missed one end of Life: and doth annul
One fairest page in Nature's book, and miss
Its meaning, and but half Life's flowers cull!

TO ------

[Dear eyes of blue, like the Forgetmenot]

Dear eyes of blue, like the Forgetmenot,
Remembrancer of things too dear to name:
Whose touching, mute appeals put to mere shame
The eloquence of language; one glance shot
From your blue depths may never be forgot,
But haunts us ever, thrilling through the frame,
With love's soft, inextinguishable flame,
By those sweet eyes, as at the stars, begot!
Twin stars ye are of Hope and Memory
Yourselves: or like the star of morn and eve,
Which doth perform a twofold ministry—
For, while memorial glances we perceive,
Touching and sad: gleams of futurity
Ye shoot, which tracks of light behind them leave!

A SUNSET THOUGHT, AT HAMPTON COURT.

Those clouds, that, gilded by the setting sun,
Above the towers of Hampton-palace rest,
And all the airy outline soft invest
With richest folds of golden tissue spun,
In the loom of the elements, which none
Could equal, though wrought for a monarch's vest:
With trails of glory hang upon the west,
As on the day when Wolsey's race was run!
They look like robes of State, late thrown aside,
By some great soul retired from the scene
Of all its majesty and full-blown pride,
To witness for the splendors that have been.
But he, whose spirit did o'er all preside,
Who wore them, though still felt, is no more seen!

THE GOOD AND EVIL OF LIFE.

The sorrows of this life, the bitterness,
The evils, social or inherited,
Transmitted to the living by the dead,
Who thus still live, with power to curse or bless,
As chanced their errors to be more or less:
That bitterness the wise man turns instead
Into the leaven of life's daily bread,
To raise it, so that naught be in excess—
So wisely blends he the ingredients;
And, if somewhiles the taste seem bitter, he
Thereby the after-zest but more augments,
And gives to happiness varietie.
The mixture but proportions the contents:
The whole is sweet, though bitter the leaven be!

ON A CANKERED BRANCH.

What dost thou there, cumbering that goodly tree,
Unsightly branch, that not fulfill'st thine end:
That bear'st nor leaf nor flower, nor dost lend
Beauty nor use, where both should native be?
Alas! in life how many are like thee:
Who what they were made for nor comprehend
Nor care: who die alive, and break and bend,
Cumbering the fair tree of Humanitie!
Who have so little hold on the main stem,
That they receive no sap from it, nor yet
Contribute unto it, nor it to them—
Who yet high up above the rest are set,
And all the goodly boughs beneath contemn,
That nourish it, and bear their useless weight!

ON BURNS, THE POET AND EXCISEMAN.

Ye gave him, when he asked for bread, a stone:
And, when he asked for love, indifference:
And, when for recognition, insolence
And cold denial: till his fame had grown
His justification—when, to atone
Too late for all these wrongs, and show your sense
Of worth, ye gave him a few pounds and pence,
Still measuring his merits by your own.
O Nation, that hast set thy heart on gold,
And “Useful” deem'st but what subserves thereto,
Thou gain'dst so an exciseman, and didst hold
It gain, although it cost a poet true;
So didst thou make him “useful” in the old,
False ways, whom God had sent to teach thee new!

HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

O God, in spite of all my charity,
My hope and faith, I'm well nigh sick at heart
Sometimes, when I behold the worser part
Of human Nature, scanned too narrowly:
Viewed with that microscopic scrutiny,
Which, through all cloaks of nature or of art,
Looks straight to the sad truth, that, like a dart,
Goes through the heart of my Humanity.
The want of honor, the ingratitude,
The vice, the brutish ignorance, of some,
The imperfections of both bad and good,
Dishearten, and, at times, my Muse strike dumb:
Make me ashamed of Man's similitude,
And wish, sometimes, I could aught else become.

SECOND-THOUGHTS ON THE ABOVE.

It is the hardest task, the highest end,
Of all true wisdom, rightly understood,
To see the Ill, yet not o'erlook the Good:
Nor let the Ill beyond itself extend,
Nor o'er the sunny side its shadow send,
Beyond its own intrinsic magnitude;
As mountains cast their shadows far, and brood
At distance, and their own real bulk transcend.
'Tis hard to school the heart to be, in spite
Of injury and envy, generous still:
In seeing Good alone to take delight,
And to forget, or to forgive, the Ill—
And he, who can do this, has still a right
To think godlike of Man, and must and will!

THE CORRESPONDENCIES OF NATURE WITH MAN.