 | Blank verse (1798) |  |
14
WRITTEN AT BURTON IN HAMPSHIRE, AUGUST 1797.
And I have turn'd away again from those
Who beckon'd me to ruin! Hollow friends,
Ye worldly ones, on whose unfaithful lip
The vacant smile sits ever, I rejoice
That you no more profane my honest name
With supercilious tongue. 'Twere better far
Not to be known or knowing, than to dwell
With the hard bustlers of this wicked world!
Whom shall I trust? for I have trusted many,
And they have been most false! 'Tis true there are
Who in the free convivial scene will ape,
With most deceitful seeming, the full soul
Of holiest virtue; and will sigh, or smile,
As they her delicate vicissitudes
Had keenly witness'd: but the ready mimic
Plant in his proper station, and the thing
(Though late so exquisitely organiz'd)
Will stand the statue of obduracy,
And scatter back, with strange inaptitude,
Love's unadmissible radiance. Oh my God!
Why is the fleshly heart so petrified?
Why all its avenues clos'd, and the high swell
Of infinite perfection disciplin'd
To base manœuverings, to the unnatural guilt
Of intellectual murder?
Who beckon'd me to ruin! Hollow friends,
Ye worldly ones, on whose unfaithful lip
The vacant smile sits ever, I rejoice
That you no more profane my honest name
With supercilious tongue. 'Twere better far
Not to be known or knowing, than to dwell
With the hard bustlers of this wicked world!
Whom shall I trust? for I have trusted many,
And they have been most false! 'Tis true there are
Who in the free convivial scene will ape,
With most deceitful seeming, the full soul
15
As they her delicate vicissitudes
Had keenly witness'd: but the ready mimic
Plant in his proper station, and the thing
(Though late so exquisitely organiz'd)
Will stand the statue of obduracy,
And scatter back, with strange inaptitude,
Love's unadmissible radiance. Oh my God!
Why is the fleshly heart so petrified?
Why all its avenues clos'd, and the high swell
Of infinite perfection disciplin'd
To base manœuverings, to the unnatural guilt
Of intellectual murder?
To repine
It matters not; nor do my feelings prompt
The coward weakness: for so tried am I,
That if a kindly smile ne'er met my gaze,
That if an accent of subduing love
Did never more pierce my unwelcom'd ear,
I think I could go onward undismay'd,
And uncomplaining. I would wrap myself
In holiest quiet; I would brood on years
That have been happy; I would strive to think
That the sincere pass on not unbeheld
Of Him who knows the heart; and I would shape
A happier future, a redeemed race,
The retributions of a better world:
Yea, all these thoughts should minister to me
Till I were rich in friends!
It matters not; nor do my feelings prompt
The coward weakness: for so tried am I,
16
That if an accent of subduing love
Did never more pierce my unwelcom'd ear,
I think I could go onward undismay'd,
And uncomplaining. I would wrap myself
In holiest quiet; I would brood on years
That have been happy; I would strive to think
That the sincere pass on not unbeheld
Of Him who knows the heart; and I would shape
A happier future, a redeemed race,
The retributions of a better world:
Yea, all these thoughts should minister to me
Till I were rich in friends!
The noble soul
Swells as the tempest thickens, and most feels
Its own sufficiencies of happiness,
Its plenitude of solitary strength,
When all the puppetry of life's brief day
Has done its business; when the dark night comes,
And all is vacancy, or unshap'd gloom,
Big with invisible perils.
Swells as the tempest thickens, and most feels
Its own sufficiencies of happiness,
17
When all the puppetry of life's brief day
Has done its business; when the dark night comes,
And all is vacancy, or unshap'd gloom,
Big with invisible perils.
Bear me on,
Blest consciousness of virtue; nor sometimes
Let me not ponder on that elder lore
Which shapes a world within, and thence derives
(Supreme of blessings) the unbending will!
Or if my truant fancy still must dwell
On aught save its own workings, let it fly
To unborn years, intensely imaging
That blessed spectacle when self shall sink
In the immensity of being, and God
Be all in all. Here, ye wandering thoughts,
Direct your workings—Hither, lingering hopes,
Turn and be satisfied! Than such a calm,
(Which steals when living in the days to come
With blessed self-desertion, present ills,
And present miseries, we annihilate)
I dare not ask for more! Let Him who hears
And weighs our supplications grant it me,
If so seem good to his unerring will.
Ungranted—I will struggle—not repine!
Blest consciousness of virtue; nor sometimes
Let me not ponder on that elder lore
Which shapes a world within, and thence derives
(Supreme of blessings) the unbending will!
Or if my truant fancy still must dwell
On aught save its own workings, let it fly
To unborn years, intensely imaging
That blessed spectacle when self shall sink
In the immensity of being, and God
18
Direct your workings—Hither, lingering hopes,
Turn and be satisfied! Than such a calm,
(Which steals when living in the days to come
With blessed self-desertion, present ills,
And present miseries, we annihilate)
I dare not ask for more! Let Him who hears
And weighs our supplications grant it me,
If so seem good to his unerring will.
Ungranted—I will struggle—not repine!
| Blank verse (1798) | |