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Poems

By Charles Lloyd

Lloyd, Charles (1775-1839)

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ADDRESS TO A VIRGINIAN CREEPER;

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ADDRESS TO A VIRGINIAN CREEPER;

OR THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY FROM ASSOCIATIONS WITH VISIBLE OBJECTS.

Paradise, and groves
Elysian. Fortunate fields—like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic main, why should they be
A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was?—
For the discerning intellect of man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple product of the common day.
Wordsworth's Excursion.

1

Fair plant, I see thee with a yearning spirit,
For thou remind'st me of another place;—
And this spot, though it cannot boast a merit
Beyond retirement's unobtrusive grace,
From thy pervading influence doth inherit
One feature, whence the curious mind may trace
A likeness 'twixt it, and a scene elysian,
Such as might bless some favoured poet's vision!

2

As mind of plastic mould we often view,
Of swift mobility of temperament,
In opposite extremes its course pursue!—
Yet in this giddy whirl of sentiment
(Fine as the film, whose being the dropped dew
Alone revealed, its surface which besprent)
A vestige dwells, unseen of human eye
Inly betraying its identity.

3

In such mind, absent friends, and absent things,
Having forgotten, as a hue, a scent,
A sound, may touch upon those finer strings
Which call these objects from their banishment;
So thou, fair plant, when towards thee mine eye flings
Its sudden glance (thought all things else prevent
Feelings, whence this scene might the past restore)
Canst call up visions dear to me of yore.

4

Oh, never say to him who has a heart;—
Oh, never say to him who has a sense,
Imagination, of the joys which dart,
From unseen source, beneath thy influence;—

Oh, never say to him who has the art
To waken that deep feeling and intense,
Whence is with curious speculation viewed
Similitude in dissimilitude;—

5

Oh, never say to these, that there can be,
In this wide world, one vacant dwelling place:
A place, which he, who is with phantasy
Endowed, may not with richest treasures grace!—
Say not to him, who has of poesy
The lofty gift, that he's bereft of space
For soaring thought, since his allotted home,
Monotonous, forbids his eyes to roam.

6

No! In the eye that sees, the heart that feels,
And in th' imagination which controuls
All forms, that is there which profusion steals
From what were penury to meagre souls!—
And add to this, that contrast oft reveals
A source of inspiration, and unrolls
Oft through the sense which a drear blank surrounds,
Glories which pass reality's scant bounds.

7

This is a sensuous age! We scarce can tell
Whether most pitiful it is, and poor,
When wood, rocks, lakes, and mountains weave a spell
The heart to melt, the fancy to allure,
With blank indifference on the whole to dwell:—
Or not to know, that, when high thoughts obscure
Man's lower impulses, he well may scorn
The circumscribing sway of forms earth-born.

8

As there no time is, so there is no place,
For him uplifted by imagination!—
He soars o'er all the little bounds of space:—
And his own world is of his own creation!—
'Tis poor to think, the noble mind to raise,
That need should be of objects of sensation:—
'Tis poor to think, that, e'en the prison's gloom,
Must be his mind's, since 'tis his body's tomb.

9

I thank thee, beauteous plant, because that thou
Remindest me of far more gorgeous scene! —

But far, far more for this, my grateful vow
To thee I raise,—(when, as from freshest green,
To delicate vermeil, and to crimson, now,
I see thee changing)—since the thought serene,—
(Inspired by thee, familiar to my glance),
Comes o'er my spirit, as with rapturous trance,

10

That thou a link art of a mighty chain!—
A living presence art, a fiery tress,
Conspicuous to my sight, and dost a train
Of fair experience outwardly express!—
E'en as I still my former self retain!
Although I inly feel, that, not the less,
In some things I am changed, thou, like a thread
Of fairy woof, dost past to present wed!—

11

As in long voyage on the perilous ocean,
Though not a trace on any side be seen

Of land, though all around the feared commotion
Of winds, waves, clouds, and darkening mists, between
The eye, and the mind's hope, perplex all notion;
Yet still the little loadstone, with serene,
And superintendant constancy, doth keep
Its delicate guidance o'er the yawning deep.

12

So in the tempest of life's blackest hours,
Forms such as we have seen in happiest days,
Not by association's mystic powers,
Consolatory feelings only raise,
But oft from thence (mild as the scent of flowers
When on their dewy buds fall morn's first rays)
An intertwining with the days gone by
Pledges assurance of futurity.

13

These so recurring forms, from time to time,
From place to place, thus opportunely met,—
Like beacons to the mariner;—in clime
Distant and perilous, like land-marks set;—
So, with a sense of what is real, chime
With all those yearnings which would not forget

The past, that each of them appears to be
Propitious herald of futurity.

14

Who has not felt in mental wretchedness;—
Or when portentously disease has wrought
O'er all the being with so rude a stress,
That it has almost choked the stream of thought,—
Who, when some big calamity did press
On life's progressiveness, till it has brought
A sudden check to purpose;—that a toy,
Raised from the past, could blackest spells destroy?

15

Once by a conflict of deep suffering wrung,
As by St. Patrick's awful lake I strayed;—
(E'en as the fatal robe Alcides flung
Around his form which poison did pervade,
So closely to his mighty members clung
That he to rend it off vain efforts made;
Thus was the pest of agony to me,
And so invincible its agency).

16

Once in such mood—the crisis of despair—
I, from the chafing wave, a pebble chose;—
Exclaiming, “this I will preserve with care!—
“Since” (though the thought in me then strongly rose
That no alleviation whatsoe'er
Could ever balm my agonizing throes)
“Should I look on it in a future grief,
This grief surmounted, it might bring relief.”

17

This very thought seemed then like prophecy!—
Who that has dared in deepest of despair
To act the part of hope,—who that, with eye
Internal, o'er a bridgeless gulph could rear
An edifice fantastic!—who, when dry,
Dead to the world, pledged, in that moment drear,
Himself to another in some fateful deed,
Whose doing seemed all credence to exceed;—

18

Such, and no other, can my meaning guess!
'Tis in the pathless ether beacons rearing!
Giving a when, and where, to nothingness;
Through unessential vacancy careering;

'Tis bodying with the tongue's audaciousness
What minds forswear unhoping and unfearing;
'Tis trying in the midst of inanition
To affect to will, when there is no volition.

19

It is in short—(can any words imply
The dim and dark suggestion)—'tis a deed
Whence we impersonate defyingly
Purposeless purposes; and since no heed
Of life we take, and deem it all a lie;
We stake the future,—(though to us indeed
There be no future)—our entire fate stake,
As we for chess-men did our fellows take.

20

A promise, in despair, seems hope's best theme;
Our inner will reality alone
Retains;—like stepping stones across a stream,
So seem the acts by which we clench our own
With other's fates; the world a grave doth seem
And we like spectres of oblivion;
We wander up and down, as if we were
Shrunk to one thought of passionless despair.

21

I could, as then I thought, never know more
Of dim, foreboding, and foreclosing pain,
Than then I knew: yet were this anguish o'er,
And I should thus be visited again,
This little stone,—though hope's diminish'd lore—
To this were circumscribed—would breathe this strain—
“Despair, when first thou knewest this, was with thee!
“Thou hast since hoped. What has been, still may be!

22

This looking forward, then the little all
Of hope that I had left, this dim and drear
Presentiment, that something might befall;
And that futurity of all but fear
Was not quite barren—if I such may call
Comfort—my only comfort did appear.—
Yet has that stone in after days of scath
Suggested many a haunting of meek faith.

23

So the elected Israelites of old,
By God commanded, when they reached thy shore,

O'erflowing Jordan, each one as we are told,
Stones of memorial on their shoulders bore.
These were to be, as future ages rolled,
To distant generations evermore
A sign, whence they the hallowed spot might mark,
Where Jordan's waves retreated from the ark.

24

Thus, as a symbol of past gone despair
O'ercome, in present sorrow may avail;
Or to the mind suggestions may repair
Of wisdom thence, when carnal joys assail:—
So may a symbol of past joy declare
Tidings of hope, when hope's resources fail;
So by a symbol of past pleasure fled,
May we in pleasure be admonished.

25

But this is foreign to my theme! The thought
Inspiring it was of that feeling dim
Which every soul possesses, when by aught
It is impressed, which seems as 'twere to trim
The lamp of life afresh, since it hath caught
(As from the live coal which the Seraphim
On th' altar placed, Isaiah caught his function)
From its discovery a vital unction.

26

Whence is it that the meanest forms we hallow,
Of utensils, for daily life designed?—
Whence is it that all men, save those who wallow
In sensual brutishness, and unrefined
Grovelling indulgences, in a dim halo
Of sacred radiance see those shapes enshrined
Which speak of other days, and friends long dead?—
Whence, but from feeling, is such reverence fed,

27

That they the present with the past connect?—
So much these instincts in some hearts preside,
That forms which cannot by their aid be decked,
Whate'er their worth, whate'er their costly pride,
From them can challenge nothing but neglect:
Yet, on the other hand, have they descried
The meanest utensil a parent used,
With what intense delight is it perused!—

28

Some see in forms little to challenge praise,
Save as they're mute interpreters of love:
Thence many, without doubt, may wildly raise
A superstitious structure, which would prove

Fatal to nobler aims: since where their gaze
Was thus allured, they never would remove
Their thoughts to abstract themes:—such influences,
Changed Christ's pure laws to purveyors for the senses.

29

But still subordinate to nobler things,
Just in proportion will such instinct dwell
In souls, as they possess that power which flings
O'er lifeless forms a consecrating spell!—
Without the fire, which, from such instinct springs,
Like seedless husk, and unallotted shell
Were all life's objects! What were scents, forms, hues,
Did moral feeling not her aid infuse?

30

The more, in all respects, mere form is merged
In moral feeling, more is spiritualized

The sentiment with which mute shapes are charged,
Less are they likely to be idolized
By physical attachment, more enlarged
Will they from “th' entire point” be enfranchised:
The more we love form's accidents, the less
On their base bullion shall we lay a stress.

31

We say the finest soul (but mind we say
This only when nought else doth interfere
Of higher pressure) will the most array
Mute forms with an ideal atmosphere,
Which gives them to the heart a moral sway!—
There are we know of stoic mood severe,
Who superstitious such devotion deem!—
The muse is not for them whate'er her theme!

32

This is a natural instinct. Homer read
Or Virgil; how do they with care describe
The helmet, shield, or trappings of the steed
Belonging to the chief of each bold tribe?

With what strong eloquence did Ajax plead,
What elocution did the chiefs imbibe,—
Convened to award the arms,—from that fine strain,
Whence Ithacus, Pelides' arms did gain!

33

Is there a goblet, or a tripod named,
Is there a belt, a dart, or quiver sung,
Nor him by whom 'twas given, first proclaimed?
Rather such sanctity in those times clung
To these mute symbols, and so much inflamed
Were their rude honest hearts when records rung
In old traditionary tales of these;—
Their bards immortalized their blazonries.

34

Achilles' shield, who does not recollect?
The sceptre of Atrides not recall?—
Who can, without a secret awe, reflect
On Hector's arms, those arms, which, near the wall

Of Paris, did in after times protect
The brave Orlando, till, love's wretched thrall,
His sense forsook him; and which did in vain
Defend the Paynim by Rogero slain.

35

Ah, who would wish to be the man that could—
To modernize his ancestral demesne,
To introduce that gorgeous brotherhood
Of trees, lawn, water, in his household scene
Which modern taste demands,—where erst there stood
An ancient vista, venerable skreen
To his forefather's mansion,—level all,
Oak, ash, and elm, and triumph in their fall?

36

'Tis fitting to consult what is good taste
When you original creator are
Of household scenery: then may well be placed
Forms in the abstract which are deemed most fair,

But woe to him be, whose abode is graced
With aught that brings imagination there,
Fraught with the feeling of the mighty past,
And mightier dead;—and who has this displaced?

37

Not all the ideal charms of Arcady,
Not Tempe's vale, nor fam'd Sicilian bowers,
Though by a wish they all could thither hie,
Could e'er atone for outrage to those powers
Of ancient feeling, and sublimity,
Which he hath chased away! Exotic flowers
Never can captivate that awful spirit
Which did his thick tressed ivy bowers inherit.

38

Oh, whither hast thou led me, beauteous plant?—
Yet lead me where thou wilt, I will go on!—
My bounding heart receives, with grateful pant,
The smallest touch of inspiration,
From forms, e'en animation though they want!—
Though still more warmly it perhaps might own
A higher influence: I've elsewhere decreed,
“ Be the muse followed wheresoe'er she lead!”

39

And still I say it. Gorgeous plant and fair,
My theme began with pointing out thy praise,
Not only for thy beauty which so rare
Is, that it well a grateful song might raise;
But, for the power thou hast,—on charms that were
By me enjoyed,—again to make me gaze.
And then, I liken'd thee in this my theme,
In a dark path, to still recurring gleam.

40

I said, how sweet it is “from time to time,”
Amid th' oblivious gulph that us surrounds,
To see past forms reviving: when sublime
In joy we are, how those of grief redound
To our monition; and when being's prime
Is whelmed in woe, from woes which have been crowned
In their surcease, with comfort, to extract
Hope, which the present woe might counteract.

41

I have proceeded to commemorate
That lovely reconciling principle

Which doth impart to forms inanimate
A moral character,—that curious skill
Which objects or from age doth consecrate,
Or from the fact that they are symbols still
Of hoar antiquity, and friends lov'd well!—
Now, to this added, of them will I tell

42

How much more lov'd are they when they combine
Thoughts of the past, or of great deeds of old,
Or of departed friends, and also shrine
Our youthful recollections in their cold,
And hallowed blazonries? Who would not pine
To see some heir-loom, which of past times told—
Since of unwieldy size, or cumb'rous, 'twere,—
Changed for some modern gew-gaw's tinsel glare?

43

Who does not recollect the glad exclaim
Made by Geneva's sage, when he beheld
The Periwinkle, just the very same
With that of which in youth he was compelled

To take note by a friend much lov'd; whose name
Then he first learned, nor since in croft or field
Had he surveyed its glossy leaves, and blue,
Meek blossom,—till again seen at Belle Vue?

44

Who can forget how eloquently he,
Rousseau, doth that same local feeling paint,—
A feeling, with as strict identity
Fettered, imperiously, with dim restraint,

To one, one spot, as is the sense whence we
Derive our selfhood to one person:—faint,
After his words, would seem another's speech;
Their philologic height he could not reach.

45

Saith he not that from some peculiar spot,
Where he had known peculiar happiness,
Though years had o'er him rolled, which well might blot
This from his memory quite, a curious stress
Of circumstantial features not forgot,
In after times would often re-possess
His entire being so, that every sense,
Drank, as he still were there, its influence?—

46

Saith he not, that the very scent revived—
That faintest of the intimations, whence
We absent objects body forth—which lived
Within its boundaries; that with eloquence
Passing all speech, not like to a derived,
But liker an original impress, thence
The being of the place came o'er again,
With force defying e'en his graphic pen?

47

And does not that Colossus of our land,
The solemn Johnson, and in later days
The Apostle of the Methodists, demand
Attention, as the first of these delays
His pompous narrative, while with a bland,
Yet yearning retrospection, he surveys
The well known post, o'er which, of doublet stripped,
He leaped again; as he in youth had leaped.

48

The other, with a deeper feeling, strays
In that same church-yard, where he, when a youth
Had often strayed; on that same spot did gaze,
From whose plain pulpit, the pure voice of truth
His ears drank in, when virtue's pleasant ways,
Appeared more pleasant in a parent's mouth.
He cries, “How time, year after year, bereaves
The earth of sons, as forests of their leaves.”

49

When formerly on Cantabrigia's bleak,
Monotonous, and level plain, I dwelt,
If on my sight acclivity did break,
Though such as almost from my gaze did melt,
Especially if on its chalky peak
Black clump of firs lower'd in a gloomy belt,
How did my heart leap with a feeling strange,
And instantly its thoughts to Cumbria range!

50

There had I seen the everlasting hills!
And there my constant love was ever fixed.
Thither when twilight its soft haze distils
Would my thoughts fly, when with the distance mix'd
Some little eminence my bosom thrills!
Yes, when, from Barnwell, then my home, betwixt
Th' horizon, and the nearer plain, I kenn'd
Those fir-clad heights, heights loftier far ascend

51

Before my vision! Thus one little point
Of similarity betwixt a scene
We now inhabit, and a scene disjoint
By many a tedious league, will with such keen,
And efficacious agency, anoint
The inward eye, that forms which intervene
Will fade away, and from one small source thence,
Pageants will rise of vast magnificence!

52

Whence is it that I—more than e'en I may
Account for from their own intrinsic worth—
Love birds and gardens, though in each the play
Of nature's gladdening hand hath called to birth
The beautiful and graceful? When a day
Had more importance, than—in the drear dearth
Of middle life—that which long years possess,
I lov'd them!—Thence my present tenderness!

53

Can I a flower behold, nor call to mind
How in my youthful garden plot I loved
The self-same flower? How first its seed consigned
To earth? and what an exstacy I proved

When from the ground, in which it was enshrined,
'Twas at first visible? Scarce could be moved
A mother's bosom more, when she surveyed
Her darling's growth, than I, when aught betrayed

54

In this plant's progress to maturity
Another stage! than did mine eyes devour
Its coyly swelling buds, and—ecstacy
Beyond all this!—its first consummate flower!—
Scarce could a mother see with gladder eye
Of puny nursling the recovered power
After long ailing, then in drouthy tide,
Drinking the shower, its glossy leaves I spied.

55

So with my little cagelings! What a burst
Of joy was mine, when, as the well-earned boon
Had for some feather'd songster been disbursed,
I heard it first carol its merry tune!—
Still in my heart so jealously is nursed
My youthful feelings, that, beneath the moon
Nought is, whence greater joy I still can prove
Than from these objects of my early love.

56

Thus may, in time, from sweet association,
And watching carefully our trains of thought
As with aught coupled which excites sensation;
The mind to such a temperament be brought
That all we see speaks to imagination
A living hieroglyphic language, wrought
So finely in each object of each sense
That speechless nature may have eloquence.

57

To him, when he beholds the opening rose,
Who can, by its means, every summer day
Recall, when he had watched its buds disclose;
Who can recall each love-pervaded lay
That it has wakened; every fair one knows
On whose white bosom he has seen morn's ray
Illume its dewy pearls, say, when he views
The faint spring nurse it, must he not then muse

58

With a far deeper feeling of delight,
Than he can do, who only sees its bloom?
Who has no skill, from its most exquisite
Display of loveliness, t' unseal the tomb

Of many years departed? Who, if sight
Be charmed, dreams not, that in its soft perfume
There is a spiritual incense, which imparts
Melodious sweetness to poetic hearts?

59

Yes, to a soul rich in imagination,
Th' appliances to each particular sense
Are intertwined in such rich combination,
That each evolves the other's influence!—
Thus hues well blended waken the sensation
Derived from melody;—and sounds intense,
And sweet, bring portraitures to gifted eyes!
Thus strike one sense, and all will harmonize!

60

Thus delicate perfumes will steal within
The very soul, and be like music there!—
E'en lower senses, taste, and touch begin,
By such a process, to acquire a rare,
And unknown comprehensiveness! 'Twere sin
When of his cream, dates, cheese, and yellow pear,
The Mantuan poet sings should one demur
That each of these has moral character.

61

Dreams of simplicity and purity,
At once they raise: perhaps a further aim
There may in these be couched: one, whose decree
Was ne'er neglected, where neglect was shame,
Has said that there is an affinity
Between man's regimen, and moral frame,
Thus as mild natures love a simple food,
A pungent diet pleases natures rude.

62

But I would say to him who is well versed
In th' hieroglyphic language of the heart,
Nothing can be indifferent, so that nursed,
By it may be or not the thinking part.
The simplest meal where milk doth 'suage the thirst,
And eggs, and herbs, the appetite, with art
May be arranged so—witness many a theme—
As fitly to adorn the poet's dream.

63

I ask of him, who has of Milton's hair
That well sung lock; I ask of every one,

Who of that mulberry tree obtained a share
Which has been hallowed to Fame's eldest son;
I ask of every pilgrim, who would spare
His last, last mite, some relic to have won;
I challenge these, to prove, in human hearts,
How deep the feeling is, which love imparts

64

T' inanimate objects when they're consecrate
By holy recollections! when their forms,
With ready instinct, we associate
With fame that lifts us, or with love that warms:
This is a fickle age, and soon, or late,
We shall feel shame for these pestiferous swarms
Of theories, which would, with vain pretence,
Bring desecration to the things of sense!

65

My song is ended! Beauteous Plant, once more
To thee I turn; and thank thee, that, by mean
Of thee, I have been able to restore
A transient glimpse of a long parted scene!
Further, I thank thee, since fate had in store,
Through thy kind mediation, that I've been
The muse's inmate, and have gained, from her,
A sequestration from the world's vain stir.

See the description of the Author's residence in the North of England, in the third book of “Desultory Thoughts in London;” particularly that part of it where the parasitical plants are mentioned with which it was embowered.,

See motto (from Rosseau's Confessions) to “Desultory Thoughts in London,” and stanza 39, p. 62, of the Poem on the Language and Subjects most fit for Poetry.

A residence which the Author possessed near the Lake of Winandermere: for a description of which see “Desultory Thoughts in London,” third book, p. 129, stanza 23, beginning “I had a cottage in a paradise.” His dwelling on this spot was overgrown with the plant here celebrated.

To the leaves of the Virginia Creeper may be well applied the lines of Mr. Coleridge— “The hanging woods which, touched by autumn, seem As they were blossoming hues of fire and gold,” as in the decline of the year, they are of the richest crimson, orange, and yellow.

Ulswater. In the vale at the head of Ulswater, there is a well which was formerly dedicated to St. Patrick, whence, the Author believes, this vale is called Patterdale, a corruption of Patrick's dale.— Cumberland, the Poet, styles Ulswater “Imperial Lake of Patrick's dale.”

Joshua, chapter the fourth.

It need be scarcely here said, that in these lines we refer to the Roman Catholic rites; in which, by means of pictures, statues, censers, perfumes, music, and architectural ornament, there is an attempt made as it were to excite the feelings through the iustrumentality of sensuous symbols—in which, truths the most abs'ract, are, as it were, embodied, and the very mysteries of religion typified by means of physical hieroglyphics.—This religion certainly tends to the consecration of sensible objects, but to secure this end, does it not lower the sublimity of immaterial ones?

Love is not love, When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from th'entire point. Shakspeare.

The Author is quite aware that the orations in Ovid to which he refers are fictitious, but they have in them all that is necessary to poetical truth, as nothing is expressed in them which might not have flowed from the lips of the characters to whom they are imputed.

The arms of Hector are said, by Ariosto, to have descended to Orlando. He threw them from him in a fit of insanity. Zerbino found them, and hung them, as a trophy, on the branches of a tree. Mandricardo seized them, and while wearing them was slain by Rogero.

See “Desultory Thoughts in London,” opening of third book.

See stanza 13 of this poem.

Je donnerai de ces souvenirs un seul exemple, qui pourra faire juger de leur force, et de leur verite. Le premier jour que nous allames aux Charmettes, Maman 'etoit en chaise a porteurs, et je la suivois a pied. Le chemin monte; elle etoit assez pesante, et craignant de trop fatiguer sesporteurs, elle voulut descendre a peu pres a moitie chemin, pour faire le reste a pied. En marchant, elle vit quelque chose de bleu dans la haie, & me dit, “voila de la pervenche encore en fleur.” Je n'avois jamais vu de la pervenche; je ne me baissai pas pour l' examiner: et j'ai la vue trop courte pour distinguer a terre les plantes de ma hauteur. Je jettois seulement en passant un coup d'oeil sur celle la, et pres de trente ans se sont passes sans que j'aie revu de la pervenche, ou que j'y aie fait attention. En 1764 etant a Cressier avec mon ami M. du Peyron, nous montions une petite montagne, au sommet de laquelle il y a un joli salon qu' il appelle avec raison Belle-vue Je commencois alors d'herboriser un peu. En montant, et regardant parmi les buissons, je pousse un cri de joie “ah, voila de la pervenche!” Et c'en etoit en effet. Du Peyron s'appercut du transport, mais il en ignorait la cause; ill'apprendra, je l'espere, lors qu'un jour il lira ceci. Le lecteur peut juger, par l'impression d'un si petit objet, du celle qne m'ont fait tous ceux qui se rapportent a la meme epoque.—Les Confessions de Rousseau, tome 2de. page 102.

Dans les situations diverses ou je me suis trouve, quelques uns ont ete marques par un tele sentiment de bien etre, qu'en les rememorant j'en suis affecte comme si j'y etois encore. Non seulement je me rappelle les temps, les lieux, les personnes, mais toutes objets environnant, la temperature de l'air, son odeur, sa couleur, une certaine impression locale, qui ne s'est fait sentir que la, et dont le souvenir vif m'y transporte de nouveau.—Les Confessions de Rousseau, tome lere. page 228.

The Author cannot exactly cite the place in which this anecdote is related of Johnson, but he has the most perfect recollection of having met with it in an account of him by one of his biographers. The circumstance took place near the city of Lichfield, the place of his birth.

The days of his childhood returned upon him (Wesley) when he visited Epworth; and taking a solitary walk in the church-yard of that place, he says, “I felt the truth of ‘one generation goeth, and another cometh.’ See how the earth drops its inhabitants, as the tree drops its leaves.”—Southey's Life of Wesley, 2d vol. page 518.

See Nugæ Canoræ. Lines addressed to Robert Southey, Esq. from Barnwell; and lines addressed to the Scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

Gog and Magog hills.

Rousseau.

See Foliage, by Leigh Hunt, pages 131, 132, 133.

STANZAS

ON THE DIFFICULTY WITH WHICH, IN YOUTH, WE BRING HOME TO OUR HABITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS, THE IDEA OF DEATH.

We were, fair Queen,
Two lads, that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
The Winter's Tale, act 1. scene 2.

“Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June, we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December.”— Elia, Essays which have appeared under that signature in the London Magazine—New Year's Eve, p. 65.

1

I've heard it said, and true is the remark,
That till thrice ten years o'er our beings steal,
We think we are immortal: that the spark
Within us, not like flash from smitten steel
Which instantaneous darkness doth conceal,
Is inextinguishable: yes, 'tis true,
Till we experimentally do feel,
By some home thrust, how easy to subdue
Life, it eternal seems to our fallacious view.

2

I say not, should you ask a man though he
Have not attained the age of thrice ten years,
Whether he deem that he immortal be,
That, with a rash “yes,” he should shock your ears,
Nay, I deny not, that, a man who bears
The stamp of intellect, though he have lived
But lustres two twice told, may e'en draw tears
By edifying homily, achieved
To prove the human frame was ne'er from death reprieved.

3

There is an outline in our life's first stage,
Certain familiar forms, familiar friends,
And certain land-marks of our pilgrimage,
To each of these our earliest instinct tends:
And I aver till death rapacious rends
These pillars of our being, till we learn
To feel that sense of fluctuation blends
With all towards which in childhood we did yearn,
To recognize our mutability we spurn.

4

So long as these “familiar faces” last,
So long as in our childhood's home we dwell,
So long as of two generations past,
Grandsire, and sire, the honoured beacons, tell,
Of outposts to our being's citadel,
That should, according to the likeliest chance,
Lapsing themselves, our latest lapse foretel,
So long at death we cast incredulous glance,
Or dream of it as of an insubstantial trance.

5

Besides there is a time, in early youth,
When in ourselves we wholly live, when we
Ascribe pre-eminence of actual truth,
Pre-eminently give reality
To our own sphere of life—until we see
Things change around us, till our friends fall down
Plucked by the hand of death, as from a tree
The leaves of autumn, till we make our own
The experience of the past from losses we have known;

6

We think that all, save that which we behold,
Unreal is:—our ancestors, when they
To us are mentioned, as a tale that's told,
Pass through our memories.—With a proud survey,
We think the point in which we live alway
Will be the actual present.—Time doth tell
A different lesson; mouldering into clay
Friend after friend we see, and every knell
Some past illusion scares, some future hope doth quell.

7

We say not, that herein there may not be
Many exceptions. 'Tis the general rule
Which here we do record. Mortality
So early may have trained us in his school,
So soon, or ere life's salient spark did cool,
Our parents, from our grasp, may have been torn,
So soon we have been “ pushed” as “from the stool”

Of life's brief empire, that bereft, forlorn,
Life, ere our life matured, may of its hope be shorn.

8

Religion too, by providential voice,
May have, so early, trained us in her lore:—
Truth may, so soon, have shewn the wiser choice
Which the devoted Mary made of yore;—
Have drawn us, spite of all earth had in store,
“To th' better cause,” that we, quite exorcised,
May, from our earliest years, have given o'er
All mortal strife, and nothing else have prized
Save that “pearl” for which all is cheaply sacrificed.

9

But, in the common way, we seldom think
Of death, till death not only hath mowed down
Our dearest friends; but till our hopes too shrink,
Torn from us, as hereditary crown
From abdicated King; till fortune frown,
And snap life's tenderest thread, we cast a glance,
Of change unapprehensive, up and down,
And quite absorbed in insubstantial trance,
Think to behold, in life, an unchanged countenance.

10

We seldom think of death till thirty years
Have somewhat cooled our blood, and quenched our thirst,
And hunger, for that bliss, which no one fears
To miss, and which when life's gay prospects first
Open upon us, on our gaze doth burst
In shapes so Proteus like. But from that time
This thought with every form is interspersed,
Like note of discord, or imperfect rhyme,
Spoiling harmonious sounds, or poesy's sweet chime.

11

'Till life's first scenes have undergone a change,
'Till of old objects it have once been cleared,
And others have arisen in that range
Of observation, 'specially endeared
To earliest sympathies; till the all-feared,
And silent despot, Death, have taken aim
Against some bulwarks of our hearts which reared,
Like Babel's tower, their venerated frame,
Beneath whose shade we thought that danger never came;

12

'Till old things vanish, and till new ones rise,
'Till in our childhood's home we look in vain
For the kind greeting of those well-known eyes
Which did of our's the firstling glances chain;
'Till we have quitted childhood's sheltered plain,
And gained the summit of maturity,
'Till that horizon fate did first ordain
To bound our sight, doth sink away, and die,
And new ones, at each stage, rise to our mental eye;

13

'Till these things be, the sense of permanence
Dwells with our being, and though we, if asked
If we immortal were, with eloquence
Might prove our own mortality; yet masked—
So long as in the morn-beam we have basked
Of earlier life,—so much is death's grim face,
That, o'erinformed with happiness, o'ertasked
With taste of bliss, it yields a pungent grace,
A savour of sweet fear his antic feats to trace.

14

We see him then but as in masquerade,
He comes but as the wizard of life's tale,
But different far the case is when displayed,
Before our vision are his banners pale;
When near the dwelling of our youth, the gale
Which passes by, is tainted with his breath;
Then his imaginary trophies fail,
And we no longer list with indrawn breath,
Or hear with pleasing awe the chronicles of death.

15

That which before excited, now appals;
That which before did stimulate, doth quell;
That which before did thrill, not dully falls
On us, with leaden weight, like palsying spell!—
Life, thou hast lost, that, without which, the cell
Of fancy, no more teems with magic charms,
Sense of security! and those know well
Who this experience gain of death's alarms,
All is then lost except Religion ope her arms.

16

Yes, there's a tide in life, in hope's fresh hues
When all is bathed; a time when we not yet

Have shaken hands with fear: when joy endues,
And bold aspiring promises (the debt
Not being yet drawn out, which, soon or late,
Will stare us in the face we have to pay
To pain, to sin, and man's degraded state)
The splendid future; and while on our way
Illusion still doth chaunt her necromantic lay.

17

That time soon closes! And, ah! woe to him,
When it has closed, who's not so wisely sown,
That he may sing no spiritual harvest hymn;
Nor with such foresight planted as to own
Interest in heaven's own garner; never known
Blighted to be or barren, from the store
Filled of celestial seed. East winds have blown
In vain, and mildew sought its bane to pour
On that celestial hoard, sound even to the core.

18

We do not say, when on the term we fix
Of thirty years, for death's dire revelation,
When we contend that it doth never mix
With all our thoughts till on the middle station
Of life we gain prospective elevation

More distant objects to descry than those
Familiar ones, which moulded young sensation,
That many chances may not interpose,
That mood to antedate which from death's knowledge flows.

19

A parent, brother, sister, or a friend,
Tenderly loved, snatched from us in the bloom
Of life, perchance sooner the veil may rend,
Which hides from youthful eyes the yawning tomb.
But yet though this should chance, it is our doom
So full of joy, so full of hope to be,
Mainly in life's first stages, that though gloom
Be in the outline of our destiny
It leaves our untouched spirits unimpaired and free,

20

Like water lapsing o'er a glossy woof
With unctuous juice impregnate. Whensoe'er
This sense brought home of death, this heartfelt proof
Of our mortality becomes our share,
If we have not religion, deep despair

Will seize upon our spirits, but if we
Possess that blessed gift, joy shall they wear,
As fades all life's substantiality,
Th' unreal earth is lost in heaven's reality.

But now, they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools. Macbeih, act 3d, scene 4th.

Oh, 'tis a blest time wheu we hold beneath
The heart, such lavish hoards of joy sincere,
They e'en with sweetness pall 'till pungent made by fear.

See Desultory Thoughts in London, and other Poems, p. 237, stan. 30.

STANZAS

INTENDED AS A REPLY TO, AND A COMMENT ON, THE FOLLOWING LINES.

OH would I not, the pulse of love to waken
E'en in a being by the world rejected,
Stoop to compliances the least connected
With aught could flatter self? Ah, was not this
What of himself, when he himself depicted,
Frankly confessed the paradox-loving Swiss
“To meet a second self is the sublime of bliss?”

Ah, was not this my wish? My hope supreme?
Cannot a being, or in earth, or heaven,
Be met with,—from the stigma of a dream,—
To rescue him, who has with much toil, striven
For such communion? Like a spirit driven
From comprehension by connatural things
I, from the extremest ardour, ever given
To man, for human sympathy, my wings
Now flag, and glad would be to drink lethean springs.

See Nugœ Canora, Stanzas by C. Lloyd, part of 8th and 9th stanza.

[_]

There are two ways in which we feel the home-thrusts of Religion, and they are diametrically opposite. The one from a cold-blooded indifference to the world; and the other from loving pleasure to such a degree, that no earthly pleasure can satisfy that love. The ascetic are generally composed either of the insensible, or those who have an excess of sensibility; of those for whom the world has no attractions, or those whom it attracts more than it can gratify.

1

Whenever I have turned to meaner themes,
From thee Religion, so much more as I

Have been enabled by warm-glowing gleams
To give resplendence to their imagery,
So much the more, of infidelity
A sense has risen, in my conscious breast,
Towards that, which I know well is worthily
Alone, on the well govern'd mind impress'd,
Towards that, whose joys alone no after stings molest.

2

Celestial Spirit which erewhile didst deign
Our elder Milton's hallowed prayer to hear,
Do thou inspire my tributary strain,
Breathe thou through every word that sense severe
Of Truth; and if aught eloquent appear,
Let it to every one be manifest,
That it flows from that empyrean clear,
Where thou beside God's throne, a heavenly guest,
With vision beatific evermore art blessed!

3

Long, long enough, have I on love enlarged,
Wasting on idle theme my idle prime;—
Not that I mean with folly may be charged
Whate'er is not devotional in rhyme.
But grant, that, from them shall result no crime,

Yet human loves are vain, and end in air.
Whereas that love which mounts on wings sublime
Towards heaven, as everlastingly is fair,
As sources whence it rose imperishable are.

4

The natural impulse, of each natural mind,
Enough doth souls to natural passions move:
We little need persuasives, whence inclined
The human heart may be to human love.
But does experience, towards religion, prove
This natural bias, in the human heart?
Rather doth not each stress tend to remove,—
Each impulse both of nature and of art,—
This noblest of all themes from man's immortal part?

5

'Twixt other attributes which man doth share
This is the difference, and religious lore,
That ere on its first rudiments he dare
To cast an eye, e'en to its inmost core
The heart must be renewed; no soul can soar
To its most simple rules, till, on the wings
Of the most holy Dove, it learn t'explore

Truths, which, to those are, round whom this world clings,
In heaven's own archives kept, unutterable things!

6

Father who gav'st me talents, 'tis my prayer,
Since all unfit for bustling scenes I be,
Since sequestration from those places, where
Mankind, to grave affairs, most actively
Is called, best suits my pensive tendency:—
Do thou my humble aspiration bless,
To bring a contribution tremblingly
To that pure stock of truth, whose perfectness
Best stays man's tottering steps through life's bleak wilderness.

7

Father! I ask, or in thy vineyard deign
To let me be a labourer; to be
But “in thy house” “a door-keeper!”—no strain
Of mine shall then flow discontentedly.
Oh deign to make me something; deign on me
To shed th' anointing oil, that I may sing
Loudly thy praises!—Or, if thy decree

Claimant unfit deem me to touch the string
Of thy most hallowed harp, hear my petitioning,—

8

I then implore that thou would'st fashion so
My natural talents, that, with them, I may
Become a labourer while here below,
To lessen human sorrows!—Oh, I pray
That I may be a something!—May the day,
E'en of my pilgrimage, or ere it wane
Behold a monument, whence men may say,
“He, in his day, did his day's work!” Oh deign
My lot to rescue from “unprofitable” stain!

9

Yet, if thy will be such, that neither I,—
Or for “another and a better world,”—
Must throw my mite in of utility;—
Or e'en, in this, must see the flag unfurl'd
Of active use;—if I must thus be hurl'd,—
To keep me humble, from each high career,
Whence man is hailed with blessings;—if I'm whirled
Thus, from distinction's gratifying sphere:—
Still moisten my pale cheek with gratitude's meek tear!—

10

Yes, let me never, never turn from thee!—
Whether I be an instrument of use:
Or whether I am bound to bend the knee
In nothingness;—whether I can produce
Aught of effect; or whether, thou, t'unloose,
To unloose utterly, the mortal strings,
Which bind me to this world, see'st fit, with noose,
Hard as the gordian knot, to cramp my wings,
And stamp me while I live, vilest of vilest things!

11

Yes, be thou “with me in the way I go!”
Whether or poverty or wealth thou send;—
Be thou my all in all! Be thee to know,—
My heart's best treasure—as my soul's best friend!
To touch unworthily, do thou forefend,
With an unhallowed hand, that ark of thine!—
What, what am I? Though in the dust I bend,
Let me rejoice, that while I lowly pine,
Thousands of purer souls in thy white raiment shine!

12

I've elsewhere said, “cannot in earth, or heaven,
Being be found, from stigma of a dream

To rescue him who hath with much toil striven
For human sympathy?” Such the extreme
Of folly, to expect, from turbid stream,
To draw transparent waters, as to try
In what is finite, what we still must deem
Imperfect, stamped with mutability,
There realized to find perfectibility!

13

No, no! There is but One, God is that one,
Who all the soul's deep wants can satisfy;
No, no! There is but One, that Being alone
Who made the heart, who thoroughly can spy
Its labyrinthine windings. We may try
To find another self as well, may seek
As soon to double our identity
As hope on earth the blessing to bespeak
Of perfect love in man, so faulty and so weak!

14

As it might easily be made appear
A perfect sameness in the inner frame
Of the mind's structure, in two beings here
Would argue that their persons were the same—
Though biform, two such beings would but claim

Common identity. Therefore, I say,
At such a consentaneousness to aim,
Is, but in other words, to be the prey
Of wishes fond as those which did Narcissus sway.

15

It is, in short, to wish a second self,
Yet not a second self to find: it is
The wish to find another, whom some elf,
Versed in fantastic metamorphosis,
Hath made so like us, that in him we miss
Nought save entire identity. How fond
Is it on such a dream to found our bliss!
He who the finite ne'er can go beyond,
Seeks happiness in vain, enthralled in error's bond!

16

To make this clear. If we but once allow
(As most in present times admit) there dwells
'Twixt such and such a temperament (though how
Causation here doth operate quite repels
Man's finite guest) yet if the fact compels
Our credence, that a given cast of mind,
A given symmetry of form foretels,
Then must we grant, that, if two forms enshrined
Twokindred souls, they were to kindred forms assigned.

17

Now since two bodies never were the same,
To seek two minds alike, vain is the quest:
Alleviation is what we should claim,
A soothing of the ills which life molest
From human sympathy; but he whose breast
Is fired with notion that he may discern
Being through whom he may be wholly blest,
Seeking for that which cannot be, will earn
Nought but conviction sad how idly he did yearn.

18

Besides—but that 'tis foreign to our theme—
It were not difficult the fact to prove
That those most sympathy enjoy, whose stream
Of thought, like twy-born founts, diversely move.
We, those that are our opposites, most love;
Where we're deficient, those who most abound;
Those who're deficient where we soar above
The common standard; if with candour crowned,
And mutual comprehensiveness such tie be found.

19

In such a case a mutual aid is given;—
One moral being of two counterparts

Is formed; and thus each brings a leaven
Whence each to t'other's scantiness imparts.
But e'en in this, best tie of human hearts,
Those imperfections which are still the bane
Of all that is of man, with poisonous arts,
Will interfere: no plant of earthly strain
Did e'er yet grow mature, unblemished with a stain.

20

No, he who made the heart, can only know
Its wants; he only who is infinite
Can e'er appease th' unutterable throe,
With which the soul doth pant for pure delight:
He who while he doth perfectly requite
That individual wish, can do as much,
As for that individual, by his might,
For every one whose heart doth own the touch
Of grace, which leads it still from heaven its all to snatch.

21

Though man be finite, still his wishes are
Indefinite, if not infinite: tell me then,
Is there not an insuperable bar,
'Twixt finite beings rendering back again

T' each other all they wish? As we are men
We're with pure reason gifted. This doth tend
To th' infinite. However we may strain
All possibilities, when man doth blend
With man, an aching void that union will attend.

22

No accidents of chance can hinder this;
No possibilities of fate evade;
Cease then the vain complaint of scanty bliss
Attending human sympathy! By aid
Of true philosophy is soon displayed
Its impotence to satisfy the soul
Athirst for living waters, Disarrayed
Be man then of the captivating dole,
Falsely to him ascribed, man's comfort to controul!

23

If thou have sensibility, a heart
Impatient of th' imperfect joys of earth;
If thou have vainly sought to play thy part,
For blessings deemed here of most reverend worth;
And if, like bubbles, thou have found their birth
But harbinger'd their doom; how soon the stream
Exhausted, which from this world gushes forth;

If thou have found that joys from earth which teem,
When once their taste is o'er, are joys but in a dream.

24

Remember still there's a resource for thee:
If thou'rt a mystery to thyself, to all;
Still to thy God thou art no mystery:—
Yes, He, without whose care there doth not fall
A sparrow to the ground, however small;
Howe'er profound, how utterless soe'er
Thy griefs, if thou on him with faith wilt call,
Can bring a sure relief to thy despair;
And raise elysian blooms where all seemed bleak and bare.

25

There cannot be a mood of mind so dim,
So evanescent, imperceptible,
But it is clear as noon of day to him;
He sees thy rising cares or ere they fill
Thine eyes with tears; and if with passive will
Thou at his foot-stool meekly wilt fall down
The tumult of thy anguish he will still,
And all the contrite tears thy cheek which drown
Will add a living gem to faith's immortal crown.

26

So far with tolerance th' instinct do I see
Which leads the spirit with devotion fond,
To seek in youth for perfect sympathy
In other human hearts, that few this bond
Who have not sought, few who have never conned
With weak idolatry, a human face,
And found how vain were human loves; beyond
Were everled to go: triumphs of grace
Are oftenest gained by souls driven from love's earthly race.

27

The principle of love must be implanted,
Or e'en divine love ne'er will take its root:
Small hope for those who're of this instinct scanted:
Small hope for those involved in low pursuit
Of interest or ambition! Who with brute,
And earthward gaze see nought beyond themselves:
But hope, ye mourners, who with anguish mute,
See each foundation, like a train of elves,
Vanish, which human skill unprofitably delves.

28

As to Religion's cause, one well might hope,
Rather to gain th' idolater, than one

Who loves in atheistic gloom to mope:—
So may we rather hope he may be won
To love his God, him whom the fervid sun
Of love hath fevered, whose still earnest eye
Some outward idol still is fixed upon,
Than him in self-involved captivity,
Who thinks he's free since self doth doom his slavery.

29

Passion, love, adoration! Fine the links
That in progressive process join these three,
Cursed is that soul, which gifted, basely sinks
From last of these to that first named! So he,
Who is so wise, if he defeated be
In passion, and in love, to raise his thought
In adoration, from th' idolatry
Of passion, and of love, will soon be taught
That superhuman bliss is by the latter brought.

30

“There is a bliss the eye hath never seen,
“There is a bliss the ear hath never heard,
“Nor hath it ever comprehended been:—
“And though on man's heart 'tis sometimes conferred,”
Never except on him whose heart is stirred

With spiritual communion: he who drinks
Of that immortal fount, to him preferred
Is that pure peace, which while it deeply sinks
Into our heart of hearts, speech from its utterance shrinks.

31

Oh God, give me, and I will never crave
An earthly joy, that peace which passeth words;
That peace whose smile can hover o'er the grave,
That peace whose inner wealth can shame all hoards
Of bliss terrestrial; that peace which affords
Pity to other's sorrow; and which feels,
E'en while it braves the edge of hostile swords,
And binds all human wounds, and while it kneels
E'en by the bed of death, a blessedness which heals.

32

Yes, I rejoice in spirit, when I think
On this tried panacea: 'tis a balm
Which to the depth of deepest wounds may sink,
Which the most troubled soul may quickly calm.
Ask it of God then, ask it! 'Tis an alm
He freely doth vouchsafe: but oh, how rare
The privilege to sing a grateful psalm

For its bequest, save by those, who, in prayer,
Bankrupt in earthly hope, turn heavenward in despair!—

33

Yes, could I wish for others or myself;
It were, that, pierced the veil 'twixt thee and me,
My God, I, sacrificing earthly pelf,
Might view, as the supreme reality,
Thee, and the world of spirits. Who that's free
Would wish to be imprison'd? Who that could
Carry his thoughts to all eternity,
In glad progression, forward, would be mewed
In seventy years brief space of ailing flesh and blood?

34

But how shall this be gained? By fervent prayer—
“In season, out of season, in prayer” “be
“Instant,” th' Apostle saith. First station there—
In yon bright mansion of eternity,
Thy heart's chief loves, and thou wilt quickly see,
With spiritual eye, far clearer than on earth,
To the natural eye—with more reality—
Than to that eye those forms which here have birth,
Objects surpassing man's weak powers to body forth!

35

I talk not of ecstatic vision!—no:—
Nor of conversion instantaneous speak:
Few, few gain such immunity below,
From thrall of flesh and blood, save him whose cheek
Contrition oft hath dewed with tear-drops meek:
'Tis a slow process in most hearts, to wean
Them so from this world's coil, that on them break,
With all the freshness of a real scene,
Those glories hid behind mortality's dim skreen.

36

Be humble,—be resigned,—be penitent:—
Be God's thy will:—the spirit of prayer be thine;
The spirit of love: be with each chance content
That seems to fall out in th' appointed line
Of Providence. Let not thy soul repine,
Nor yield it e'er to fruitless retrospect.
Save when thou feel'st admonished from the shrine
Of awful conscience, that, by some neglect
Of thine, thou pay'st the fine for God's will by thee checked.

37

In God thou liv'st, thou mov'st, thy being hast;
Bring this truth home to constant consciousness;
About thy bed, about thy path, is placed
The angel of his presence. Dost thou press
Thy bed down-lying; rising, doth the stress
Of the day's duties crowd upon thy thought;
Still ever in adoring awfulness
Be, to thy spirit, the reflection brought,
That wheresoe'er thou art, is with his presence fraught.

LINES

[_]

WRITTEN FEB. 6, 1822, ON THE DEATH OF MARY LLOYD, MOTHER OF THE AUTHOR.

My dearest Mother, could a lay of mine
Rescue thy memory from oblivion's gloom,
How gladly would my efforts try to build
Th' imperishable verse; for thou wert one
Deserving well the love of those that knew thee.
Pious thou wert, sincere, and elevate
Above all vulgar thought: thy heart, the seat
Of every finer sensibility,
Was not for this world's ways. How well do I
Remember, when I yet was but a boy,
And only knew of death by name: ne'er yet
Had felt the nearest interests of my heart
Rent by its cold inexorable hand;
How well do I still recollect the beam
That brightened in thine eye, and o'er thy face
Spread like a glory, when some lovely scene
Of nature called on thee to gaze; or when
In book which thou perusedst thou did meet

With sympathetic sentiment, from strain
Lofty, impassioned, generous, or devout.
How well do I remember when on eve
Of summer, thou didst sit, and watch the sun's
Last radiance, watch the simple landscape seen
From nether windows of thy then abode,
With houses otherwise encompassed, how
Do I remember what serenity,
Bespeaking solemn and unearthly thoughts,
Brooded on all thy person! How thou lookedst
Still I recall to mind, and too recall
How oft such hour by some appropriate strain
From the Seasons' bard, and him of flight more lofty,
The Poet who did tune his sacred harp
To tell of man's first innocence, his fall,
And restoration,—how such hour was filled
By some appropriate strain from these with taste
Selected;—thy enunciation graced
Each apt quotation: for thy countenance,
Each gesture, tone of voice, an earnest gave,
Thou lentest more of feeling to the strain
By thee recited, than thou drew'st from thence.
Thou wert meet Priestess for an hour like this!
Thine was a breast tuned to each holier thought!

Thine was a voice which e'en an angel might
Have made its organ, in discourse with man
Rendering thee his interpretress! so free
From aught of vulgar, sordid, mean, or low,
Were all thy feelings, that not only thou
Didst never to a mood which these inspire
Give utterance, but also in thy breast
Instinct connatural to such impulses
Could not be found!

Thou hadst a fiery spirit,
But yet of fire celestial! and the flame
Thou inly nursedst, like a vestal light
Diffused its radiance round thy daily path,
Shone in thy countenance, purified thy words
From all alloy terrestrial: (never thought
By this world's dross adulterate dimmed their brightness)
Pure was thy love as that which we conceive
Souls disembodied feel for spirits purged
From all material sediment. Thou art gone!
The scene in which thou movedst now is filled
By other objects. No more doth thy keen,
And searching spirit, o'er the haunts preside,
Where to thy friends thy form was once familiar!
Thus do the generations pass away!

And nought is left of those we most did love,
Most cherished, and most reverenced, those who most
Endeared to us our span of life below,
But their remembrance living in our hearts.
So will it ere long fare with him who now
Indites this frail memorial. Ah, were life,
So brittle are its best of gifts, worth having,
Were there not hope that every struggle here
Will yet be recognized! Each tear we shed
Of sorrow, or contrition, yet recalled,
And with a crown rewarded! There's a voice
Which tells us that supreme reality
Is not in things of sense! They who have felt
Their spirits lifted by the power of prayer,
These, these can tell that power doth with it bring
Secret assurance of its genuine worth!
What causes us when we are told of those
Whose robes are whitened in their Saviour's blood,
Of those who have as conquerors come forth
From many tribulations, what doth cause
That secret earnestness the spirit feels
To be of that blest number? Why, if things
Of sense were doomed to be our chiefest good,
Do things of sense ne'er satisfy the soul,

Do things of sense ne'er satisfy the soul,
And vaguest promises of Gospel joy,
Bring greater confirmation to the spirit
Wrestling with passions, and with tempting baits
Of speciousest allurement, than all things
The world can give? Why do we find our life,
Then when we lose it, most? Or whence arise
The stubborn facts, that having sacrificed
The bulkiest treasures of this bustling world,
For things not only here invisible,
But also oft but half imagined, we
Feel a deep calm that tells us we are wise?
It is that there is truth in virtue's hopes!
Let a man have not only all this world
Can give externally, but let him too
Have all internal powers adapted best
To most voluptuous pleasures of existence,
Still will his joys, like motes before the eye
On a warm summer's day, suddenly vanish;
Fall from him like the dim imaginings
Of half-remembered dreams, and like a corse,
Cold and inanimate,—and worse than this,—
E'en like a culprit caught in act of guilt,
Appalled, surprised, convicted, smote with shame,

Leave him a statue of mute wonderment!
Do virtue's promises deceive us thus?—
Do they forsake us when we want them most?
Do they fly from us, like unfaithful friends
From a sick comrade, or from death-bed scene?
When we most want reality, are they
Not then most real found? They may indeed
By turbulent pleasures of this bustling world
Be scared away: but not like parasites,
They best bested us when we need them most!
Like worldly men, the pleasures of this world
Add confluence but to confluence! But the joys
Derived from virtue live in solitude:
Comfort e'en indigence, where lack of friends
Is most regretted, there they most repair,
O'er pain they triumph, and defy e'en death!

My Mother, thou hadst well these truths discerned!
Though blest with sense, and polished manners, thou
E'en in the flower of youth didst wisely turn
From all the proffered flatteries of life,
And seeking that within, which other's seek
Without, thou addedst to the Confessors
By whom the ways of truth are justified!
Thine own example furnishing best proof

That e'en in sickness (for thou sufferedst much
From this the greatest enemy to joy,
Save that which doth assail the sons of guilt)
That e'en in sickness, there may be discovered
A never-failing balm. Though there in thee
Was found that sensibility which oft
Exaggerates life's joys, in thee it brought
Its own redress. For while it haply raised
The smothered sigh for more than common bliss,
That delicacy hence thy soul imbibed,
Forbade all earthly bliss to satisfy
Its most importunate cravings.—

My weak art
Is all inadequate to draw thee forth
From death's oblivious gloom; thee to pourtray
As thou wert seen, and known, and felt to be.
But never, never can my heart forget
The influence of thy presence! I am proud
Now to reflect I was with mother blest,
Who although she was with humility
Clad as a daily garb, never betrayed,
In thought, or word, or action, any impulse
Not fittted for the universe to witness.

Thou wert by nature eminently blessed
With powers of nice discrimination. Thou

Couldst see at once through veil the most opaque
Hypocrisy assumed. Thou wert not soon
Duped by professions. Flattery thou didst hate.
To thee the best of flatteries was to be
Unflattering; thy best homage, sympathy.
Thy sense of nice propriety extended
From things to persons. Thou didst always call
Forth others latent powers: didst evermore
Thyself forget in company with others.
The rites of hospitality thou ne'er
Neglectedst: to thy table, to thy roof,
None came unwelcome, whatsoe'er the hour,—
Thy mood,—thy pressures of anxiety,—
And I have heard it said by Him who best
Knew thy life's tenor, that he never saw thee,
Save with a smile of kindly courteous welcome,
Greet e'en the guest the most inopportune:
And best of introductions to thy notice,
Was it to feel that notice might give joy,—
Do good,—at least some sorrow mitigate!
Not like the worldling who doth ever seek
The flux of company, thou chiefly turnedst
Thy kind attention where it most could find
A heart whose desolation it might gladden.

In thee a perfectly decorous bearing
Was not, like garb of state, put on alone

For festal days; an emanation 'twas
From a still cleaving sense most exquisite,
Most unremitting, of propriety.
And those who saw thee might perhaps at first,
More than by love, be, by respect, impressed:
Provided that, if they discriminate powers
Possessed, they had not soon discovered thou
Beneath this veil of nice propriety
Conceal'dst a heart where tenderest feelings dwelt:
'Twas not because she felt not, 'twas because
Her feelings were too lofty for this world,
It was because that she, to those she loved
Could give perchance more than they could return,
And that a secret intimating instinct
This truth suggested, perhaps not self-confessed
From her abundant lowliness of heart,
'Twas hence the panoply of circumspection
Did so conspicuously guard her life,
That to the superficial she might seem
Reserved, unbending, rigid, and austere!—
But no, let those who as a mother saw thee
When thou hadst babes that asked a mother's care,
Let those who saw thee when the poor did plead,
Let those who saw thee when an o'ercharged heart
Gave to the tongue the utterance it needed,

To pour its secret sorrows to thy ears,—
Let these say how thou feltest! Though thyself
Not only wert from every stain exempt,
But that not e'en the most pestiferous breath
Of most deliberate malevolence
Could ever in thy conduct find a flaw,
Yet thou wert ever ready to discern
Some palliative for frailties of mankind.
In thee the fallen, not a censurer
Found, but a sorrowing, sympathetic friend!
Grief, came she even in the garb of vice,
To thee was sacred; and if charity
May indeed cover multitude of sins,
What may not then be said of it when borne—
(Not as antagonist weight so to eke out
Our own slack worthiness)—by one like thee,
Exempted from all need (as men wear masks)
With one compensatory grace to hide
A thousand failings? No, in thee it was
A fresh, gratuitous, and healthful spring
Like that of living waters: not squeezed out,
A most equivocal distilment, drawn,
(By process as elaborate as those
Of antique chemistry) from neighbouring vices!
Thine was no maudling, whimpering charity!

It was the charity of one whose breast,
Rich in its own creations, owed to these
A consciousness of all man's heart can feel;
In that warm bosom there did dwell enshrined
A human microcosm, which reflected
All the mind's accidents; and though in her
Each impulse not consistent with true worth,
If it had e'er had birth, had been repressed,
This opulence of nature, this rich gift
Of human intuitions, qualified—
(As mariners assisted by a compass
May unknown seas explore)—her to extend
E'en to the obscurest regions of the mind,
To all those passions which command our tears,
To all those impulses which would be voiceless
Had they not correspondent sighs and groans,
A quick discernment, and a sympathy
Which almost did anticipate the prayer
Labouring for utterance in an aching heart
Desirous of her aid, to speak ashamed!

STANZAS

[_]

Written the 7th and 10th of February, ON THE DEATH OF MARY BRAITHWAITE, THE THIRD SISTER OF THE AUTHOR.

1

If innocence, and saint-like truth
Persisted in from earliest youth,
If passiveness so sweet,
In her so patient was, it might,
If praise it sought, that praise excite
Which active virtues meet.

2

If all that marks the christian here,
The soul devout, the ready tear,
For every child of woe;
If these, dear Mary, might require
The votive lay, well from my lyre
The elegy may flow.

3

The tender grace in thee enshrined,
Thy patient gentleness of mind,
Thy saint-like purity,
Perfect exemption from each thought
Of ill in others; thy untaught,
And deep humility;

4

Thy tender care, in deed and word,
That wrong should never be incurred
From thee by any one:
Thy habit all things to refer
To the Almighty Arbiter,
And Him to serve alone:

5

To those that knew thee, these might well
Inspire the wish like thee t'excel
In every christian grace:
Thou liv'st in each of these enshrined;
Each gains new strength, thee called to mind,
To run the christian race.

6

Oh, what a fool were such as thou,
Did no dread Being hear the vow
Which those like thee profess,
To die to every human hope,
And give to no fond wish a scope,
Save those which heaven may bless.

7

No wish hadst thou, but such as sprung
From heaven! To its blest mansions clung
All hopes which thee did rule:
If vain those hopes, like hopes beneath,
Then thou of every child of Eve
Wert most indeed a fool!

8

But since in the dread human plan,
No other instinct's given to man
With purpose to confound,
No end that cheers its appetence:—
We may, with faith, infer from hence,
Thou soughtedst, and hast found.

9

Say is it not a startling fact,
Thousands are drawn the part to act
Of dying, so to live!
Or we must deem our life a lie,
Or in such fact as this we spy
A pledge that heaven will give.

10

From Heaven, a pledge, immortal life
To give to those who to the strife
Of duty nobly press:
For as in other instincts, we,
An end, by intuition, see,
So faith can own no less.

11

But little, little can the world,
Little those sons of men who're hurled
In passion's ceaseless maze:
Tell what the conflict is to those
Who feel the food from heaven that flows
Alone their want allays.

12

Oh, say ye, who have once drunk deep
Of living waters; who must reap
Immortally, or die,
From sensuous joys how many fasts,
How much toil your's long as life lasts,
And inward agony!

13

How many tears ye shed alone!
How many a sign ye heave unknown
Which no one seems to hear!
How many longings that your breast
Might be like others, blessing, blest,
Unfolded to no ear!

14

How many times, when nigh to faint,
Ye fain would have the hard restraint,
The austere interdict,
Which severs you from things of sense,
Repealed; and mockings which from hence
Men of the world inflict.

15

How many times, when ye're gainsaid,
When ye are scoffed, when all upbraid,
Ye live in solitude!
A solitude which few can tell;
A solitude which those know well
Whom heaven hath here renewed!

16

But bear ye up courageously!
A day will come, a time will be
When you in your turn shall,
That you've been willing to be poor
On earth, heaven's interest to secure,
Triumphantly recall.

17

Not that we mean that what is done,
So that thereby a prize be won,
Can ever win that prize!
No! we to all of self must die,
Or ere supreme reality
Is opened to our eyes.

18

We speak of consequence, not cause,
Heaven comes from faith in heavenly laws,
But comes alone to those
Who, by a heavenly instinct led,
Feel bound, though living, to be dead,
To all the world bestows!

19

These drawn by love, and deemed as fools,
Expedience calculating rules
Will loyally disdain.
They know that God doth love that mind,
Acting in passive meekness, blind,
Which love's pure laws constrain.

20

Oh Mary, thou, by such as these,
Might'st well amid degenerate days
Be as a pattern held!
Thou said'st not much; professedst less;
But thy whole life did best express
What aim that life impelled!

21

In scenes domestic thou wert seen
To most advantage: there serene
Thy virtues knew no cloud:
Not like our modern matrons, thou,
With theories primed; in all the shew
Of education proud!

22

Thou sattest like the brooding hen,
Thy little ones round thee! No ken
From thee did ever roam,
Like as from those of baffled aim
In prouder flatteries, to claim
Divinity at home!

23

Love was thy ruling principle;
Love that has neither wish, nor will,
Save those which end in love:
As others' praise thou ne'er hadst sought,
Their praise or blame ne'er caused thy thought
From love's calm sphere to rove.

24

Thou little wishedst child of thine
In vain accomplishments to shine,
Nor yet, with cynic tongue,
Sought'st thou to check its growth, if chance
Some genial exuberance
In nature's order sprung.

25

All affectation thou didst hate:
To be, not to appear: to wait
In patience for the hour,
Was thine, when thou, by choice of mood,
Of time, and place, couldst call up good,
Clothed from above with power!

26

Thou mov'dst in patience, and wert still
In mind; seeking to work the will
Of Him who rules above:
Of Him who, to his little ones,
Gives to repress earth's mightiest sons,
With energy of love!

27

Yes; thou, in thy humility,
Thy gentleness, simplicity,
Might'st be an instance quoted,
That God, the worldly to confound,
Than strength more signally hath crowned,
Weakness to him devoted.

28

By weakness here none can suspect
Is meant deficient intellect;
That lowliness we mean
Which dare not move in its own will;
That finds its strength in being still:
In anguish is serene.

29

Though tender thou, and delicate,
And, in thy youth, on thee did wait,
To fallen flesh and blood,
Those comforts which are most endeared;
As one that all defilement feared,
These were by thee withstood!

30

Why, if to render man the sport
Of fate, is he thus taught to court
E'en voluntary pain?
Why see we not each brutish tribe
The strange obliquity imbibe?
From appetites refrain?

31

'Twould be as easy so to make
Instinctively e'en brutes forsake
That which they most desired,
If this were but a play in Him
Who rules the universal scheme,
And for no end required.

32

By instinct thwarting instinct, so
Brutes might the like confusion know
As that of tongues in Babel,
Were it, as sophists oft have written
Men are with love of penance smitten,
To be their Maker's fable.

33

Yes, if entire perplexity,
And one grand universal lie
Were that which heaven devised,
Thus it might be! But no, 'tis proved
That man by heaven is chiefly lov'd,
Since man's alone “chastised.”

34

Yes, man—and man alone is left!
The noblest of all creatures 'reft
Alone, of powers to reap
A satisfaction full, entire,
From what as creatures men desire,
To sleep, to feed,—and weep!

35

Man is the sole discordant thing;
In man alone there jars a string
Of endless discontent:
He is, 'till influence from above
Tune him to harmony of love,
Like shattered instrument.

36

What, Mary, though thou'st early paid
The debt to nature! All is said
Which need our care engage,
When 'tis pronounced, “thy task is done,
And well!” and thou hast fairly won,
By spotless life, old age!

But wisdom is the grey hair unto men, and an unspotted life old age.—Wisdom of Solomon, chap. 4, v. 9.

STANZAS TO ENNUI.

[_]

Written February 13, 1823.

Vous m'avez dit souvent, quand je me plaignois de l'ennui, qu'il etoit le malheur des gens heureux. Letters of Madame de Deffand to Lord Orford, vol. 3, p. 294.

1

Thou soul destroying fiend, I've heard
It, by philosophers averred,
That thou alone dost come,
To visit with thy pale unrest
The chambers of the human breast,
Where too much happiness hath fixed its home.

2

I grant that thou dost chiefly reign
O'er men, exempted from the train
Of life's external woes;

But hence 'twill never be allowed,
By me, thy influence is bestowed
Where with joys plethora the mind o'erflows.

3

Thou art, if I correctly can
Read thy prognostic in each man
Who by thy plague is cursed,
The child of sensibility,
Begot on cynic apathy,
And art by selfish introversion nursed.

4

Too well I know thy gnawing power;
Too long, have hour succeeding hour,
Felt in my heart thy pest,
Which roving yet unsatisfied,
Languid, feels evermore denied,
In every exigence, refreshing rest.

5

A ceaseless restlessness doth goad
The wretch devoted to the load
With which thou dost oppress

The abject soul: which all things willeth,
Yet nothing it can meet with stilleth
Its keen, and yet fastidious, eagerness.

6

As wretch who tosseth on a bed,
Where burning fever doth impede
All postures ease to yield;
So thou like Tantalus athirst
With deepest impotence art cursed
To grasp at that by which thou might'st be healed.

7

Thou turnest to the azure sky,
And with a scrutinizing eye
Dost ask of every birth
Of nature, wont to fill with tears
Thine eyes, what withers now and seres,
The splendid firmament, the gorgeous earth.

8

'Tis passion is thy element,
Its want, the secret, inly pent,
Which conjures up thy hell:—

Thy deep and deadly virulence
Is only neutralised from hence:—
Save in impassioned hearts didst thou e'er dwell?

9

Another and more venial cause
Whence all the power in thee that gnaws
Our vitals, and devours,
Is it where those of active mind,
To small circumference confined,
Have scant external aims to vast internal powers.

10

Those who require love's genial heat
To cause their pulse with health to beat,
By dire fatality,
These, these will be the reprobates
On whom thy retribution waits,
For every hour of past felicity.

11

It is a fact: we know not why
A fact, but most assuredly
One that experience proves,

Where sensibility doth 'bide
(To passion, that, we mean, allied)
Seldom benevolence doth fix her loves.

12

Of human panaceas found,
To mitigate thy festering wound,
Benevolent desires
Since teaching us, like genial elves
In other's cause to lose ourselves,
Most certainly appease its wasting fires.

13

We may be gentle, may be soft,
May sensitively shrink as oft
As we of sorrow hear,
Yet not this sentimental trait,
One moment from th' imperious sway
Will exorcise our hearts of selfish fear.

14

'Tis from benevolence alone,
Not sensibility, whence won
Is ennui's disenthralment.

Her soft conception of distress
Is oft allied to helplessness,
And shrinks from duty's uniform instalment.

15

But yet on t'other hand we may
Affirm that those who bear the sway
Meekly of passive woe,
Who dare not move until they're led
By him by whom the raven's fed,
An insight most profound in duty's mysteries know.

16

Those who, by doing, always can
Fill wisely up the little span
Of life, to men assigned,
These, as they ne'er can, the condition
Know, of entire self-inanition,
With its deep conflict ne'er can be refined.

17

Passion is man's sublimity
By nature! Passion's mastery
Religion's highest boast!

But how that mind must be baptised,
Till 'tis so fully exorcised,
That all of grace is gained, since all of flesh is lost.

18

But waive we this.—When with a sigh
We thought of thee, no homily
Was in our breast arranged;
We fain would paint thee as thou art,
And try, since thou'lt not draw thy dart,
By analyzing thee, to be avenged.

19

As 'tis a sane arbitrement,
With vassal talents, which prevent
All conflicts in sensation,
That best thy influence evade;—
So to thy pest all lends an aid
When the sick will depends on stimulation.

20

When to the influence of thy curse
We yield, thou of caprice art nurse,
And all fastidiousness:—

When we bend humbly 'neath the scourge
Thou dost inexorably urge,
Thy handmaid Patience comes at length to bless.

21

If borne with, (thou who most dost love
Self-centred spirit to reprove)
Of self-annihilation
Thou art the teacher! If we nurse,
By luxury, thy insidious curse,
We forfeit finally, from thee, salvation.

22

Oh, when in youth, in all we see
There's freshness, life, and novelty,
And passion's conscience sleeps,
Oh, what enlargement then we feel!
Then no remorse with muttered spell
Pursues our steps, and o'er our shoulder peeps!

23

Of every state by thee assailed,
None are there, o'er which thou'st prevailed,
Like thine, Satiety!

Thence, Ennui, are the bloated slaves,
Thence, as the Vampires spring from graves,
All that vast train of minions waits on thee!

24

'Tis better far to wish in vain,
Than not to have a wish t'unchain
The fetters of the soul:
'Tis better far to feel a want,
Than not to have a breath, a pant,
Severing the stagnant clouds that round thee roll!

25

Of every state, the worst! in which
No expectation doth enrich
Monotony's blank mood!
I'd rather writhe in pangs, than bear,
Satiety's plethoric heir,
A wishless state, o'ergorged with plenitude!

26

Oh Love! Thou art the sovereign good
To man! We mean not here t'allude,
By love, to amorous wiles,

We mean by love, that plastic will,
By which a human being still
With other's interest his own beguiles.

27

Oh never freeze my heart, ye powers,
That rule man's destiny! No flowers
Can e'er his path adorn,
Who with a cold self-centred heart,
Ne'er lendeth out the smallest part
Of that whence personal happiness is born.

28

Ne'er let my tears for others' woe
Spontaneously cease to flow!
Invoking charity,
No cold exemption do I claim
From ills that quench the vital flame,
And Ennui's strongest spells do I defy!

THE END.