University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

SPRING.

This and the three following sonnets were given to Messrs. Ollier, and have already appeared in “The Literary Pocket Book for 1820.”

It is not that sweet herbs and flow'rs alone
Start up, like spirits that have lain asleep
In their great mother's iced bosom deep
For months, or that the birds, more joyous grown,
Catch once again their silver summer tone,
And they who late from bough to bough did creep,
Now trim their plumes upon some sunny steep,
And seem to sing of winter overthrown.
No—with an equal march the immortal mind,
As tho' it never could be left behind,
Keeps pace with every movement of the year;
And (for high truths are born in happiness)
As the warm heart expands, the eye grows clear,
And sees beyond the slave's or bigot's guess.

SUMMER.

Now have green April and the blue-eyed May
Vanish'd awhile: and lo! the glorious June
(While Nature ripens in his burning noon)
Comes like a young inheritor, and gay,
Altho' his parent months have passed away;
But his green crown shall wither, and the tune
That usher'd in his birth be silent soon,
And in the strength of youth shall he decay.
What matters this—so long as in the past
And in the days to come we live, and feel
The present nothing worth, until it steal
Away, and like a disappointment die?
For Joy, dim child of Hope and Memory,
Flies ever on before or follows fast.

AUTUMN.

There is a fearful spirit busy now:
Already have the elements unfurled
Their banners: the great sea-wave is upcurled:
The cloud comes: the fierce winds begin to blow
About, and blindly on their errands go,
And quickly will the pale red leaves be hurled
From their dry boughs, and all the forest world,
Stripp'd of its pride, be like a desert show.
I love that moaning music which I hear
In the bleak gusts of Autumn, for the soul
Seems gathering tidings from another sphere;
And, in sublime mysterious sympathy,
Man's bounding spirit ebbs and swells more high,
Accordant to the billow's loftier roll.

WINTER.

This is the eldest of the seasons: he
Moves not like Spring with gradual step, nor grows
From bud to beauty, but with all his snows
Comes down at once in hoar antiquity.
No rains nor loud proclaiming tempests flee
Before him, nor unto his time belong
The suns of Summer, nor the charms of song,
That with May's gentle smiles so well agree.
But he, made perfect in his birth-day cloud,
Starts into sudden life with scarce a sound,
And with a gentle footstep prints the ground,
As tho' to cheat man's ear; yet while he stays
He seems as 'twere to prompt our merriest days,
And bid the dance and joke be long and loud.

SONNET.

[WRITTEN AFTER SEEING MR. MACREADY IN ROB ROY.]

Macready, thou hast pleas'd me much: 'till now
(And yet I would not thy fine powers arraign)
I did not think thou hadst that livelier vein,
Nor that clear open spirit upon thy brow.
Come, I will crown thee with a poet's bough:
Mine is an humble branch, yet not in vain
Giv'n, if the few I sing shall not disdain
To wear the little wreaths that I bestow.
There is a buoyant air, a passionate tone
That breathes about thee, and lights up thine eye
With fire and freedom: it becomes thee well.
It is the bursting of a good seed, sown
Beneath a cold and artificial sky:
'Tis genius overmastering its spell.

A STORMY NIGHT.

It is a stormy night, and the wild sea
That sounds for ever, now upon the beach
Is pouring all its power. Each after each
The hurrying waves cry out rejoicingly,
And crowding onwards, seem as they would reach
The height I tread upon. The winds are high,
And the quick lightnings shoot along the sky
At intervals. It is an hour to teach
Vain man his insignificance; and yet,
Tho' all the elements in their might have met,
At every pause comes ringing on my ear
A sterner murmur, and I seem to hear
The voice of Silence sounding from her throne
Of darkness, mightier than all—but all alone.