University of Virginia Library

MINOR POEMS.

I. EVENING SERVICE.

PERFORMED BY DR. VALPY AT READING SCHOOL.

There is a holy magic in that tone,
Can wake from memory's selectest cell
The hour when first upon my heart it fell
Like dew from Heaven:—the years that since have flown
Seem airy dreams;—yet not of self alone
Those sacred strains are eloquent;—they tell
Of numbers temper'd by their simple spell
In boyhood's unreflecting prime to own
Their kindred with their fellows—best of lore!—
Who to this spot, as Persians to the East,
Turn reverential thoughts from every shore
Which holds them; nor forbear, till life has ceased,
With child-like love, a blessing to implore
On thee, great charity's unspotted priest!

II. THE FORBURY, AT READING.

VISITED ON A MISTY EVENING IN AUTUMN.

Soft uplands, that in boyhood's earliest days
Seem'd mountain-like and distant, fain once more
Would I behold you! but the autumn hoar
Hath veil'd your pensive groves in evening haze;
Yet must I wait till on my searching gaze
Your outline lives—more dear than if ye wore
An April sunset's consecrating rays—
For, even thus, the images of yore
Which ye awaken glide from misty years
Dream-like and solemn, and but half unfold
Their tale of glorious hopes, religious fears,
And visionary schemes of giant mould;
Whose dimmest trace the world-worn heart reveres,
And, with love's grasping weakness, strives to hold.

III. ON HEARING THE SHOUTS OF THE PEOPLE AT THE READING ELECTION IN THE SUMMER OF 1826, AT A DISTANCE.

Hark! from the distant town the long acclaim
On the charm'd silence of the evening breaks
With startling interruption;—yet it wakes
Thought of that voice of never-dying fame
Which on my boyish meditation came
Here, at an hour like this;—my soul partakes
A moment's gloom, that yon fierce contest slakes
Its thirst of high emprise and glorious aim:
Yet wherefore? Feelings that from heaven are shed
Into our tenements of flesh, ally
Themselves to earthly passions, lest, unfed
By warmth of human sympathies, they die;
And shall—earth's fondest aspirations dead—
Fulfil their first and noblest prophecy.

IV. VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF READING.

FROM TILEHURST, AT THE CLOSE OF THE SAME ELECTION.

Too long have I regarded thee, fair vale,
But as a scene of struggle which denies
All pensive joy; and now with childhood's eyes
In old tranquillity, I bid thee hail;
And welcome to my soul thy own sweet gale,
Which wakes from loveliest woods the melodies
Of long-lost fancy—Never may there fail
Within thy circlet, spirits born to rise
In honour—whether won by freedom rude
In her old Spartan majesty, or wrought
With partial, yet no base regard, to brood
O'er usages by time with sweetness fraught;
Be thou their glory-tinted solitude,
The cradle and the home of generous thought!

V. TO THE THAMES AT WESTMINSTER.

IN RECOLLECTION OF THE BANKS OF THE SAME RIVER, AT CAVERSHAM, NEAR READING.

With no cold admiration do I gaze
Upon thy pomp of waters, matchless stream!
But home-sick fancy kindles with the beam
That on thy lucid bosom faintly plays;
And glides delighted through thy crystal ways,
Till on her eye those wave-fed poplars gleam,
Beneath whose shade her first ethereal maze
She fashion'd; where she traced in clearest dream
Thy mirror'd course of wood-enshrined repose
Besprent with island haunts of spirits bright;
And widening on—till, at the vision's close,
Great London, only then a name of might
For childish thought to build on, proudly rose
A rock-throned city clad in heavenly light.

VI. TO THE SAME RIVER.

I may not emulate their lofty aim,
Who, in divine imagination, bold,
With mighty hills and streams communion hold,
As living friends; and scarce I dare to claim
Acquaintance with thee in thy scenes of fame,
Wealthiest of rivers, though in days of old
I loved thee where thy waters sylvan roll'd,
And still would deem thee in thy pride the same!
So love perversely cleaves to some old mate
Estranged by fortune; in his very pride
Seems lifted; waxes in his greatness great;
And silent hails the lot it prophesied,—
Content to think in manhood's palmy state
Some lingering traces of the child abide.

VII. TO MR. MACREADY,

ON HIS PERFORMANCE OF WERNER, IN LORD BYRON'S TRAGEDY OF THAT NAME.

O learned in affection's thousand ways!
I thought thy art had proved its happiest power,
When thou didst bend above the opening flower
Of sweet Virginia's beauty, and with praise
Measured in words but fineless in the gaze
Of the proud sire, her gentle secret won:
Or when the patriot archer's hardy son
Was school'd by doting sternness for the hour
Of glorious peril; but the just designs
Were ready; now thy soul's affections glow,
By thy own genius train'd, through frigid lines,
And make a scorner's bloodless fancy show,
When love disdain'd round its cold idol twines,
How mighty are its weakness and its woe!

VIII. FAME—THE SYMBOL AND PROOF OF IMMORTALITY.

The names that slow oblivion have defied,
And passionate ambition's wildest shocks
Stand in lone grandeur, like eternal rocks,
To cast broad shadows o'er the silent tide
Of time's unebbing flood, whose waters glide,
To ponderous darkness from their secret spring,
And, bearing on each transitory thing,
Leave those old monuments in loneliest pride.
There stand they—fortresses uprear'd by man,
Whose earthly frame is mortal; symbols high
Of power unchanging,—thought that cannot die:
Proofs that our nature mocks its earthly span,
And claims an essence by its God allied
To life and joy and love unperishing.

IX. TO MR. MACREADY,

ON THE BIRTH OF HIS FIRST CHILD; IN RECOLLECTION OF HIS PERFORMANCE OF VIRGINIUS.

There is no father, who, with swimming eyes,
Has seen thee present life and passion lend
To scenes by simple-hearted poet penn'd,
Depicting household love in Roman guise,
Which, breathed through ancient forms, in freshness vies
With love of yesterday, who does not send
A greeting to thee as a new-bless'd friend,
Now thy own heart acknowledges the ties
Which skill, forestalling nature, made thee guess
With finest apprehension, and commend
To tearful crowds;—yet while the sweet excess
Of joy that thou hast passion'd forth, shall fill
Thy soul with all it dream'd of happiness,
May grief remain the artist's fiction still!

X. TO CHARLES DICKENS,

ON HIS “OLIVER TWIST.”

Not only with the author's happiest praise
Thy work should be rewarded; 'tis akin
To deeds of men, who, scorning ease to win
A blessing for the wretched, pierce the maze
Which heedless ages spread around the ways
Where fruitful Sorrow tracks its parent Sin;
Content to listen to the wildest din
Of passion, and on dismal shapes to gaze,
So they may earn the power which intercedes
With the bright world and melts it; for within
Wan childhood's squalid haunts, where basest needs
Make tyranny more bitter, at thy call,
An angel face with patient sweetness pleads
For infant suffering to the heart of all.

XI. TO MISS ADELAIDE KEMBLE,

ON HER APPROACHING RETIREMENT FROM THE STAGE. (DECEMBER, 1842.)

If Time has doom'd the triumphs of thy race
With loss of thee—the youngest and the last—
To take majestic station in the Past,
We thank thee that thy fleeting hours embrace
Some hint of all its glories;—bid us trace
In thy proud action the unconquer'd will
Of the great Roman; own once more a thrill
Akin to that which blanch'd the childish face
At Siddons' whisper; bless the honest grace
Which the true heart of chivalry should still
Shed o'er thy father's brow;—consoled that all,
Thus waning into memory, grow more sweet,
And make their last expressions musical,
To live while any heart they hush shall beat.

XII. ON THE RECEPTION OF THE POET WORDSWORTH AT OXFORD (1839).

Never till now did mighty truth prevail
With such felicities of place and time,
As in those shouts sent forth with joy sublime
From the full heart of England's Youth, to hail
Her once neglected bard, within the pale
Of Learning's fairest Citadel! That voice,
In which the Future thunders bids rejoice
Some who through wintry fortunes did not fail
To bless with love as deep as life, the name
Thus welcomed;—who, in happy silence, share
The triumph; while their fondest musings claim
Unhoped-for echoes in the joyous air,
That to their long-loved Poet's spirit bear
A Nation's promise of undying fame.

XIII. THE MEMORY OF THE POETS.

The fame of those pure bards whose fancies lie
Like glorious clouds in summer's calmest even,
Fringing the western skirts of darkening heaven,
And sprinkled o'er with hues of rainbow dye,
Awakes no voice of thunder, which may vie
With mighty chiefs' renown;—from ages gone,
In low undying strain, it lengthens on,
The wildest solitudes with joy to fill,—
Felt breathing in the silence of the sky,
Or trembling in the gush of new-born rill,
Or whispering o'er the lake's unrippled breast;
And, when all mortal voices shall be still,
Preserved to mingle earth-born ecstacy
With the calm rapture of eternal rest.

XIV. ETON COLLEGE.

SURVEYED AFTER LEAVING A SON AT SCHOOL FOR THE FIRST TIME.

How often have I fix'd a stranger's gaze
On yon famed turrets, clad in light as fair
As this sweet evening lends, and felt the air
Of learning that from calm of ancient days
Breathes round them ever! Now to me they wear
Hues drawn from dearer thought; the radiant haze
That mantles them grows thick with fondest care,
And its slant sunbeams flicker like the praise
Youth wins from wisdom;—for in yon retreats
One little student's heart expectant beats
With blood of mine;—O God! vouchsafe him power,
When I am dust, to stand on this sweet place,
And, through the vista of long years, embrace
With cloudless soul this first Etonian hour!

XV. TO LORD DENMAN.

RESIGNING THE OFFICE OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND.

There is a rapture in the great All Hail
With which a nation honours thy repose,
That proves thy image deathless—that the close
Of man's remotest age, whose boyhood glows
While pondering o'er thy lineaments, shall fail
To delegate to cold historic tale
What Denman was; for dignity that flows
Not in the moulds of compliment extern,
But from the noble spirit's purest urn,
Springs vital; justice shrined from wintry flaw
By beautiful regards, and thoughts that burn
With generous ire, within the soul shall draw
No form but thine, when distant times would learn
The embodied majesty of England's Law.

XVI. TO A LADY

VISITING CHAMOUNI, FOR THE FIRST TIME, FROM GENEVA.

May Nature's stateliest palace to your gaze
Expand in happiest lustre! May the sun
Light into radiant joy the streams that run
Aslant the herbage of the rock-bound ways
Down which the strong Arve thunders; may his rays
Spread myriad colours o'er the fount that springs
Aloft in watery dust, and leaping flings
A shadow scarce less earthly! May no cloud
At eve on Europe's stainless summit rest
When roseate beauty lingering should attest
Its lone supremacy, which noon will fail
To vindicate,—or hint of cares to shroud
In after time that mirror in the breast
Which shall reflect the Mountain and the Vale!

XVII. THE WESTMINSTER PLAY.

Not from the youth-illumined stage alone
Is gladness shed; it breathes around from all
Whose names imprinted on each honour'd wall
Speak deathless boyhood; on whose hearts the tone
That makes a classic phrase familiar grown
New by its crisp expression, seem to fall
From distant years; while shouting striplings, still
On life's gay verge, make younger bosoms thrill
With proud delight which lately charm'd their own;
While richest humour strangely serves to fill
Worn eyes with child-like tears; for memory lifts
Time's curtain from the soul's remotest stage,
And sympathy makes strangers share the gifts
That clasp in golden meshes youth and age.

XVIII. ON LOUGH'S STATUE OF LADY MACBETH.

If this great image were by ocean thrown
Among some people who have never yet
Learn'd in the mind's creations to forget
Life's pressure, and the melancholy stone
Were on a rock for savage wonder set,
Methinks some sense of Shakspeare's world unknown
Would dawn on spirits reverential grown
To strange divinity, as if they met
A bodied fragment of the poet's soul;—
And while the spectral gaze and withering hand
Urge silence, such as that which death's control
Rules,—on the thoughts of that astonish'd band
Shapes from the noblest scenes by mortal plann'd
Would rise, and breathe the grandeur of the whole.

XIX. RECOLLECTION OF THE LATE SIR M. A. SHEE,

PRESIDING FOR THE LAST TIME AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

If in the fluttering music of that tongue
Some trace of years, through which its accents grew
Sweet amidst forms of beauty, should renew
An old regret that spirits ever young
Must, as they verge on regions whence they sprung,
Pay in expression's weaken'd force the due
To frail mortality by which alone
They speak to earth, our hearts attend its tone
With eagerness more rapt than when it flung
Abroad the vigorous truth by fancy's hue
Imbued—for, as the seeds from o'erblown flowers,
By autumn's gentle breath for spring are sown,
These trembling words, embraced by kindred powers,
Shall glow in pictures distant times shall own.

XX. TO ROBERT BROWNING.

SUGGESTED BY A SUNSET OF UNUSUAL BEAUTY.

A mighty sorrow gathers while the eye
Is by the sunset's waning glories fed,
For they recal the forms of poets dead,
Who with the first of mighty ages vie,
And lately veil'd by earth's horizon, shed
Sad beauty from beneath it;—yet a power,
Like the pale moon that to their lustrous hour
Gave the meek tribute of a young ally
Felt more than own'd, consoling light should shower
From crystal urn that holds the precious dower
Of Browning's genius—which, when breezes rend
Fond clouds its lavish splendours glorify,
Made free of azure fields, its course shall wend
To high dominion in serenest sky.

LINES

WRITTEN AT THE NEEDLES HOTEL, ALUM BAY, ISLE OF WIGHT AFTER A WEEK SPENT AT THAT PLACE.

VERSES

TO THE MEMORY OF A CHILD, WHO, NAMED AFTER CHARLES LAMB, DIED A YEAR AFTER HIM, AT BRIGHTON.