Chapter 9

To see a man tread over graves I hold it no good mark; 'Tis wicked in the sun and moon, And bad luck in the dark!

You see that grave? The Lord he gives, The Lord, he takes away: O Sir! the child of my old age Lies there as cold as clay.

Except that grave, you scarce see one That was not dug by me; I'd rather dance upon 'em all Than tread upon these three!

"Aye, Sexton!'tis a touching tale." You, Sir! are but a lad; This month I'm in my seventieth year, And still it makes me sad.

And Mary's sister told it me, For three good hours and more; Though I had heard it, in the main, From Edward's self, before.

Well! it passed off! the gentle Ellen Did well nigh dote on Mary; And she went oftener than before, And Mary loved her more and more: She managed all the dairy.

To market she on market-days, To church on Sundays came; All seemed the same: all seemed so, Sir! But all was not the same!

Had Ellen lost her mirth? Oh! no! But she was seldom cheerful; And Edward look'd as if he thought That Ellen's mirth was fearful.

When by herself, she to herself Must sing some merry rhyme; She could not now be glad for hours, Yet silent all the time.

And when she soothed her friend, through all Her soothing words 'twas plain She had a sore grief of her own, A haunting in her brain.

And oft she said, I'm not grown thin! And then her wrist she spanned; And once when Mary was down-cast, She took her by the hand, And gazed upon her, and at first She gently pressed her hand;

Then harder, till her grasp at length Did gripe like a convulsion! "Alas!" said she, "we ne'er can be Made happy by compulsion!"

And once her both arms suddenly Round Mary's neck she flung, And her heart panted, and she felt The words upon her tongue.

She felt them coming, but no power Had she the words to smother; And with a kind of shriek she cried, "Oh Christ! you're like your mother!"

So gentle Ellen now no more Could make this sad house cheery; And Mary's melancholy ways Drove Edward wild and weary.

Lingering he raised his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was no home to him.

One evening he took up a book, And nothing in it read; Then flung it down, and groaning cried, "O! Heaven! that I were dead."

Mary looked up into his face, And nothing to him said; She tried to smile, and on his arm Mournfully leaned her head.

And he burst into tears, and fell Upon his knees in prayer: "Her heart is broke! O God! my grief, It is too great to bear!"

'Twas such a foggy time as makes Old sextons, Sir! like me, Rest on their spades to cough; the spring Was late uncommonly.

And then the hot days, all at once, They came, we knew not how: You looked about for shade, when scarce A leaf was on a bough.

It happened then ('twas in the bower, A furlong up the wood: Perhaps you know the place, and yet I scarce know how you should,)

No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh To any pasture-plot; But clustered near the chattering brook, Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape As of an arbour took, A close, round arbour; and it stands Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still With scarlet berries hung, Were these three friends, one Sunday morn, Just as the first bell rung.

'Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet To hear the Sabbath-bell, 'Tis sweet to hear them both at once, Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head Upon a mossy heap, With shut-up senses, Edward lay: That brook e'en on a working day Might chatter one to sleep.

And he had passed a restless night, And was not well in health; The women sat down by his side, And talked as 'twere by stealth.

"The Sun peeps through the close thick leaves, See, dearest Ellen! see! 'Tis in the leaves, a little sun, No bigger than your ee;

"A tiny sun, and it has got A perfect glory too; Ten thousand threads and hairs of light, Make up a glory gay and bright Round that small orb, so blue."

And then they argued of those rays, What colour they might be; Says this, "They're mostly green"; says that, "They're amber-like to me."

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts Were troubling Edward's rest; But soon they heard his hard quick pants, And the thumping in his breast.

"A mother too!" these self-same words Did Edward mutter plain; His face was drawn back on itself, With horror and huge pain.

Both groan'd at once, for both knew well What thoughts were in his mind; When he waked up, and stared like one That hath been just struck blind.

He sat upright; and ere the dream Had had time to depart, "O God, forgive me!" (he exclaimed) "I have torn out her heart."

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst Into ungentle laughter; And Mary shivered, where she sat, And never she smiled after.

1797-1809.

_Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum._ To-morrow! and To-morrow! and To-morrow!----[Note of S.T.C.--l8l5.]

DEJECTION: AN ODE

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. _Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence._

I

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, Or the dull sobbing drafty that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this Æolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon winter-bright! And overspread with phantom light, (With swimming phantom light o'erspread But rimmed and circled by a silver thread) I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling The, coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh that even now the gust were swelling, And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad, Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give, Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

II

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear, A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief, Which finds no natural outlet, no relief, In word, or sigh, or tear--

O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene, Have I been gazing on the western sky, And its peculiar tint of yellow green: And still I gaze--and with how blank an eye And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

III

My genial spirits fail; And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast? It were a vain endeavour, Though I should gaze for ever On that green light that lingers in the west: I may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV

O Lady! we receive but what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live: Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud! And would we aught behold, of higher worth, Than that inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless, ever-anxious crowd, Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud-- Enveloping the Earth-- And from the soul itself must there be sent A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

V

O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be! What, and wherein it doth exist, This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist, This beautiful and beauty-making power. Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower, A new Earth and new Heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud-- Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud-- We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, All colours a suffusion from that light.

VI

There was a time when, though my path was rough, This joy within me dallied with distress, And all misfortunes were but as the stuff Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness: For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine. But now afflictions bow me down to earth: Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth But oh! each visitation Suspends what nature gave me at my birth, My shaping spirit of Imagination. For not to think of what I needs must feel, But to be still and patient, all I can; And haply by abstruse research to steal From my own nature all the natural man-- This was my sole resource, my only plan: Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

VII

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind, Reality's dark dream! I turn from you, and listen to the wind, Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream Of agony by torture lengthened out That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav'st without, Bare crag, or mountain-tairn, or blasted tree, Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb, Or lonely house, long held the witches' home, Methinks were fitter instruments for thee, Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers, Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers, Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song, The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among. Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds! Thou mighty Poet, even to frenzy bold! What tell'st thou now about? 'Tis of the rushing of an host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds-- At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is over-- It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: And now moans low in bitter grief and fear, And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

VIII

Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing, And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth! With light heart may she rise, Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice; To her may all things live, from pole to pole, Their life the eddying of her living soul! O simple spirit, guided from above, Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice, Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

1802.

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY

Tranquility! thou better name Than all the family of Fame! Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age To low intrigue, or factious rage; For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth, To thee I gave my early youth, And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope And dire Remembrance interlope, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through the accustomed mead; And in the sultry summer's heat Will build me up a mossy seat; And when the gust of Autumn crowds, And breaks the busy moonlight clouds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future race, Aloof with hermit-eye I scan The present works of present man-- A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!

1801.

FRANCE: AN ODE

I

Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may controul! Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing, Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, Save when your own imperious branches swinging, Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God, Through glooms, which never woodman trod, How oft, pursuing fancies holy, My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound! O ye loud Waves! and O ye Forests high! And O ye Clouds that far above me soared! Thou rising Sun! thou blue rejoicing Sky! Yea, every thing that is and will be free! Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be, With what deep worship I have still adored The spirit of divinest Liberty.

II

When France in wrath her giant-limbs upreared, And with that oath, which smote air, earth, and sea, Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free, Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared! With what a joy my lofty gratulation Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band: And when to whelm the disenchanted nation, Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand, The Monarchs marched in evil day, And Britain join'd the dire array; Though dear her shores and circling ocean, Though many friendships, many youthful loves Had swoln the patriot emotion And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves; Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, And shame too long delay'd and vain retreat! For ne'er, O Liberty! with partial aim I dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame; But blessed the paeans of delivered France, And hung my head and wept at Britain's name.

III

"And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream With that sweet music of deliverance strove! Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream! Ye storms, that round the dawning east assembled, The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light!" And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled, The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright; When France her front deep-scarr'd and gory Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory; When, insupportably advancing, Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp; While timid looks of fury glancing, Domestic treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; Then I reproached my fears that would not flee; "And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore In the low huts of them that toil and groan! And, conquering by her happiness alone, Shall France compel the nations to be free, Till Love and Joy look round, and call the Earth their own."

IV

Forgive me, Freedom! O forgive those dreams! I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent-- I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams! Heroes, that for your peaceful country perished, And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows With bleeding wounds; forgive me, that I cherished One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes! To scatter rage and traitorous guilt Where Peace her jealous home had built; A patriot-race to disinherit Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; And with inexpiable spirit To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer-- O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind, And patriot only in pernicious toils! Are these thy boasts, Champion of human kind? To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway, Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray?

V

The Sensual and the Dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion! In mad game They burst their manacles and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain! O Liberty! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee, (Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee) Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves! And there I felt thee!--on that sea-cliff's verge, Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above, Had made one murmur with the distant surge! Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, And shot my being through earth, sea and air, Possessing all things with intensest love, O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.

_February_ 1798.

FEARS IN SOLITUDE

WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF AN INVASION

A Green and silent spot, amid the hills, A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place No singing sky-lark ever poised himself. The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, All golden with the never-bloomless furze, Which now blooms most profusely: but the dell, Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax, When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, The level sunshine glimmers with green light. Oh! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook! Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he, The humble man, who, in his youthful years, Knew just so much of folly, as had made His early manhood more securely wise! Here he might lie on fern or withered heath, While from the singing lark (that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best), And from the sun, and from the breezy air, Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame; And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, Made up a meditative joy, and found Religious meanings in the forms of Nature! And so, his senses gradually wrapt In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds, And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark; That singest like an angel in the clouds!

My God! it is a melancholy thing For such a man, who would full fain preserve His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel For all his human brethren--O my God! It weighs upon the heart, that he must think What uproar and what strife may now be stirring This way or that way o'er these silent hills-- Invasion, and the thunder and the shout, And all the crash of onset; fear and rage, And undetermined conflict--even now, Even now, perchance, and in his native isle: Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun! We have offended, Oh! my countrymen! We have offended very grievously, And been most tyrannous. From east to west A groan of accusation pierces Heaven! The wretched plead against us; multitudes Countless and vehement, the sons of God, Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on, Steam'd up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence, Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs, And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint With slow perdition murders the whole man, His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home, All individual dignity and power Engulf'd in Courts, Committees, Institutions, Associations and Societies, A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting Guild, One Benefit-Club for mutual flattery, We have drunk up, demure as at a grace, Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth; Contemptuous of all honourable rule, Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life For gold, as at a market! The sweet words Of Christian promise, words that even yet Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached, Are muttered o'er by men, whose tones proclaim How flat and wearisome they feel their trade: Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth. Oh! blasphemous! the book of life is made A superstitious instrument, on which We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break; For all must swear--all and in every place, College and wharf, council and justice-court; All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed, Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest, The rich, the poor, the old man and the young; All, all make up one scheme of perjury, That faith doth reel; the very name of God Sounds like a juggler's charm; and, bold with joy, Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place, (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, "Where is it?"

Thankless too for peace, (Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) Secure from actual warfare, we have loved To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! Alas! for ages ignorant of all Its ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague, Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,) We, this whole people, have been clamorous For war and bloodshed; animating sports, The which we pay for as a thing to talk of, Spectators and not combatants! No guess Anticipative of a wrong unfelt, No speculation on contingency, However dim and vague, too vague and dim To yield a justifying cause; and forth, (Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names, And adjurations of the God in Heaven,) We send our mandates for the certain death Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls, And women, that would groan to see a child Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war, The best amusement for our morning meal! The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers From curses, who knows scarcely words enough To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father, Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute And technical in victories and defeats, And all our dainty terms for fratricide; Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which We join no feeling and attach no form! As if the soldier died without a wound; As if the fibres of this godlike frame Were gored without a pang; as if the wretch, Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, Passed off to Heaven, translated and not killed; As though he had no wife to pine for him, No God to judge him! Therefore, evil days Are coming on us, O my countrymen! And what if all-avenging Providence, Strong and retributive, should make us know The meaning of our words, force us to feel The desolation and the agony Of our fierce doings?

Spare us yet awhile, Father and God! O! spare us yet awhile! Oh! let not English women drag their flight Fainting beneath the burthen of their babes, Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday Laughed at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all Who ever gazed with fondness on the forms Which grew up with you round the same fire-side, And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure! Stand forth! be men! repel an impious foe, Impious and false, a light yet cruel race, Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth With deeds of murder; and still promising Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free, Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth; Render them back upon the insulted ocean, And let them toss as idly on its waves As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast Swept from our shores! And oh! may we return Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear, Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung So fierce a foe to frenzy!

I have told, O Britons! O my brethren! I have told Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed; For never can true courage dwell with them, Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices. We have been too long Dupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike, Groaning with restless enmity, expect All change from change of constituted power; As if a Government had been a robe, On which our vice and wretchedness were tagged Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe Pulled off at pleasure. Fondly these attach A radical causation to a few Poor drudges of chastising Providence, Who borrow all their hues and qualities From our own folly and rank wickedness, Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others, meanwhile, Dote with a mad idolatry; and all Who will not fall before their images. And yield them worship, they are enemies Even of their country!

Such have I been deemed.-- But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all Within the limits of thy rocky shores. O native Britain! O my Mother Isle! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills, Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, Have drunk in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature, All lovely and all honourable things, Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel The joy and greatness of its future being? There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul Unborrowed from my country! O divine And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple, in the which I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God that made me!--

May my fears, My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roared and died away In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass. But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze: The light has left the summit of the hill, Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful, Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell, Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot! On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill, Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled From bodings that have well-nigh wearied me, I find myself upon the brow, and pause Startled! And after lonely sojourning In such a quiet and surrounded nook, This burst of prospect, here the shadowy main, Dim-tinted, there the mighty majesty Of that huge amphitheatre of rich And elmy fields, seems like society-- Conversing with the mind, and giving it A livelier impulse and a dance of thought! And now, beloved Stowey! I behold Thy church-tower, and, methinks, the four huge elms Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend; And close behind them, hidden from my view, Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend, Remembering thee, O green and silent dell! And grateful, that by nature's quietness And solitary musings, all my heart Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.

NETHER STOWEY, _April 2Oth_, 1798.

THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON

ADDRESSED TO CHARLES LAMB, OF THE INDIA HOUSE, LONDON

In the June of 1797 some long-expected friends paid a visit to the author's cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the garden-bower.

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain, This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance even when age Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, To that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day sun; Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock Flings arching like a bridge--that branchless ash, Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow-leaves Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fanned by the water-fall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge Beneath the wide wide Heaven--and view again The many-steepled tract magnificent Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea, With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on In gladness all; but thou, me thinks, most glad, My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined And hungered after Nature, many a year, In the great City pent, winning thy way With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood, Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily; and of such hues As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage; and I watched Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above, Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass-- Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though now the bat Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble-bee Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure; No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but. may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart. Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes 'Tis well to be bereft of promised good, That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still, Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

1797.

TO A GENTLEMAN

[WILLIAM WORDSWORTH]

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND.

Friend of the wise! and Teacher of the Good! Into my heart have I received that Lay More than historic, that prophetic Lay Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) Of the foundations and the building up Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell What may be told, to the understanding mind Revealable; and what within the mind By vital breathings secret as the soul Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart Thoughts all too deep for words!--

Theme hard as high! Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determined, as might seem, Or by some inner Power; of moments awful, Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received The light reflected, as a light bestowed-- Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens Native or outland, lakes and famous hills! Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams, The guides and the companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and man beloved as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow, Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! --Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and sure From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on-herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen Laws controlling choice, Action and joy!--An orphic song indeed, A song divine of high and passionate thoughts To their own music chaunted!

O great Bard! Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly great Have all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with _them_, Save as it worketh _for_ them, they _in_ it. Nor less a sacred Roll, than those of old, And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Among the archives of mankind, thy work Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew: And even as life retains upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains-- Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of hope; And hope that scarce would know itself from fear; Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with _thee_ had opened out--but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me, Who came a welcomer in herald's guise, Singing of glory, and futurity, To wander back on such unhealthful road, Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths Strew'd before _thy_ advancing!

Nor do thou, Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour Of thy communion with my nobler mind By pity or grief, already felt too long! Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased: for Peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours Already on the wing.

Eve following eve, Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious, for thy song, In silence listening like a devout child, My soul lay passive, by thy various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth, Fair constellated foam, still darting off Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

And when--O Friend! my comforter and guide! Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!-- Thy long sustained Song finally closed, And thy deep voice had ceased--yet thou thyself Wert still before my eyes, and round us both That happy vision of beloved faces-- Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?) Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound-- And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

_January_ 1807.

HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI

Besides the Rivers, Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides; and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form! Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black, An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity! O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy: Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Into the mighty vision passing--there As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink: Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth? Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy. Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain-- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?-- GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD! GOD! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, GOD!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element! Utter forth GOD, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too; hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-- Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud, To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.

1802

FROST AT MIDNIGHT

The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud--and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the _stranger's_ face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But _thou_, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

_February_ 1798.

THE NIGHTINGALE

A CONVERSATION POEM, WRITTEN IN APRIL 1798

No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, Bur* hear no murmuring: it flows silently, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, "Most musical, most melancholy" bird! A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought! In Nature there is nothing melancholy. But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch! fill'd all things with himself, And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain. And many a poet echoes the conceit; Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell, By sun or moon-light, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in Nature's immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical, Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!

And I know a grove Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's songs, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all-- Stirring the air with such an harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half-disclosed, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.

A most gentle Maid, Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove) Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, That gentle Maid! and oft, a moment's space, What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and those wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perch giddily On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.

Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.--That strain again! Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound, Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen! And I deem it wise To make him Nature's play-mate. He knows well The evening-star; and once, when he awoke In most distressful mood (some inward pain Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!-- It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up Familiar with these songs, that with the night He may associate joy.--Once more, farewell, Sweet Nightingale! once more, my friends! farewell.

THE EOLIAN HARP

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!), And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!

The stilly murmur of the distant sea Tells us of silence.

And that simplest lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caressed, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! O! the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-- Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air In Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my love! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; Full many a thought uncalled and undetained, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily dispraised These shapings of the unregenerate mind; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healed me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this cot, and thee, dear honoured Maid!

1795.

THE PICTURE

OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION

Through weeds and thorns, and matted underwood I force my way; now climb, and now descend O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot Crushing the purple whorts;[1] while oft unseen, Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves, The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil, I know not, ask not whither! A new joy, Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust, And gladsome as the first-born of the spring, Beckons me on, or follows from behind, Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quelled, I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak, Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake Soar up, and form a melancholy vault High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea. Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse; Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul, And of this busy human heart aweary, Worships the spirit of unconscious life In tree or wild-flower.--Gentle lunatic! If so he might not wholly cease to be, He would far rather not be that he is; But would be something that he knows not of, In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here! No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore His dainty feet, the briar and the thorn Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs, Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades! And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs! You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze, Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon, The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-- Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp, Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb. Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes! With prickles sharper than his darts bemock His little Godship, making him perforce Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back.

This is my hour of triumph! I can now With my own fancies play the merry fool, And laugh away worse folly, being free. Here will I seat myself, beside this old, Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine Clothes as with net-work: here will couch my limbs, Close by this river, in this silent shade, As safe and sacred from the step of man As an invisible world--unheard, unseen, And listening only to the pebbly brook That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound; Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me, Was never Love's accomplice, never raised The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow, And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek; Ne'er played the wanton--never half disclosed The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence Eye-poisons for some love-distempered youth, Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright, Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast, That swells its little breast, so full of song, Singing above me, on the mountain-ash. And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine, Though clear as lake in latest summer-eve, Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe, The face, the form divine, the downcast look Contemplative! Behold! her open palm Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree, That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile Had from her countenance turned, or looked by stealth (For fear is true-love's cruel nurse), he now With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye, Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain, E'en as that phantom-world on which he gazed, But not unheeded gazed: for see, ah! see, The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow, Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells: And suddenly, as one that toys with time, Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm Is broken--all that phantom world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shapes the other. Stay awhile, Poor youth, who scarcely dar'st lift up thine eyes!

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon The visions will return! And lo! he stays: And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror; and behold Each wildflower on the marge inverted there, And there the half-uprooted tree--but where, O where the virgin's snowy arm, that leaned On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone! Homeward she steals through many a woodland maze Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth! Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook, Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou Behold'st her shadow still abiding there, The Naiad of the mirror!

Not to thee, O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale: Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed, Making thee doleful as a cavern-well: Save when the shy king-fishers build their nest On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild stream!

This be my chosen haunt--emancipate From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone, I rise and trace its devious course. O lead, Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms. Lo! stealing through the canopy of firs, How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock, Isle of the river, whose disparted waves Dart off asunder with an angry sound, How soon to re-unite! And see! they meet, Each in the other lost and found: and see Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye! With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds, The stains and shadings of forgotten tears, Dimness o'erswum with lustre! Such the hour Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds; And hark, the noise of a near waterfall! I pass forth into light--I find myself Beneath a weeping birch (most beautiful Of forest trees, the Lady of the Woods), Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock That overbrows the cataract. How burst? The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills Fold in behind each other, and so make A circular vale, and land-locked, as might seem, With brook and bridge, and grey stone cottages, Half hid by rocks and fruit-trees. At my feet, The whortle-berries are bedewed with spray, Dashed upwards by the furious waterfall. How solemnly the pendent ivy-mass Swings in its winnow: All the air is calm. The smoke from cottage-chimneys, tinged with light, Rises in columns; from this house alone, Close by the waterfall, the column slants, And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this? That cottage, with its slanting chimney-smoke, And close beside its porch a sleeping child, His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog-- One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand Holds loosely its small handful of wildflowers, Unfilletted, and of unequal lengths. A curious picture, with a master's haste Sketched on a strip of pinky-silver skin, Peeled from the birchen bark! Divinest maid! Yon bark her canvas, and those purple berries Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried On the fine skin! She has been newly here; And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch-- The pressure still remains! O blessed couch! For this may'st thou flower early, and the sun, Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel! Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids! More beautiful than whom Alcæus wooed, The Lesbian woman of immortal song! O child of genius! stately, beautiful, And full of love to all, save only me, And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart, Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppicewood Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straightway On to her father's house. She is alone! The night draws on-such ways are hard to hit-- And fit it is I should restore this sketch, Dropt unawares no doubt. Why should I yearn To keep the relique? 'twill but idly feed The passion that consumes me. Let me haste! The picture in my hand which she has left; She cannot blame me that I follow'd her: And I may be her guide the long wood through.

1802.

[Footnote 1: _Vaccinium Myrtillus_ known by the different names of Whorts, Whortle-berries, Bilberries; and in the North of England, Blea-berries and Bloom-berries. [Note by S. T. C. 1802.]]

THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO

Of late, in one of those most weary hours, When life seems emptied of all genial powers, A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known May bless his happy lot, I sate alone; And, from the numbing spell to win relief, Call'd on the Past for thought of glee or grief. In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee, I sate and cow'r'd o'er my own vacancy! And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache, Which, all else slum'bring, seem'd alone to wake; O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal, And soothe by silence what words cannot heal, I but half saw that quiet hand of thine Place on my desk this exquisite design. Boccaccio's Garden and its faery, The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry! An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm, Framed in the silent poesy of form. Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep Emerging from a mist: or like a stream Of music soft that not dispels the sleep, But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gazed by an idle eye with silent might The picture stole upon my inward sight. A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest, As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast. And one by one (I know not whence) were brought All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost; Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above, Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love; Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan Of manhood, musing what and whence is man! Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves; Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids, That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades; Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast; Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest, Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array, To high-church pacing on the great saint's day. And many a verse which to myself I sang, That woke the tear yet stole away the pang, Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd. And last, a matron now, of sober mien, Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd Even in my dawn of thought--Philosophy; Though then unconscious of herself, pardie, She bore no other name than Poesy; And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, That had but newly left a mother's knee, Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone, As if with elfin playfellows well known, And life reveal'd to innocence alone.

Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry Thy fair creation with a mastering eye, And _all_ awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand, Now wander through the Eden of thy hand; Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear See fragment shadows of the crossing deer; And with that serviceable nymph I stoop The crystal from its restless pool to scoop. I see no longer! I myself am there, Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. 'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings, And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings; Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest, And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. The brightness of the world, O thou once free, And always fair, rare land of courtesy! O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy! Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old, And forests, where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn; Palladian palace with its storied halls; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, And Nature makes her happy home with man; Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;-- Thine all delights, and every muse is thine; And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance! Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance, See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees The new-found roll of old Maeonides; But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart, Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart!

O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse!

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, And see in Dian's vest between the ranks Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes The _vestal_ fires, of which her lover grieves, With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves!

1828.

THE TWO FOUNTS

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY [MRS. ADERS] ON HER RECOVERY WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN

'T was my last waking thought, how it could be That thou, sweet friend, such anguish should'st endure; When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure. Methought he fronted me with peering look Fix'd on my heart; and read aloud in game The loves and griefs therein, as from a book: And uttered praise like one who wished to blame.

In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin Two Founts there are, of Suffering and of Cheer! _That_ to let forth, and _this_ to keep within! But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, _That_ Fount alone unlock, by no distress Choked or turned inward, but still issue thence Unconquered cheer, persistent loveliness.

As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, That gracious thing made up of tears and light, Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright:

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown, Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers, Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.

Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine, On that benignant face, whose look alone (The soul's translucence thro' her crystal shrine!) Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own,

A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, But with a silent charm compels the stern And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring, To shrink aback, and cower upon his urn.

Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found In passion, spleen, or strife) the Fount of Pain O'erflowing beats against its lovely mound, And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain?

Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam On his raised lip, that aped a critic smile, Had passed: yet I, my sad thoughts to beguile, Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream;

Till audibly at length I cried, as though Thou hadst indeed been present to my eyes, O sweet, sweet sufferer; if the case be so, I pray thee, be _less_ good, _less_ sweet, _less_ wise!

In every look a barbed arrow send, On those soft lips let scorn and anger live! Do _any_ thing, rather than thus, sweet friend! Hoard for thyself the pain, thou wilt not give!

1826.

A DAY-DREAM

My eyes make pictures, when they are shut: I see a fountain, large and fair, A willow and a ruined hut, And thee, and me and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow!

A wild-rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree: And lo! where Mary leans her head, Two dear names carved upon the tree! And Mary's tears, they are not tears of sorrow: Our sister and our friend will both be here tomorrow.

'Twas day! but now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night, The balmiest of the month of June! A glow-worm fall'n, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain.

O ever--ever be thou blest! For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss--ah, me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together.

The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they slumber moveless all! And now they melt to one deep shade! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee; I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee!

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play-- 'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow! But let me check this tender lay Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

?1807.

SONNET

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME

Charles! my slow heart was only sad, when first I scanned that face of feeble infancy: For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst All I had been, and all my child might be! But when I saw it on its mother's arm, And hanging at her bosom (she the while Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm Impressed a father's kiss: and all beguiled Of dark remembrance and presageful fear, I seemed to see an angel-form appear-- 'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild! So for the mother's sake the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.

1796.

LINES TO W. LINLEY, ESQ.

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC

While my young cheek retains its healthful hues, And I have many friends who hold me dear, Linley! methinks, I would not often hear Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose All memory of the wrongs and sore distress For which my miserable brethren weep! But should uncomforted misfortunes steep My daily bread in tears and bitterness; And if at death's dread moment I should lie With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks such strains, breathed by my angel-guide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

1797.

DOMESTIC PEACE

[FROM THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE, ACT I.]

Tell me, on what holy ground May Domestic Peace be found? Halcyon daughter of the skies, Far on fearful wings she flies, From the pomp of Sceptered State, From the Rebel's noisy hate. In a cottaged vale She dwells, Listening to the Sabbath bells! Still around her steps are seen Spotless Honour's meeker mien, Love, the sire of pleasing fears, Sorrow smiling through her tears, And conscious of the past employ Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

1794.

SONG

SUNG BY GLYCINE IN _ZAPOLYA_, ACT II. SCENE 2.

A Sunny shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold-- Sweet bird, thou wert enchanted!

He sunk, he rose, he twinkled, he trolled Within that shaft of sunny mist; His eyes of fire, his beak of gold, All else of amethyst!

And thus he sang: "Adieu! adieu! Love's dreams prove seldom true. The blossoms they make no delay: The sparkling dew-drops will not stay. Sweet month of May, We must away; Far, far away! To-day! to-day!"

1815.

HUNTING SONG

[_ZAPOLYA_, ACT IV. SCENE 2]

Up, up! ye dames, and lasses gay! To the meadows trip away. 'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn, And scare the small birds from the corn. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

Leave the hearth and leave the house To the cricket and the mouse: Find grannam out a sunny seat, With babe and lambkin at her feet. Not a soul at home may stay: For the shepherds must go With lance and bow To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.

1815.

WESTPHALIAN SONG

[The following is an almost literal translation of a very old and very favourite song among the Westphalian Boors. The turn at the end is the same with one of Mr. Dibdin's excellent songs, and the air to which it is sung by the Boors is remarkably sweet and lively.]

When thou to my true-love com'st Greet her from me kindly; When she asks thee how I fare? Say, folks in Heaven fare finely.

When she asks, "What! Is he sick?" Say, dead!--and when for sorrow She begins to sob and cry, Say, I come to-morrow.

?1799.

YOUTH AND AGE

Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-- Both were mine! Life went a-maying With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, When I was young!

_When_ I was young?--Ah, woeful When! Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then! This breathing house not built with hands, This body that does me grievous wrong, O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands, How lightly _then_ it flashed along:-- Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore, On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, Ere I was old!

_Ere_ I was old? Ah woeful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! O Youth! for years so many and sweet, 'Tis known, that Thou and I were one, I'll think it but a fond conceit-- It cannot be that Thou art gone! Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:- And thou wert aye a masker bold! What strange disguise hast now put on, To _make believe_, that thou art gone?

I see these locks in silvery slips, This drooping gait, this altered size: But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! Life is but thought: so think I will That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning, But the tears of mournful eve! Where no hope is, life's a warning That only serves to make us grieve, When we are old: That only serves to make us grieve With oft and tedious taking-leave, Like some poor nigh-related guest, That may not rudely be dismist; Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while, And tells the jest without the smile.

1823-1832.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE

LINES COMPOSED 2IST FEBRUARY 1827

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair-- The bees are stirring--birds are on the wing-- And Winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.

1827.

TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY

AN ALLEGORY

On the wide level of a mountain's head, (I knew not where, but 'twas some faery place) Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread, Two lovely children run an endless race, A sister and a brother! This far outstript the other; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, And looks and listens for the boy behind: For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he passed, And knows not whether he be first or last.

1815.

LOVE'S APPARITION AND EVANISHMENT

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE

Like a lone Arab, old and blind, Some caravan had left behind, Who sits beside a ruin'd well, Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his aged head aslant, And listens for a human sound--in vain! And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant, Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;-- Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour, Resting my eye upon a drooping plant, With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower, I sate upon the couch of camomile; And--whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance, Flitted across the idle brain, the while I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope, In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance, Turn'd my eye inward--thee, O genial Hope, Love's elder sister! thee did I behold, Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold, With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim, Lie lifeless at my feet! And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim, And stood beside my seat; She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips, As she was wont to do;-- Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath Woke just enough of life in death To make Hope die anew.

L'ENVOY

In vain we supplicate the Powers above; There is no resurrection for the Love That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.

1833.

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION

O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces; Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school. For as old Atlas on his broad neck places Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;--so Do these upbear the little world below Of Education,--Patience, Love, and Hope. Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show, The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, And robes that touching as adown they flow, Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie, Love too will sink and die. But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive From her own life that Hope is yet alive; And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies;-- Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. Yet haply there will come a weary day, When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth, And both supporting does the work of both.

1829.

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE A SOLILOQUY

Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, _While_, and _on whom_, thou may'st--shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they _are_; nor love them less, Because to _thee_ they are not what they _were_.

1826.

LOVE'S FIRST HOPE

O Fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind! As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping; And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind, O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping, And Ceres' golden fields;--the sultry hind Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping.

?1824.

PHANTOM

All look and likeness caught from earth, All accident of kin and birth, Had pass'd away. There was no trace Of aught on that illumined face, Upraised beneath the rifted stone, But of one spirit all her own;-- She, she herself, and only she, Shone through her body visibly.

1804.

TO NATURE

It may indeed be phantasy: when I Essay to draw from all created things Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie Lessons of love and earnest piety. So let it be; and if the wide world rings In mock of this belief, it brings Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain, perplexity. So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

?182O.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS

O! It is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

1819.

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day-- Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm Will breathe on _thee_ with life-enkindling breath, Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm, Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death! Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see, She is not thou, and only thou art she, Still, still as though some dear _embodied_ Good, Some _living_ Love before my eyes there stood With answering look a ready ear to lend, I mourn to thee and say--"Ah! loveliest friend! That this the meed of all my toils might be, To have a home, an English home, and thee!" Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one. The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon, Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark, Without thee were but a becalmed bark, Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he _makes_ the shadow, he pursues!

?1805.

PHANTOM OR FACT

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE

AUTHOR

A Lovely form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeding calm its presence shed, A tender love so pure from earthly leaven, That I unnethe the fancy might control, 'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven, Wooing its gentle way into my soul! But ah! the change--It had not stirr'd, and yet-- Alas! that change how fain would I forget! That shrinking back, like one that had mistook! That weary, wandering, disavowing look! 'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame, And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

FRIEND

This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song? Or rather say at once, within what space Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR

Call it a _moment's_ work (and such it seems) This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matur'd the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of life.

?183O.

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS OB. ANNO DOM. 1O88

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope Soon shall I now before my God appear, By him to be acquitted, as I hope; By him to be condemned, as I fear.--

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE

Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said: I see a hope spring from that humble fear. All are not strong alike through storms to steer Right onward. What though dread of threatened death And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart? That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, Or not so vital as to claim thy life: And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of _recreant_ Berengare-- O first the age, and then the man compare! That age how dark! congenial minds how rare! No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn! No throbbing hearts awaited his return! Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell, He only disenchanted from the spell, Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, Moved in the scanty circlet of his light: And was it strange if he withdrew the ray That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry The spots and struggles of the timid Dawn; Lest so we tempt the approaching Noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our Morn.

?1826.

FORBEARANCE

Beareth all things.--2 COR. xiii.7.

Gently I took that which ungently came, And without scorn forgave:--Do thou the same. A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin, Fear that--the spark self-kindled from within, Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare, Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air. Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds, And soon the ventilated spirit finds Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd, Or worse than foe, an alienated friend, A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side, Think it God's message, and in humble pride With heart of oak replace it;--thine the gains-- Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

1832.

_SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM_

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S "BOOK OF THE CHURCH" (1825)

POET

I note the moods and feelings men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say; The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed Still-born or haply strangled in its birth; These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth!

Butler made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, Rome's brazen serpent--boldly dares discuss The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss! And with grim triumph and a truculent glee Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy, That made an empire's plighted faith a lie, And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye-- (Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!) Yet Butler-

FRIEND

Enough of Butler! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed. But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way When courteous Butler--

POET (_aside_)

(Rome's smooth go-between!)

FRIEND

Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen-- (For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press:) Who, rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds! And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur We damn the French and Irish massacre, Yet blames them both--and thinks the Pope might err! What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield Against such gentle foes to take the field Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?

POET

What think I now? Even what I thought before;-- What Butler boasts though Butler may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast, And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest; Leaves the full lie on Butler's gong to swell, Content with half-truths that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!

So much for you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch! But when a Liberal asks me what I think-- Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam-- An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!

Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food: And who shall blame him that he purs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws! Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt, Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!

1825, or 1826.

ON DONNE'S POETRY

With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots, Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots; Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue, Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.

?1818.

ON A BAD SINGER

Swans sing before they die--'twere no bad thing Should certain persons die before they sing.

NE PLUS ULTRA

Sole Positive of Night! Antipathist of Light! Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod-- The one permitted opposite of God!-- Condensed blackness and abysmal storm Compacted to one sceptre Arms the Grasp enorm-- The Interceptor-- The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!-- The Dragon foul and fell-- The unrevealable, And hidden one, whose breath Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!-- Ah! sole despair Of both the eternities in Heaven! Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer, The all-compassionate! Save to the Lampads Seven Reveal'd to none of all the Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven, That watch the throne of Heaven!

?1826.

HUMAN LIFE

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But _are_ their _whole_ of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes! Surplus of Nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She formed with restless hands unconsciously. Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!--Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create And to repay each other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun! Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none; Thy being's being is contradiction.

?1815.

THE BUTTERFLY

The Butterfly the ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name-- But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of earthly life!--For in this mortal frame Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

?1815.

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL

AN ALLEGORY

I

He too has flitted from his secret nest, Hope's last and dearest child without a name!-- Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame, That makes false promise of a place of rest To the tired Pilgrim's still believing mind;-- Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court, Who having won all guerdons in his sport, Glides out of view, and whither none can find!

II

Yes! he hath flitted from me--with what aim, Or why, I know not! 'Twas a home of bliss, And he was innocent, as the pretty shame Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss, From its twy-cluster'd hiding place of snow! Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow As the dear hopes, that swell the mother's breast-- Her eyes down gazing o'er her clasped charge;-- Yet gay as that twice happy father's kiss, That well might glance aside, yet never miss, Where the sweet mark emboss'd so sweet a targe-- Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest!

III

Like a loose blossom on a gusty night He flitted from me--and has left behind (As if to them his faith he ne'er did plight) Of either sex and answerable mind Two playmates, twin-births of his foster-dame:-- The one a steady lad (Esteem he hight) And Kindness is the gentler sister's name. Dim likeness now, though fair she be and good, Of that bright boy who hath us all forsook;-- But in his full-eyed aspect when she stood, And while her face reflected every look, And in reflection kindled--she became So like him, that almost she seem'd the same!

IV

Ah! he is gone, and yet will not depart!-- Is with me still, yet I from him exiled! For still there lives within my secret heart The magic image of the magic Child, Which there he made up-grow by his strong art, As in that crystal orb--wise Merlin's feat,-- The wondrous "World of Glass," wherein inisled All long'd for things their beings did repeat;-- And there he left it, like a Sylph beguiled, To live and yearn and languish incomplete!

V

Can wit of man a heavier grief reveal? Can sharper pang from hate or scorn arise?-- Yes! one more sharp there is that deeper lies, Which fond Esteem but mocks when he would heal. Yet neither scorn nor hate did it devise, But sad compassion and atoning zeal! One pang more blighting-keen than hope betray'd! And this it is my woeful hap to feel, When, at her Brother's hest, the twin-born Maid With face averted and unsteady eyes, Her truant playmate's faded robe puts on; And inly shrinking from her own disguise Enacts the faery Boy that's lost and gone. O worse than all! O pang all pangs above Is Kindness counterfeiting absent Love!

?1811

THE VISIONARY HOPE

Sad lot, to have no Hope! Though lowly kneeling He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing, That his sick body might have ease and rest; He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest Against his will the stifling load revealing, Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest, Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, An alien's restless mood but half concealing, The sternness on his gentle brow confessed, Sickness within and miserable feeling: Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain, Each night was scattered by its own loud screams: Yet never could his heart command, though fain, One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he would-- For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, He wishes and _can_ wish for this alone! Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.

?1807 ?181O.

THE PAINS OF SLEEP

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees; But silently, by slow degrees, My spirit I to Love compose, In humble trust mine eye-lids close, With reverential resignation, No wish conceived, no thought exprest, Only a _sense_ of supplication; A sense o'er all my soul imprest That I am weak, yet not unblest, Since in me, round me, everywhere Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

But yester-night I pray'd aloud In anguish and in agony, Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: A lurid light, a trampling throng, Sense of intolerable wrong, And whom I scorned, those only strong! Thirst of revenge, the powerless will Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seem'd guilt, remorse or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame!

So two nights passed: the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me Distemper's worst calamity. The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child; And having thus by tears subdued My anguish to a milder mood, Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin: For aye entempesting anew The unfathomable hell within The horror of their deeds to view, To know and loathe, yet wish and do! Such griefs with such men well agree, But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? To be beloved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.

1803.

LOVE'S BURIAL-PLACE

_Lady_. If Love be dead-- _Poet_. And I aver it! _Lady_. Tell me, Bard! where Love lies buried _Poet_. Love lies buried where 'twas born: Oh, gentle dame! think it no scorn If, in my fancy, I presume To call thy bosom poor Love's Tomb. And on that tomb to read the line:-- "Here lies a Love that once seem'd mine. But took a chill, as I divine, And died at length of a decline."

1833.

LOVE, A SWORD

Though veiled in spires of myrtle-wreath, Love is a sword which cuts its sheath, And through the clefts itself has made, We spy the flashes of the blade!

But through the clefts itself has made, We likewise see Love's flashing blade By rust consumed, or snapt in twain: And only hilt and stump remain.

?1825.

THE KISS

One kiss, dear Maid! I said and sighed-- Your scorn the little boon denied. Ah why refuse the blameless bliss? Can danger lurk within a kiss?

Yon viewless wanderer of the vale, The Spirit of the Western Gale, At Morning's break, at Evening's close Inhales the sweetness of the Rose, And hovers o'er the uninjured bloom Sighing back the soft perfume. Vigour to the Zephyr's wing Her nectar-breathing kisses fling; And He the glitter of the Dew Scatters on the Rose's hue. Bashful lo! she bends her head, And darts a blush of deeper Red!

Too well those lovely lips disclose The triumphs of the opening Rose; O fair! O graceful! bid them prove As passive to the breath of Love. In tender accents, faint and low, Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No!" The whispered "No"--how little meant! Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent! For on those lovely lips the while Dawns the soft relenting smile, And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy The gentle violence of Joy.

?1794.

NOT AT HOME

That Jealousy may rule a mind Where Love could never be I know; but ne'er expect to find Love without Jealousy.

She has a strange cast in her ee, A swart sour-visaged maid-- But yet Love's own twin-sister she, His house-mate and his shade.

Ask for her and she'll be denied:-- What then? they only mean Their mistress has lain down to sleep, And can't just then be seen.

?183O.

NAMES

[FROM LESSING]

I ask'd my fair one happy day, What I should call her in my lay; By what sweet name from Rome or Greece; Lalage, Nesera, Chloris, Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris, Arethusa or Lucrece.

"Ah!" replied my gentle fair, "Beloved, what are names but air? Choose thou whatever suits the line; Call me Sappho, call me Chloris, Call me Lalage or Doris, Only, only call me Thine."

_Morning Post_, August 27,1799.

TO LESBIA

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus.--CATULLUS.

My Lesbia, let us love and live, And to the winds, my Lesbia, give Each cold restraint, each boding fear Of age and all her saws severe. Yon sun now posting to the main Will set,--but 'tis to rise again;-- But we, when once our mortal light Is set, must sleep in endless night. Then come, with whom alone I'll live, A thousand kisses take and give! Another thousand!--to the store Add hundreds--then a thousand more! And when they to a million mount, Let confusion take the account,-- That you, the number never knowing, May continue still bestowing-- That I for joys may never pine, Which never can again be mine!

_Morning Post_, April 11, 1798.

THE DEATH OF THE STARLING

Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.--CATULLUS.

Pity! mourn in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone! Pity mourns in plaintive tone The lovely starling dead and gone. Weep, ye Loves! and Venus! weep The lovely starling fall'n asleep! Venus sees with tearful eyes-- In her lap the starling lies! While the Loves all in a ring Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.

?1794.

ON A CATARACT

FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE [AFTER STOLBERG'S _UNSTERBLICHER JÜNGLING_]

STROPHE

Unperishing youth! Thou leapest from forth The cell of thy hidden nativity; Never mortal saw The cradle of the strong one; Never mortal heard The gathering of his voices; The deep-murmur'd charm of the son of the rock, That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain. There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing; It embosoms the roses of dawn, It entangles the shafts of the noon, And into the bed of its stillness The moonshine sinks down as in slumber, That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!

ANTISTROPHE

The wild goat in awe Looks up and beholds Above thee the cliff inaccessible;-- Thou at once full-born Madd'nest in thy joyance, Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st, Life invulnerable.

?1799.

HYMN TO THE EARTH

[IMITATED FROM STOLBERG'S _HYMNE AN DIE EKDE_]

HEXAMETERS

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee! Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges-- Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes--green meadows and lake with green island, Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness,

Thrill'd with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain, Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom! Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses, Green-hair'd goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or linger, Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs. Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer! Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamour'd!

Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he woo'd thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teem'd forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impell'd by thousand-fold instincts, Fill'd, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; Laugh'd on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swell'd upward; Young life low'd through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wander'd bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

?1799.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER

Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler; Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his throne! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! With Divinities fills my Terrestrial hall!

How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the nectar! O fill me the bowl!

Give him the nectar! Pour out for the poet, Hebe! pour free! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be! Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry! The wine of the Immortals Forbids me to die!

? 1799.

TRANSLATION OF A PASSAGE IN OTTFRIED'S METRICAL PARAPHRASE OF THE GOSPEL

She gave with joy her virgin breast; She hid it not, she bared the breast Which suckled that divinest babe! Blessed, blessed were the breasts Which the Saviour infant kiss'd; And blessed, blessed was the mother Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes, Singing placed him on her lap, Hung o'er him with her looks of love, And soothed him with a lulling motion. Blessed! for she shelter'd him From the damp and chilling air; Blessed, blessed! for she lay With such a bade in one blest bed, Close as babes and mothers lie! Blessed, blessed evermore, With her virgin lips she kiss'd, With her arms, and to her breast, She embraced the babe divine, Her babe divine the virgin mother! There lives not on this ring of earth A mortal that can sing her praise. Mighty mother, virgin pure, In the darkness and the night For us she _bore_ the heavenly Lord!

? 1799.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY

Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet Quæ tarn dulcem somnum videt, Dormi, Jesu! blandule! Si non dormis, Mater plorat, Inter fila cantans orat, Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling: Mother sits beside thee smiling; Sleep, my darling, tenderly! If thou sleep not, mother mourneth, Singing as her wheel she turneth: Come, soft slumber, balmily!

1811.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care; The opening bud to Heaven conveyed, And bade it blossom there.

1794.

ON AN INFANT WHICH DIED BEFORE BAPTISM

"Be, rather than be call'd, a child of God," Death whisper'd!--with assenting nod, Its head upon its mother's breast, The Baby bow'd, without demur-- Of the kingdom of the Blest Possessor, not inheritor.

_April 8th_, 1799.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT

Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety!

And such my infant's latest sigh! Oh tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

1799.

AN ODE TO THE RAIN

COMPOSED BEFORE DAYLIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DEPARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHOM IT WAS FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN.

I

I know it is dark; and though I have lain, Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain, I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes, But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies. O Rain! that I lie listening to, You're but a doleful sound at best: I owe you little thanks,'tis true, For breaking thus my needful rest! Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, I'll neither rail, nor malice keep, Though sick and sore for want of sleep. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

II

O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound, The clash hard by, and the murmur all round! You know, if you know aught, that we, Both night and day, but ill agree: For days and months, and almost years, Have limp'd on through this vale of tears, Since body of mine, and rainy weather, Have lived on easy terms together. Yet if, as soon as it is light, O Rain! you will but take your flight, Though you should come again to-morrow, And bring with you both pain and sorrow; Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell-- I'll nothing speak of you but well. But only now for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

III

Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say You're a good creature in your way; Nay, I could write a book myself, Would fit a parson's lower shelf, Showing how very good you are. -- What then? sometimes it must be fair! And if sometimes, why not to-day? Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

IV

Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy, Take no offence! I'll tell you why. A dear old Friend e'en now is here, And with him came my sister dear; After long absence now first met, Long months by pain and grief beset-- We three dear friends! in truth, we groan Impatiently to be alone. We three, you mark! and not one more! The strong wish makes my spirit sore. We have so much to talk about, So many sad things to let out; So many tears in our eye-corners, Sitting like little Jacky Homers-- In short, as soon as it is day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

V

And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain! Whenever you shall come again, Be you as dull as e'er you could (And by the bye 'tis understood, You're not so pleasant as you're good), Yet, knowing well your worth and place, I'll welcome you with cheerful face; And though you stay'd a week or more, Were ten times duller than before; Yet with kind heart, and right good will, I'll sit and listen to you still; Nor should you go away, dear Rain! Uninvited to remain. But only now, for this one day, Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

1802.

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION

Do you ask what the birds say? The Sparrow, the Dove, The Linnet and Thrush say, "I love and I love!" In the winter they're silent--the wind is so strong; What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing, and loving-all come back together. But the Lark is so brimful of gladness and love, The green fields below him, the blue sky above, That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he-- "I love my Love, and my Love loves me!"

1802.

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL

WRITTEN IN GERMANY

If I had but two little wings And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly, my dear! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I? All, all alone.

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids: So I love to wake ere break of day: For though my sleep be gone, Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids, And still dreams on.

_April 23, 1799_.

LINES ON A CHILD

Encinctured with a twine of leaves, That leafy twine his only dress! A lovely Boy was plucking fruits, By moonlight, in a wilderness. The moon was bright, the air was free, And fruits and flowers together grew, On many a shrub and many a tree: And all put on a gentle hue, Hanging in the shadowy air Like a picture rich and rare. It was a climate where, they say, The night is more belov'd than day. But who that beauteous Boy beguil'd, That beauteous Boy to linger here? Alone, by night, a little child, In place so silent and so wild- Has he no friend, no loving mother near?

1798.

THE KNIGHT'S TOMB

Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn? Where may the grave of that good man be?-- By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn, Under the twigs of a young birch tree! The oak that in summer was sweet to hear, And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year, And whistled and roar'd in the winter alone, Is gone,--and the birch in its stead is grown.-- The Knight's bones are dust, And his good sword rust;-- His soul is with the saints, I trust.

? 1817.

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER

A WAR ECLOGUE

_The Scene a desolated Tract in La Vendée. _FAMINE_ _is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter_ FIRE _and_ SLAUGHTER.

_Fam._ Sisters! sisters! who sent you here?

_Slau._ [to Fire]. I will whisper it in her ear.

_Fire._ No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: 'Twill make an holiday in Hell. No! no! no! Myself, I named him once below, And all the souls, that damned be, Leaped up at once in anarchy, Clapped their hands and danced for glee. They no longer heeded me; But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters Unwillingly re-echo laughters! No! no! no! Spirits hear what spirits tell: 'Twill make an holiday in Hell!

_Fam._ Whisper it, sister! so and so! In the dark hint, soft and slow.

_Slau._ Letters four do form his name- And who sent you?

_Both._ The same! the same!

_Slau._ He came by stealth, and unlocked my den, And I have drunk the blood since then Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

_Both._ Who bade you do't?

_Slau._ The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

_Fam._ Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled, Their wives and their children faint for bread. I stood in a swampy field of battle; With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow And the homeless dog--but they would not go. So off I flew: for how could I bear To see them gorge their dainty fare? I heard a groan and a peevish squall, And through the chink of a cottage-wall-- Can you guess what I saw there?

_Both_. Whisper it, sister! in our ear.

_Fam_. A baby beat its dying mother: I had starved the one and was starving the other!

_Both_. Who bade you do't?

_Fam_. The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

_Fire_. Sisters! I from Ireland came! Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, I triumph'd o'er the setting sun! And all the while the work was done, On as I strode with my huge strides, I flung back my head and I held my sides, It was so rare a piece of fun To see the sweltered cattle run With uncouth gallop through the night, Scared by the red and noisy light! By the light of his own blazing cot Was many a naked Rebel shot: The house-stream met the flame and hissed, While crash! fell in the roof, I wist, On some of those old bed-rid nurses, That deal in discontent and curses.

_Both._ Who bade you do't?

_Fire._ The same! the same! Letters four do form his name. He let me loose, and cried Halloo! To him alone the praise is due.

_All._ He let us loose, and cried Halloo! How shall we yield him honour due?

_Fam._ Wisdom comes with lack of food. I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude, Till the cup of rage o'erbrim: They shall seize him and his brood--

_Slau._ They shall tear him limb from limb!

_Fire._ O thankless beldames and untrue! And is this all that you can do For him, who did so much for you? Ninety months he, by my troth! Hath richly catered for you both; And in an hour would you repay An eight years' work?--Away! away! I alone am faithful! I Cling to him everlastingly.

1797.

THE TWO ROUND SPACES ON THE TOMBSTONE

The Devil believes that the Lord will come, Stealing a march without beat of drum, About the same time that he came last On an old Christmas-day in a snowy blast: Till he bids the trump sound neither body nor soul stirs For the dead men's heads have slipt under their bolsters.

Ho! ho! brother Bard, in our churchyard Both beds and bolsters are soft and green; Save one alone, and that's of stone, And under it lies a Counsellor keen. This tomb would be square, if it were not too long; And 'tis rail'd round with iron, tall, spear-like, and strong.

This fellow from Aberdeen hither did skip With a waxy face and a blubber lip, And a black tooth in front to show in part What was the colour of his whole heart. This Counsellor sweet, This Scotchman complete (The Devil scotch him for a snake!), I trust he lies in his grave awake. On the sixth of January, When all around is white with snow As a Cheshire yeoman's dairy, Brother Bard, ho! ho! believe it, or no, On that stone tomb to you I'll show After sunset, and before cock-crow, Two round spaces clear of snow. I swear by our Knight and his forefathers' souls, That in size and shape they are just like the holes In the large house of privity Of that ancient family. On those two places clear of snow There have sat in the night for an hour or so, Before sunrise, and after cock-crow (He hicking his heels, she cursing her corns, All to the tune of the wind in their horns), The Devil and his Grannam, With the snow-drift to fan 'em; Expecting and hoping the trumpet to blow; For they are cock-sure of the fellow below!

180O.

THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

From his brimstone bed at break of day A walking the DEVIL is gone, To visit his little snug farm of the earth And see how his stock went on.

Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he swished his long tail As a gentleman swishes his cane.

And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.

He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper On a dung heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and _his_ brother, Abel.

A POTHECARY on a white horse Rode by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old Friend DEATH in the Revelations.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, A cottage of gentility! And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin Is pride that apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college, For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.

Down the river there plied, with wind and tide, A pig with vast celerity; And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, It cut its own throat. "There!" quoth he with a smile, "Goes 'England's commercial prosperity.'"

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields he saw A solitary cell; And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint For improving his prisons in Hell.

* * * * * *

General ----------- burning face He saw with consternation, And back to hell his way did he take, For the Devil thought by a slight mistake It was general conflagration.

1799.

COLOGNE

In Kohln, a town of monks and bones, And pavements fang'd with murderous stones, And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; I counted two and seventy stenches, All well denned, and several stinks! Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The river Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

[SIGNED "NEHEMIAH HIGGINGBOTTOM"]

I

Pensive at eve on the hard world I mus'd, And my poor heart was sad: so at the moon I gaz'd-and sigh'd, and sigh'd!--for, ah! how soon Eve darkens into night. Mine eye perus'd With tearful vacancy the _dampy_ grass Which wept and glitter'd in the paly ray; And I did pause me on my lonely way, And mused me on those wretched ones who pass O'er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas! Most of Myself I thought: when it befell That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood Breath'd in mine ear--"All this is very well; But much of _one_ thing is for _no_ thing good." Ah! my poor heart's inexplicable swell!

II

TO SIMPLICITY

O! I do love thee, meek _Simplicity_! For of thy lays the lulling simpleness Goes to my heart and soothes each small distress, Distress though small, yet haply great to me! 'Tis true on Lady Fortune's gentlest pad I amble on; yet, though I know not why, So sad I am!--but should a friend and I Grow cool and _miff_, O! I am _very_ sad! And then with sonnets and with sympathy My dreamy bosom's mystic woes I pall; Now of my false friend plaining plaintively, Now raving at mankind in general; But, whether sad or fierce, 'tis simple all, All very simple, meek Simplicity!

III

ON A RUINED HOUSE IN A ROMANTIC COUNTRY

And this reft house is that the which he built, Lamented Jack! And here his malt he pil'd, Cautious in vain! These rats that squeak so wild, Squeak, not unconscious of their father's guilt. Did ye not see her gleaming thro' the glade? Belike, 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn. What though she milk no cow with crumpled horn, Yet _aye_ she haunts the dale where erst she stray'd; And _aye_ beside her stalks her amorous knight! Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn, And thro' those brogues, still tatter'd and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white; As when thro' broken clouds at night's high noon Peeps in fair fragments forth the full--orb'd harvest-moon!

1797.

LIMBO

Tis a strange place, this Limbo!--not a Place, Yet name it so;--where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;-- Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands Barren and soundless as the measuring sands, Not mark'd by flit of Shades,--unmeaning they As moonlight on the dial of the day! But that is lovely--looks like human Time,-- An old man with a steady look sublime, That stops his earthly task to watch the skies; But he is blind--a statue hath such eyes;-- Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance, Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance, With scant white hairs, with fore top bald and high, He gazes still,--his eyeless face all eye;-- As 'twere an organ full of silent sight, His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light! Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb-- He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him! No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure, Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure, By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all, Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral. A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation, Yet that is but a Purgatory curse; Hell knows a fear far worse, A fear--a future state;--'tis positive Negation!

1817.

METRICAL FEET

LESSON FOR A BOY

[** Macron and breve accent marks have been left off, see the note in the Forum.]

Trochee trips from long to short; From long to long in solemn sort Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yea ill able Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable. Iambics march from short to long;-- With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng; One syllable long, with one short at each side, Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride;-- First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud highbred Racer. If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise, And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies; Tender warmth at his heart, with these metres to show it, With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet,-- May crown him with fame, and must win him the love Of his father on earth and his Father above. My dear, dear child! Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge See a man who so loves you as your fond S. T. COLERIDGE.

1803.

THE HOMERIC HEXAMETER DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]

Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows, Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.

? 1799.

THE OVIDIAN ELEGIAC METRE DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED

[FROM SCHILLER]

In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.

?1799.

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES

[FROM MATTHISON]

Hear, my beloved, an old Milesian story!-- High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels, Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland; In the dim distance amid the skiey billows Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had blest it. From the far shores of the bleat-resounding island Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating, Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland, Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple. There in a thicket of dedicated roses, Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision, Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea, Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat, And with invisible pilotage to guide it Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

? 1799.

TO ----

I mix in life, and labour to seem free, With common persons pleased and common things, While every thought and action tends to thee, And every impulse from thy influence springs.

? 1796.

EPITAPH ON A BAD MAN

Under this stone does Walter Harcourt lie, Who valued nought that God or man could give; He lived as if he never thought to die; He died as if he dared not hope to live!

1801.

THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT

Ere the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no, No question was asked me--it could not be so! If the life was the question, a thing sent to try, And to live on be Yes; what can No be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER

Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear? Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you were! I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair? Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare! Then die--if die you dare!

1811.

THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

"How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains! It sounds like stories from the land of spirits If any man obtain that which he merits Or any merit that which he obtains."

REPLY TO THE ABOVE

For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain! What would'st thou have a good great man obtain? Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain? Or throne of corses which his sword had slain? Greatness and goodness are not _means_, but _ends_! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? _three_ treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT, And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath: And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!

Morning Post, Sept. 23,1802.

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH

This Sycamore, oft musical with bees,-- Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy The small round basin, which this jutting stone Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring, Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, Send up cold waters to the traveller With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, As merry and no taller, dances still, Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount. Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss, A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree. Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

1802.

INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE

Now! it is gone.--Our brief hours travel post, Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:-- But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost To dwell within thee-an eternal NOW!

? 183O.

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Masking his birth-name, wont to character His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal) 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths, And honouring with religious love the Great Of older times, he hated to excess, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, The hollow puppets of an hollow age, Ever idolatrous, and changing ever Its worthless idols! Learning, power, and time, (Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, Even to the gates and inlets of his life! But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm, And with a natural gladness, he maintained The citadel unconquered, and in joy Was strong to follow the delightful Muse. For not a hidden path, that to the shades Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads, Lurked undiscovered by him; not a rill There issues from the fount of Hippocrene, But he had traced it upward to its source, Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell, Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and culled Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone, Piercing the long-neglected holy cave, The haunt obscure of old Philosophy, He bade with lifted torch its starry walls Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage. O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts! O studious Poet, eloquent for truth! Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love! Here, rather than on monumental stone, This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes, Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

? 1809.

EPITAPH

Stop, Christian passer-by!--Stop, child of God, And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.-- O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.; That he who many a year with toil of breath Found death in life, may here find life in death! Mercy for praise--to be forgiven for fame He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!

_9th November 1833_.

NOTES

I am indebted to Mr. Heinemann, the owner of the copyright of Dykes Campbell's edition of Coleridge's Poetical Works (Macmillan & Co., 1893) for permission to use that text (one of the most carefully edited texts of any English poet) in this volume of selections. My aim, in making these selections, has been to give every poem of Coleridge's that seems to me really good, and nothing else. Not every poem, none perhaps of those in blank verse, is equal throughout; but I think readers of Coleridge will be surprised to find how few of the poems contained in this volume are not of almost flawless workmanship, as well of incomparable poetic genius. Scarcely any English poet gains so much as Coleridge by not being read in a complete edition. The gulf between his best and his worst work is as wide as the gulf between good and evil. Even Wordsworth, even Byron, is not so intolerable to read in a complete edition. But Coleridge, much more easily than Byron or Wordsworth, can be extricated from his own lumber-heaps; it is rare in his work to find a poem which is really good in parts and not really good as a whole. I have taken every poem on its own merits as poetry, its own technical merits as verse; and thus have included equally the frigid eighteenth-century conceits of "The Kiss" and the modern burlesque license of the comic fragments. But I have excluded everything which has an interest merely personal, or indeed any other interest than that of poetry; and I have thus omitted the famous "Ode on the Departing Year," in spite of the esteem in which Coleridge held it, and in spite of its one exquisite line--

"God's image, sister of the Seraphim"--

and I have omitted it because as a whole it is untempered rhetoric, shapeless in form; and I have also omitted confession pieces such as that early one which contains, among its otherwise too emphatic utterances, the most delicate and precise picture which Coleridge ever drew of himself:

"To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned Energic Reason and a shaping mind, The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart-- Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-glass sand. I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows, A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish doze."

Every poem that I have given I have given in full, and, without exception, in the form in which Coleridge left it. The dates given after the poems are Dykes Campbell's; occasionally I have corrected the date given in the text of his edition by his own correction in the notes.

p. I. _The Ancient Mariner_. The marginal analysis which Coleridge added in reprinting the poem (from the _Lyrical Ballads_) in _Sibylline Leaves_, has been transferred to this place, where it can be read without interrupting the narrative in verse.