From the drench’d roof;--yet murmurs the sunk wind
Round the dim hills; can yet a passage find
Whistling thro’ yon cleft rock, and ruin’d wall.
Loud roar the angry torrents, and appal
Tho’ distant.--A few stars, emerging kind,
With green rays tremble thro’ their misty shrouds;
And the moon gleams between the sailing clouds
On half the darken’d hill.--Now blasts remove
The shadowing clouds, and on the mountain’s brow,
Full-orb’d she shines. Half sunk within its cove
Heaves the lone boat, with gulphing sound:--and lo!
Bright rolls the settling lake, and brimming rove
The vale’s blue rills, and glitter as they flow!
SONNET XIX.
TO----.
Farewell, false Friend!--our scenes of kindness close!
To cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell!
To sweet consolings, that can grief expel,
And every joy soft sympathy bestows!
For alter’d looks, where truth no longer glows,
Thou hast prepared my heart;--and it was well
To bid thy pen th’ unlook’d-for story tell,
Falsehood avow’d, that shame, nor sorrow knows.
O! when we meet,--(to meet we’re destin’d, try
To avoid it as thou may’st) on either brow,
Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye,
Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how
We once were to each other;--nor one sigh
Flatter with weak regret a broken vow!
SONNET XX.
ON READING A DESCRIPTION OF POPE’S GARDENS AT TWICKENHAM.
Ah! might I range each hallow’d bower and glade
Musæus cultur’d, many a raptured sigh
Would that dear, local consciousness supply
Beneath his willow, in the grotto’s shade,
Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid.
How sweet to watch, with reverential eye,
Thro’ the sparr’d arch, the streams he oft survey’d,
Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by!
This is the Poet’s triumph, and it towers
O’er Life’s pale ills, his consciousness of powers
That lift his memory from oblivion’s gloom,
Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours
By his idea deck’d in rapture’s bloom,
For spirits rightly touch’d thro’ ages yet to come.
SONNET XXI.
Proud of our lyric galaxy, I hear
Of faded Genius with supreme disdain;
As when we see the miser bend insane
O’er his full coffers, and in accents drear
Deplore imagin’d want;--and thus appear
To me those moody censors, who complain,
As Shaftsbury plain’d in a now boasted reign,[77]
That “Poesy had left our darken’d sphere.”
Whence may the present stupid dream be traced
That now she shines not as in days foregone?
Perchance neglected, often shine in waste
Her Lights, from number into confluence run,
More than when, thinly in th’ horizon placed,
Each orb shone separate, and appear’d a sun.
SONNET XXII.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
You, whose dull spirits feel not the fine glow
Enthusiasm breathes, no more of light
Perceive ye in rapt Poesy, tho’ bright
In Fancy’s richest colouring, than can flow
From jewel’d treasures in the central night
Of their deep caves.--You have no sun to show
Their inborn radiance pure.--Go, snarlers, go;
Nor your defects of feeling, and of sight,
To charge upon the Poet thus presume,
Ye lightless minds, whate’er of title proud,
Scholar, or Sage, or Critic, ye assume,
Arraigning his high claims with censure loud,
Or sickly scorn; yours, yours is all the cloud,
Gems cannot sparkle in the midnight gloom.
SONNET XXIII.
TO MISS E. S.
Do I not tell thee surly Winter’s flown,
That the brook’s verge is green;--and bid thee hear,
In yon irriguous vale, the blackbird clear,
At measur’d intervals, with mellow tone,
Choiring the hours of prime? and call thine ear[78]
To the gay viol dinning in the dale,
With tabor loud, and bag-pipe’s rustic drone
To merry shearer’s dance;--or jest retail
From festal board, from choral roofs the song;
And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile
The caustic memory of a cruel wrong?--
Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile,
And bid me still the effort kind prolong;
But ah! they wear a cold and joyless smile.
SONNET XXIV.
TRANSLATION.
Behold the day an image of the year!
The year an image of our life’s short span!
Morn, like the Spring, with growing light began,
Spring, like our youth, with joy, and beauty fair;
Noon picturing Summer;--Summer’s ardent sphere
Manhood’s gay portrait.--Eve, like Autumn, wan,
Autumn resembling faded age in man;
Night, with its silence, and its darkness drear,
Emblem of Winter’s frore and gloomy reign,
When torpid lie the vegetative powers;
Winter, so shrunk, so cold, reminds us plain
Of the mute grave, that o’er the dim corse lours;
There shall the weary rest, nor aught remain
To the pale slumberer of life’s checker’d hours!
SONNET XXV.
PETRARCH TO VAUCLUSE.[79]
Fortunate Vale! exulting Hill! dear Plain!
Where morn, and eve, my soul’s fair idol stray’d,
While all your winds, that murmur’d thro’ the glade,
Stole her sweet breath; yet, yet your paths retain
Prints of her step, by fount, whose floods remain
In depth unfathom’d; ’mid the rocks, that shade,
With cavern’d arch, their sleep.--Ye streams, that play’d
Around her limbs in Summer’s ardent reign,
The soft resplendence of those azure eyes
Tinged ye with living light.--The envied claim
These blest distinctions give, my lyre, my sighs,
My songs record; and, from their Poet’s flame,
Bid this wild vale, its rocks, and streams arise,
Associates still of their bright Mistress’ fame.
SONNET XXVI.
O Partial Memory! years, that fled too fast
From thee, in more than pristine beauty rise,
Forgotten all the transient tears and sighs
Somewhat that dimm’d their brightness! Thou hast chas’d
Each hovering mist from the soft suns, that grac’d
Our fresh, gay morn of youth;--the heart’s high prize,
Friendship,--and all that charm’d us in the eyes
Of yet unutter’d love.--So pleasures past,
That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime,
Beam on the gloom’d and disappointed mind,
When youth and health, in the chill’d grasp of Time,
Shudder and fade;--and cypress buds we find
Ordain’d life’s blighted roses to supply,
While but reflected shine the golden lights of joy.
SONNET XXVII.
See wither’d Winter, bending low his head;
His ragged locks stiff with the hoary dew;
His eyes, like frozen lakes, of livid hue;
His train, a sable cloud, with murky red
Streak’d.--Ah! behold his nitrous breathings shed
Petrific death!--Lean, waleful birds pursue,
On as he sweeps o’er the dun lonely moor,
Amid the battling blast of all the winds,
That, while their sleet the climbing sailor blinds,
Lash the white surges to the sounding shore.
So com’st thou, Winter, finally to doom
The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropt sprays,
Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb,
Her vanish’d hopes, and aye-departed days.
SONNET XXVIII.
O, Genius! does thy sun-resembling beam
To the internal eyes of man display
In clearer prospect, the momentous way
That leads to peace? Do they not rather seem
Dazzled by lustres in continual stream,
Till night they find in such excessive day?
Art thou not prone, with too intense a ray,
To gild the hope improbable, the dream
Of fancied good?--or bid the sigh upbraid
Imaginary evils, and involve
All real sorrow in a darker shade?
To fond credulity, to rash resolve
Dost thou not prompt, till reason’s sacred aid
And fair discretion in thy fires dissolve?
SONNET XXIX.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
If Genius have its danger, grief, and pain,
Which common sense escapes, yet who would change
The powers, thro’ Nature and thro’ Art that range,
To walk the bounded, dull, tho’ safer plain
Of moderate intellect, where only reign
Some faint perception of the Sweet,--the Strange,
The Gay,--the Grand,--the Tender,--the Sublime,
And all the varied stores of Fancy’s clime?
Destructive shall we deem yon noon-tide blaze,
If, transiently, the eye, o’erpower’d, resign
Visual distinctness?--Shall we rather praise
The moon’s pale light?--With owlish choice incline
That common sense her lunar lamp should raise,
Than that the solar fires of Genius shine?
SONNET XXX.
That song again!--its sounds my bosom thrill,
Breathe of past years, to all their joys allied;
And, as the notes thro’ my sooth’d spirits glide,
Dear recollection’s choicest sweets distil,
Soft as the morn’s calm dew on yonder hill,
When slants the sun upon its grassy side,
Tinging the brooks that many a mead divide
With lines of gilded light; and blue, and still,
The distant lake stands gleaming in the vale.
Sing, yet once more, that well-remember’d strain,
Which oft made vocal every passing gale
In days long fled, in Pleasure’s golden reign,
The youth of changed HONORA!--now it wears
Her air--her smile--spells of the vanish’d years!
SONNET XXXI.
TO THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF AN ALIENATED FRIEND.
O, ever dear! thy precious, vital powers
Sink rapidly!--the long and dreary night
Brings scarce an hope that morn’s returning light
Shall dawn for thee!--In such terrific hours,
When yearning fondness eagerly devours
Each moment of protracted life, his flight
The rashly-chosen of thy heart has ta’en
Where dances, songs, and theatres invite.
Expiring Sweetness! with indignant pain
I see him in the scenes where laughing glide
Pleasure’s light forms;--see his eyes gaily glow,
Regardless of thy life’s fast ebbing tide;
I hear him, who should droop in silent woe,
Declaim on actors, and on taste decide!
SONNET XXXII.
SUBJECT OF THE PRECEDING SONNET CONTINUED.
Behold him now his genuine colours wear,
That specious false-one, by whose cruel wiles
I lost thy amity; saw thy dear smiles
Eclips’d; those smiles, that used my heart to cheer,
Wak’d by thy grateful sense of many a year
When rose thy youth, by Friendship’s pleasing toils
Cultured;--but Dying!--O! for ever fade
The angry fires.--Each thought, that might upbraid
Thy broken faith, which yet my soul deplores,
Now as eternally is past and gone
As are the interesting, the happy hours,
Days, years, we shared together. They are flown!
Yet long must I lament thy hapless doom,
Thy lavish’d life and early-hasten’d tomb.
SONNET XXXIII.
JUNE 1780.
Last night her form the hours of slumber bless’d
Whose eyes illumin’d all my youthful years.--
Spirit of dreams, at thy command appears
Each airy shape, that visiting our rest,
Dismays, perplexes, or delights the breast.
My pensive heart this kind indulgence cheers;
Bliss, in no waking moment now possess’d,
Bliss, ask’d of thee with memory’s thrilling tears.
Nightly I cry,--how oft, alas! in vain,--
Give, by thy powers, that airy shapes controul,
HONORA to my visions!--ah! ordain
Her beauteous lip may wear the smile that stole,
In years long fled, the sting from every pain!
Show her sweet face, ah show it to my soul!
SONNET XXXIV.
JUNE 1780.
When death, or adverse fortune’s ruthless gale,
Tears our best hopes away, the wounded heart
Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
The sympathetic charm; its mutual wail
Sooths the sick soul. Ah! never can it fail
To balm our bleeding grief’s severest smart;
Nor wholly vain feign’d Pity’s solemn art,
Tho’ we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e’en known to be assum’d, our pains
Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
Than cold neglect, or mirth that grief profanes.
Thus each faint glow-worm of the night conspires,
Gleaming along the moss’d and darken’d lanes,
To cheer the gloom with her unreal fires.
SONNET XXXV.
APRIL 29TH, 1782.
SPRING.
In April’s gilded morn when south winds blow,
And gently shake the hawthorn’s silver crown,
Wafting its scent the forest-glade adown,
The dewy shelter of the bounding doe,
Then, under trees, soft tufts of primrose show
Their palely-yellowing flowers;--to the moist sun
Blue harebells peep, while cowslips stand unblown,
Plighted to riper May;--and lavish flow
The lark’s loud carols in the wilds of air.
O! not to Nature’s glad enthusiast cling
Avarice, and pride.--Thro’ her now blooming sphere
Charm’d as he roves, his thoughts enraptur’d spring
To Him, who gives frail man’s appointed time
These cheering hours of promise and of prime.
SONNET XXXVI.
JUNE 27TH, 1782.
SUMMER.
Now on hills, rocks, and streams, and vales, and plains,
Full looks the shining day.--Our gardens wear
The gorgeous robes of the consummate year.
With laugh, and shout, and song, stout maids and swains
Heap high the fragrant hay, as thro’ rough lanes
Rings the yet empty waggon.--See in air
The pendent cherries, red with tempting stains,
Gleam thro’ their boughs.--Summer, thy bright career
Must slacken soon in Autumn’s milder-sway;
Then thy now heapt and jocund meads shall stand
Smooth,--vacant,--silent,--thro’ th’ exulting land
As wave thy rival’s golden fields, and gay
Her reapers throng. She smiles, and binds the sheaves;
Then bends her parting step o’er fall’n and rustling leaves.
SONNET XXXVII.
OCTOBER 27TH, 1782.
AUTUMN.
Thro’ changing months a well-attemper’d mind
Welcomes their gentle or terrific pace.--
When o’er retreating Autumn’s golden grace
Tempestuous Winter spreads in every wind
Naked asperity, our musings find
Grandeur increasing, as the glooms efface
Variety and glow.--Each solemn trace
Exalts the thoughts, from sensual joys refin’d.
Then blended in our rapt ideas rise
The vanish’d charms, that summer-suns reveal,
With all of desolation, that now lies
Dreary before us;--teach the soul to feel
Awe in the present, pleasure in the past,
And to see vernal morns in Hope’s perspective cast.
SONNET XXXVIII.
DECEMBER 1ST, 1782.
WINTER.
If he whose bosom with no transport swells
In vernal airs and hours commits the crime
Of sullenness to Nature, ’gainst the time,
And its great Ruler, he alike rebels
Who seriousness and pious dread repels,
And awless gazes on the faded clime,
Dim in the gloom, and pale in the hoar rime
That o’er the bleak and dreary prospect steals.--
Spring claims our tender, grateful, gay delight;
Winter our sympathy and sacred fear;
And sure the hearts that pay not pity’s rite
O’er wide calamity; that careless hear
Creation’s wail, neglect, amid her blight,
The solemn Lesson of the Ruin’d Year.
SONNET XXXIX.
DECEMBER 7TH, 1782.
WINTER EVENING.
When mourn the dark winds o’er the lonely plain,
And from pale noon sinks, ere the fifth cold hour,
The transient light, imagination’s power,
With knowledge, and with science in her train,
Not unpropitious Hyems’ icy reign
Perceives; since in the deep and silent hour
High themes the rapt concent’ring thoughts explore,
Freed from external Pleasure’s glittering chain.
Then most the understanding’s culture pays
Luxuriant harvest, nor shall Folly bring
Her aids obtrusive.--Then, with ardent gaze,
The Ingenious to their rich resources spring,
While sullen Winter’s dull imprisoning days
Hang on the vacant mind with flagging wing.
SONNET XL.
DEC. 19TH, 1782.
DECEMBER MORNING.[80]
I love to rise ere gleams the tardy light,
Winter’s pale dawn;--and as warm fires illume,
And cheerful tapers shine around the room,
Thro’ misty windows bend my musing sight
Where, round the dusky lawn, the mansions white,
With shutters clos’d, peer faintly thro’ the gloom,
That slow recedes; while yon grey spires assume,
Rising from their dark pile, an added height
By indistinctness given.--Then to decree
The grateful thoughts to God, ere they unfold
To Friendship, or the Muse, or seek with glee
Wisdom’s rich page:--O, hours! more worth than gold,
By whose blest use we lengthen life, and free
From drear decays of age, outlive the old!
SONNET XLI.
DEC. 21ST, 1782.
INVITATION TO A FRIEND.
Since dark December shrouds the transient day,
And stormy winds are howling in their ire,
Why com’st not Thou, who always can’st inspire
The soul of cheerfulness, and best array
A sullen hour in smiles?--O haste to pay
The cordial visit sullen hours require!--
Around the circling walls a glowing fire
Shines;--but it vainly shines in this delay
To blend thy spirit’s warm Promethean light.
Come then, at Science, and at Friendship’s call,
Their vow’d disciple;--come, for they invite!
The social powers without thee languish all.
Come, that I may not hear the winds of Night,
Nor count the heavy eave-drops as they fall.
SONNET XLII.
DEC. 31ST, 1782.
Lo! the Year’s final Day!--Nature performs
Its obsequies with darkness, wind and rain;
But man is jocund.--Hark! th’ exultant strain
From towers and steeples drowns the wintry storms!
No village spire but to the cots and farms,
Right merrily, its scant and tuneless peal
Rings round!--Ah! joy ungrateful!--mirth insane!
Wherefore the senseless triumph, ye, who feel
This annual portion of brief life the while
Depart for ever?--Brought it no dear hours
Of health and night-rest?--none that saw the smile
On lips belov’d?--O! with as gentle powers
Will the next pass?--Ye pause!--yet careless hear
Strike these last clocks, that knell th’ expiring year!
SONNET XLIII.
TO MAY, IN THE YEAR 1783.
My memory, long accustom’d to receive
In deep-engraven lines, each varying trait
Past times and seasons wore, can find no date
Thro’ many years, O! May, when thou hadst leave,
As now, of the great Sun, serene to weave
Thy fragrant chaplets; in poetic state
To call the jocund Hours on thee to wait,
Bringing each day, at morn, at noon, at eve,
His mild illuminations.--Nymph, no more
Is thine to mourn beneath the scanty shade
Of half-blown leaves, and shivering to deplore
Thy garlands immature, thy rites unpaid;
Meads dropt with gold again to thee belong,[81]
Soft gales, luxuriant bowers, and wood-land song.
SONNET XLIV.
Rapt Contemplation, bring thy waking dreams
To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
While full of thee seems every bending flower,
Whose petals tremble o’er the shadow’d streams
Give thou HONORA’S image, when her beams,
Youth, beauty, kindness, shone;--what time she wore
That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power
To sooth each painful passion’s wild extremes.
Here shall no empty, vain intruder chase,
With idle converse, thy enchantment warm,
That brings, in all its interest, all its grace,
The dear, persuasive, visionary form.
Can real life a rival blessing boast,
When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost?
SONNET XLV.[82]
From Possibility’s dim chaos sprung,
High o’er its gloom the Aërostatic power
Arose!--Exulting nations hail’d the hour,
Magnific boast of Science!--Loud they sung
Her victory o’er the element, that hung,
Pressing to earth the beings, who now soar
Aerial heights;--but Wisdom bids explore
This vaunted skill;--if, tides of air among,
We know to steer our bark.--Here Science finds
Her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain,
Type of this art;--guilty, if still she blinds
The sense of fear; persists thy flame to fan,
Sky-vaulting Pride, that to the aweless winds
Throws, for an idle show, the Life of Man!
SONNET XLVI.
Dark as the silent stream beneath the night,
Thy funeral glides to Life’s eternal home,
Child of its narrow house!--how late the bloom,
The facile smile, the soft eye’s crystal light,
Each grace of youth’s gay morn, that charms our sight,
Play’d o’er that form!--now sunk in death’s cold gloom,
Insensate! ghastly!--for the yawning tomb,
Alas! fit inmate.--Thus we mourn the blight
Of virgin-beauty, and endowments rare
In their glad hours of promise.--O! when age
Drops, like the o’er-blown, faded rose, tho’ dear
Its long known worth, no stormy sorrows rage;
But swell when we behold, unsoil’d by time,
Youth’s broken lily perished in its prime.
SONNET XLVII.
ON MR SARGENT’S DRAMATIC POEM,
THE MINE.[83]
With lyre Orphean, see a bard explore
The central caverns of the mornless night,
Till now ne’er echoing to Æonian rite
He comes!--and lo! upon the sparry floor,
Advance to welcome him, each sister power,
Petra, stern queen, Fossilia, cold and bright,
And call their gnomes, to marshal in his sight
The gelid incrust, and the veined ore,
And flashing gem.--Then, while his songs pourtray
The mystic virtues gold and gems acquire,
With every charm that mineral scenes display,
Th’ imperial sisters praise the daring lyre,
And grateful hail its new and powerful lay,
That seats them high amid the Muses’ choir.
SONNET XLVIII.
Now young-eyed Spring, on gentle breezes borne,
’Mid the deep woodlands, hills, and vales, and bowers,
Unfolds her leaves, her blossoms, and her flowers,
Pouring their soft luxuriance on the morn.
O! how unlike the wither’d, wan, forlorn,
And limping Winter, that o’er russet moors,
Grey, ridgy fields, and ice-incrusted shores,
Strays!--and commands his rising winds to mourn,
Protracted life, thou art ordain’d to wear
A form like his; and, should thy gifts be mine,
I tremble lest a kindred influence drear
Steal on my mind;--but pious Hope benign,
The soul’s bright day-spring, shall avert the fear,
And gild existence in her dim decline.
SONNET XLIX.
ON THE USE OF NEW AND OLD WORDS IN POETRY.
While with false pride, and narrow jealousy,
Numbers reject each new expression, won,
Perchance, from language richer than our own,
O! with glad welcome may the Poet see
Extension’s golden vantage! the decree
Each way exclusive, scorn, and re-enthrone
The obsolete, if strength, or grace of tone
Or imagery await it, with a free,
And liberal daring!--For the critic train,
Whose eyes severe our verbal stores review,
Let the firm bard require that they explain
Their cause of censure; then in balance true
Weigh it; but smile at the objections vain
Of sickly spirits, hating for they do![84]
SONNET L.
In every breast affection fires, there dwells A secret consciousness to
what degree They are themselves belov’d.--We hourly see Th’ involuntary
proof, that either quells, Or ought to quell false hopes,--or sets us
free From pain’d distrust;--but, O, the misery! Weak self-delusion
timidly repels The lights obtrusive--shrinks from all that tells
Unwelcome truths, and vainly seeks repose For startled fondness, in the
opiate balm Of kind profession, tho’, perchance, it flows To hush
complaint--O! in belief’s clear calm, Or ’mid the lurid clouds of doubt,
we find Love rise the sun, or comet of the mind.
SONNET LI.
TO SYLVIA,
ON HER APPROACHING NUPTIALS.
Hope comes to Youth, gliding thro’ azure skies
With amaranth crown:--her full robe, snowy white,
Floats on the gale, and our exulting sight
Marks it afar.--From waning life she flies,
Wrapt in a mist, covering her starry eyes
With her fair hand.--But now, in floods of light,
She meets thee, Sylvia, and with glances, bright
As lucid streams, when Spring’s clear mornings rise.
From Hymen’s kindling torch, a yellow ray
The shining texture of her spotless vest
Gilds;--and the month that gives the early day
The scent odorous, and the carol blest,[85]
Pride of the rising year, enamour’d May,
Paints its redundant folds with florets gay.
SONNET LII.
Long has the pall of midnight quench’d the scene,
And wrapt the hush’d horizon.--All around,
In scatter’d huts, Labour, in sleep profound,
Lies stretch’d, and rosy Innocence serene
Slumbers;--but creeps, with pale and starting mien,
Benighted Superstition.--Fancy-found,
The late self-slaughter’d man, in earth yet green
And festering, burst from his incumbent mound,
Roams!--and the slave of terror thinks he hears
A mutter’d groan!--sees the sunk eye, that glares
As shoots the meteor.--But no more forlorn
He strays;--the spectre sinks into his tomb!
For now the jocund herald of the morn
Claps his bold wings, and sounds along the gloom.[86]
SONNET LIII.
WRITTEN IN THE SPRING 1785 ON THE DEATH OF THE
POET LAUREAT.
The knell of WHITEHEAD tolls!--his cares are past,
The hapless tribute of his purchased lays,
His servile, his Egyptian tasks of praise!--
If not sublime his strains, Fame justly placed
Their power above their work.--Now, with wide gaze
Of much indignant wonder, she surveys
To the life-labouring oar assiduous haste
A glowing bard, by every Muse embraced.--
O, WARTON! chosen Priest of Phœbus’ choir!
Shall thy rapt song be venal? hymn the Throne,
Whether its edicts just applause inspire,
Or Patriot Virtue view them with a frown?
What needs for this the golden-stringed lyre,
The snowy tunic, and the sun-bright zone[87]
SONNET LIV.
A PERSIAN KING TO HIS SON.
FROM A PROSE TRANSLATION IN SIR WILLIAM JONES’ ESSAY ON THE POETRY OF
THE EASTERN NATIONS.