The gloom thrown round by Care’s o’ershading wing;
E’en now those sunny visions to recall,
Like to a bird I quit dull earth and sing:
Life’s tempest swoon to calms on every string.
Ah! sweet Enchantress, if I do but dream,
If earthly visions have been only mine,
My weakness in thy service woos esteem,
And proves my truth as almost worthy thine:
Surely true worship makes the meanest theme divine.
And still, warm courage, calming many a fear,
Heartens my hand once more thy harp to try
To join the anthem of the minstrel year:
For summer’s music in thy praise is high;
The very winds about thy mantle sigh
Love-melodies; thy minstrel bards to be,
Insects and birds, exerting all their skill,
Float in continued song for mastery,
While in thy haunts loud leaps the little rill,
To kiss thy mantle’s hem; and how can I be still?
There still I see thee fold thy mantle grey,
To trace the dewy lawn at morn and night;
And there I see thee, in the sunny day,
Withdraw thy veil and shine confest in light;
Burning my fancies with a wild delight,
To win a portion of thy blushing fame.
Though haughty Fancy treat thy power as small,
And Fashion thy simplicity disclaim,
Should but a portion of thy mantle fall
O’er him who woos thy love, ’tis recompense for all.
Not with the mighty to thy shrine I come,
In anxious sighs, or self applauding mirth,
On Mount Parnassus as thine heir to roam:
I dare not credit that immortal birth;
But mingling with the lesser ones on earth--
Like as the little lark from off its nest,
Beside the mossy hill awakes in glee,
To seek the morning’s throne a merry guest--
So do I seek thy shrine, if that may be,
To win by new attempts another smile from thee.
If without thee ’neath storms, and clouds, and wind,
I’ve roam’d the wood, and field, and meadow lea;
And found no flowers but what the vulgar find,
Nor met one breath of living poesy,
Among such charms where inspirations be;
The fault is mine--and I must bear the lot
Of missing praise to merit thy disdain.
To feel each idle plea though urged, forgot;
I can but sigh--though foolish to complain
O’er hopes so fair begun, to find them end so vain.
Then will it prove presumption thus to dare
To add fresh failings to each faulty song,
Urging thy blessings on an idle prayer,
To sanction silly themes: it will be wrong
For one so lowly to be heard so long.
Yet, sweet Enchantress, yet a little while
Forego impatience, and from frowns refrain;
The strong are ne’er debarr’d thy cheering smile,
Why should the weak, who need them most, complain
Alone, in solitude, soliciting in vain?
But if my efforts on thy harp prove true,
Which bashful youth at first so feared to try;
If aught of nature be in sounds I drew
From hope’s young dreams, and doubt’s uncertainty,
To these late offerings, not without their sigh;
Then on thine altar shall these themes be laid,
And past the deeds of graven brass remain,
Filling a space in time that shall not fade;
And if it be not so--avert disdain,
Till dust shall feel no sting, nor know it toil’d in vain.
SUMMER IMAGES
Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank’d, and crown’d,
A wild and giddy thing,
And Health robust, from every care unbound,
Come on the zephyr’s wing,
And cheer the toiling clown.
Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
Loud tongued, and “merry as a marriage bell,”
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares:
And from thy sunny spell,
They greet joy unawares.
Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
And in the world’s despite,
Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles;
If haply so I might
Win pleasure from thy smiles.
Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,
In nightly revels or in city streets;
But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,
That one at leisure meets
In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,
Or fields, where bee-fly greets
The ear with mellow horn.
The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,
Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;
The bees go courting every flower that’s ripe,
On baulks and sunny banks;
And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,
Attempts to give God thanks
In no discordant tune.
The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,
There sings unto himself for joy’s amends,
And drinks the honey dew of solitude.
There Happiness attends
With inbred Joy until the heart o’erflow,
Of which the world’s rude friends.
Nought heeding, nothing know.
There the gay river, laughing as it goes,
Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,
And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows
What pleasure there abides,
To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:
Spots, Solitude provides
To muse, and happy be.
There ruminating ’neath some pleasant bush,
On sweet silk grass I stretch me at mine ease,
Where I can pillow on the yielding rush;
And, acting as I please,
Drop into pleasant dreams; or musing lie,
Mark the wind-shaken trees,
And cloud-betravelled sky.
There think me how some barter joy for care,
And waste life’s summer-health in riot rude,
Of nature, nor of nature’s sweets aware.
When passions vain intrude,
These, by calm musings, softened are and still;
And the heart’s better mood
Feels sick of doing ill.
There I can live, and at my leisure seek
Joys far from cold restraints--not fearing pride
Free as the winds, that breathe upon my cheek
Rude health, so long denied.
Here poor Integrity can sit at ease,
And list self-satisfied
The song of honey bees;
The green lane now I traverse, where it goes
Nought guessing, till some sudden turn espies
Rude batter’d finger post, that stooping shows
Where the snug mystery lies;
And then a mossy spire, with ivy crown,
Cheers up the short surprise,
And shows a peeping town.
I see the wild flowers, in their summer morn
Of beauty, feeding on joy’s luscious hours;
The gay convolvulus, wreathing round the thorn,
Agape for honey showers;
And slender kingcup, burnished with the dew
Of morning’s early hours,
Like gold minted new.
And mark by rustic bridge, o’er shallow stream,
Cow-tending boy, to toil unreconciled,
Absorbed as in some vagrant summer dream;
Who now, in gestures wild,
Starts dancing to his shadow on the wall,
Feeling self-gratified,
Nor fearing human thrall.
Or thread the sunny valley laced with streams,
Or forests rude, and the o’ershadow’d brims
Of simple pond, where idle shepherd dreams,
Stretching his listless limbs;
Or trace hay-scented meadows, smooth and long
Where joy’s wild impulse swims
In one continued song.
I love at early morn, from new mown swath,
To see the startled frog his route pursue;
To mark while, leaping o’er the dripping path,
His bright sides scatter dew,
The early lark that, from its bustle flies,
To hail his matin new;
And watch him to the skies.
To note on hedgerow baulks, in moisture sprent,
The jetty snail creep from the mossy thorn,
With earnest heed, and tremulous intent,
Frail brother of the morn,
That from the tiny bent’s dew-misted leaves
Withdraws his timid horn,
And fearful vision weaves.
Or swallow heed on smoke-tanned chimney top,
Wont to be first unsealing Morning’s eye,
Ere yet the bee hath gleaned one wayward drop
Of honey on his thigh;
To see him seek morn’s airy couch to sing,
Until the golden sky
Bepaint his russet wing.
Or sauntering boy by tanning corn to spy,
With clapping noise to startle birds away,
And hear him bawl to every passer by
To know the hour of day;
While the uncradled breezes, fresh and strong,
With waking blossoms play,
And breathe Æolian song.
I love the south-west wind, or low or loud,
And not the less when sudden drops of rain
Moisten my glowing cheek from ebon cloud,
Threatening soft showers again,
That over lands new ploughed and meadow grounds,
Summer’s sweet breath unchain,
And wake harmonious sounds.
Rich music breathes in Summer’s every sound;
And in her harmony of varied greens,
Woods, meadows, hedge-rows, corn-fields, all around
Much beauty intervenes;
Filling with harmony the ear and eye;
While o’er the mingling scenes
Far spreads the laughing sky.
See, how the wind-enamoured aspin leaves
Turn up their silver lining to the sun!
And hark! the rustling noise, that oft deceives
And makes the sheep-boy run;
The sound so mimics fast-approaching showers,
He thinks the rain’s begun,
And hastes to sheltering bowers.
But now the evening curdles dank and grey,
Changing her watchet hue for sombre weed;
And moping owls, to close the lids of day,
On drowsy wing proceed;
While chickering crickets, tremulous and long,
Light’s farewell inly heed,
And give it parting song.
The pranking bat its flighty circlet makes;
The glow-worm burnishes its lamp anew;
O’er meadows dew-besprent, the beetle wakes
Inquiries ever new,
Teazing each passing ear with murmurs vain,
As wanting to pursue
His homeward path again.
Hark! ’tis the melody of distant bells
That on the wind with pleasing hum rebounds
By fitful starts, then musically swells
O’er the dim stilly grounds;
While on the meadow-bridge the pausing boy
Listens the mellow sounds,
And hums in vacant joy.
Now homeward-bound, the hedger bundles round
His evening faggot, and with every stride
His leathern doublet leaves a rustling sound,
Till silly sheep beside
His path start tremulous, and once again
Look back dissatisfied,
And scour the dewy plain.
How sweet the soothing calmness that distills
O’er the heart’s every sense its opiate dews,
In meek-eyed moods and ever balmy trills!
That softens and subdues,
With gentle Quiet’s bland and sober train,
Which dreamy eve renews
In many a mellow strain!
I love to walk the fields, they are to me
A legacy no evil can destroy;
They, like a spell, set every rapture free
That cheer’d me when a boy.
Play--pastime--all Time’s blotting pen conceal’d,
Comes like a new-born joy,
To greet me in the field.
For Nature’s objects ever harmonize
With emulous Taste, that vulgar deed annoys;
Which loves in pensive moods to sympathize,
And meet vibrating joys
O’er Nature’s pleasing things; nor slighting, deems
Pastimes, the Muse employs,
Vain and obtrusive themes.
AUTUMN
Syren of sullen moods and fading hues,
Yet haply not incapable of joy,
Sweet Autumn! I thee hail
With welcome all unfeigned;
And oft as morning from her lattice peeps
To beckon up the sun, I seek with thee
To drink the dewy breath
Of fields left fragrant then,
In solitudes, where no frequented paths
But what thy own foot makes betray thine home,
Stealing obtrusive there
To meditate thy end:
By overshadowed ponds, in woody nooks,
With ramping sallows lined, and crowding sedge,
Which woo the winds to play,
And with them dance for joy;
And meadow pools, torn wide by lawless floods,
Where water-lilies spread their oily leaves,
On which, as wont, the fly
Oft battens in the sun;
Where leans the mossy willow half way o’er,
On which the shepherd crawls astride to throw
His angle, clear of weeds
That crowd the water’s brim;
Or crispy hills, and hollows scant of sward,
Where, step by step, the patient lonely boy
Hath cut rude flights of stairs
To climb their steepy sides;
Then track along their feet, grown hoarse with noise,
The crawling brook, that ekes its weary speed,
And struggles through the weeds
With faint and sullen brawl.--
These haunts I long have favoured, more as now
With thee thus wandering, moralizing on;
Stealing glad thoughts from grief,
And happy, though I sigh.
Sweet Vision, with the wild dishevelled hair,
And raiment shadowy of each wind’s embrace,
Fain would I win thine harp
To one accordant theme.
Now not inaptly craved, communing thus,
Beneath the curdled arms of this stunt oak,
While pillowed on the grass,
We fondly ruminate
O’er the disordered scenes of woods and fields,
Ploughed lands, thin travelled with half-hungry sheep,
Pastures tracked deep with cows,
Where small birds seek for seed:
Marking the cow-boy that so merry trills
His frequent, unpremeditated song,
Wooing the winds to pause,
Till echo brawls again;
As on with plashy step, and clouted shoon,
He roves, half indolent and self-employed,
To rob the little birds
Of hips and pendant haws,
And sloes, dim covered as with dewy veils,
And rambling bramble-berries, pulpy and sweet,
Arching their prickly trails
Half o’er the narrow lane:
Noting the hedger front with stubborn face
The dank bleak wind, that whistles thinly by
His leathern garb, thorn proof,
And cheek red hot with toil;
While o’er the pleachy lands of mellow brown,
The mower’s stubbling scythe clogs to his foot
The ever ekeing whisp,
With sharp and sudden jerk,
Till into formal rows the russet shocks
Crowd the blank field to thatch time-weather’d barns,
And hovels rude repair,
Stript by disturbing winds.
See! from the rustling scythe the haunted hare
Scampers circuitous, with startled ears
Prickt up, then squat, as by
She brushes to the woods,
Where reeded grass, breast-high and undisturbed,
Forms pleasant clumps, through which the soothing winds
Soften her rigid fears,
And lull to calm repose.
Wild Sorceress! me thy restless mood delights,
More than the stir of summer’s crowded scenes,
Where, jostled in the din,
Joy palled my ear with song;
Heart-sickening for the silence, that is here
Not broken inharmoniously, as now
That lone and vagrant bee
Booms faint with weary chime.
Now filtering winds thin winnow through the woods
In tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath,
Some sickly cankered leaf
Let go its hold, and die.
And now the bickering storm, with sudden start,
In flirting fits of anger carps aloud,
Thee urging to thine end,
Sore wept by troubled skies.
And yet, sublime in grief! thy thoughts delight
To show me visions of most gorgeous dyes,
Haply forgetting now
They but prepare thy shroud;
Thy pencil dashing its excess of shades,
Improvident of waste, till every bough
Burns with thy mellow touch
Disorderly divine.
Soon must I view thee as a pleasant dream
Droop faintly, and so reckon for thine end,
As sad the winds sink low
In dirges for their queen;
While in the moment of their weary pause,
To cheer thy bankrupt pomp, the willing lark
Starts from his shielding clod,
Snatching sweet scraps of song.
Thy life is waning now, and Silence tries
To mourn, but meets no sympathy in sounds,
As stooping low she bends,
Forming with leaves thy grave;
To sleep inglorious there mid tangled woods,
Till parched-lipped Summer pines in drought away
Then from thine ivy’d trance
Awake to glories new.
THE VANITIES OF LIFE
What are life’s joys and gains,
What pleasures crowd its ways,
That man should take such pains
To seek them all his days?
Sift this untoward strife
On which thy mind is bent--
See if this chaff of life
Be worth the trouble spent.
Is pride thy heart’s desire?
Is power thy climbing aim?
Is love thy folly’s fire?
Is wealth thy restless game?--
Pride, power, love, wealth, and all,
Time’s touchstone shall destroy;
And, like base coin, prove all
Vain substitutes for joy.
Dost think thy pride exalts
Thyself in others’ eyes,
And hides thy folly’s faults,
Which reason will despise?
Dost strut, and turn, and stride,
Like walking weathercocks?
The shadow, by thy side,
Becomes thy ape, and mocks.
Dost think that power’s disguise
Can make thee mighty seem?
It may in folly’s eyes,
But not in worth’s esteem.
When all that thou canst ask,
And all that she can give,
Is but a paltry mask,
Which tyrants wear and live.
Go, let thy fancies range,
And ramble where they may
View power in every change,
And what is its display?--
The country magistrate,
The lowest shade in power,
To rulers of the state?--
The meteors of an hour.
View all, and mark the end
Of every proud extreme,
Where flattery turns a friend,
And counterfeits esteem;
Where worth is aped in show,
That doth her name purloin--
As toys of golden glow,
Are sold for copper coin.
Ambition’s haughty nod
With fancies may deceive--
Nay, tell thee thou’rt a god;
And wilt thou such believe?
Go, bid the seas be dry;
Go, hold earth like a ball;
Or throw thy fancies by,
For God can do it all.
Dost thou possess the dower
Of laws, to spare or kill?
Call it not heavenly power,
When but a tyrant’s will.
Know what a god will do,
And know thyself a fool;
Nor tyrant-like pursue,
Where he alone should rule.
O put away thy pride,
Or be ashamed of power
That cannot turn aside
The breeze that waves a flower;
Or bid the clouds be still--
Though shadows, they can brave
Thy poor power-mocking will,
Then make not man a slave.
Dost think, when wealth is won,
Thy heart has its desire?
Hold ice up to the sun,
And wax before the fire;
Nor triumph o’er the reign
Which they so soon resign,
In this world’s ways they gain
Insurance safe as thine.
Dost think life’s peace secure
In houses and in land?
Go, read the fairy lure--
To twist a cord of sand,
Lodge stones upon the sky,
Hold water in a sieve;
Nor give such tales the lie,
And still thine own believe.
Whoso with riches deals,
And thinks peace bought and sold,
Will find them slippery eels,
That slide the firmest hold;
Though sweet as sleep with health
Thy lulling luck may be,
Pride may o’erstride thy wealth,
And check prosperity.
Dost think that beauty’s power
Life’s sweetest pleasure gives?
Go, pluck the summer flower,
And see how long it lives:
Behold the rays glide on
Along the summer plain,
’Ere thou canst say, “They’re gone!”
And measure beauty’s reign.
Look on the brightest eye,
Nor teach it to be proud,
But view the clearest sky,
And thou shalt find a cloud;
Nor call each face you meet
An angel’s, ’cause it’s fair,
But look beneath your feet,
And think of what they are.
Who thinks that love doth live
In beauty’s tempting show,
Shall find his hopes misgive,
And melt in reason’s thaw;
Who thinks that pleasure lies
In every fairy bower,
Shall oft, to his surprise,
Find poison in the flower.
Dost lawless passions grasp?--
Judge not thou deal’st in joy;
Its flowers but hide the asp,
Thy revels to destroy.
Who trusts a harlot’s smile,
And by her wiles is led,
Plays with a sword the while,
Hung dropping o’er his head.
Dost doubt my warning song?--
Then doubt the sun gives light;
Doubt truth to teach the wrong,
And wrong alone as right;
And live as lives the knave,
Intrigue’s deceiving guest;
Be tyrant or be slave,
As suits thy ends the best.
Or pause amid thy toils
For visions won and lost,
And count the fancied spoils,
If ’ere they quit the cost;
And if they still possess,
Thy mind as worthy things;
Plat straws with bedlam Bess,
And call them diamond rings.
Thy folly’s past advice,
Thy heart’s already won,
Thy fall’s above all price,
So go and be undone:
For all who thus prefer
The seeming great for small,
Shall make wine vinegar,
And sweetest honey gall.
Would’st heed the truths I sing,
To profit wherewithal?
Clip Folly’s wanton wing,
And keep her within call.
I’ve little else to give,
What thou canst easy try;
The lesson how to live,
Is but to learn to die.
THOUGHTS IN A CHURCH-YARD
Ah! happy spot, how still it seems
Where crowds of buried memories sleep;
How quiet Nature o’er them dreams,
’Tis but our troubled thoughts that weep.
Life’s book shuts here--its page is lost
With them, and all its busy claims,
The poor are from its memory crost,
The rich leave nothing but their names.
There rest the weary from their toil;
There lie the troubled, free from care;
Who through the strife of life’s turmoil
Sought rest, and only found it there.
With none to fear his scornful brow,
There sleeps the master with the slave;
And heedless of all titles now,
Repose the honoured and the brave.
There rest the miser and the heir,
Both careless who their wealth shall reap;
E’en love finds cure for heart-aches here,
And none enjoy a sounder sleep.
The fair one far from folly’s freaks,
As quiet as her neighbour seems,
Unconscious now of rosy cheeks,
Without a rival in her dreams.
Strangers alike to joy and strife,
Heedless of all its past affairs.
They’re blotted from the list of life,
And absent from its teazing cares.
Grief, joy, hope, fear, and all their crew
That haunt the memory’s living mind,
Ceased, when they could no more pursue,
And left a painless blank behind.
Life’s _ignis fatuus_ light is gone,
No more to lead their hopes astray;
Care’s poisoned cup is drain’d and done,
And all its follies past away.
The bill’s made out, the reck’ning paid,
The book is cross’d, the business done;
On them the last demand is made,
And heaven’s eternal peace is won.
THE NIGHTINGALE’S NEST