BOOK I.

I.

I sing the Cross!--Ye white-robed angel choirs,

Who know the chords of harmony to sweep,

Ye who o'er holy David's varying wires

Were wont, of old, your hovering watch to keep,

Oh, now descend! and with your harpings deep,

Pouring sublime the full symphonious stream

Of music, such as soothes the saint's last sleep,

Awake my slumbering spirit from its dream,

And teach me how to exalt the high mysterious theme.

II.

Mourn! Salem, mourn! low lies thine humbled state,

Thy glittering fanes are level'd with the ground!

Fallen is thy pride!--Thine halls are desolate!

Where erst was heard the timbrels' sprightly sound,

And frolic pleasures tripp'd the nightly round,

There breeds the wild fox lonely,--and aghast

Stands the mute pilgrim at the void profound,

Unbroke by noise, save when the hurrying blast

Sighs, like a spirit, deep along the cheerless waste.

III.

It is for this, proud Solyma! thy towers

Lie crumbling in the dust; for this forlorn

Thy genius wails along thy desert bowers,

While stern Destruction laughs, as if in scorn,

That thou didst dare insult God's eldest born;

And, with most bitter persecuting ire,

Pursued his footsteps till the last day dawn

Rose on his fortunes--and thou saw'st the fire

That came to light the world, in one great flash expire.

IV.

Oh! for a pencil dipp'd in living light,

To paint the agonies that Jesus bore!

Oh! for the long lost harp of Jesse's might,

To hymn the Saviour's praise from shore to shore;

While seraph hosts the lofty pæan pour,

And Heaven enraptured lists the loud acclaim!

May a frail mortal dare the theme explore?

May he to human ears his weak song frame?

Oh! may he dare to sing Messiah's glorious name.

V.

Spirits of pity! mild crusaders, come!

Buoyant on clouds around your minstrel float,

And give him eloquence who else were dumb,

And raise to feeling and to fire his note!

And thou, Urania! who dost still devote

Thy nights and days to God's eternal shrine,

Whose mild eyes 'lumined what Isaiah wrote,

Throw o'er thy Bard that solemn stole of thine,

And clothe him for the fight with energy divine.

VI.

When from the temple's lofty summit prone,

Satan, o'ercome, fell down; and 'throned there,

The son of God confess'd in splendour shone:

Swift as the glancing sunbeam cuts the air,

Mad with defeat, and yelling his despair,

* * * * *

Fled the stern king of Hell--and with the glare

Of gliding meteors, ominous and red,

Shot athwart the clouds that gather'd round his head.

VII.

Right o'er the Euxine, and that gulf which late

The rude Massagetæ adored, he bent

His northering course, while round, in dusky state

The assembling fiends their summon'd troops augment;

Clothed in dark mists, upon their way they went,

While as they pass'd to regions more severe,

The Lapland sorcerer swell'd with loud lament

The solitary gale; and, fill'd with fear,

The howling dogs bespoke unholy spirits near.

VIII.

Where the North Pole, in moody solitude,

Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around,

There ice-rocks piled aloft, in order rude,

Form a gigantic hall, where never sound

Startled dull Silence' ear, save when profound

The smoke-frost mutter'd: there drear Cold for aye

Thrones him,--and, fix'd on his primæval mound,

Ruin, the giant, sits; while stern Dismay

Stalks like some woe-struck man along the desert way.

IX.

In that drear spot, grim Desolation's lair,

No sweet remain of life encheers the sight;

The dancing heart's blood in an instant there

Would freeze to marble.--Mingling day and night

(Sweet interchange, which makes our labours light)

Are there unknown; while in the summer skies

The sun rolls ceaseless round his heavenly height,

Nor ever sets till from the scene he flies,

And leaves the long bleak night of half the year to rise.

X.

'T was there, yet shuddering from the burning lake,

Satan had fix'd their next consistory,

When parting last he fondly hoped to shake

Messiah's constancy,--and thus to free

The powers of darkness from the dread decree

Of bondage brought by him, and circumvent

The unerring ways of Him whose eye can see

The womb of Time, and, in its embryo pent,

Discern the colours clear of every dark event.

XI.

Here the stern monarch stay'd his rapid flight,

And his thick hosts, as with a jetty pall,

Hovering obscured the north star's peaceful light,

Waiting on wing their haughty chieftain's call.

He, meanwhile, downward, with a sullen fall,

Dropp'd on the echoing ice. Instant the sound

Of their broad vans was hush'd, and o'er the hall,

Vast and obscure, the gloomy cohorts bound,

Till, wedged in ranks, the seat of Satan they surround.

XII.

High on a solium of the solid wave,

Prank'd with rude shapes by the fantastic frost,

He stood in silence;--now keen thoughts engrave

Dark figures on his front; and, tempest-toss'd,

He fears to say that every hope is lost.

Meanwhile the multitude as death are mute;

So, ere the tempest on Malacca's coast,

Sweet Quiet, gently touching her soft lute,

Sings to the whispering waves the prelude to dispute.

XIII.

At length collected, o'er the dark Divan

The arch fiend glanced as by the Boreal blaze

Their downcast brows were seen, and thus began

His fierce harangue:--"Spirits! our better days

Are now elapsed; Moloch and Belial's praise

Shall sound no more in groves by myriads trod.

Lo! the light breaks;--The astonish'd nations gaze,

For us is lifted high the avenging rod!

For, spirits! this is He,--this is the Son of God!

XIV.

"What then!--shall Satan's spirit crouch to fear?

Shall he who shook the pillars of God's reign

Drop from his unnerved arm the hostile spear?

Madness! The very thought would make me fain

To tear the spanglets from yon gaudy plain,

And hurl them at their Maker!--Fix'd as Fate

I am his foe!--Yea, though his pride should deign

To soothe mine ire with half his regal state,

Still would I burn with fix'd unalterable hate.

XV.

"Now hear the issue of my cursed emprize.

When from our last sad synod I took flight,

Buoyed with false hopes, in some deep-laid disguise,

To tempt this vaunted Holy One to write

His own self-condemnation; in the plight

Of aged man in the lone wilderness,

Gathering a few stray sticks, I met his sight;

And, leaning on my staff, seem'd much to guess

What cause could mortal bring to that forlorn recess.

XVI.

"Then thus in homely guise I featly framed

My lowly speech:--'Good Sir, what leads this way

Your wandering steps? must hapless chance be blamed

That you so far from haunt of mortals stray?

Here have I dwelt for many a lingering day.

Nor trace of man have seen: but how! methought

Thou wert the youth on whom God's holy ray

I saw descend in Jordan, when John taught

That he to fallen man the saving promise brought.'

XVII.

"'I am that man,' said Jesus, 'I am He.

But truce to questions--Canst thou point my feet

To some low hut, if haply such there be

In this wild labyrinth, where I may meet

With homely greeting, and may sit and eat;

For forty days I have tarried fasting here,

Hid in the dark glens of this lone retreat,

And now I hunger; and my fainting ear

Longs much to greet the sound of fountains gushing near.'

XVIII.

"Then thus I answer'd wily:--'If, indeed,

Son of our God thou be'st, what need to seek

For food from men?--Lo! on these flint stones feed,

Bid them be bread! Open thy lips and speak,

And living rills from yon parch'd rock will break'

Instant as I had spoke, his piercing eye

Fix'd on my face;--the blood forsook my cheek,

I could not bear his gaze;--my mask slipp'd by;

I would have shunn'd his look, but had not power to fly.

XIX.

"Then he rebuked me with the holy word--

Accursed sounds; but now my native pride

Return'd, and by no foolish qualm deterr'd,

I bore him from the mountain's woody side

Up to the summit, where extending wide

Kingdoms and cities, palaces and fanes,

Bright sparkling in the sunbeams, were descried,

And in gay dance, amid luxuriant plains,

Tripp'd to the jocund reed the emasculated swains.

XX.

"'Behold,' I cried, 'these glories! scenes divine!

Thou whose sad prime in pining want decays;

And these, O rapture! these shall all be thine,

If thou wilt give to me, not God, the praise.

Hath he not given to indigence thy days?

Is not thy portion peril here and pain?

Oh! leave his temples, shun his wounding ways!

Seize the tiara! these mean weeds disdain,

Kneel, kneel, thou man of woe, and peace and splendour gain.'

XXI.

"'Is it not written,' sternly he replied,

'Tempt not the Lord thy God!' Frowning he spake,

And instant sounds, as of the ocean tide,

Rose, and the whirlwind from its prison brake,

And caught me up aloft, till in one flake

The sidelong volley met my swift career,

And smote me earthward.--Jove himself might quake

At such a fall; my sinews crack'd, and near,

Obscure and dizzy sounds seem'd ringing in mine ear.

XXII.

"Senseless and stunn'd I lay; till casting round

My half unconscious gaze, I saw the foe

Borne on a car of roses to the ground,

By volant angels; and as sailing slow

He sunk the hoary battlement below,

While on the tall spire slept the slant sunbeam,

Sweet on the enamour'd zephyr was the flow

Of heavenly instruments. Such strains oft seem,

On star-light hill, to soothe the Syrian shepherd's dream.

XXIII.

"I saw blaspheming. Hate renew'd my strength;

I smote the ether with my iron wing,

And left the accursed scene.--Arrived at length

In these drear halls, to ye, my peers! I bring

The tidings of defeat. Hell's haughty king

Thrice vanquished, baffled, smitten, and dismay'd!

O shame! Is this the hero who could fling

Defiance at his Maker, while array'd,

High o'er the walls of light, rebellion's banners play'd!

XXIV.

"Yet shall not Heaven's bland minions triumph long;

Hell yet shall have revenge. O glorious sight,

Prophetic visions on my fancy throng,

I see wild Agony's lean finger write

Sad figures on his forehead!--Keenly bright

Revenge's flambeau burns! Now in his eyes

Stand the hot tears,--immantled in the night,

Lo! he retires to mourn!--I hear his cries!

He faints--he falls--and lo!--'t is true, ye powers, he dies."

XXV.

Thus spake the chieftain,--and as if he view'd

The scene he pictured, with his foot advanced

And chest inflated, motionless he stood,

While under his uplifted shield he glanced,

With straining eyeball fix'd, like one entranced,

On viewless air;--thither the dark platoon

Gazed wondering, nothing seen, save when there danced

The northern flash, or fiend late fled from noon,

Darken'd the disk of the descending moon.

XXVI.

Silence crept stilly through the ranks.--The breeze

Spake most distinctly. As the sailor stands,

When all the midnight gasping from the seas

Break boding sobs, and to his sight expands

High on the shrouds the spirit that commands

The ocean-farer's life; so stiff--so sear

Stood each dark power;--while through their numerous bands

Beat not one heart, and mingling hope and fear

Now told them all was lost, now bade revenge appear.

XXVII.

One there was there, whose loud defying tongue

Nor hope nor fear had silenced, but the swell

Of over-boiling malice. Utterance long

His passion mock'd, and long he strove to tell

His labouring ire; still syllable none fell

From his pale quivering lip, but died away

For very fury; from each hollow cell

Half sprang his eyes, that cast a flamy ray,

And....

* * * * *

XXVIII.

"This comes," at length burst from the furious chief,

"This comes of distant counsels! Here behold

The fruits of wily cunning! the relief

Which coward policy would fain unfold,

To soothe the powers that warr'd with Heaven of old!

O wise! O potent! O sagacious snare!

And lo! our prince--the mighty and the bold,

There stands he, spell-struck, gaping at the air,

While Heaven subverts his reign, and plants her standard there."

XXIX.

Here, as recovered, Satan fix'd his eye

Full on the speaker; dark it was and stern;

He wrapp'd his black vest round him gloomily,

And stood like one whom weightiest thoughts concern.

Him Moloch mark'd, and strove again to turn

His soul to rage. "Behold, behold," he cried,

"The lord of Hell, who made these legions spurn

Almighty rule--behold he lays aside

The spear of just revenge, and shrinks, by man defied."

XXX.

Thus ended Moloch, and his burning tongue

Hung quivering, as if [mad] to quench its heat

In slaughter. So, his native wilds among,

The famish'd tiger pants, when, near his seat,

Press'd on the sands, he marks the traveller's feet.

Instant low murmurs rose, and many a sword

Had from its scabbard sprung; but toward the seat

Of the arch-fiend all turn'd with one accord,

As loud he thus harangued the sanguinary horde.

* * * * *

"Ye powers of Hell, I am no coward. I proved

this of old: who led your forces against the armies

of Jehovah? Who coped with Ithuriel and the

thunders of the Almighty? Who, when stunned

and confused ye lay on the burning lake, who first

awoke, and collected your scattered powers? Lastly,

who led you across the unfathomable abyss to this

delightful world, and established that reign here

which now totters to its base? How, therefore,

dares yon treacherous fiend to cast a stain on Satan's

bravery? he who preys only on the defenceless--who

sucks the blood of infants, and delights only in

acts of ignoble cruelty and unequal contention.

Away with the boaster who never joins in action,

but, like a cormorant, hovers over the field, to feed

upon the wounded, and overwhelm the dying. True

bravery is as remote from rashness as from hesitation;

let us counsel coolly, but let us execute our

counselled purposes determinately. In power we

have learned, by that experiment which lost us

Heaven, that we are inferior to the Thunder-bearer:--In

subtlety, in subtlety alone we are his equals.

Open war is impossible.

* * * * *

"Thus we shall pierce our conqueror through the race

Which as himself he loves; thus if we fall,

We fall not with the anguish, the disgrace,

Of falling unrevenged. The stirring call

Of vengeance rings within me! Warriors all,

The word is vengeance, and the spur despair.

Away with coward wiles!--Death's coal-black pall

Be now our standard!--Be our torch the glare

Of cities fired! our fifes, the shrieks that fill the air!"

Him answering rose Mecashpim, who of old,

Far in the silence of Chaldea's groves,

Was worshipp'd, God of Fire, with charms untold

And mystery. His wandering spirit roves,

Now vainly searching for the flame it loves;

And sits and mourns like some white-robed sire,

Where stood his temple, and where fragrant cloves

And cinnamon unheap'd the sacred pyre,

And nightly magi watch'd the everlasting fire.

He waved his robe of flame, he cross'd his breast,

And sighing--his papyrus scarf survey'd,

Woven with dark characters, then thus address'd

The troubled council.

* * * * *

I.

Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme

With self-rewarding toil, thus far have sung

Of godlike deeds, far loftier than beseem

The lyre which I in early days have strung:

And now my spirit's faint, and I have hung

The shell, that solaced me in saddest hour,

On the dark cypress! and the strings which rung

With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er,

Or, when the breeze comes by, moan and are heard no more.

And must the harp of Judah sleep again?

Shall I no more reanimate the lay?

Oh! thou who visitest the sons of men,

Thou who dost listen when the humble pray,

One little space prolong my mournful day!

One little lapse suspend thy last decree!

I am a youthful traveller in the way,

And this slight boon would consecrate to thee,

Ere I with Death shake hands, and smile that I am free.

* * * * *

LINES WRITTEN ON A SURVEY OF THE HEAVENS,

IN THE MORNING BEFORE DAYBREAK.

Ye many twinkling stars, who yet do hold

Your brilliant places in the sable vault

Of night's dominions!--Planets, and central orbs

Of other systems!--big as the burning sun

Which lights this nether globe,--yet to our eye

Small as the glowworm's lamp!--To you I raise

My lowly orisons, while, all bewilder'd,

My vision strays o'er your ethereal hosts;

Too vast, too boundless for our narrow mind,

Warp'd with low prejudices, to unfold,

And sagely comprehend. Thence higher soaring,

Through ye I raise my solemn thoughts to Him,

The mighty Founder of this wondrous maze,

The great Creator! Him! who now sublime,

Wrapt in the solitary amplitude

Of boundless space, above the rolling spheres

Sits on his silent throne and meditates.

The angelic hosts, in their inferior Heaven,

Hymn to the golden harps his praise sublime,

Repeating loud, "The Lord our God is great,"

In varied harmonies.--The glorious sounds

Roll o'er the air serene--The Æolian spheres,

Harping along their viewless boundaries,

Catch the full note, and cry, "The Lord is great,"

Responding to the Seraphim. O'er all

From orb to orb, to the remotest verge

Of the created world, the sound is borne,

Till the whole universe is full of Him.

Oh! 'tis this heavenly harmony which now

In fancy strikes upon my listening ear,

And thrills my inmost soul. It bids me smile

On the vain world, and all its bustling cares,

And gives a shadowy glimpse of future bliss.

Oh! what is man, when at ambition's height,

What even are kings, when balanced in the scale

Of these stupendous worlds! Almighty God!

Thou, the dread author of these wondrous works!

Say, canst thou cast on me, poor passing worm,

One look of kind benevolence?--Thou canst:

For Thou art full of universal love,

And in thy boundless goodness wilt impart

Thy beams as well to me as to the proud,

The pageant insects of a glittering hour.

Oh! when reflecting on these truths sublime,

How insignificant do all the joys,

The gaudes, and honours of the world appear!

How vain ambition! Why has my wakeful lamp

Outwatch'd the slow-paced night!--Why on the page,

The schoolman's labour'd page, have I employ'd

The hours devoted by the world to rest,

And needful to recruit exhausted nature?

Say, can the voice of narrow Fame repay

The loss of health? or can the hope of glory

Lend a new throb into my languid heart,

Cool, even now, my feverish aching brow,

Relume the fires of this deep sunken eye,

Or paint new colours on this pallid cheek?

Say, foolish one--can that unbodied fame,

For which thou barterest health and happiness,

Say, can it soothe the slumbers of the grave?

Give a new zest to bliss, or chase the pangs

Of everlasting punishment condign?

Alas! how vain are mortal man's desires!

How fruitless his pursuits! Eternal God!

Guide thou my footsteps in the way of truth,

And oh! assist me so to live on earth,

That I may die in peace, and claim a place

In thy high dwelling.--All but this is folly,

The vain illusions of deceitful life.

LINES SUPPOSED TO BE SPOKEN BY A LOVER

AT THE GRAVE OF HIS MISTRESS.

OCCASIONED BY A SITUATION IN A ROMANCE.

Mary, the moon is sleeping on thy grave,

And on the turf thy lover sad is kneeling,

The big tear in his eye.--Mary, awake,

From thy dark house arise, and bless his sight

On the pale moonbeam gliding. Soft, and low.

Pour on the silver ear of night thy tale,

Thy whisper'd tale of comfort and of love,

To soothe thy Edward's lorn, distracted soul,

And cheer his breaking heart.--Come, as thou didst,

When o'er the barren moors the night wind howl'd,

And the deep thunders shook the ebon throne

Of the startled night!--O! then, as lone reclining,

I listen'd sadly to the dismal storm,

Thou on the lambent lightnings wild careering

Didst strike my moody eye;--dead pale thou wert,

Yet passing lovely.--Thou didst smile upon me,

And oh! thy voice it rose so musical,

Betwixt the hollow pauses of the storm,

That at the sound the winds forgot to rave,

And the stern demon of the tempest, charm'd,

Sunk on his rocking throne to still repose,

Lock'd in the arms of silence.

Spirit of her!

My only love! O! now again arise,

And let once more thine aëry accents fall

Soft on my listening ear. The night is calm,

The gloomy willows wave in sinking cadence

With the stream that sweeps below. Divinely swelling

On the still air, the distant waterfall

Mingles its melody;--and, high above,

The pensive empress of the solemn night,

Fitful, emerging from the rapid clouds,

Shows her chaste face in the meridian sky.

No wicked elves upon the Warlock-knoll

Dare now assemble at their mystic revels.

It is a night when, from their primrose beds,

The gentle ghosts of injured innocents

Are known to rise and wander on the breeze,

Or take their stand by the oppressor's couch,

And strike grim terror to his guilty soul.

The spirit of my love might now awake,

And hold its custom'd converse.

Mary, lo!

Thy Edward kneels upon thy verdant grave,

And calls upon thy name. The breeze that blows

On his wan cheek will soon sweep over him

In solemn music a funereal dirge,

Wild and most sorrowful. His cheek is pale,

The worm that prey'd upon thy youthful bloom

It canker'd green on his. Now lost he stands,

The ghost of what he was, and the cold dew,

Which bathes his aching temples, gives sure omen

Of speedy dissolution. Mary, soon

Thy love will lay his pallid cheek to thine,

And sweetly will he sleep with thee in death.

MY STUDY.

A LETTER IN HUDIBRASTIC VERSE.

You bid me, Ned, describe the place

Where I, one of the rhyming race,

Pursue my studies con amore,

And wanton with the muse in glory.

Well, figure to your senses straight,

Upon the house's topmost height,

A closet just six feet by four,

With whitewash'd walls and plaster floor.

So noble large, 'tis scarcely able

To admit a single chair and table:

And (lest the muse should die with cold)

A smoky grate my fire to hold:

So wondrous small, 'twould much it pose

To melt the icedrop on one's nose;

And yet so big, it covers o'er

Full half the spacious room and more.

A window vainly stuff'd about,

To keep November's breezes out,

So crazy, that the panes proclaim

That soon they mean to leave the frame.

My furniture I sure may crack--

A broken chair without a back;

A table wanting just two legs,

One end sustain'd by wooden pegs;

A desk--of that I am not fervent,

The work of, Sir, your humble servant;

(Who, though I say't, am no such fumbler;)

A glass decanter and a tumbler,

From which my night-parch'd throat I lave,

Luxurious, with the limpid wave.

A chest of drawers, in antique sections,

And saw'd by me in all directions;

So small, Sir, that whoever views 'em

Swears nothing but a doll could use 'em.

To these, if you will add a store

Of oddities upon thee floor,

A pair of globes, electric balls,

Scales, quadrants, prisms, and cobbler's awls,

And crowds of books, on rotten shelves,

Octavos, folios, quartos, twelves;

I think, dear Ned, you curious dog,

You'll have my earthly catalogue.

But stay,--I nearly had left out

My bellows destitute of snout;

And on the walls,--Good Heavens! why there

I've such a load of precious ware,

Of heads, and coins, and silver medals,

And organ works, and broken pedals;

(For I was once a-building music,

Though soon of that employ I grew sick);

And skeletons of laws which shoot

All out of one primordial root;

That you, at such a sight, would swear

Confusion's self had settled there.

There stands, just by a broken sphere,

A Cicero without an ear,

A neck, on which, by logic good,

I know for sure a head once stood;

But who it was the able master

Had moulded in the mimic planter,

Whether 't was Pope, or Coke, or Burn,

I never yet could justly learn:

But knowing well, that any head

Is made to answer for the dead,

(And sculptors first their faces frame,

And after pitch upon a name,

Nor think it aught of a misnomer

To christen Chaucer's busto Homer,

Because they both have beards, which, you know,

Will mark them well from Joan, and Juno,)

For some great man, I could not tell

But Neck might answer just as well,

So perch'd it up, all in a row

With Chatham and with Cicero.

Then all around, in just degree,

A range of portraits you may see,

Of mighty men and eke of women,

Who are no whit inferior to men.

With these fair dames, and heroes round,

I call my garret classic ground.

For though confined, 't will well contain

The ideal flights of Madam Brain.

No dungeon's walls, no cell confined

Can cramp the energies of mind!

Thus, though my heart may seem so small,

I've friends, and 't will contain them all;

And should it e'er become so cold

That these it will no longer hold,

No more may Heaven her blessings give,

I shall not then be fit to live.

DESCRIPTION OF A SUMMER'S EVE.

Down the sultry arc of day

The burning wheels have urged their way;

And eve along the western skies

Sheds her intermingling dyes.

Down the deep, the miry lane,

Creaking comes the empty wain,

And driver on the shaft-horse sits,

Whistling now and then by fits:

And oft, with his accustom'd call,

Urging on the sluggish Ball.

The barn is still, the master's gone,

And thresher puts his jacket on,

While Dick, upon the ladder tall,

Nails the dead kite to the wall.

Here comes shepherd Jack at last,

He has penn'd the sheepcote fast,

For 't was but two nights before,

A lamb was eaten on the moor:

His empty wallet Rover carries,

Nor for Jack, when near home, tarries.

With lolling tongue he runs to try

If the horse-trough be not dry.

The milk is settled in the pans,

And supper messes in the cans;

In the hovel carts are wheel'd,

And both the colts are drove a-field;

The horses are all bedded up,

And the ewe is with the tup.

The snare for Mister Fox is set,

The leaven laid, the thatching wet,

And Bess has slink'd away to talk

With Roger in the holly walk.

Now, on the settle all, but Bess,

Are set to eat their supper mess;

And little Tom and roguish Kate

Are swinging on the meadow gate.

Now they chat of various things,

Of taxes, ministers, and kings,

Or else tell all the village news,

How madam did the squire refuse;

How parson on his tithes was bent,

And landlord oft distrain'd for rent.

Thus do they talk, till in the sky

The pale-eyed moon is mounted high,

And from the alehouse drunken Ned

Had reel'd--then hasten all to bed.

The mistress sees that lazy Kate

The happing coal on kitchen grate

Has laid--while master goes throughout,

Sees shutters fast, the mastiff out,

The candles safe, the hearths all clear,

And nought from thieves or fire to fear;

Then both to bed together creep,

And join the general troop of sleep.

LINES,

Written impromptu, on reading the following passage in Mr. Capel

Lofft's beautiful and interesting Preface to Nathaniel Bloomfield's

Poems, just published:--"It has a mixture of the sportive, which deepens

the impression of its melancholy close. I could have wished, as I have

said in a short note, the conclusion had been otherwise. The sours of

life less offend my taste than its sweets delight it."

Go to the raging sea, and say, "Be still!"

Bid the wild lawless winds obey thy will;

Preach to the storm, and reason with Despair,

But tell not Misery's son that life is fair.

Thou, who in Plenty's lavish lap hast roll'd,

And every year with new delight hast told,

Thou, who, recumbent on the lacquer'd barge,

Hast dropt down joy's gay stream of pleasant marge,

Thou mayst extol life's calm untroubled sea,

The storms of misery never burst on thee.

Go to the mat, where squalid Want reclines,

Go to the shade obscure, where merit pines;

Abide with him whom Penury's charms control,

And bind the rising yearnings of his soul,

Survey his sleepless couch, and, standing there,

Tell the poor pallid wretch that life is fair!

Press thou the lonely pillow of his head,

And ask why sleep his languid eyes has fled;

Mark his dew'd temples, and his half shut eye,

His trembling nostrils, and his deep drawn sigh,

His muttering mouth contorted with despair,

And ask if Genius could inhabit there.

Oh, yes! that sunken eye with fire once gleam'd,

And rays of light from its full circlet stream'd:

But now Neglect has stung him to--the core,

And Hope's wild raptures thrill his breast no more;

Domestic Anguish winds his vitals round,

And added Grief compels him to the ground.

Lo! o'er his manly form, decay'd and wan,

The shades of death with gradual steps steal on;

And the pale mother, pining to decay,

Weeps for her boy her wretched life away.

Go, child of Fortune! to his early grave,

Where o'er his head obscure the rank weeds wave;

Behold the heart-wrung parent lay her head

On the cold turf, and ask to share his bed.

Go, child of Fortune, take thy lesson there,

And tell us then that life is wondrous fair!

Yet, Lofft, in thee, whose hand is still stretch'd forth,

To encourage genius, and to foster worth;

On thee, the unhappy's firm, unfailing friend,

'T is just that every blessing should descend;

'T is just that life to thee should only show

Her fairer side but little mix'd with woe.

WRITTEN IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.

Sad solitary Thought, who keep'st thy vigils.

Thy solemn vigils, in the sick man's mind;

Communing lonely with his sinking soul,

And musing on the dubious glooms that lie

In dim obscurity before him,--thee,

Wrapt in thy dark magnificence, I call

At this still midnight hour, this awful season,

When, on my bed, in wakeful restlessness,

I turn me wearisome; while all around,

All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness;

I only wake to watch the sickly taper

Which lights me to my tomb. Yes, 'tis the hand

Of death I feel press heavy on my vitals,

Slow sapping the warm current of existence.

My moments now are few--the sand of life

Ebbs fastly to its finish. Yet a little,

And the last fleeting particle will fall

Silent, unseen, unnoticed, unlamented.

Come then, sad Thought, and let us meditate,

While meditate we may.--We have now

--But a small portion of what men call time

To hold communion; for even now the knife,

The separating knife, I feel divide

The tender bond that binds my soul to earth.

Yes, I must die--I feel that I must die;

And though to me has life been dark and dreary,

Though Hope for me has smiled but to deceive,

And Disappointment still pursued her blandishments,

Yet do I feel my soul recoil within me

As I contemplate the dim gulf of death,

The shuddering void, the awful blank--futurity.

Ay, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme

Of earthly happiness--romantic schemes,

And fraught with loveliness; and it is hard

To feel the hand of Death arrest one's steps,

Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding hopes,

And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades,

Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion.

Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry?

Oh! none;--another busy brood of beings

Will shoot up in the interim, and none

Will hold him in remembrance. I shall sink

As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets

Of busy London:--Some short bustle's caused,

A few inquiries, and the crowds close in,

And all's forgotten.--On my grassy grave

The men of future times will careless tread,

And read my name upon the sculptured stone;

Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears,

Recall my vanish'd memory. I did hope

For better things!--I hoped I should not leave

The earth without a vestige;--Fate decrees

It shall be otherwise, and I submit.

Henceforth, oh, world, no more of thy desires!

No more of hope! the wanton vagrant Hope!

I abjure all. Now other cares engross me,

And my tired soul, with emulative haste,

Looks to its God, and prunes its wings for heaven.

VERSES.

When pride and envy, and the scorn

Of wealth my heart with gall imbued,

I thought how pleasant were the morn

Of silence, in the solitude;

To hear the forest bee on wing;

Or by the stream, or woodland spring,

To lie and muse alone--alone,

While the tinkling waters moan,

Or such wild sounds arise, as say,

Man and noise are far away.

Now, surely, thought I, there's enow

To fill life's dusty way;

And who will miss a poet's feet,

Or wonder where he stray:

So to the woods and wastes I'll go,

And I will build an osier bower,

And sweetly there to me shall flow

The meditative hour.

And when the Autumn's withering hand,

Shall strew with leaves the sylvan land,

I'll to the forest caverns hie:

And in the dark and stormy nights

I'll listen to the shrieking sprites,

Who, in the wintry wolds and floods,

Keep jubilee, and shred the woods;

Or, as it drifted soft and slow,

Hurl in ten thousand shapes the snow.

* * * * *

FRAGMENT.

Oh! thou most fatal of Pandora's train,

Consumption! silent cheater of the eye;

Thou comest not robed in agonizing pain,

Nor mark'st thy course with Death's delusive dye,

But silent and unnoticed thou dost lie;

O'er life's soft springs thy venom dost diffuse,

And, while thou givest new lustre to the eye,

While o'er the cheek are spread health's ruddy hues,

E'en then life's little rest thy cruel power subdues.

Oft I've beheld thee, in the glow of youth,

Hid 'neath the blushing roses which there bloom'd;

And dropp'd a tear, for then thy cankering tooth

I knew would never stay, till all consumed,

In the cold vault of death he were entomb'd.

But oh! what sorrow did I feel, as swift,

Insidious ravager, I saw thee fly

Through fair Lucina's breast of whitest snow,

Preparing swift her passage to the sky.

Though still intelligence beam'd in the glance,

The liquid lustre of her fine blue eye;

Yet soon did languid listlessness advance,

And soon she calmly sunk in death's repugnant trance.

Even when her end was swiftly drawing near,

And dissolution hover'd o'er her head:

Even then so beauteous did her form appear,

That none who saw her but admiring said,

Sure so much beauty never could be dead.

Yet the dark lash of her expressive eye

Bent lowly down upon the languid--

* * * * *

FRAGMENT.

Loud rage the winds without.--The wintry cloud

O'er the cold northstar casts her flitting shroud;

And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale,

Starts as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale;

Where now, shut out from every still retreat,

Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat,

Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood,

Retire o'er all her pensive stores to brood?

Shivering and blue the peasant eyes askance

The drifted fleeces that around him dance,

And hurries on his half-averted form,

Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm.

Him soon shall greet his snow-topp'd [cot of thatch],

Soon shall his numb'd hand tremble on the latch,

Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame

Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame;

Round the light fire, while roars the north wind loud,

What merry groups of vacant faces crowd;

These hail his coming--these his meal prepare,

And boast in all that cot no lurking care.

What though the social circle be denied,

Even Sadness brightens at her own fireside,

Loves, with fix'd eye, to watch the fluttering blaze,

While musing Memory dwells on former days;

Or Hope, bless'd spirit! smiles--and still forgiven,

Forgets the passport, while she points to Heaven.

Then heap the fire--shut out the biting air,

And from its station wheel the easy chair:

Thus fenced and warm, in silent fit, 'tis sweet

To hear without the bitter tempest beat,

All, all alone--to sit, and muse, and sigh,

The pensive tenant of obscurity.

* * * * *

TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS,

WHO, WHEN THE AUTHOR REASONED WITH HIM CALMLY,

ASKED, "IF HE DID NOT FEEL FOR HIM."

"Do I not feel?" The doubt is keen as steel.

Yea, I do feel--most exquisitely feel;

My heart can weep, when, from my downcast eye,

I chase the tear, and stem the rising sigh:

Deep buried there I close the rankling dart,

And smile the most when heaviest is my heart.

On this I act--whatever pangs surround,

'Tis magnanimity to hide the wound!

When all was new, and life was in its spring,

I lived an unloved, solitary thing;

Even then I learn'd to bury deep from day

The piercing cares that wore my youth away:

Even then I learn'd for others' cares to feel;

Even then I wept I had not power to heal:

Even then, deep-sounding through the nightly gloom,

I heard the wretched's groan, and mourn'd the wretched's doom.

Who were my friends in youth?--The midnight fire--

The silent moonbeam, or the starry choir;

To these I 'plain'd, or turn'd from outer sight,

To bless my lonely taper's friendly light;

I never yet could ask, howe'er forlorn,

For vulgar pity mix'd with vulgar scorn;

The sacred source of woe I never ope,

My breast's my coffer, and my God's my hope.

But that I do feel, Time, my friend, will show,

Though the cold crowd the secret never know;

With them I laugh--yet, when no eye can see,

I weep for nature, and I weep for thee.

Yes, thou didst wrong me, ... I fondly thought,

In thee I'd found the friend my heart had sought!

I fondly thought, that thou couldst pierce the guise,

And read the truth that in my bosom lies;

I fondly thought, ere Time's last days were gone,

Thy heart and mine had mingled into one!

Yes--and they yet will mingle. Days and years

Will fly, and leave us partners in our tears:

We then shall feel that friendship has a power

To soothe affliction in her darkest hour;

Time's trial o'er, shall clasp each other's hand,

And wait the passport to a better land.

Thine

H.K. WHITE.

Half past Eleven o'clock at Night.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

1804.

Yet once more, and once more, awake, my Harp,

From silence and neglect--one lofty strain;

Lofty, yet wilder than the winds of Heaven,

And speaking mysteries more than words can tell,

I ask of thee; for I, with hymnings high,

Would join the dirge of the departing year.

Yet with no wintry garland from the woods,

Wrought of the leafless branch, or ivy sear,

Wreathe I thy tresses, dark December! now;

Me higher quarrel calls, with loudest song,

And fearful joy, to celebrate the day

Of the Redeemer.--Near two thousand suns

Have set their seals upon the rolling lapse

Of generations, since the dayspring first

Beam'd from on high!--Now to the mighty mass

Of that increasing aggregate we add

One unit more. Space in comparison

How small, yet mark'd with how much misery;

Wars, famines, and the fury, Pestilence,

Over the nations hanging her dread scourge;

The oppressed, too, in silent bitterness,

Weeping their sufferance; and the arm of wrong,

Forcing the scanty portion from the weak,

And steeping the lone widow's couch with tears.

So has the year been character'd with woe

In Christian land, and mark'd with wrongs and crimes;

Yet 't was not thus He taught--not thus He lived,

Whose birth we this day celebrate with prayer

And much thanksgiving. He, a man of woes,

Went on the way appointed,--path, though rude,

Yet borne with patience still:--He came to cheer

The broken-hearted, to raise up the sick,

And on the wandering and benighted mind

To pour the light of truth. O task divine!

O more than angel teacher! He had words

To soothe the barking waves, and hush the winds;

And when the soul was toss'd in troubled seas,

Wrapp'd in thick darkness and the howling storm,

He, pointing to the star of peace on high,

Arm'd it with holy fortitude, and bade it smile

At the surrounding wreck.----

When with deep agony his heart was rack'd,

Not for himself the tear-drop dew'd his cheek,

For them He wept, for them to Heaven He pray'd,

His persecutors--"Father, pardon them,

They know not what they do."

Angels of Heaven,

Ye who beheld Him fainting on the cross,

And did him homage, say, may mortal join

The halleluiahs of the risen God?

Will the faint voice and grovelling song be heard

Amid the seraphim in light divine?

Yes, he will deign, the Prince of Peace will deign,

For mercy, to accept the hymn of faith,

Low though it be and humble. Lord of life,

The Christ, the Comforter, thine advent now

Fills my uprising soul.--I mount, I fly

Far o'er the skies, beyond the rolling orbs;

The bonds of flesh dissolve, and earth recedes,

And care, and pain, and sorrow are no more.

* * * * *

NELSONI MORS.

Yet once again, my Harp, yet once again

One ditty more, and on the mountain ash

I will again suspend thee. I have felt

The warm tear frequent on my cheek, since last,

At eventide, when all the winds were hush'd,

I woke to thee the melancholy song.

Since then with Thoughtfulness, a maid severe,

I've journey'd, and have learn'd to shape the freaks

Of frolic fancy to the line of truth;

Not unrepining, for my froward heart

Stills turns to thee, mine Harp, and to the flow

Of spring-gales past--the woods and storied haunts

Of my not songless boyhood.--Yet once more,

Not fearless, I will wake thy tremulous tones,

My long-neglected Harp. He must not sink;

The good, the brave--he must not, shall not sink

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Though from the Muse's chalice I may pour

No precious dews of Aganippe's well,

Or Castaly,--though from the morning cloud

I fetch no hues to scatter on his hearse:

Yet will I wreathe a garland for his brows,

Of simple flowers, such as the hedge-rows scent

Of Britain, my loved country; and with tears

Most eloquent, yet silent, I will bathe

Thy honour'd corse, my Nelson, tears as warm

And honest as the ebbing blood that flow'd

Fast from thy honest heart. Thou, Pity, too,

If ever I have loved, with faltering step,

To follow thee in the cold and starless night,

To the top-crag of some rain-beaten cliff;

And, as I heard the deep gun bursting loud

Amid the pauses of the storm, have pour'd

Wild strains, and mournful, to the hurrying winds,

The dying soul's viaticum; if oft

Amid the carnage of the field I've sate

With thee upon the moonlight throne, and sung

To cheer the fainting soldier's dying soul,

With mercy and forgiveness--visitant

Of Heaven--sit thou upon my harp,

And give it feeling, which were else too cold

For argument so great, for theme so high.

How dimly on that morn the sun arose,

'Kerchief'd in mists, and tearful, when--

* * * * *

EPIGRAM ON ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

Bloomfield, thy happy omen'd name

Ensures continuance to thy fame;

Both sense and truth this verdict give,

While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live!

ELEGY

OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF MR. GILL, WHO WAS

DROWNED IN THE RIVER TRENT, WHILE

BATHING, 9TH AUGUST, 1802.

He sunk, the impetuous river roll'd along,

The sullen wave betray'd his dying breath;

And rising sad the rustling sedge among,

The gale of evening touch'd the cords of death.

Nymph of the Trent! why didst thou not appear

To snatch the victim from thy felon wave!

Alas! too late thou camest to embalm his bier,

And deck with waterflags his early grave.

Triumphant, riding o'er its tumid prey,

Rolls the red stream in sanguinary pride;

While anxious crowds, in vain, expectant stay,

And ask the swoln corse from the murdering tide.

The stealing tear-drop stagnates in the eye,

The sudden sigh by friendship's bosom proved,

I mark them rise--I mark the general sigh!

Unhappy youth! and wert thou so beloved?

On thee, as lone I trace the Trent's green brink,

When the dim twilight slumbers on the glade;

On thee my thoughts shall dwell, nor Fancy shrink

To hold mysterious converse with thy shade.

Of thee, as early, I, with vagrant feet,

Hail the gray-sandal'd morn in Colwick's vale,

Of thee my sylvan reed shall warble sweet,

And wild-wood echoes shall repeat the tale.

And, oh! ye nymphs of Pæon! who preside

O'er running rill and salutary stream.

Guard ye in future well the halcyon tide

From the rude death-shriek and the dying scream.

INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF COWPER.

Reader! if with no vulgar sympathy

Thou view'st the wreck of genius and of worth,

Stay thou thy footsteps near this hallow'd spot.

Here Cowper rests. Although renown have made

His name familiar to thine ear, this stone

May tell thee that his virtues were above

The common portion:--that the voice, now hush'd

In death, was once serenely querulous

With pity's tones, and in the ear of woe

Spake music. Now, forgetful, at thy feet,

His tired head presses on its last long rest,

Still tenant of the tomb;--and on the cheek,

Once warm with animation's lambent flush,

Sits the pale image of unmark'd decay.

Yet mourn not. He had chosen the better part;

And, these sad garments of Mortality

Put off, we trust, that to a happier land

He went a light and gladsome passenger.

Sigh'st thou for honours, reader? Call to mind

That glory's voice is impotent to pierce

The silence of the tomb! but virtue blooms

Even on the wreck of life, and mounts the skies.

So gird thy loins with lowliness, and walk

With Cowper on the pilgrimage of Christ.

"I'M PLEASED, AND YET I'M SAD."

When twilight steals along the ground,

And all the bells are ringing round,

One, two, three, four, and five,

I at my study window sit,

And, wrapp'd in many a musing fit,

To bliss am all alive.

But though impressions calm and sweet

Thrill round my heart a holy heat,

And I am inly glad;

The tear-drop stands in either eye,

And yet I cannot tell thee why,

I'm pleased, and yet I'm sad.

The silvery rack that flies away,

Like mortal life or pleasure's ray,

Does that disturb my breast?

Nay, what have I, a studious man,

To do with life's unstable plan,

Or pleasure's fading vest?

Is it that here I must not stop,

But o'er yon blue hill's woody top

Must bend my lonely way?

No, surely no! for give but me

My own fireside, and I shall be

At home where'er I stray.

Then is it that yon steeple there,

With music sweet shall fill the air,

When thou no more canst hear?

Oh, no! oh, no! for then, forgiven,

I shall be with my God in heaven,

Released from every fear.

Then whence it is I cannot tell,

But there is some mysterious spell

That holds me when I'm glad;

And so the tear-drop fills my eye,

When yet in truth I know not why,

Or wherefore I am sad.

SOLITUDE.

It is not that my lot is low,

That bids this silent tear to flow;

It is not grief that bids me moan;

It is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,

When the tired hedger hies him home;

Or by the woodland pool to rest,

When pale the star looks on its breast.

Yet when the silent evening sighs,

With hallow'd airs and symphonies,

My spirit takes another tone,

And sighs that it is all alone.

The autumn leaf is sere and dead,

It floats upon the water's bed;

I would not be a leaf, to die

Without recording sorrow's sigh!

The woods and winds, with sullen wail,

Tell all the same unvaried tale;

I've none to smile when I am free,

And when I sigh, to sigh with me.

Yet in my dreams a form I view,

That thinks on me, and loves me too;

I start, and when the vision's flown,

I weep that I am all alone.

If far from me the Fates remove

Domestic peace, connubial love,

The prattling ring, the social cheer,

Affection's voice, affection's tear,

Ye sterner powers, that bind the heart,

To me your iron aid impart!

O teach me when the nights are chill,

And my fireside is lone and still;

When to the blaze that crackles near,

I turn a tired and pensive ear,

And Nature conquering bids me sigh

For love's soft accents whispering nigh;

O teach me, on that heavenly road,

That leads to Truth's occult abode,

To wrap my soul in dreams sublime,

Till earth and care no more be mine.

Let bless'd Philosophy impart

Her soothing measures to my heart;

And while with Plato's ravish'd ears

I list the music of the spheres,

Or on the mystic symbols pore,

That hide the Chald's sublimer lore,

I shall not brood on summers gone,

Nor think that I am all alone.

Fanny! upon thy breast I may not lie!

Fanny! thou dost not hear me when I speak!

Where art thou, love?--Around I turn my eye,

And as I turn, the tear is on my cheek.

Was it a dream? or did my love behold

Indeed my lonely couch?--Methought the breath

Fann'd not her bloodless lip; her eye was cold

And hollow, and the livery of death

Invested her pale forehead. Sainted maid!

My thoughts oft rest with thee in thy cold grave,

Through the long wintry night, when wind and wave

Rock the dark house where thy poor head is laid.

Yet, hush! my fond heart, hush! there is a shore

Of better promise; and I know at last,

When the long sabbath of the tomb is past,

We two shall meet in Christ--to part no more.

FRAGMENTS.[1]

Saw'st thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and paused:

Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream

That skirts the woods it for a moment play'd.

Again, more light it gleam'd,--or does some sprite

Delude mine eyes with shapes of wood and streams,

And lamp far beaming through the thicket's gloom,

As from some bosom'd cabin, where the voice

Of revelry, or thrifty watchfulness,

Keeps in the lights at this unwonted hour?

No sprite deludes mine eyes,--the beam now glows

With steady lustre.--Can it be the moon

Who, hidden long by the invidious veil

That blots the Heavens, now sets behind the woods?

No moon to-night has look'd upon the sea

Of clouds beneath her, answer'd Rudiger,

She has been sleeping with Endymion.

* * * * *

The pious man,

In this bad world, when mists and couchant storms

Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith

Above the clouds that threat him, to the fields

Of ether, where the day is never veil'd

With intervening vapours, and looks down

Serene upon the troublous sea, that hides

The earth's fair breast, that sea whose nether face

To grovelling mortals frowns and darkens all;

But on whose billowy back, from man conceal'd,

The glaring sunbeam plays.

Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in gray,

Morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes,

And from his tower of mist,

Night's watchman hurries down.

There was a little bird upon that pile;

It perch'd upon a ruin'd pinnacle,

And made sweet melody.

The song was soft, yet cheerful, and most clear,

For other note none swell'd the air but his.

It seem'd as if the little chorister,

Sole tenant of the melancholy pile,

Were a lone hermit, outcast from his kind,

Yet withal cheerful. I have heard the note

Echoing so lonely o'er the aisle forlorn,

----Much musing----

O pale art thou, my lamp, and faint

Thy melancholy ray:

When the still night's unclouded saint

Is walking on her way.

Through my lattice leaf embower'd,

Fair she sheds her shadowy beam,

And o'er my silent sacred room

Casts a checker'd twilight gloom;

I throw aside the learned sheet,

I cannot choose but gaze, she looks so mildly sweet.

Sad vestal, why art thou so fair,

Or why am I so frail?

Methinks thou lookest kindly on me, Moon,

And cheerest my lone hours with sweet regards!

Surely like me thou'rt sad, but dost not speak

Thy sadness to the cold unheeding crowd;

So mournfully composed, o'er yonder cloud

Thou shinest, like a cresset, beaming far

From the rude watch-tower, o'er the Atlantic wave.

O give me music--for my soul doth faint;

I'm sick of noise and care, and now mine ear

Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint,

That may the spirit from its cell unsphere.

Hark how it falls! and now it steals along,

Like distant bells upon the lake at eve,

When all is still; and now it grows more strong,

As when the choral train their dirges weave,

Mellow and many-voiced; where every close,

O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.

Oh! I am wrapt aloft. My spirit soars

Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind.

Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,

And floating pæans fill the buoyant wind.

Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed,

Far from its clayey cell it springs,--

* * * * *

And must thou go, and must we part?

Yes, Fate decrees, and I submit;

The pang that rends in twain my heart,

Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it?

Thy sex is fickle,--when away,

Some happier youth may win thy----

* * * * *

Ah! who can say, however fair his view,

Through what sad scenes his path may lie?

Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh,

Secure his own will never need it too?

Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue,

Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye

The illusive past and dark futurity;

Soon will they know--

* * * * *

Hush'd is the lyre--the hand that swept

The low and pensive wires,

Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.

Yes--it is still--the lyre is still;

The spirit which its slumbers broke

Hath pass'd away,--and that weak hand that woke

Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.

Yet I would press you to my lips once more,

Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poesy;

Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,

Mix'd with decaying odours: for to me

Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy,

As in the wood-paths of my native--

* * * * *

When high romance o'er every wood and stream

Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire,

Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream,

First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre.

All there was mystery then, the gust that woke

The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge,

And unseen fairies would the moon invoke

To their light morrice by the restless surge.

Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles,

Too much ...

The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,

And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.

Once more, and yet once more,

I give unto my harp a dark woven lay;

I heard the waters roar,

I heard the flood of ages pass away.

O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell

In thine eternal cell,

Noting, gray chronicler! the silent years,

I saw thee rise,--I saw the scroll complete;

Thou spakest, and at thy feet

The universe gave way.

Footnotes:

[1] These Fragments were written upon the back of his mathematical papers,

during the last year of his life.

FRAGMENT OF AN ECCENTRIC DRAMA.

WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.

THE DANCE OF THE CONSUMPTIVES.

Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells,

Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Over the heath, over the moor, and over the dale,

"Swinging slow with sullen roar,"

Dance, dance away the jocund roundelay!

Ding-dong, ding-dong calls us away.

Round the oak, and round the elm,

Merrily foot it o'er the ground!

The sentry ghost it stands aloof,

So merrily, merrily foot it round.

Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells,

Swelling in the nightly gale,

The sentry ghost,

It keeps its post,

And soon, and soon our sports must fail:

But let us trip the nightly ground,

While the merry, merry bells ring round.

Hark! Hark! the deathwatch ticks!

See, see, the winding-sheet!

Our dance is done,

Our race is run,

And we must lie at the alder's feet!

Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells,

Swinging o'er the weltering wave!

And we must seek

Our deathbeds bleak,

Where the green sod grows upon the grave.

They vanish--The Goddess of Consumption descends, habited

in a sky-blue robe, attended by mournful music.

Come, Melancholy, sister mine!

Cold the dews, and chill the night!

Come from thy dreary shrine!

The wan moon climbs the heavenly height,

And underneath her sickly ray

Troops of squalid spectres play,

And the dying mortals' groan

Startles the night on her dusky throne.

Come, come, sister mine!

Gliding on the pale moonshine:

We'll ride at ease

On the tainted breeze,

And oh! our sport will be divine.

The Goddess of Melancholy advances out of a deep glen in the

rear, habited in black, and covered with a thick veil.--She

speaks.

Sister, from my dark abode,

Where nests the raven, sits the toad,

Hither I come, at thy command:

Sister, sister, join thy hand!

I will smooth the way for thee,

Thou shalt furnish food for me.

Come, let us speed our way

Where the troops of spectres play.

To charnel-houses, churchyards drear,

Where Death sits with a horrible leer,

A lasting grin, on a throne of bones,

And skim along the blue tombstones.

Come, let us speed away,

Lay our snares, and spread our tether!

I will smooth the way for thee,

Thou shalt furnish food for me;

And the grass shall wave

O'er many a grave,

Where youth and beauty sleep together.

CONSUMPTION.

Come, let us speed our way,

Join our hands, and spread our tether!

I will furnish food for thee,

Thou shalt smooth the way for me!

And the grass shall wave

O'er many a grave,

Where youth and beauty sleep together.

MELANCHOLY.

Hist, sister, hist! who comes here?

Oh! I know her by that tear,

By that blue eye's languid glare,

By her skin, and by her hair:

She is mine,

And she is thine,

Now the deadliest draught prepare.

CONSUMPTION.

In the dismal night air dress'd,

I will creep into her breast:

Flush her cheek, and bleach her skin,

And feed on the vital fire within.

Lover, do not trust her eyes,--

When they sparkle most, she dies!

Mother, do not trust her breath,--

Comfort she will breathe in death!

Father, do not strive to save her,--

She is mine, and I must have her!

The coffin must be her bridal bed!

The winding-sheet must wrap her head;

The whispering winds must o'er her sigh,

For soon in the grave the maid must lie:

The worm it will riot

On heavenly diet,

When death has deflower'd her eye.

[They vanish.

While Consumption speaks, Angelina enters.]

ANGELINA.

With [1] what a silent and dejected pace

Dost thou, wan Moon! upon thy way advance

In the blue welkin's vault!--Pale wanderer!

Hast thou too felt the pangs of hopeless love,

That thus, with such a melancholy grace,

Thou dost pursue thy solitary course?

Has thy Endymion, smooth-faced boy, forsook

Thy widow'd breast--on which the spoiler oft

Has nestled fondly, while the silver clouds

Fantastic pillow'd thee, and the dim night,

Obsequious to thy will, encurtain'd round

With its thick fringe thy couch? Wan traveller,

How like thy fate to mine!--Yet I have still

One heavenly hope remaining, which thou lack'st;

My woes will soon be buried in the grave

Of kind forgetfulness--my journey here.

Though it be darksome, joyless, and forlorn,

Is yet but short, and soon my weary feet

Will greet the peaceful inn of lasting rest.

But thou, unhappy Queen! art doom'd to trace

Thy lonely walk in the drear realms of night,

While many a lagging age shall sweep beneath

The leaden pinions of unshaken time;

Though not a hope shall spread its glittering hue

To cheat thy steps along the weary way.

O that the sum of human happiness

Should be so trifling, and so frail withal,

That when possess'd, it is but lessened grief;

And even then there's scarce a sudden gust

That blows across the dismal waste of life,

But bears it from the view. Oh! who would shun

The hour that cuts from earth, and fear to press

The calm and peaceful pillows of the grave,

And yet endure the various ills of life,

And dark vicissitudes! Soon, I hope, I feel,

And am assured, that I shall lay my dead,

My weary aching head, on its last rest,

And on my lowly bed the grass-green sod

Will flourish sweetly. And then they will weep

That one so young, and what they're pleased to call

So beautiful, should die so soon. And tell

How painful Disappointment's canker'd fang

Wither'd the rose upon my maiden cheek.

Oh, foolish ones! why, I shall sleep so sweetly,

Laid in my darksome grave, that they themselves

Might envy me my rest! And as for them,

Who, on the score of former intimacy,

May thus remembrance me--they must themselves

Successive fall.

Around the winter fire

(When out-a-doors the biting frost congeals,

And shrill the skater's irons on the pool

Ring loud, as by the moonlight he performs

His graceful evolutions) they not long

Shall sit and chat of older times, and feats

Of early youth, but silent, one by one,

Shall drop into their shrouds. Some, in their age,

Ripe for the sickle; others young, like me,

And falling green beneath the untimely stroke.

Thus, in short time, in the churchyard forlorn,

Where I shall lie, my friends will lay them down,

And dwell with me, a happy family.

And oh! thou cruel, yet beloved youth,

Who now hast left me hopeless here to mourn,

Do thou but shed one tear upon my corse

And say that I was gentle, and deserved

A better lover, and I shall forgive

All, all thy wrongs;--and then do thou forget

The hapless Margaret, and be as bless'd

As wish can make thee--Laugh, and play, and sing

With thy dear choice, and never think of me.

Yet hist, I hear a step.--In this dark wood--

* * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies,

How silently, and how wan a face!

_Sir P. Sidney._

TO A FRIEND.

WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.

I've read, my friend, of Dioclesian,

And many another noble Grecian,

Who wealth and palaces resigned,

In cots the joys of peace to find;

Maximian's meal of turnip-tops

(Disgusting food to dainty chops)

I've also read of, without wonder;

But such a cursed egregious blunder,

As that a man of wit and sense

Should leave his books to hoard up pence,--

Forsake the loved Aonian maids

For all the petty tricks of trades,

I never, either now, or long since,

Have heard of such a peace of nonsense;

That one who learning's joys hath felt,

And at the Muse's altar knelt,

Should leave a life of sacred leisure

To taste the accumulating pleasure;

And, metamorphosed to an alley duck,

Grovel in loads of kindred muck.

Oh! 't is beyond my comprehension!

A courtier throwing up his pension,--

A lawyer working without a fee,--

A parson giving charity,--

A truly pious methodist preacher,--

Are not, egad, so out of nature.

Had nature made thee half a fool,

But given thee wit to keep a school,

I had not stared at thy backsliding:

But when thy wit I can confide in,

When well I know thy just pretence

To solid and exalted sense;

When well I know that on thy head

Philosophy her lights hath shed,

I stand aghast! thy virtues sum to,

I wonder what this world will come to!

Yet, whence this strain? shall I repine

That thou alone dost singly shine?

Shall I lament that thou alone,

Of men of parts, hast prudence known?

LINES

ON READING THE POEMS OF WARTON.

AGE FOURTEEN.

Oh, Warton! to thy soothing shell,

Stretch'd remote in hermit cell,

Where the brook runs babbling by,

For ever I could listening lie;

And catching all the muses' fire,

Hold converse with the tuneful quire.

What pleasing themes thy page adorn,

The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn,

The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime,

And Melancholy's mournful chime!

Each with unwonted graces shines

In thy ever lovely lines.

Thy muse deserves the lasting meed;

Attuning sweet the Dorian reed,

Now the lovelorn swain complains,

And sings his sorrows to the plains;

Now the sylvan scenes appear

Through all the changes of the year;

Or the elegiac strain

Softly sings of mental pain,

And mournful diapasons sail

On the faintly dying gale.

But, ah! the soothing scene is o'er,

On middle flight we cease to soar,

For now the muse assumes a bolder sweep,

Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep,

In strains unheard before.

Now, now the rising fire thrills high,

Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly,

And every throne explore:

The soul entranced, on mighty wings,

With all the poet's heat upsprings,

And loses earthly woes;

Till all alarm'd at the giddy height,

The Muse descends on gentler flight,

And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose.

FRAGMENT.

The western gale,

Mild as the kisses of connubial love,

Plays round my languid limbs, as all dissolved,

Beneath the ancient elm's fantastic shade

I lie, exhausted with the noontide heat:

While rippling o'er its deep worn pebble bed,

The rapid rivulet rushes at my feet,

Dispensing coolness. On the fringed marge

Full many a floweret rears its head,--or pink,

Or gaudy daffodil. 'Tis here, at noon,

The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire,

And lave them in the fountain; here secure

From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport:

Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf,

Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly,

Invoke the god of slumber....

* * * * *

And, hark! how merrily, from distant tower,

Ring round the village bells! now on the gale

They rise with gradual swell, distinct and loud;

Anon they die upon the pensive ear,

Melting in faintest music. They bespeak

A day of jubilee, and oft they bear,

Commix'd along the unfrequented shore,

The sound of village dance and tabor loud,

Startling the musing ear of Solitude.

Such is the jocund wake of Whitsuntide,

When happy Superstition, gabbling eld!

Holds her unhurtful gambols. All the day

The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance

On the smooth shaven green, and then at eve

Commence the harmless rites and auguries;

And many a tale of ancient days goes round.

They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells

Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,

Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,

And still the midnight tempest. Then anon

Tell of uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide

Along the lone wood's unfrequented path,

Startling the 'nighted traveller; while the sound

Of undistinguished murmurs, heard to come

From the dark centre of the deepening glen,

Struck on his frozen ear.

Oh, Ignorance!

Thou art fallen man's best friend! With thee he speeds

In frigid apathy along his way.

And never does the tear of agony

Burn down his scorching cheek; or the keen steel

Of wounded feeling penetrate his breast.

E'en now, as leaning on this fragrant bank,

I taste of all the keener happiness

Which sense refined affords--E'en now my heart

Would fain induce me to forsake the world,

Throw off these garments, and in shepherd's weeds,

With a small flock, and short suspended reed,

To sojourn in the woodland.--Then my thought

Draws such gay pictures of ideal bliss,

That I could almost err in reason's spite,

And trespass on my judgment.

Such is life:

The distant prospect always seems more fair,

And when attain'd, another still succeeds,

Far fairer than before,--yet compass'd round

With the same dangers, and the same dismay.

And we poor pilgrims in this dreary maze,

Still discontented, chase the fairy form

Of unsubstantial Happiness, to find,

When life itself is sinking in the strife,

'Tis but an airy bubble and a cheat.

COMMENCEMENT OF A POEM ON DESPAIR.

Some to Aonian lyres of silver sound

With winning elegance attune their song,

Form'd to sink lightly on the soothed sense,

And charm the soul with softest harmony:

'Tis then that Hope with sanguine eye is seen

Roving through Fancy's gay futurity;

Her heart light dancing to the sounds of pleasure,

Pleasure of days to come. Memory, too, then

Comes with her sister, Melancholy sad,

Pensively musing on the scenes of youth,

Scenes never to return.[1]

Such subjects merit poets used to raise

The attic verse harmonious; but for me

A deadlier theme demands my backward hand,

And bids me strike the strings of dissonance

With frantic energy.

'Tis wan Despair I sing, if sing I can

Of him before whose blast the voice of Song,

And Mirth, and Hope, and Happiness all fly,

Nor ever dare return. His notes are heard

At noon of night, where, on the coast of blood,

The lacerated son of Angola

Howls forth his sufferings to the moaning wind;

And, when the awful silence of the night

Strikes the chill death-dew to the murderer's heart,

He speaks in every conscience-prompted word

Half utter'd, half suppressed.

'Tis him I sing--Despair--terrific name,

Striking unsteadily the tremulous chord

Of timorous terror--discord in the sound:

For to a theme revolting as is this,

Dare not I woo the maids of harmony,

Who love to sit and catch the soothing sound

Of lyre Æolian, or the martial bugle,

Calling the hero to the field of glory,

And firing him with deeds of high emprise

And warlike triumph: but from scenes like mine

Shrink they affrighted, and detest the bard

Who dares to sound the hollow tones of horror.

Hence, then, soft maids,

And woo the silken zephyr in the bowers

By Heliconia's sleep-inviting stream:

For aid like yours I seek not; 'tis for powers

Of darker hue to inspire a verse like mine!

'Tis work for wizards, sorcerers, and fiends.

Hither, ye furious imps of Acheron,

Nurslings of hell, and beings shunning light,

And all the myriads of the burning concave:

Souls of the damned:--Hither, oh! come and join

The infernal chorus. 'Tis Despair I sing!

He, whose sole tooth inflicts a deadlier pang

Than all your tortures join'd. Sing, sing Despair!

Repeat the sound, and celebrate his power;

Unite shouts, screams, and agonizing shrieks,

Till the loud pæan ring through hell's high vault,

And the remotest spirits of the deep

Leap from the lake, and join the dreadful song.

Footnotes:

[1] Alluding to the two pleasing poems, the Pleasures of Hope and of

Memory.

THE EVE OF DEATH.

IRREGULAR.

Silence of death--portentous calm,

Those airy forms that yonder fly

Denote that your void foreruns a storm,

That the hour of fate is nigh.

I see, I see, on the dim mist borne,

The Spirit of battles rear his crest!

I see, I see, that ere the morn,

His spear will forsake its hated rest,

And the widow'd wife of Larrendill will beat her naked breast.

O'er the smooth bosom of the sullen deep,

No softly ruffling zephyrs fly;

But nature sleeps a deathless sleep,

For the hour of battle is nigh.

Not a loose leaf waves on the dusky oak,

But a creeping stillness reigns around;

Except when the raven, with ominous croak,

On the ear does unwelcomely sound.

I know, I know what this silence means;

I know what the raven saith--

Strike, oh, ye bards! the melancholy harp,

For this is the eve of death.

Behold, how along the twilight air

The shades of our fathers glide!

There Morven fled, with the blood-drench'd hair,

And Colma with gray side.

No gale around its coolness flings,

Yet sadly sigh the gloomy trees;

And hark! how the harp's unvisited strings

Sound sweet, as if swept by a whispering breeze!

'Tis done! the sun he has set in blood!

He will never set more to the brave;

Let us pour to the hero the dirge of death,

For to-morrow he hies to the grave.

THANATOS.

Oh! who would cherish life,

And cling unto this heavy clog of clay,

Love this rude world of strife,

Where glooms and tempests cloud the fairest day;

And where, 'neath outward smiles,

Conceal'd the snake lies feeding on its prey,

Where pitfalls lie in every flowery way,

And sirens lure the wanderer to their wiles!

Hateful it is to me,

Its riotous railings and revengeful strife;

I'm tired with all its screams and brutal shouts

Dinning the ear;--away--away with life!

And welcome, oh! thou silent maid,

Who in some foggy vault art laid,

Where never daylight's dazzling ray

Comes to disturb thy dismal sway;

And there amid unwholesome damps dost sleep,

In such forgetful slumbers deep,

That all thy senses stupefied

Are to marble petrified.

Sleepy Death, I welcome thee!

Sweet are thy calms to misery.

Poppies I will ask no more,

Nor the fatal hellebore;

Death is the best, the only cure,

His are slumbers ever sure.

Lay me in the Gothic tomb,

In whose solemn fretted gloom

I may lie in mouldering state,

With all the grandeur of the great:

Over me, magnificent,

Carve a stately monument;

Then thereon my statue lay,

With hands in attitude to pray,

And angels serve to hold my head,

Weeping o'er the father dead.

Duly too at close of day,

Let the pealing organ play;

And while the harmonious thunders roll,

Chant a vesper to my soul:

Thus how sweet my sleep will be,

Shut out from thoughtful misery!

ATHANATOS.

Away with Death--away

With all her sluggish sleeps and chilling damps,

Impervious to the day,

Where nature sinks into inanity.

How can the soul desire

Such hateful nothingness to crave,

And yield with joy the vital fire

To moulder in the grave!

Yet mortal life is sad,

Eternal storms molest its sullen sky;

And sorrows ever rife

Drain the sacred fountain dry--

Away with mortal life!

But, hail the calm reality,

The seraph Immortality!

Hail the heavenly bowers of peace,

Where all the storms of passion cease.

Wild life's dismaying struggle o'er,

The wearied spirit weeps no more;

But wears the eternal smile of joy,

Tasting bliss without alloy.

Welcome, welcome, happy bowers,

Where no passing tempest lowers;

But the azure heavens display

The everlasting smile of day;

Where the choral seraph choir

Strike to praise the harmonious lyre;

And the spirit sinks to ease,

Lull'd by distant symphonies.

Oh! to think of meeting there

The friends whose graves received our tear,

The daughter loved, the wife adored,

To our widow'd arms restored;

And all the joys which death did sever,

Given to us again for ever!

Who would cling to wretched life,

And hug the poison'd thorn of strife;

Who would not long from earth to fly,

A sluggish senseless lump to lie,

When the glorious prospect lies

Full before his raptured eyes?

MUSIC

WRITTEN BETWEEN THE AGES OF FOURTEEN AND

FIFTEEN, WITH A FEW SUBSEQUENT

VERBAL ALTERATIONS.

Music, all powerful o'er the human mind,

Can still each mental storm, each tumult calm,

Soothe anxious care on sleepless couch reclined,

And e'en fierce Anger's furious rage disarm.

At her command the various passions lie;

She stirs to battle, or she lulls to peace;

Melts the charm'd soul to thrilling ecstasy,

And bids the jarring world's harsh clangour cease.

Her martial sounds can fainting troops inspire

With strength unwonted, and enthusiasm raise;

Infuse new ardour, and with youthful fire

Urge on the warrior gray with length of days.

Far better she, when, with her soothing lyre,

She charms the falchion from the savage grasp,

And melting into pity vengeful ire,

Looses the bloody breastplate's iron clasp.

With her in pensive mood I long to roam,

At midnight's hour, or evening's calm decline,

And thoughtful o'er the falling streamlet's foam,

In calm seclusion's hermit walks recline.

Whilst mellow sounds from distant copse arise,

Of softest flute or reeds harmonic join'd,

With rapture thrill'd each worldly passion dies,

And pleased attention claims the passive mind.

Soft through the dell the dying strains retire,

Then burst majestic in the varied swell;

Now breathe melodious as the Grecian lyre,

Or on the ear in sinking cadence dwell.

Romantic sounds! such is the bliss ye give,

That heaven's bright scenes seem bursting on the soul,

With joy I'd yield each sensual wish, to live

For ever 'neath your undefiled control.

Oh! surely melody from heaven was sent,

To cheer the soul when tired with human strife,

To soothe the wayward heart by sorrow rent,

And soften down the rugged road of life.

ON BEING CONFINED TO SCHOOL ONE

PLEASANT MORNING IN SPRING.

WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF THIRTEEN.

The morning sun's enchanting rays

Now call forth every songster's praise;

Now the lark, with upward flight,

Gaily ushers in the light;

While wildly warbling from each tree,

The birds sing songs to Liberty.

But for me no songster sings,

For me no joyous lark upsprings;

For I, confined in gloomy school,

Must own the pedant's iron rule,

And far from sylvan shades and bowers,

In durance vile must pass the hours;

There con the scholiast's dreary lines,

Where no bright ray of genius shines,

And close to rugged learning cling,

While laughs around the jocund spring.

How gladly would my soul forego

All that arithmeticians know,

Or stiff grammarians quaintly teach,

Or all that industry can reach,

To taste each morn of all the joys

That with the laughing sun arise;

And unconstrain'd to rove along

The bushy brakes and glens among;

And woo the muse's gentle power

In unfrequented rural bower:

But, ah! such heaven-approaching joys

Will never greet my longing eyes;

Still will they cheat in vision fine,

Yet never but in fancy shine.

Oh, that I were the little wren

That shrilly chirps from yonder glen!

Oh, far away I then would rove

To some secluded bushy grove;

There hop and sing with careless glee.

Hop and sing at liberty;

And, till death should stop my lays,

Far from men would spend my days.

TO CONTEMPLATION.

Thee do I own, the prompter of my joys,

The soother of my cares, inspiring peace;

And I will ne'er forsake thee. Men may rave,

And blame and censure me, that I don't tie

My every thought down to the desk, and spend

The morning of my life in adding figures

With accurate monotony: that so

The good things of the world may be my lot,

And I might taste the blessedness of wealth:

But, oh! I was not made for money getting;

For me no much respected plum awaits.

Nor civic honour, envied. For as still

I tried to cast with school dexterity

The interesting sums, my vagrant thoughts

Would quick revert to many a woodland haunt,

Which fond remembrance cherished, and the pen

Dropp'd from my senseless fingers as I pictured,

In my mind's eye, how on the shores of Trent

I erewhile wander'd with my early friends

In social intercourse. And then I'd think

How contrary pursuits had thrown us wide,

One from the other, scatter'd o'er the globe;

They were set down with sober steadiness,

Each to his occupation. I alone,

A wayward youth, misled by Fancy's vagaries,

Remain'd unsettled, insecure, and veering

With every wind to every point of the compass.

Yes, in the counting-house I could indulge

In fits of close abstraction; yea, amid

The busy bustling crowds could meditate,

And send my thoughts ten thousand leagues away

Beyond the Atlantic, resting on my friend.

Ay, Contemplation, even in earliest youth

I woo'd thy heavenly influence! I would walk

A weary way when all my toils were done,

To lay myself at night in some lone wood,

And hear the sweet song of the nightingale.

Oh, those were times of happiness, and still

To memory doubly dear; for growing years

Had not then taught me man was made to mourn;

And a short hour of solitary pleasure,

Stolen from sleep, was ample recompense

For all the hateful bustles of the day.

My opening mind was ductile then, and plastic,

And soon the marks of care were worn away,

While I was sway'd by every novel impulse,

Yielding to all the fancies of the hour.

But it has now assumed its character;

Mark'd by strong lineaments, its haughty tone,

Like the firm oak, would sooner break than bend.

Yet still, O Contemplation! I do love

To indulge thy solemn musings; still the same

With thee alone I know to melt and weep,

In thee alone delighting. Why along

The dusky tract of commerce should I toil,

When, with an easy competence content,

I can alone be happy; where with thee

I may enjoy the loveliness of Nature,

And loose the wings of Fancy? Thus alone

Can I partake the happiness on earth;

And to be happy here is a man's chief end,

For to be happy he must needs be good.

MY OWN CHARACTER.

ADDRESSED (DURING ILLNESS) TO A LADY.

Dear Fanny, I mean, now I'm laid on the shelf,

To give you a sketch--ay, a sketch of myself.

'Tis a pitiful subject, I frankly confess,

And one it would puzzle a painter to dress;

But, however, here goes, and as sure as a gun,

I'll tell all my faults like a penitent nun;

For I know, for my Fanny, before I address her,

She wont be a cynical father confessor.

Come, come, 'twill not do! put that curling brow down;

You can't, for the soul of you, learn how to frown.

Well, first I premise, it's my honest conviction,

That my breast is a chaos of all contradiction;

Religious--deistic--now loyal and warm;

Then a dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform:

This moment a fop, that, sententious as Titus;

Democritus now, and anon Heraclitus;

Now laughing and pleased, like a child with a rattle;

Then vex'd to the soul with impertinent tattle;

Now moody and sad, now unthinking and gay,

To all points of the compass I veer in a day.

I'm proud and disdainful to Fortune's gay child,

But to Poverty's offspring submissive and mild;

As rude as a boor, and as rough in dispute;

Then as for politeness--oh! dear--I'm a brute!

I show no respect where I never can feel it;

And as for contempt, take no pains to conceal it.

And so in the suite, by these laudable ends,

I've a great many foes, and a very few friends.

And yet, my dear Fanny, there are who can feel

That this proud heart of mine is not fashion'd of steel.

It can love (can it not?)--it can hate, I am sure;

And it's friendly enough, though in friends it be poor.

For itself though it bleed not, for others it bleeds;

If it have not ripe virtues, I'm sure it's the seeds;

And though far from faultless, or even so-so,

I think it may pass as our worldly things go.

Well, I've told you my frailties without any gloss;

Then as to my virtues, I'm quite at a loss!

I think I'm devout, and yet I can't say,

But in process of time I may get the wrong way.

I'm a general lover, if that's commendation,

And yet can't withstand you know whose fascination.

But I find that amidst all my tricks and devices,

In fishing for virtues, I'm pulling up vices;

So as for the good, why, if I possess it,

I am not yet learned enough to express it.

You yourself must examine the lovelier side,

And after your every art you have tried,

Whatever my faults, I may venture to say,

Hypocrisy never will come in your way.

I am upright, I hope; I'm downright, I'm clear!

And I think my worst foe must allow I'm sincere;

And if ever sincerity glow'd in my breast,

'Tis now when I swear----.

LINES WRITTEN IN WILFORD CHURCHYARD.

ON RECOVERY FROM SICKNESS.

Here would I wish to sleep. This is the spot

Which I have long mark'd out to lay my bones in.

Tired out and wearied with the riotous world,

Beneath this yew I would be sepulchred.

It is a lovely spot! The sultry sun,

From his meridian height, endeavours vainly

To pierce the shadowy foliage, while the zephyr

Comes wafting gently o'er the rippling Trent,

And plays about my wan cheek. 'Tis a nook

Most pleasant. Such a one perchance did Gray

Frequent, as with a vagrant muse he wanton'd.

Come, I will sit me down and meditate,

For I am wearied with my summer's walk;

And here I may repose in silent ease;

And thus, perchance, when life's sad journey's o'er,

My harass'd soul, in this same spot, may find

The haven of its rest--beneath this sod

Perchance may sleep it sweetly, sound as death.

I would not have my corpse cemented down

With brick and stone, defrauding the poor earthworm

Of its predestined dues; no, I would lie

Beneath a little hillock, grass o'ergrown,

Swath'd down with osiers, just as sleep the cotters.

Yet may not undistinguish'd be my grave;

But there at eve may some congenial soul

Duly resort, and shed a pious tear,

The good man's benison--no more I ask.

And, oh! (if heavenly beings may look down

From where, with cherubim, inspired they sit,

Upon this little dim-discover'd spot,

The earth,) then will I cast a glance below

On him who thus my ashes shall embalm;

And I will weep too, and will bless the wanderer,

Wishing he may not long be doom'd to pine

In this low-thoughted world of darkling woe,

But that, ere long, he reach his kindred skies.

Yet 't was a silly thought, as if the body,

Mouldering beneath the surface of the earth,

Could taste the sweets of summer scenery,

And feel the freshness of the balmy breeze!

Yet nature speaks within the human bosom,

And, spite of reason, bids it look beyond

His narrow verge of being, and provide

A decent residence for its clayey shell,

Endear'd to it by time. And who would lay

His body in the city burial-place,

To be thrown up again by some rude sexton,

And yield its narrow house another tenant,

Ere the moist flesh had mingled with the dust,

Ere the tenacious hair had left the scalp,

Exposed to insult lewd, and wantonness?

No, I will lay me in the village ground;

There are the dead respected. The poor hind,

Unletter'd as he is, would scorn to invade

The silent resting place of death. I've seen

The labourer, returning from his toil,

Here stay his steps, and call his children round,

And slowly spell the rudely sculptured rhymes,

And, in his rustic manner, moralize.

I've mark'd with what a silent awe he'd spoken,

With head uncover'd, his respectful manner,

And all the honours which he paid the grave,

And thought on cities, where e'en cemeteries,

Bestrew'd with all the emblems of mortality,

Are not protected from the drunken insolence

Of wassailers profane, and wanton havoc.

Grant, Heaven, that here my pilgrimage may close!

Yet, if this be denied, where'er my bones

May lie--or in the city's crowded bounds,

Or scatter'd wide o'er the huge sweep of waters,

Or left a prey on some deserted shore

To the rapacious cormorant,--yet still,

(For why should sober reason cast away

A thought which soothes the soul?) yet still my spirit

Shall wing its way to these my native regions,

And hover o'er this spot. Oh, then I'll think

Of times when I was seated 'neath this yew

In solemn rumination; and will smile

With joy that I have got my long'd release.

VERSES.

Thou base repiner at another's joy,

Whose eye turns green at merit not thine own,

Oh, far away from generous Britons fly,

And find on meaner climes a fitter throne.

Away, away, it shall not be,

Thou shalt not dare defile our plains;

The truly generous heart disdains

Thy meaner, lowlier fires, while he

Joys at another's joy, and smiles at other's jollity.

Triumphant monster! though thy schemes succeed--

Schemes laid in Acheron, the brood of night,

Yet, but a little while, and nobly freed,

Thy happy victim will emerge to light;

When o'er his head in silence that reposes

Some kindred soul shall come to drop a tear;

Then will his last cold pillow turn to roses,

Which thou hadst planted with the thorn severe;

Then will thy baseness stand confess'd, and all

Will curse the ungenerous fate, that bade a Poet fall.

* * * * *

Yet, ah! thy arrows are too keen, too sure:

Couldst thou not pitch upon another prey?

Alas! in robbing him thou robb'st the poor,

Who only boast what thou wouldst take away.

See the lone Bard at midnight study sitting,

O'er his pale features streams his dying lamp;

While o'er fond Fancy's pale perspective flitting,

Successive forms their fleet ideas stamp.

Yet say, is bliss upon his brow impress'd?

Does jocund Health in Thought's still mansion live?

Lo, the cold dews that on his temples rest,

That short quick sigh--their sad responses give.

And canst thou rob a poet of his song;

Snatch from the bard his trivial meed of praise?

Small are his gains, nor does he hold them long;

Then leave, oh, leave him to enjoy his lays

While yet he lives--for to his merits just,

Though future ages join his fame to raise,

Will the loud trump awake his cold unheeding dust?

* * * * *

LINES.

Yes, my stray steps have wander'd, wander'd far

From thee, and long, heart-soothing Poesy!

And many a flower, which in the passing time

My heart hath register'd, nipp'd by the chill

Of undeserved neglect, hath shrunk and died.

Heart-soothing Poesy! Though thou hast ceased

To hover o'er the many-voiced strings

Of my long silent lyre, yet thou canst still

Call the warm tear from its thrice hallow'd cell,

And with recalled images of bliss

Warm my reluctant heart. Yes, I would throw,

Once more would throw a quick and hurried hand

O'er the responding chords. It hath not ceased--

It cannot, will not cease; the heavenly warmth

Plays round my heart, and mantles o'er my cheek;

Still, though unbidden, plays. Fair Poesy!

The summer and the spring, the wind and rain,

Sunshine and storm, with various interchange,

Have mark'd full many a day, and week, and month.

Since by dark wood, or hamlet far retired,

Spell-struck, with thee I loiter'd. Sorceress!

I cannot burst thy bonds. It is but lift

Thy blue eyes to that deep-bespangled vault,

Wreathe thy enchanted tresses round thine arm,

And mutter some obscure and charmed rhyme,

And I could follow thee, on thy night's work,

Up to the regions of thrice chasten'd fire,

Or, in the caverns of the ocean flood,

Thrid the light mazes of thy volant foot.

Yet other duties call me, and mine ear

Must turn away from the high minstrelsy

Of thy soul-trancing harp, unwillingly

Must turn away; there are severer strains

(And surely they are sweet as ever smote

The ear of spirit, from this mortal coil

Released and disembodied), there are strains

Forbid to all, save those whom solemn thought,

Through the probation of revolving years,

And mighty converse with the spirit of truth,

Have purged and purified. To these my soul

Aspireth; and to this sublimer end

I gird myself, and climb the toilsome steep

With patient expectation. Yea, sometimes

Foretaste of bliss rewards me; and sometimes

Spirits unseen upon my footsteps wait,

And minister strange music, which doth seem

Now near, now distant, now on high, now low,

Then swelling from all sides, with bliss complete,

And full fruition filling all the soul.

Surely such ministry, though rare, may soothe

The steep ascent, and cheat the lassitude

Of toil; and but that my fond heart

Reverts to day-dreams of the summer gone,

When by clear fountain, or embower'd brake,

I lay a listless muser, prizing, far

Above all other lore, the poet's theme;

But for such recollections I could brace

My stubborn spirit for the arduous path

Of science unregretting; eye afar

Philosophy upon her steepest height,

And with bold step and resolute attempt

Pursue her to the innermost recess,

Where throned in light she sits, the Queen of Truth.

THE PROSTITUTE.

DACTYLICS.

Woman of weeping eye, ah! for thy wretched lot,

Putting on smiles to lure the lewd passenger,

Smiling while anguish gnaws at thy heavy heart;

Sad is thy chance, thou daughter of misery,

Vice and disease are wearing thee fast away,

While the unfeeling ones sport with thy sufferings.

Destined to pamper the vicious one's appetite;

Spurned by the beings who lured thee from innocence;

Sinking unnoticed in sorrow and indigence;

Thou hast no friends, for they with thy virtue fled;

Thou art an outcast from house and from happiness;

Wandering alone on the wide world's unfeeling stage!

Daughter of misery, sad is thy prospect here;

Thou hast no friend to soothe down the bed of death;

None after thee inquires with solicitude;

Famine and fell disease shortly will wear thee down,

Yet thou hast still to brave often the winter's wind,

Loathsome to those thou wouldst court with thine hollow eyes.

Soon thou wilt sink into death's silent slumbering,

And not a tear shall fall on thy early grave.

Nor shall a single stone tell where thy bones are laid.

Once wert thou happy--thou wert once innocent;

But the seducer beguiled thee in artlessness,

Then he abandoned thee unto thine infamy.

Now he perhaps is reclined on a bed of down:

But if a wretch like him sleeps in security,

God of the red right arm! where is thy thunder-bolt?

ODES.

TO MY LYRE.

Thou simple Lyre! thy music wild

Has served to charm the weary hour,

And many a lonely night has 'guiled,

When even pain has own'd, and smiled,

Its fascinating power.

Yet, O my Lyre! the busy crowd

Will little heed thy simple tones;

Them mightier minstrels harping loud

Engross,--and thou and I must shroud

Where dark oblivion 'thrones.

No hand, they diapason o'er,

Well skill'd I throw with sweep sublime;

For me, no academic lore

Has taught the solemn strain to pour,

Or build the polish'd rhyme.

Yet thou to sylvan themes canst soar;

Thou know'st to charm the woodland train;

The rustic swains believe thy power

Can hush the wild winds when they roar,

And still the billowy main.

These honours, Lyre, we yet may keep,

I, still unknown, may live with thee,

And gentle zephyr's wing will sweep

Thy solemn string, where low I sleep,

Beneath the alder tree.

This little dirge will please me more

Than the full requiem's swelling peal;

I'd rather than that crowds should sigh

For me, that from some kindred eye

The trickling tear should steal.

Yet dear to me the wreath of bay,

Perhaps from me debarr'd;

And dear to me the classic zone,

Which, snatch'd from learning's labour'd throne,

Adorns the accepted bard.

And O! if yet 'twere mine to dwell

Where Cam or Isis winds along,

Perchance, inspired with ardour chaste,

I yet might call the ear of taste

To listen to my song.

Oh! then, my little friend, thy style

I'd change to happier lays,

Oh! then the cloister'd glooms should smile,

And through the long, the fretted aisle

Should swell the note of praise.

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

Mild offspring of a dark and sullen sire!

Whose modest form, so delicately fine,

Was nursed in whirling storms,

And cradled in the winds.

Thee when young spring first question'd winter's sway,

And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,

Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,

Serene thou openest to the nipping gale,

Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms

Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows

Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear

Serene the ills of life.

ODE ADDRESSED TO H. FUSELI, ESQ. R. A.

ON SEEING ENGRAVINGS FROM HIS DESIGNS.

Mighty magician! who on Torneo's brow,

When sullen tempests wrap the throne of night,

Art wont to sit and catch the gleam of light

That shoots athwart the gloom opaque below;

And listen to the distant death-shriek long

From lonely mariner foundering in the deep,

Which rises slowly up the rocky steep,

While the weird sisters weave the horrid song:

Or, when along the liquid sky

Serenely chant the orbs on high,

Dost love to sit in musing trance,

And mark the northern meteor's dance

(While far below the fitful oar

Flings its faint pauses on the steepy shore),

And list the music of the breeze,

That sweeps by fits the bending seas;

And often bears with sudden swell

The shipwreck'd sailor's funeral knell,

By the spirits sung, who keep

Their night-watch on the treacherous deep,

And guide the wakeful helmsman's eye

To Helice in northern sky;

And there upon the rock reclined

With mighty visions fill'st the mind,

Such as bound in magic spell

Him[1] who grasp'd the gates of Hell,

And, bursting Pluto's dark domain,

Held to the day the terrors of his reign.

Genius of Horror and romantic awe,

Whose eye explores the secrets of the deep,

Whose power can bid the rebel fluids creep,

Can force the inmost soul to own its law;

Who shall now, sublimest spirit,

Who shall now thy wand inherit,

From him[2] thy darling child who best

Thy shuddering images expressed?

Sullen of soul, and stern, and proud,

His gloomy spirit spurn'd the crowd,

And now he lays his aching head

In the dark mansion of the silent dead.

Mighty magician! long thy wand has lain

Buried beneath the unfathomable deep;

And oh! for ever must its efforts sleep,

May none the mystic sceptre e'er regain?

Oh, yes, 'tis his! Thy other son!

He throws thy dark-wrought tunic on,

Fuesslin waves thy wand,--again they rise,

Again thy wildering forms salute our ravish'd eyes.

Him didst thou cradle on the dizzy steep

Where round his head the vollied lightnings flung,

And the loud winds that round his pillow rung

Woo'd the stern infant to the arms of sleep.

Or on the highest top of Teneriffe

Seated the fearless boy, and bade him look

Where far below the weather-beaten skiff

On the gulf bottom of the ocean strook.

Thou mark'dst him drink with ruthless ear

The death-sob, and, disdaining rest,

Thou saw'st how danger fired his breast,

And in his young hand couch'd the visionary spear.

Then, Superstition, at thy call,

She bore the boy to Odin's Hall,

And set before his awe-struck sight

The savage feast and spectred fight;

And summoned from his mountain tomb

The ghastly warrior son of gloom,

His fabled runic rhymes to sing,

While fierce Hresvelger flapp'd his wing;

Thou show'dst the trains the shepherd sees,

Laid on the stormy Hebrides,

Which on the mists of evening gleam,

Or crowd the foaming desert stream;

Lastly her storied hand she waves,

And lays him in Florentian caves;

There milder fables, lovelier themes,

Enwrap his soul in heavenly dreams,

There pity's lute arrests his ear,

And draws the half reluctant tear;

And now at noon of night he roves

Along the embowering moonlight groves,

And as from many a cavern'd dell

The hollow wind is heard to swell,

He thinks some troubled spirit sighs,

And as upon the turf he lies,

Where sleeps the silent beam of night,

He sees below the gliding sprite,

And hears in Fancy's organs sound

Aërial music warbling round.

Taste lastly comes and smooths the whole,

And breathes her polish o'er his soul;

Glowing with wild, yet chasten'd heat,

The wondrous work is now complete.

The Poet dreams:--The shadow flies,

And fainting fast its image dies.

But lo! the Painter's magic force

Arrests the phantom's fleeting course;

It lives--it lives--the canvas glows,

And tenfold vigour o'er it flows.

The Bard beholds the work achieved,

And as he sees the shadow rise

Sublime before his wondering eyes,

Starts at the image his own mind conceived.

Footnotes:

[1] Dante.

[2] Ibid.

TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K. G.

I. 1.

Retired, remote from human noise,

An humble Poet dwelt serene;

His lot was lowly, yet his joys

Were manifold, I ween.

He laid him by the brawling brook

At eventide to ruminate,

He watch'd the swallow skimming round,

And mused, in reverie profound,

On wayward man's unhappy state,

And ponder'd much, and paused on deeds of ancient date.

II. 1.

"Oh, 'twas not always thus," he cried,

"There was a time, when genius claim'd

Respect from even towering pride,

Nor hung her head ashamed:

But now to wealth alone we bow,

The titled and the rich alone

Are honour'd, while meek merit pines,

On penury's wretched couch reclines,

Unheeded in his dying moan,

As, overwhelmed with want and woe, he sinks unknown.

III. 1.

"Yet was the muse not always seen

In poverty's dejected mien,

Not always did repining rue,

And misery her steps pursue.

Time was, when nobles thought their titles graced

By the sweet honours of poetic bays,

When Sidney sung his melting song,

When Sheffield join'd the harmonious throng,

And Lyttelton attuned to love his lays.

Those days are gone--alas, for ever gone!

No more our nobles love to grace

Their brows with anadems, by genius won,

But arrogantly deem the muse as base;

How differently thought the sires of this degenerate race!"

I. 2.

Thus sang the minstrel:--still at eve

The upland's woody shades among

In broken measures did he grieve,

With solitary song.

And still his shame was aye the same,

Neglect had stung him to the core;

And he with pensive joy did love

To seek the still congenial grove,

And muse on all his sorrows o'er,

And vow that he would join the abjured world no more.

II. 2.

But human vows, how frail they be!

Fame brought Carlisle unto his view,

And all amazed, he thought to see

The Augustan age anew.

Fill'd with wild rapture, up he rose,

No more he ponders on the woes

Which erst he felt that forward goes,

Regrets he'd sunk in impotence,

And hails the ideal day of virtuous eminence.

III. 2.

Ah! silly man, yet smarting sore

With ills which in the world he bore,

Again on futile hope to rest,

An unsubstantial prop at best,

And not to know one swallow makes no summer!

Ah! soon he'll find the brilliant gleam,

Which flash'd across the hemisphere,

Illumining the darkness there,

Was but a single solitary beam,

While all around remained in custom'd night.

Still leaden ignorance reigns serene,

In the false court's delusive height,

And only one Carlisle is seen

To illume the heavy gloom with pure and steady light.

TO CONTEMPLATION.

Come, pensive sage, who lovest to dwell

In some retired Lapponian cell,

Where, far from noise and riot rude,

Besides sequester'd solitude.

Come, and o'er my longing soul

Throw thy dark and russet stole,

And open to my duteous eyes

The volume of thy mysteries.

I will meet thee on the hill,

Where, with printless footsteps still,

The morning in her buskin gray

Springs upon her eastern way;

While the frolic zephyrs stir,

Playing with the gossamer,

And, on ruder pinions borne,

Shake the dewdrops from the thorn.

There, as o'er the fields we pass,

Brushing with hasty feet the grass,

We will startle from her nest

The lively lark with speckled breast,

And hear the floating clouds among

Her gale-transported matin song,

Or on the upland stile, embower'd

With fragrant hawthorn snowy flower'd,

Will sauntering sit, and listen still

To the herdsman's oaten quill,

Wafted from the plain below;

Or the heifer's frequent low;

Or the milkmaid in the grove,

Singing of one that died for love.

Or when the noontide heats oppress,

We will seek the dark recess,

Where, in the embower'd translucent stream,

The cattle shun the sultry beam,

And o'er us on the marge reclined,

The drowsy fly her horn shall wind,

While echo, from her ancient oak,

Shall answer to the woodman's stroke;

Or the little peasant's song,

Wandering lone the glens among,

His artless lip with berries dyed,

And feet through ragged shoes descried.

But oh! when evening's virgin queen

Sits on her fringed throne serene,

And mingling whispers rising near

Steal on the still reposing ear;

While distant brooks decaying round,

Augment the mix'd dissolving sound,

And the zephyr flitting by

Whispers mystic harmony,

We will seek the woody lane,

By the hamlet, on the plain,

Where the weary rustic nigh

Shall whistle his wild melody,

And the croaking wicket oft

Shall echo from the neighbouring croft;

And as we trace the green path lone,

With moss and rank weeds overgrown,

We will muse on penbive lore?

Till the full soul, brimming o'er,

Shall in our upturn'd eyes appear,

Embodied in a quivering tear.

Or else, serenely silent, sit

By the brawling rivulet,

Which on its calm unruffled breast

Rears the old mossy arch impressed,

That clasps its secret stream of glass,

Half hid in shrubs and waving grass,

The wood-nymph's lone secure retreat,

Unpress'd by fawn or sylvan's feet,

We'll watch in eve's ethereal braid

The rich vermilion slowly fade;

Or catch, faint twinkling from afar

The first glimpse of the eastern star;

Fair vesper, mildest lamp of light,

That heralds in imperial night:

Meanwhile, upon our wondering ear,

Shall rise, though low, yet sweetly clear,

The distant sounds of pastoral lute,

Invoking soft the sober suit

Of dimmest darkness--fitting well

With love, or sorrow's pensive spell,

(So erst did music's silver tone

Wake slumbering chaos on his throne).

And haply then, with sudden swell,

Shall roar the distant curfew bell,

While in the castle's mouldering tower

The hooting owl is heard to pour

Her melancholy song, and scare

Dull silence brooding in the air.

Meanwhile her dusk and slumbering car

Black-suited night drives on from far,

And Cynthia, 'merging from her rear,

Arrests the waxing darkness drear,

And summons to her silent call,

Sweeping, in their airy pall,

The unshrived ghosts, in fairy trance,

To join her moonshine morris-dance;

While around the mystic ring

The shadowy shapes elastic spring,

Then with a passing shriek they fly,

Wrapt in mists, along the sky,

And oft are by the shepherd seen

In his lone night-watch on the green.