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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White, by
+Henry Kirke White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White
+       With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas
+
+Author: Henry Kirke White
+
+Posting Date: November 9, 2012 [EBook #7149]
+Release Date: December, 2004
+First Posted: March 17, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETICAL WORKS OF HENRY WHITE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stan Goodman, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE POETICAL WORKS OF
+HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+WITH A MEMOIR
+BY SIR HARRIS NICOLAS.
+
+TO
+PETER SMITH, ESQ.
+THIS VOLUME
+IS INSCRIBED
+IN TESTIMONY OF ESTEEM AND FRIENDSHIP.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+Memoir of Henry Kirke White
+
+MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
+
+Clifton Grove
+Time
+Childhood; Part I
+    Part II
+The Christiad
+Lines written on a Survey of the Heavens
+Lines supposed to be spoken by a Lover at the Grave of his
+            Mistress
+My Study
+Description of a Summer's Eve
+Lines--"Go to the raging sea, and say, 'Be still!'"
+Written in the Prospect of Death
+Verses--"When pride and envy, and the scorn"
+Fragment--"Oh! thou most fatal of Pandora's train"
+    "Loud rage the winds without.--The wintry cloud"
+To a Friend in Distress
+Christmas Day
+Nelsoni Mors
+Epigram on Robert Bloomfield
+Elegy occasioned by the Death of Mr. Gill, who was drowned in the
+            River Trent, while bathing
+Inscription for a Monument to the Memory of Cowper
+"I'm pleased, and yet I'm sad"
+Solitude
+"If far from me the Fates remove"
+"Fanny! upon thy breast I may not lie!"
+Fragments--"Saw'st thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and
+            paused:"
+    "The pious man"
+    "Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in gray"
+    "There was a little bird upon that pile;"
+    "O pale art thou, my lamp, and faint"
+    "O give me music--for my soul doth faint"
+    "And must thou go, and must we part"
+    "Ah! who can say, however fair his view,"
+    "Hush'd is the lyre--the hand that swept"
+    "When high romance o'er every wood and stream"
+    "Once more, and yet once more,"
+Fragment of an Eccentric Drama
+To a Friend
+Lines on reading the Poems of Warton
+Fragment--"The western gale,"
+Commencement of a Poem on Despair
+The Eve of Death
+Thanatos
+Athanatos
+Music
+On being confined to School one pleasant Morning in Spring
+To Contemplation
+My own Character
+Lines written in Wilford Churchyard
+Verses--"Thou base repiner at another's joy,"
+Lines--"Yes, my stray steps have wander'd, wander'd far"
+The Prostitute
+
+ODES.
+
+To my Lyre
+To an early Primrose
+Ode addressed to H. Fuseli, Esq. R. A.
+To the Earl of Carlisle, K. G.
+To Contemplation
+To the Genius of Romance
+To Midnight
+To Thought
+Genius
+Fragment of an Ode to the Moon
+To the Muse
+To Love
+On Whit-Monday
+To the Wind, at Midnight
+To the Harvest Moon
+To the Herb Rosemary
+To the Morning
+On Disappointment
+On the Death of Dermody the Poet
+
+SONNETS.
+
+To the River Trent
+Sonnet--"Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,"
+Sonnet supposed to have been addressed by a Female Lunatic to a
+            Lady
+Sonnet supposed to be written by the unhappy Poet Dermody in a
+            Storm
+The Winter Traveller
+Sonnet--"Ye whose aspirings court the muse of lays,"
+Recantatory, in Reply to the foregoing elegant Admonition
+On hearing the Sounds of an AEolian Harp
+Sonnet--"What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?"
+To Capel Lofft, Esq.
+To the Moon
+Written at the Grave of a Friend
+To Misfortune
+Sonnet--"As thus oppress'd with many a heavy care,"
+To April
+Sonnet--"Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,"
+To a Taper
+To my Mother
+Sonnet--"Yes, 't will be over soon. This sickly dream"
+To Consumption
+Sonnet--"Thy judgments, Lord, are just;"
+Sonnet--"When I sit musing on the chequer'd part"
+Sonnet--"Sweet to the gay of heart is Summer's smile"
+Sonnet--"Quick o'er the wintry waste dart fiery shafts"
+
+BALLADS, SONGS, AND HYMNS.
+
+Gondoline
+A Ballad--"Be hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,"
+The Lullaby of a Female Convict to her Child, the Night previous
+            to Execution
+The Savoyard's Return
+A Pastoral Song
+Melody--"Yes, once more that dying strain"
+Additional Stanza to a Song by Waller
+The Wandering Boy
+Canzonet--"Maiden! wrap thy mantle round thee'"
+Song--"Softly, softly blow, ye breezes,"
+The Shipwrecked Solitary's Song to the Night
+The Wonderful Juggler
+Hymn--"Awake, sweet harp of Judah, wake"
+A Hymn for Family Worship
+The Star of Bethlehem
+Hymn--"O Lord, my God, in mercy turn"
+
+TRIBUTARY VERSES.
+
+Eulogy on Henry Kirke White, by Lord Byron
+Sonnet on Henry Kirke White, by Capel Lofft
+Sonnet occasioned by the Second of H. K. White, by the same
+Written in the Homer of Mr. H. K. White, by the same
+To the Memory of H. K. White, by the Rev. W. B. Collyer, A.M.
+Sonnet to H. K. White, on his Poems, by Arthur Owen, Esq.
+Sonnet, on seeing another written to H. K. White, by the same
+Reflections on Reading the Life of the late H. K. White, by
+            William Holloway
+On the Death of Henry Kirke White, by T. Park
+Lines on the Death of Henry Kirke White, by the Rev. J. Plumptre
+To Henry Kirke White, by H. Welker
+Verses occasioned by the Death of H. K. White, by Josiah Conder
+On Reading H. K. White's Poem on Solitude, by the same
+Ode on the late Henry Kirke White, by Juvenis
+Sonnet in Memory of Henry Kirke White, by J. G.
+Lines on the Death of Henry Kirke White
+Sonnet to H. K. White, on his Poems, by G. L. C.
+To the Memory of Henry Kirke White, by a Lady
+Stanzas supposed to have been written at the Grave of Henry Kirke
+            White, by a Lady
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY SIR HARRIS NICOLAS.
+
+
+    Thine, Henry, is a deathless name on earth,
+    Thine amaranthine wreaths, new pluck'd in Heaven!
+    By what aspiring child of mortal birth
+    Could more be ask'd, to whom might more be given
+        TOWNSEND.
+
+It has been said that the contrasts of light and shade are as
+necessary to biography as to painting, and that the character
+which is radiant with genius and virtue requires to be relieved
+by more common and opposite qualities. Though this may be true
+as a principle, there are many exceptions; and the life of Henry
+Kirke White, whose merits were unalloyed by a single vice, is one
+of the most memorable. The history of his short and melancholy
+career, by Mr. Southey, is extremely popular; and when it is
+remembered that its author is one of the most distinguished of
+living writers, that as a biographer he is unrivalled, and that
+he had access to all the materials which exist, it would be as
+vain to expect from the present Memoir any new facts, as it would
+be absurd to hope that it will be more worthy of attention than
+the imperishable monument which his generous friend has erected
+to his memory.
+
+There is, however, nothing inconsistent with this admission, in
+presuming that a Life of the Poet might be written almost as
+interesting as the one alluded to, and without the writer assuming
+to himself any unusual sagacity. As Mr. Southey's narrative is
+prefixed to a collection of all Kirke White's remains, in prose as
+well as in verse, his letters are inserted as part of his works,
+instead of extracts from them being introduced into the Memoir.
+This volume will, on the contrary, be confined to his Poems; and
+such parts of his letters as describe his situation and feelings
+at particular periods will be introduced into the account of his
+life. Indeed, so frequent are the allusions to himself in those
+letters as well as in his poems, that he may be almost considered
+an autobiographer; and the writer who substitutes his own cold and
+lifeless sketch for the glowing and animated portrait which these
+memorials of genius afford, must either be deficient in skill, or
+be under the dominion of overweening vanity.
+
+Few who have risen to eminence were, on the paternal side at
+least, of humbler origin than Henry Kirke White. His father, John
+White, was a butcher at Nottingham; but his mother, who bore the
+illustrious name of Neville, is said to have belonged to a
+respectable family in Staffordshire. He was born at Nottingham on
+the 21st of March, 1785; and in his earliest years indications
+were observed of the genius for which he was afterwards
+distinguished. In his poem "Childhood," he has graphically
+described the little school where, between the age of three and
+five, he
+
+      "enter'd, though with toil and pain,
+    The low vestibule of learning's fane."
+
+The venerable dame by whom he was
+
+    "inured to alphabetic toils,"
+
+and whose worth he gratefully commemorates, had the discernment
+to perceive her charge's talents, and even  foretold his future
+celebrity:
+
+    "And, as she gave my diligence its praise,
+    Talk'd of the honour of my future days."
+
+If he did not deceive himself, it was at this period that his
+imagination became susceptible of poetic associations. Speaking
+of the eagerness with which he left the usual sports of children
+to listen to tales of imaginary woe, and of the effect which they
+produced, he says,
+
+    "Beloved moment! then 't was first I caught
+    The first foundation of romantic thought;
+    Then first I shed bold Fancy's thrilling tear,
+    Then first that Poesy charm'd mine infant ear.
+    Soon stored with much of legendary lore,
+    The sports of childhood charm'd my soul no more;
+    Far from the scene of gaiety and noise,
+    Far, far from turbulent and empty joys,
+    I hied me to the thick o'erarching shade,
+    And there, on mossy carpet, listless laid;
+    While at my feet the rippling runnel ran,
+    The days of wild romance antique I'd scan;
+    Soar on the wings of fancy through the air,
+    To realms of light, and pierce the radiance there."
+
+The peculiar disposition of his mind, having thus early displayed
+itself, every day added to its force. Study and abstraction were his
+greatest pleasures, and a love of reading became his predominant
+passion. "I could fancy," said his eldest sister, "I see him in his
+little chair with a large book upon his knee, and my mother calling,
+'Henry, my love, come to dinner,' which was repeated so often
+without being regarded, that she was obliged to change the tone of
+her voice before she could rouse him."
+
+At the age of six he was placed under the care of the Rev. John
+Blanchard, who kept the best school in Nottingham, where he learnt
+writing, arithmetic, and French; and he continued there for
+several years. During that time two facts are related of him which
+prove the precocity of his talents. When about seven, he was
+accustomed to go secretly into his father's kitchen and teach the
+servant to read and write; and he composed a tale of a Swiss
+emigrant, which he gave her, being too diffident to show it to his
+mother. In his eleventh year he wrote a separate theme for each of
+the twelve or fourteen boys in his class; and the excellence of
+the various pieces obtained his master's applause.
+
+Henry was destined for his father's trade, and the efforts of his
+mother to change that intention were for some time fruitless. Even
+while he was at school, one day in every week, and his leisure
+hours on the others, were employed in carrying meat to his father's
+customers; but a dispute between his father and his master having
+caused him to be removed from school, one of the ushers, from
+malice or ignorance, told his mother that it was impossible to make
+her son do any thing. The person who reported so unfavourably of
+his abilities, little knew that he had then given ample evidence of
+his talents, in some poetical satires which his treatment at school
+had provoked, but which he afterwards destroyed.
+
+Soon after he quitted Mr. Blanchard's school he was intrusted to
+Mr. Shipley, who discovered his pupil's abilities, and relieved
+his friends' uneasiness on the subject. His earliest production
+that has been preserved was written in his thirteenth year, "On
+being confined to School one pleasant Morning in Spring," in which
+a schoolboy's love of liberty, and his envy of the freedom of a
+neighbouring wren, are expressed with plaintive simplicity.
+
+About this time a slight improvement took place in his situation.
+His mother, to whom he was indebted for all the happiness of his
+childhood, opened a day school, and, as it abstracted her from the
+groveling cares of a butcher's shop, his home was made much more
+comfortable; and, instead of being confined to his father's
+business, he was placed in a stocking loom, with the view of
+bringing him up to the trade of a hosier, the poverty of his
+family still precluding the hope of a profession.
+
+It may easily be believed that this occupation ill agreed with the
+aspirations of his mind. From his mother he had few secrets, and in
+her ear he breathed his disgust and unhappiness. "He could not bear,"
+he said, "the idea of spending some years of his life in shining
+and folding up stockings;" he wanted "something to occupy his brain,
+and he should be wretched if he continued longer at this trade, or
+indeed in any thing, except one of the learned professions." For a
+year these remonstrances were ineffectual; but no persuasions, even
+when urged with maternal tenderness, could reconcile him to his lot.
+He sought for consolation with the Muses, and wrote an "Address to
+Contemplation," in which he describes his feelings:
+
+      "Why along
+    The dusky track 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 of happiness on earth;
+    And to be happy here is man's chief end,
+    For to be happy he must needs be good."
+
+There are few obstacles that perseverance will not overcome; and
+penury and a parent's obstinacy were both surmounted by Kirke
+White's importunity. Finding it useless to chain him longer to the
+hosier's loom, he was placed in the office of Messrs. Coldham and
+Enfield, Town Clerk and attorneys of Nottingham, some time in May,
+1799, when he was in his fifteenth year; but as a premium could
+not be given with him, it was agreed that he should serve two
+years before he was articled. A few months after he entered upon
+his new employment, he began a correspondence with his brother,
+Mr. Neville White, who was then a medical student in London; and
+in a letter, dated in September, 1799, he thus spoke of his
+situation and prospects:
+
+"It is now nearly four months since I entered into Mr. Coldham's
+office; and it is with pleasure I can assure you, that I never yet
+found any thing disagreeable, but, on the contrary, every thing I
+do seems a pleasure to me, and for a very obvious reason,--it is a
+business which I like--a business which I chose before all others;
+and I have two good-tempered, easy masters, but who will,
+nevertheless, see that their business is done in a neat and proper
+manner."--"A man that understands the law is sure to have business;
+and in case I have no thoughts, in case, that is, that I do not
+aspire to hold the honourable place of a barrister, I shall feel
+sure of gaining a genteel livelihood at the business to which I am
+articled."
+
+At the suggestion of his employers, he devoted the greater part of
+his leisure to Latin; and, though he was but slightly assisted, he
+was able in ten months to read Horace with tolerable facility, and
+had made some progress in Greek. Having but little time for these
+pursuits, he accustomed himself to decline the Greek nouns and
+verbs during his walks to and from the office, and he thereby
+acquired a habit of studying while walking, that never deserted
+him. The account which Mr. Southey has given of his application,
+and of the success that attended it, is astonishing. Though living
+with his family, he nearly estranged himself from their society.
+At meals, and during the evenings, a book was constantly in his
+hands; and as he refused to sup with them, to prevent any loss of
+time, his meal was sent to him in his little apartment. Law,
+Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, chemistry,
+astronomy, electricity, drawing, music, and mechanics, by turns
+engaged his attention; and though his acquirements in some of
+those studies were very superficial, his proficiency in many of
+them was far from contemptible. His papers on law evince so much
+industry, that had that subject alone occupied his leisure hours,
+his diligence would have been commendable. He was a tolerable
+Italian scholar, and in the classics he afterwards attained
+reputation; but of the sciences and of Spanish and Portuguese, his
+knowledge was not, it may be inferred, very great. His ear for
+music was good, and his passionate attachment to it is placed
+beyond a doubt by his verses on its effects:
+
+    "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:"
+
+But he checked his ardour, lest it might interfere with more
+essential studies: and his musical attainments were limited to
+playing pleasingly on the piano, composing the bass to the air
+at the same time.
+
+Ambition was one of the most powerful feelings of his nature, and
+it is rare indeed, when it is not the companion of great talents.
+It developed itself first in spurning trade; and no sooner did he
+find himself likely to become an attorney, than he aspired to the
+bar. But his earliest and strongest passion was for literary
+distinction; and he was scarcely removed from the trammels of
+school, before he sought admission into a literary society, in his
+native town. His extreme youth rendered him objectionable; but,
+after repeated refusals, he at last succeeded. In the association
+there were six professors, and being, on the first vacancy,
+appointed to the chair of literature, he soon justified the
+choice. Taking "genius" as his theme, he addressed the assembly in
+an extemporaneous lecture of two hours and three-quarters duration,
+with so much success, that the audience unanimously voted him
+their thanks, declaring that "the society had never heard a better
+lecture delivered from the chair which he so much honoured." To
+judge properly of this circumstance, it would be necessary to
+know of whom the society was composed; but with so flattering a
+testimony to his abilities, the sanguine boy naturally placed a
+high estimate on them.
+
+The establishment of a Magazine called the Monthly Preceptor,
+which proposed prize themes for young persons, afforded Kirke
+White an opportunity of trying his literary powers. In a letter
+written in June, 1800, to his brother, speaking of that work he
+says, "I am noticed as worthy of commendation, and as affording
+an encouraging prospect of future excellence. You will laugh. I
+have also turned poet, and have translated an Ode of Horace into
+English verse." His productions gained him several of the prizes;
+and he soon afterwards became a contributor to the Monthly Mirror,
+his compositions in which attracted the attention of Mr. Hill, the
+proprietor of the work, and of Mr. Capel Lofft, a gentleman who
+distinguished himself by his patronage of Bloomfield.
+
+Though on entering an attorney's office the bar was the object of
+his hopes, a constitutional deafness soon convinced him that he
+was not adapted for the duties of an advocate; and his thoughts,
+from conscientious motives, became directed to the Church.
+
+When about fifteen, his mind was agitated by doubt and anxiety on
+the most important of all subjects; and the chaos of opinions
+which extensive and miscellaneous reading so often produces on
+ardent and imaginative temperaments, is well described in his
+little poem entitled, "My own Character," wherein he represents
+himself as a prey to the most opposite impressions, and as being
+in a miserable state of incertitude:
+
+      "First I premise it's my honest conviction,
+    That my breast is the chaos of all contradiction,
+    Religious--deistic--now loyal and warm,
+    Then a dagger-drawn democrat hot for reform;
+           *        *        *        *        *
+    Now moody and sad, now unthinking and gay,
+    To all points of the compass I veer in a day."
+
+In this sketch there is evidently much truth; and it affords a
+striking idea of a plastic and active mind, on which every thing
+makes an impression, where one idea follows another in such rapid
+succession, that the former is not so entirely removed, but that
+some remains of it are amalgamated with its successor. A youth
+whose intellect is thus tossed in a whirlpool of conflicting
+speculations, resembles a goodly ship newly launched, which, until
+properly steadied by ballast, reels from side to side, the sport
+of every undulation of the waters.
+
+About this time young White's religious feelings were strongly
+affected by the conversion of his friend, Mr. Almond, whose
+opinions were previously as unsettled as his own. To escape the
+raillery with which he expected White would assail him on learning
+the change in his sentiments, Almond avoided his society; and when
+his friend offered to defend his opinions, if Henry would allow
+the divine originality of the Bible, he exclaimed, "Good God! you
+surely regard me in a worse light than I deserve." The discussion
+that followed, and the perusal of Scott's "Force of Truth," which
+Almond placed in his hands, induced him to direct his attention
+seriously to the subject; but an affecting incident soon afterwards
+showed how deeply he was then influenced by religious considerations.
+On the evening before Mr. Almond left Nottingham for Cambridge, he
+was requested by White to accompany him to his apartment. The moment
+they entered, Henry burst into tears, declaring that his anguish of
+mind was insupportable; and he entreated Almond to kneel and pray
+for him. Their tears and supplications were cordially mingled, and
+when they were about to separate, White said, "What must I do? You
+are the only friend to whom I can apply in this agonizing state,
+and you are about to leave me. My literary associates are all
+inclined to deism. I have no one with whom I can communicate."
+
+It is instructive to learn to what circumstance such a person as
+Kirke White was indebted for the knowledge "which causes not to
+err." This information occurs in a letter from him to a Mr. Booth,
+in August, 1801; and it also fixes the date of the happy change
+that influenced every thought and every action of his future life,
+which gave the energy of virtue to his exertions, soothed the
+asperities of a temper naturally impetuous and irritable, and
+enabled him, at a period when manhood is full of hope and promise,
+to view the approaches of death with the calmness of a philosopher,
+and the resignation of a saint.
+
+After thanking Mr. Booth for the present of Jones's work on the
+Trinity, he thus describes his religious impressions previous to
+its perusal, and the effect it produced:
+
+"Religious polemics, indeed, have seldom formed a part of my
+studies; though whenever I happened accidentally to turn my
+thoughts to the subject of the Protestant doctrine of the Godhead,
+and compared it with Arian and Socinian, many doubts interfered,
+and I even began to think that the more nicely the subject was
+investigated, the more perplexed it would appear, and was on the
+point of forming a resolution to go to heaven in my own way,
+without meddling or involving myself in the inextricable labyrinth
+of controversial dispute, when I received and perused this
+excellent treatise, which finally cleared up the mists which my
+ignorance had conjured around me, and clearly pointed out the real
+truth."
+
+From the moment he became convinced of the truths of Christianity,
+all the enthusiasm of his nature was kindled. The ministry only,
+was deemed worthy of his ambition; and he devoted his thoughts to
+the sacred office with a zeal that justified a hope of the richest
+fruits. In a letter to his friend, Mr. Almond, in November, 1803,
+he says,
+
+"My dear friend, I cannot adequately express what I owe to you on
+the score of religion. I told Mr. Robinson you were the first
+instrument of my being brought to think deeply on religious
+subjects; and I feel more and more every day, that if it had not
+been for you, I might, most probably, have been now buried in apathy
+and unconcern. Though I am in a great measure blessed,--I mean
+blessed with faith, now pretty steadfast, and heavy convictions,
+I am far from being happy. My sins have been of a dark hue, and
+manifold: I have made Fame my God, and Ambition my shrine. I have
+placed all my hopes on the things of this world. I have knelt to
+Dagon; I have worshipped the evil creations of my own proud heart,
+and God had well nigh turned his countenance from me in wrath;
+perhaps one step further, and he might have shut me for ever from
+his rest. I now turn my eyes to Jesus, my Saviour, my atonement,
+with hope and confidence: he will not repulse the imploring
+penitent; his arms are open to all, they are open even to me; and
+in return for such a mercy, what can I do less than dedicate my
+whole life to his service? My thoughts would fain recur at
+intervals to my former delights; but I am now on my guard to
+restrain and keep them in. I know now where they ought to
+concentre, and with the blessing of God, they shall there all tend.
+
+"My next publication of poems will be solely religious. I shall
+not destroy those of a different nature, which now lie before me;
+but they will, most probably, sleep in my desk, until, in the good
+time of my great Lord and Master, I shall receive my passport from
+this world of vanity. I am now bent on a higher errand than that
+of the attainment of poetical fame; poetry, in future, will be my
+relaxation, not my employment.--Adieu to literary ambition! 'You
+do not aspire to be prime minister,' said Mr. Robinson; 'you covet
+a far higher character--to be the humblest among those who
+minister to their Maker.'"
+
+To the arguments of his friends on the impolicy of quitting a
+profession to which he had given so much of his time, and on the
+obstacles to the attainment of his wishes, he was impenetrable.
+His employers generously offered to cancel his articles as soon as
+he could show that his resources were likely to support him at the
+University. Friends arose as they became necessary, and more than
+one or two persons exerted themselves to promote his views; but
+his principal reliance was on the sale of a little volume of
+Poems, which, at the suggestion of Mr. Capel Lofft, he prepared
+for the press.
+
+The history of an author's first book is always interesting, and
+Kirke White's was attended with unusual incidents. A novice in
+literature often imagines that it is important his work should be
+dedicated to some person of rank; and the Countess of Derby was
+applied to, who declined, on the ground that she never accepted a
+compliment of that nature. He then addressed the Duchess of
+Devonshire; and a letter, with the manuscript, was left at her
+house. The difficulty of obtaining access to her Grace proved so
+great, that more than one letter to his brother was written on the
+subject, in which he indignantly says, "I am cured of patronage
+hunting; as for begging patronage, I am tired to the soul of it,
+and shall give it up." Permission to inscribe the book to the
+Duchess was at length granted: the book came out in 1803; and a
+copy was transmitted to her, of which, however, no notice whatever
+was taken.
+
+On the publication of the volume, a copy was sent to each Review,
+with a letter deprecatory of the severity of criticism, an act as
+ill judged as it was useless, since all that a young writer could
+properly say was to be found in the preface, in which he stated
+that his inducement to publish was, "the facilitation through its
+means of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have been
+the principal objects of his ambition, and the increase of the
+capacity to pursue these inclinations, which may one day place him
+in an honourable station in the scale of society."
+
+His feelings received a severe wound from the notice of his Poems
+in the Monthly Review, the writer of which, not satisfied with saying
+that the production did not "justify any sanguine expectations,"
+selected four of the worst lines in support of his opinion, and
+showed himself insensible of the numerous beauties scattered
+through the various pieces. Writing to a friend soon afterwards,
+he thus spoke of himself; and more mental wretchedness has seldom
+been described:
+
+"I am at present under afflictions and contentions of spirit,
+heavier than I have yet ever experienced. I think, at times, I am
+mad, and destitute of religion; my pride is not yet subdued: the
+unfavourable review (in the 'Monthly') of my unhappy work, has cut
+deeper than you could have thought; not in a literary point of
+view, but as it affects my respectability. It represents me actually
+as a beggar, going about gathering money to put myself at college,
+when my book is worthless; and this with every appearance of candour.
+They have been sadly misinformed respecting me: this review goes
+before me wherever I turn my steps; it haunts me incessantly, and
+I am persuaded it is an instrument in the hand of Satan to drive me
+to distraction. I must leave Nottingham. If the answer of the Elland
+Society be unfavourable, I purpose writing to the Marquis of
+Wellesley, to offer myself as a student at the academy he has
+instituted at Fort William, in Bengal, and at the proper age to take
+orders there. The missionaries at that place have done wonders
+already; and I should, I hope, be a valuable labourer in the
+vineyard. If the Marquis take no notice of my application, or do
+not accede to my proposal, I shall place myself in some other way
+of making a meet preparation for the holy office, either in the
+Calvinistic Academy, or in one of the Scotch Universities, where I
+shall be able to live at scarcely any expense."
+
+The criticism just adverted to was as unfeeling as unjust; and but
+for the generous conduct of a distinguished living poet, whose
+benevolence of heart is equal to his genius, it might have entirely
+crushed his hopes. Disgusted at the injustice of this criticism,
+Mr. Southey instantly wrote to White, expressing his opinion of the
+merits of his book, and giving him the encouragement and advice
+which none was ever more ready or more able to bestow. Thus, an act
+of cruel folly proved in its consequences the most beneficial of
+the Poet's life. His spirits were invigorated by this considerate
+kindness, and his feelings were expressed in glowing terms:
+
+"I dare not say all I feel respecting your opinion of my little
+volume. The extreme acrimony with which the Monthly Review (of all
+others the most important) treated me, threw me into a state of
+stupefaction. I regarded all that had passed as a dream, and I
+thought I had been deluding myself into an idea of possessing
+poetic genius, when, in fact, I had only the longing, without the
+_afflatus._ I mustered resolution enough, however, to write
+spiritedly to them: their answer, in the ensuing number, was a
+tacit acknowledgment that they had been somewhat too unsparing in
+their correction. It was a poor attempt to salve over a wound
+wantonly and most ungenerously inflicted. Still I was damped,
+because I knew the work was very respectable; and therefore could
+not, I concluded, give a criticism grossly deficient in equity,
+the more especially, as I knew of no sort of inducement to
+extraordinary severity. Your letter, however, has revived me, and
+I do again venture to hope that I may still produce something
+which will survive me. With regard to your advice and offers of
+assistance, I will not attempt, because I am unable, to thank you
+for them. To-morrow morning I depart for Cambridge; and I have
+considerable hopes that, as I do not enter into the University
+with any sinister or interested views, but sincerely desire to
+perform the duties of an affectionate and vigilant pastor, and
+become more useful to mankind; I therefore have hopes, I say, that
+I shall find means of support in the University. If I do not, I
+shall certainly act in pursuance of your recommendations; and
+shall, without hesitation, avail myself of your offers of service,
+and of your directions. In a short time this will be determined;
+and when it is, I shall take the liberty of writing to you at
+Keswick, to make you acquainted with the result. I have only one
+objection to publishing by subscription, and I confess it has
+weight with me; it is, that, in this step, I shall seem to be
+acting upon the advice so unfeelingly and contumeliously given by
+the Monthly Reviewers, who say what is equal to this, that had I
+gotten a subscription for my poems before their merit was known, I
+might have succeeded; provided, it seems, I had made a particular
+statement of my case; like a beggar who stands with his hat in one
+hand, and a full account of his cruel treatment on the coast of
+Barbary in the other, and so gives you his penny sheet for your
+sixpence, by way of half purchase, half charity. I have materials
+for another volume; but they were written principally while
+Clifton Grove was in the press, or soon after, and do not now at
+all satisfy me. Indeed, of late, I have been obliged to desist,
+almost entirely, from converse with the dames of Helicon. The
+drudgery of an attorney's office, and the necessity of preparing
+myself, in case I should succeed in getting to college, in what
+little leisure I could boast, left no room for the flights of the
+imagination."
+
+As soon as there were reasonable hopes of an adequate support
+being obtained for him at Cambridge, he went to the village of
+Wilford, for a month, to recruit his health, on which intense
+application had made great inroads. Near this place were Clifton
+Woods, the subject of one of his Poems, and which had long been
+his favourite resort. Here he fully indulged in that love of the
+beauties of nature, which forms a leading trait in the Poetic
+character: and on this occasion he gave full reins to those
+reveries of the imagination, of the delight of which a Poet only
+is sensible. His lines on Wilford Church Yard show the melancholy
+tone of his mind; and those Verses, as well as his "Ode to
+Disappointment," of which no praise would be too extravagant,
+appear to have been written, on learning from his mother, before
+he left Wilford, that the efforts made to place him at Cambridge
+had failed. It was evidently to this circumstance, which for the
+time blighted his aspirations, that he alluded, when he says he
+was,
+
+    "From Hope's summit hurl'd."
+
+His remark to his mother on this occasion evinced, nevertheless,
+great energy of mind. His complaints were confined to verse, for
+the disappointment had no other effect upon his conduct than to
+induce him to apply to his studies with unprecedented vigour,
+that, since he was to revert to the law as a profession, he might
+not be, as he observed, "a _mediocre_ attorney." He read regularly
+from five in the morning until some time after midnight, and
+occasionally passed whole nights without lying down; and the
+entreaties, even when accompanied by the tears of his mother,
+that he would not thus destroy his health, did not induce him to
+relax his zeal.
+
+Symptoms of consumption, the disease to which he ultimately became
+a victim, and which he designates, in one of his many allusions to
+it, as
+
+    "The most fatal of Pandora's train,"
+
+began now to excite the anxiety of his family. Illness was, however,
+forgotten in the realization of the hope dearest to his heart. The
+exertions of his friends proved successful at a time when all
+expectations had vanished; and by their united efforts it was
+resolved that he should become a sizer of St. John's College,
+Cambridge, his brother Neville, his mother, and a benevolent
+individual, whose name is not mentioned, having agreed to contribute
+to support him. It appears, that if he had not succeeded in that
+object, he intended to have joined the society of orthodox dissenters,
+for which purpose he underwent an examination. Though his attainments
+and character proved satisfactory on that occasion, his volume of
+Poems rose in judgment against him, and nothing but the approbation
+Mr. Southey had expressed of them prevented his work from being
+considered a disqualification for the ministry. His feelings on
+the prospect of entering the Church are described with great force
+in his letter, dated in April, 1804.
+
+"Most fervently do I return thanks to God for this providential
+opening: it has breathed new animation into me, and my breast
+expands with the prospect of becoming the minister of Christ where
+I most desired it; but where I almost feared all probability of
+success was nearly at an end. Indeed, I had begun to turn my
+thoughts to the dissenters, as people of whom I was destined, not
+by choice, but necessity, to become the pastor. Still, although I
+knew I should be happy anywhere, so that I were a profitable
+labourer in the vineyard, I did, by no means, feel that calm, that
+indescribable satisfaction which I do when I look toward that
+Church, which I think in the main formed on the apostolic model,
+and from which I am decidedly of opinion there is no positive
+grounds for dissent. I return thanks to God for keeping me so long
+ in suspense, for I know it has been beneficial to my soul, and I
+feel a considerable trust that the way is now about to be made
+clear, and that my doubts and fears on this head will, in due
+time, be removed."
+
+Being advised to degrade for a year, and to place himself with a
+private tutor, he went to the Rev. Mr. Grainger of Winteringham,
+in Lincolnshire, in the autumn of 1804. While under that gentleman's
+care he studied with such intense fervour, that fears were excited
+not for his health only, but for his intellect; and a second severe
+attack of illness was the consequence. Poetry was now laid aside,
+and as he himself told a friend in February, 1805,
+
+"My poor neglected Muse has lain absolutely unnoticed by me for
+the last four months, during which period I have been digging in
+the mines of Scapula for Greek roots, and instead of drinking with
+eager delight the beauties of Virgil have been culling and drying
+his phrases for future use."--"I fear my good genius, who was
+wont to visit me with nightly visions in woods and brakes and by
+the river's marge, is now dying of a fen ague, and I shall thus
+probably emerge from my retreat not a hair-brained son of
+imagination, but a sedate black-lettered book worm, with a head
+like an etymologicon magnum."
+
+To Mr. Capel Lofft, in the September following, after stating that
+all his time was employed in preparing himself for orders, his
+estimate of the necessary qualifications being, very high, he
+observed:
+
+"I often, however, cast a look of fond regret to the darling
+occupations of my younger hours, and the tears rush into my eyes,
+as I fancy I see the few wild flowers of poetic genius, with which
+I have been blessed, withering with neglect. Poetry has been to me
+something more than amusement; it has been a cheering companion
+when I have had no other to fly to, and a delightful solace when
+consolation has been in some measure needful. I cannot, therefore,
+discard so old and faithful a friend without deep regret,
+especially when I reflect that, stung by my ingratitude, he may
+desert me for ever!"
+
+But the old fire was, he adds, rekindled by looking over some of
+his pieces which Mr. Lofft wished to print; and he transmitted to
+that gentleman a short Poem, expressive of his sorrow at taking
+leave of his favourite pursuit. The following passages could only
+have arisen from a love of Poetry, which it was not in the power
+of severer studies to extinguish:
+
+    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!
+
+In October, 1805, Kirke White became a resident member of St.
+John's College, Cambridge; and such was the use he had made of his
+time at Winteringham, that he was distinguished for his classical
+knowledge. But he had dearly purchased his superiority. His
+constitution was much shattered when he went to Mr. Grainger, and
+every day brought with it new proofs that his career had nearly
+reached its bounds. The only chance of prolonging his life was to
+seek a milder climate, and to abandon study entirely. As in all
+great minds, Fame was, however, dearer to him than existence. He
+felt that every thing connected with his future prospects was at
+stake; and he adhered to a course of rigorous application until
+nature gave way. During his first term he became a candidate for
+one of the University scholarships; but the increased exertion he
+underwent was attended by results that obliged him to retire from
+the contest. At this moment the general college examination
+approached, and thinking that if he failed his hopes would be
+blasted for ever, he taxed his energies to the uttermost, during
+the fortnight which intervened, to meet the trial. His illness,
+however, speedily returned; and, with tears in his eyes, he
+informed his tutor, Mr. Catton, that he could not go into the Hall
+to be examined. That gentleman, whose kindness to the Poet
+entitles his name to respect, urged him to support himself during
+the six days of the examination. Powerful stimulants were
+administered, and he was pronounced the first man of his year. The
+triumph, complete and exhilarating as it was, too closely
+resembled that of the generous steed, who, in distancing his
+competitors, reaches the goal, and dies; and his own ideas of the
+sacrifices with which such an honour must be attended were very
+poetical. He said to an intimate friend, almost the last time he
+saw him, that were he to paint a picture of Fame crowning a
+distinguished under graduate after the senate house examination,
+he would represent her as concealing a death's head under a mask
+of beauty.
+
+Soon after this event, Kirke White went to London, and on
+Christmas Eve he wrote to his mother from town, stating that his
+health had been rather affected by study, that he came to London
+for amusement, and that his tutor had, in the kindest manner,
+relieved his mind from pecuniary cares, and cheered him with the
+assurance that his talents would be rewarded by his College. But
+it is from his letters to his friend that the real state to which
+excitement and labour had reduced him, is to be learnt, because,
+to allay the fears of his relations, he represented himself to
+them, as being much better than he actually was:
+
+London, Christmas, 1805.
+
+"I wrote you a letter, which now lies in my drawer at St. John's;
+but in such a weak state of body, and in so desponding and
+comfortless a tone of mind, that I knew it would give you pain,
+and therefore I chose not to send it. I have indeed been ill; but
+thanks to God, I am recovered. My nerves were miserably shattered
+by over application, and the absence of all that could amuse, and
+the presence of many things which weighed heavy upon my spirits.
+When I found myself too ill to read, and too desponding to endure
+my own reflections, I discovered that it is really a miserable
+thing to be destitute of the soothing and supporting hand when
+nature most needs it. I wandered up and down from one man's room
+to another, and from one College to another, imploring society, a
+little conversation, and a little relief of the burden which
+pressed upon my spirits; and I am sorry to say, that those who,
+when I was cheerful and lively, sought my society with avidity,
+now, when I actually needed conversation, were too busy to grant
+it. Our College examination was then approaching, and I perceived
+with anguish that I had read for the university scholarship until
+I had barely time to get up our private subjects, and that as I
+was now too ill to read, all hope of getting through the
+examination with decent respectability was at an end. This was an
+additional grief. I went to our tutor, with tears in my eyes, and
+told him I must absent myself from the examination,--a step which
+would have precluded me from a station amongst the prize-men until
+the second year. He earnestly entreated me to run the risk. My
+surgeon gave me strong stimulants and supporting medicines during
+the examination week; and I passed, I believe, one of the most
+respectable examinations amongst them. As soon as ever it was
+over, I left Cambridge, by the advice of my surgeon and tutor,
+and I feel myself now pretty strong. I have given up the thought
+of sitting for the University scholarship, in consequence of my
+illness, as the course of my reading was effectually broken. In
+this place I have been much amused, and have been received with an
+attention in the literary circles which I neither expected nor
+deserved. But this does not affect me as it once would have done:
+my views are widely altered; and I hope that I shall in time learn
+to lay my whole heart at the foot of the cross."
+
+Early in January following he returned to Cambridge, and
+imprudently resumed his old habits of study, according to the
+following plan: "Rise at half-past five; devotions and walk till
+seven; chapel and breakfast till eight; study and lectures till
+one; four and a half clear reading; walk, &c. and dinner, and
+Wollaston, and chapel to six; six to nine reading, three hours;
+nine to ten devotions; bed at ten." With him, however, exercise
+was but slight relaxation, as his intellectual faculties were kept
+on the stretch during his walks, and he is known to have committed
+to memory a whole tragedy of Euripides in this manner, and as they
+were not less exerted in his devotions, his mind must have been
+intensely occupied for twelve or fourteen hours a day, at a moment
+when perfect quiet and rest were indispensable. Within a very few
+weeks he paid a heavy penalty for his indiscretion. To his friend,
+Mr. Haddock, he wrote on the 17th of February, 1806:
+
+"Do not think I am reading hard; I believe it is all over with
+that. I have had a recurrence of my old complaint within this last
+four or five days, which has half unnerved me for every thing. The
+state of my health is really miserable; I am well and lively in
+the morning, and overwhelmed with nervous horrors in the evening.
+I do not know how to proceed with regard to my studies:--a very
+slight overstretch of the mind in the daytime occasions me not
+only a sleepless night, but a night of gloom and horror. The
+systole and diastole of my heart seem to be playing at ball--the
+stake, my life. I can only say the game is not yet decided:--I
+allude to the violence of the palpitation. I am going to mount the
+Gog-magog hills this morning, in quest of a good night's sleep.
+The Gog-magog hills for my body, and the Bible for my mind, are my
+only medicines. I am sorry to say, that neither are quite
+adequate. Cui, igitur; dandum est vitio? Mihi prorsus. I hope, as
+the summer comes, my spirits (which have been with the swallows, a
+winter's journey) will come with it. When my spirits are restored,
+my health will be restored:--the 'fons mali' lies there. Give me
+serenity and equability of mind, and all will be well."
+
+He, however, rallied again; but he seems to have been aware that
+his end was not far distant, for in March he told his brother that
+though his stay at Cambridge, in the long vacation, was important,
+he intended to go to Nottingham for his health, and more
+particularly for his mother's sake; adding, "I shall be glad to
+moor all my family in the harbour of religious trust, and in the
+calm seas of religious peace. These concerns are apt at times to
+escape me; but they now press much upon my heart, and I think it
+is my first duty to see that my family are safe in the most
+important of all affairs."
+
+In April, however, he drew a pleasing picture of his future life,
+in which his filial and paternal tenderness are conspicuous; but
+he soon afterwards went to Nottingham; and in a letter to his
+friend Mr. Leeson, written from that town, on the 7th of April,
+he gave a very melancholy account of himself:
+
+"It seems determined upon, by my mother, that I cannot be spared,
+since the time of my stay is so very short, and my health so very
+uncertain. The people here can scarcely be persuaded that any
+thing ails me; so well do I look; but occasional depressions,
+especially after any thing has occurred to occasion uneasiness,
+still harass me. My mind is of a very peculiar cast. I began to
+think too early; and the indulgence of certain trains of thought,
+and too free an exercise of the imagination, have superinduced a
+morbid kind of sensibility; which is to the mind what excessive
+irritability is to the body. Some circumstances occurred on my
+arrival at Nottingham, which gave me just cause for inquietude
+and anxiety; the consequences were insomnia, and a relapse into
+causeless dejections. It is my business now to curb these
+irrational and immoderate affections, and, by accustoming myself
+to sober thought and cool reasoning, to restrain these freaks and
+vagaries of the fancy, and redundancies of [Greek: melancholia].
+When I am well, I cannot help entertaining a sort of contempt for
+the weakness of mind which marks my indispositions. Titus when
+well, and Titus when ill, are two distinct persons. The man, when
+in health, despises the man, when ill, for his weakness, and the
+latter envies the former for his felicity."
+
+As his health declined his prospects seemed to brighten. He was
+again pronounced first at the great College examination; he was
+one of the three best theme writers, whose merits were so nearly
+equal that the examiners could not decide between them; and he
+was a prize-man both in the mathematical and logical or general
+examination, and in Latin composition. His College offered him a
+private tutor at its expense, and Mr. Catton obtained exhibitions
+for him to the value of sixty-six pounds per annum, by which he
+was enabled to give up the pecuniary assistance he had received
+from his friends. But even at this moment, when the world promised
+so much, his situation was truly deplorable. The highest honours
+of the University were supposed to be within his grasp, and the
+conviction that such was the general opinion, goaded him on to the
+most strenuous exertions when he was incapable of the slightest.
+This struggle between his mental and physical powers, was not,
+however, of long duration. In July he was seized with an attack
+that threatened his life, and which he thus described in a letter
+to Mr. Maddock:
+
+"Last Saturday morning I rose early, and got up some rather
+abstruse problems in mechanics for my tutor, spent an hour with
+him, between eight and nine got my breakfast, and read the Greek
+History (at breakfast) till ten, then sat down to decipher some
+logarithm tables. I think I had not done any thing at them, when
+I lost myself. At a quarter past eleven my laundress found me
+bleeding in four different places in my face and head, and
+insensible. I got up and staggered about the room, and she, being
+frightened, ran away, and told my gyp to fetch a surgeon. Before
+he came I was sallying out with my flannel gown on, and my
+academical gown over it; he made me put on my coat, and then I
+went to Mr. Farish's: he opened a vein, and my recollection
+returned. My own idea was, that I had fallen out of bed, and so I
+told Mr. Farish at first; but I afterwards remembered that I had
+been to Mr. Fiske, and breakfasted. Mr. Catton has insisted on my
+consulting Sir Isaac Pennington, and the consequence is, that I
+am to go through a course of blistering, &c. which, after the
+bleeding, will leave me weak enough.
+
+"I am, however, very well, except as regards the doctors, and
+yesterday I drove into the country to Saffron Walden, in a gig.
+My tongue is in a bad condition, from a bite which I gave it
+either in my fall, or in the moments of convulsion. My nose has
+also come badly off. I believe I fell against my reading desk.
+My other wounds are only rubs and scratches on the carpet. I am
+ordered to remit my studies for a while, by the common advice both
+of doctors and tutors. Dr. Pennington hopes to prevent any
+recurrence of the fit. He thinks it looks towards epilepsy, of the
+horrors of which malady I have a very full and precise idea; and I
+only pray that God will spare me as respects my faculties, however
+else it may seem good to him to afflict me. Were I my own master,
+I know how I should act; but I am tied here by bands which I
+cannot burst. I know that change of place is needful; but I must
+not indulge in the idea. The college must not pay my tutor for
+nothing. Dr. Pennington and Mr. Farish attribute the attack to a
+too continued tension of the faculties. As I am much alone now, I
+never get quite off study, and I think incessantly. I know nature
+will not endure this. They both proposed my going home, but Mr. * *
+did not hint at it, although much concerned; and, indeed, I know
+home would be a bad place for me in my present situation. I look
+round for a resting place, and I find none. Yet there is one,
+which I have long too, too much disregarded, and thither I must
+now betake myself. There are many situations worse than mine, and
+I have no business to complain. If these afflictions should draw
+the bonds tighter which hold me to my Redeemer, it will be well.
+You may be assured that you have here a plain statement of my case
+in its true colours without any palliation. I am now well again,
+and have only to fear a relapse, which I shall do all I can to
+prevent, by a relaxation in study. I have now written too much.
+
+"I am, very sincerely yours,
+
+"H. K. WHITE.
+
+"P. S. I charge you, as you value my peace, not to let my friends
+hear, either directly or indirectly of my illness."
+
+A few weeks afterwards he again directed his mother's hopes to a
+tranquil retreat for his family in his parsonage, but said nothing
+of his illness; and he told Mr. Haddock, in September,
+
+"I am perfectly well again, and have experienced no recurrence of
+the fit: my spirits, too, are better, and I read very moderately.
+I hope that God will be pleased to spare his rebellious child;
+this stroke has brought me nearer to Him; whom indeed have I for
+my comforter but Him? I am still reading, but with moderation, as
+I have been during the whole vacation, whatever you may persist
+in thinking. My heart turns with more fondness towards the
+consolations of religion than it did, and in some degree I have
+found consolation."
+
+But notwithstanding these flattering expressions, he appears to
+have felt that he had but a short time to live; and it was
+probably about this period that he wrote his lines on the
+"Prospect of Death," perhaps one of the most beautiful and
+affecting compositions in our language:
+
+      "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.
+           *        *        *        *        *
+      I hoped I should not leave
+    The earth without a vestige; Fate decrees
+    It shall be otherwise, and I submit.
+    Henceforth, O 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."
+
+On the 22nd of September he wrote to Mr. Charlesworth, and his
+letter indicates the possession of higher spirits and more
+sanguine hopes, than almost any other in his correspondence.
+About the end of that month he went to London, on a visit to his
+brother Neville, but returned to College within a few weeks, in a
+state that precluded all chance of prolonging his existence; but
+still he did not cease to hope, or rather sought to delude his
+brother into the belief that he should recover; for in a letter
+addressed to him, which was found in his pocket after his decease,
+dated Saturday, 11th of October, he says,
+
+"I am safely arrived, and in College, but my illness has increased
+upon me much. The cough continues, and is attended with a good
+deal of fever. I am under the care of Mr. Parish, and entertain
+very little apprehension about the cough; but my over-exertions
+in town have reduced me to a state of much debility; and, until
+the cough be gone, I cannot be permitted to take any strengthening
+medicines. This places me in an awkward predicament; but I think
+I perceive a degree of expectoration this morning, which will soon
+relieve me, and then I shall mend apace. Under these circumstances
+I must not expect to see you here at present; when I am a little
+recovered, it will be a pleasant relaxation to me. Our lectures
+began on Friday, but I do not attend them until I am better. I
+have not written to my mother, nor shall I while I remain unwell.
+You will tell her, as a reason, that our lectures began on Friday.
+I know she will be uneasy if she do not hear from me, and still
+more so, if I tell her I am ill.
+
+"I cannot write more at present than that I am
+
+"Your truly affectionate Brother,
+
+"H. K. WHITE."
+
+A friend acquainted his brother with his situation, who hastened
+to him; but when he arrived he was delirious, and though reason
+returned for a few moments, as if to bless him with the
+consciousness that the same fond relative, to whose attachment
+he owed so much, was present at his last hour, he sunk into a
+stupor, and on Sunday, the 19th of October, 1806, he breathed
+his last.
+
+Thus died, in his twenty-second year, Henry Kirke White, whose
+genius and virtues justified the brightest hopes, and whose
+fitness for Heaven does not bring the consolation for his untimely
+fate which perhaps it ought. It is impossible to refrain from
+anticipating what his talents might have produced, had his
+existence been extended; and though it is extremely doubtful if he
+were capable of worldly happiness, there is a selfishness in our
+nature which makes us grieve when those who are likely to increase
+our intellectual pleasures are hurried to the grave.
+
+In whatever light the character of this unhappy youth be
+contemplated, it is full of instruction. His talents were unusually
+precocious, and their variety was as astonishing as their extent.
+Besides the Poetical pieces in this volume, and his scholastic
+attainments, his ability was manifested in various other ways.
+His style was remarkable for its clearness and elegance, and his
+correspondence and prose pieces show extensive information. To
+great genius and capacity, he united the rarest and more important
+gifts of sound judgment and common sense. It is usually the
+misfortune of genius to invest ordinary objects with a meretricious
+colouring, that perverts their forms and purposes, to make its
+possessor imagine that it exempts him from attending to those
+strict rules of moral conduct to which others are bound to adhere,
+and to render him neglectful of the sacred assurance that "to whom
+much is given from him will much be required." Nature, in Kirke
+White's case, appears, on the contrary, to have determined that
+she would, in one instance at least, prove that high intellectual
+attainments are strictly compatible with every social and moral
+virtue. At a very early period of his life, religion became the
+predominant feeling of his mind, and she imparted her sober and
+chastened effects to all his thoughts and actions. The cherished
+object of every member of his family, he repaid their affection by
+the most anxious solicitude for their welfare, offering his advice
+on spiritual affairs with impressive earnestness, and indicating,
+in every letter of his voluminous correspondence, the greatest
+consideration for their feelings and happiness. For the last six
+years he deemed himself marked out for the service of his Maker,
+not like the member of a convent, whose duties consist only in
+prayer, but in the exercise of that philanthropy and practical
+benevolence which ought to adorn every parish priest. To qualify
+himself properly for the holy office, he subjected his mind to the
+severest discipline; and his letters display a rational piety, and
+an enlightened view of religious obligations, that confer much
+greater honour upon his name, than his Poetical pieces, whether as
+proofs of talent, or of the qualities of his heart.
+
+Such was Henry Kirke White as he appeared to others; but there are
+minuter traits of character which no observer can catch, and which
+the possessor must himself delineate. Though early impressed with
+melancholy, it was not of a misanthropic nature; and while despair
+and disappointment were preying on his heart, he was all sweetness
+and docility to others. A consciousness of the possession of
+abilities, and of being capable of better things than those which
+he seemed destined to perform, gives to some of his productions the
+appearance of discontent, and of having overrated his pretensions.
+He was, like many youthful Poets, too fond of complaining of
+fortune, of supposing himself neglected, and of comparing his
+humble lot with those situations for which he believed himself
+qualified; but these were the lucubrations of his earliest years,
+before he found friends to foster his talents. So far, indeed,
+from having reason to lament the indifference of others to his
+merits, his life affords one of the most striking examples in the
+history of genius, that talents when united to moral worth, will be
+rewarded by honours and fame, that obscure birth is no impediment
+to advancement, and that a person of the humblest origin may, by
+his own exertions, become, in the great arena of learning, an
+object of envy even to those of the highest rank. It is due to him,
+whose good sense was so remarkable, to point out the time in his
+career to which the passages in question refer; and to add that his
+correspondence, after he entered the University, expressed nothing
+but satisfaction with his lot, and a desire to justify the kindness
+and expectations of his patrons. Still, Kirke White was unhappy;
+and, since no other cause then existed for his mental wretchedness,
+it must be ascribed to a morbid temperament, induced partly by ill
+health, and partly by constitutional infirmity. The uncertainty of
+his early prospects, and the fear of ridicule if he expressed his
+feelings, rendered him reserved, and made him confine his thoughts
+to his own bosom, for he says,
+
+    "When all was new, and life was in its spring,
+    I lived an unloved solitary thing;
+    E'en then I learn'd to bury deep from day
+    The piercing cares that wore my youth away;"
+
+and in a letter to Mr. Maddock, in September, 1804, he thus spoke
+of himself:
+
+"Perhaps it may be that I am not formed for friendship, that I
+expect more than can ever be found. Time will tutor me; I am a
+singular being under a common outside: I am a profound dissembler
+of my inward feelings, and necessity has taught me the art. I am
+long before I can unbosom to a friend, yet, I think, I am sincere
+in my friendship: you must not attribute this to any suspiciousness
+of nature, but must consider that I lived seventeen years my own
+confidant, my own friend, full of projects and strange thoughts,
+and confiding them to no one. I am habitually reserved, and
+habitually cautious in letting it be seen that I hide any thing."
+
+None knew better than himself that the aspirations and feelings of
+which genius is the parent are often found to be inconsistent with
+felicity:
+
+    "Oh! hear the plaint by thy sad favourite made,
+      His melancholy moan,
+    He tells of scorn, he tells of broken vows,
+      Of sleepless nights, of anguish-ridden days,
+    Pangs that his sensibility uprouse
+      To curse his being and his thirst for praise.
+    Thou gavest to him with treble force to feel
+      The sting of keen neglect, the rich man's scorn;
+    And what o'er all does in his soul preside
+      Predominant, and tempers him to steel,
+       His high indignant pride."
+
+Nor was he unconscious that the toils necessary to secure literary
+distinction, when endured by a shattered frame, are in the highest
+degree severe. How much truth and feeling are there in the Lines
+which he wrote after spending a whole night in study, an hour when
+religious impressions force themselves with irresistible weight on
+the exhausted mind:
+
+    "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
+    Out watch'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 unto 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?"
+
+What a picture of mental suffering does the following passage
+present, and how impressive does it become when the fate of the
+author is remembered:
+
+    "These feverish dews that on my temples hang,
+    This quivering lip, these eyes of dying flame;
+    These, the dread signs of many a secret pang--
+    These are the meed of him who pants for Fame!"
+
+Like so many other ardent students, the night was his favourite
+time for reading; and, dangerous as the habit is to health, what
+student will not agree in his descriptions of the pleasures that
+attend it?
+
+    "The night's my own, they cannot steal my night!
+    When evening lights her folding star on high,
+    I live and breathe; and, in the sacred hours
+    Of quiet and repose, my spirit flies,
+    Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space,
+    And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for heaven."
+
+Kirke White's poetry is popular, because it describes feelings,
+passions, and associations, which all have felt, and with which
+all can sympathize. It is by no means rich in metaphor, nor does
+it evince great powers of imagination; but it is pathetic,
+plaintive, and agreeable; and emanating directly from his own
+heart, it appeals irresistibly to that of his reader. His meaning
+is always clear, and the force and vigour of his expressions are
+remarkable. In estimating his poetical powers, however, it should
+be remembered, that nearly all his Poems were written before he
+was nineteen; and that they are, in truth, but the germs of future
+excellence, and ought not to be criticized as if they were the
+fruits of an intellect on which time and education had bestowed
+their advantages. It is, however, in his prose works, and
+especially in his correspondence, that the versatility of his
+talents, his acquirements, his piety, and his moral excellence
+are most conspicuous.
+
+A question arises with respect to him which, in the history of a
+young Poet, is always interesting, but which Mr. Southey has not
+touched. Abundance of proof exists in his writings of the
+susceptibility of his heart; but it is not stated that he ever
+formed an attachment. In many of his pieces he speaks with
+tenderness of a female whom he calls Fanny; and in one of them,
+from which it appears that she was dead, he expresses his regard
+in no equivocal manner; but there are other grounds for concluding
+that his happiness was affected by disappointed affection. To his
+friend Mr. Maddock, in July, 1804, he observed:
+
+"I shall never, never marry. It cannot, must not be. As to
+affections, mine are already engaged as much as they ever will
+be, and this is one reason why I believe my life will be a life
+of celibacy. I love too ardently to make love innocent, and
+therefore I say farewell to it."
+
+With this passage one of his Sonnets singularly agrees:
+
+    When I sit musing on the chequer'd past
+     (A term much darken'd with untimely woes),
+     My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows
+    The tear, though half disowned; and binding fast
+    Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,
+     I say to her, she robb'd me of my rest,
+     When that was all my wealth. 'T is true my breast
+    Received from her this wearying, lingering smart;
+    Yet, ah! I cannot bid her form depart;
+     Though wrong'd, I love her--yet in anger love,
+     For she was most unworthy. Then I prove
+    Vindictive joy: and on my stern front gleams,
+    Throned in dark clouds, inflexible....
+    The native pride of my much injured heart.
+
+Was the subject of this Sonnet wholly imaginary, or was there some
+unfortunate story which, for sufficient reasons, his biographers
+have suppressed? It is true, that in his letters, written at
+a much later period, he speaks of marriage in a manner not to
+be reconciled with the idea that he was then suffering from
+recollections of that description; but he may, in the interval of
+two years, have partially recovered from his loss.
+
+Kirke White was buried in the Church of All Saints, Cambridge, but
+no monument was erected to him until a liberal minded American,
+Mr. Francis Boott, of Boston, placed a tablet to his memory, with
+a medallion, by Chantrey, with the following inscription, by
+Professor Smyth, one of his numerous friends:
+
+    "Warm'd with fond hope and learning's sacred flame,
+    To Granta's bowers the youthful Poet came;
+    Unconquer'd powers the immortal mind display'd,
+    But worn with anxious thought, the frame decay'd:
+    Pale o'er his lamp, and in his cell retired,
+    The martyr student faded and expired.
+    Oh! genius, taste, and piety sincere,
+    Too early lost 'midst studies too severe!
+    Foremost to mourn, was generous Southey seen,
+    He told the tale, and show'd what White had been,
+    Nor told in vain. For o'er the Atlantic wave
+    A wanderer came, and sought the Poet's grave;
+    On yon low stone he saw his lonely name,
+    And raised this fond memorial to his fame."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+POEMS.
+
+_CLIFTON GROVE._
+
+_DEDICATION._
+
+_To Her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire, the following trifling
+effusions of a very youthful Muse are, by permission, dedicated
+by her Grace's much obliged and grateful Servant,_
+
+_HENRY KIRKE WHITE_
+
+_Nottingham._
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+The following attempts in Verse are laid before the Public with
+extreme diffidence. The Author is very conscious that the juvenile
+efforts of a youth, who has not received the polish of Academical
+discipline, and who has been but sparingly blessed with
+opportunities for the prosecution of scholastic pursuits, must
+necessarily be defective in the accuracy and finished elegance
+which mark the works of the man who has passed his life in the
+retirement of his study, furnishing his mind with images, and at
+the same time attaining the power of disposing those images to
+the best advantage.
+
+The unpremeditated effusions of a Boy, from his thirteenth year,
+employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in
+the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit
+any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the
+vigorous compression of a Horace. Men are not, I believe,
+frequently known to bestow much, labour on their amusements; and
+these poems were, most of them, written merely to beguile a
+leisure hour, or to fill up the languid intervals of studies of a
+severer nature.
+
+[Greek: Pas to oicheios ergon agapao], "Every one loves his own
+work," says Stagyrite; but it was no overweening affection of this
+kind which induced this publication. Had the author relied on his
+own judgment only, these Poems would not, in all probability, ever
+have seen the light.
+
+Perhaps it may be asked of him, what are his motives for this
+publication? He answers--simply these: The facilitation, through
+its means, of those studies which, from his earliest infancy, have
+been the principal objects of his ambition; and the increase of
+the capacity to pursue those inclinations which may one day place
+him in an honourable station in the scale of society.
+
+The principal Poem in this little collection (Clifton Grove) is,
+he fears, deficient in numbers and harmonious coherency of parts.
+It is, however, merely to be regarded as a description of a
+nocturnal ramble in that charming retreat, accompanied with such
+reflections as the scene naturally suggested. It was written
+twelve months ago, when the Author was in his sixteenth year:--The
+Miscellanies are some of them the productions of a very early
+age.--Of the Odes, that "To an early Primrose" was written at
+thirteen--the others are of a later date.--The Sonnets are chiefly
+irregular; they have, perhaps, no other claim to that specific
+denomination, than that they consist only of fourteen lines.
+
+Such are the Poems towards which I entreat the lenity of the
+Public. The Critic will doubtless find in them much to condemn;
+he may likewise possibly discover something to commend. Let him
+scan my faults with an indulgent eye, and in the work of that
+correction which I invite, let him remember he is holding the iron
+Mace of Criticism over the flimsy superstructure of a youth of
+seventeen; and, remembering that, may he forbear from crushing, by
+too much rigour, the painted butterfly whose transient colours may
+otherwise be capable of affording a moment's innocent amusement.
+
+H. K. WHITE.
+
+Nottingham.
+
+
+
+
+MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
+
+
+
+
+CLIFTON GROVE.
+
+A SKETCH.
+
+
+Lo! in the west, fast fades the lingering light,
+And day's last vestige takes its silent flight.
+No more is heard the woodman's measured stroke,
+Which with the dawn from yonder dingle broke;
+No more, hoarse clamouring o'er the uplifted head,
+The crows assembling seek their wind-rock'd bed;
+Still'd is the village hum--the woodland sounds
+Have ceased to echo o'er the dewy grounds,
+And general silence reigns, save when below
+The murmuring Trent is scarcely heard to flow;
+And save when, swung by 'nighted rustic late,
+Oft, on its hinge, rebounds the jarring gate;
+Or when the sheep-bell, in the distant vale,
+Breathes its wild music on the downy gale.
+
+Now, when the rustic wears the social smile,
+Released from day and its attendant toil,
+And draws his household round their evening fire,
+And tells the ofttold tales that never tire;
+Or, where the town's blue turrets dimly rise,
+And manufacture taints the ambient skies,
+The pale mechanic leaves the labouring loom,
+The air-pent hold, the pestilential room,
+And rushes out, impatient to begin
+The stated course of customary sin:
+Now, now my solitary way I bend
+Where solemn groves in awful state impend:
+And cliffs, that boldly rise above the plain,
+Bespeak, bless'd Clifton! thy sublime domain.
+Here lonely wandering o'er the sylvan bower,
+I come to pass the meditative hour;
+To bid awhile the strife of passion cease,
+And woo the calms of solitude and peace.
+And oh! thou sacred Power, who rear'st on high
+Thy leafy throne where wavy poplars sigh!
+Genius of woodland shades! whose mild control
+Steals with resistless witchery to the soul,
+Come with thy wonted ardour, and inspire
+My glowing bosom with thy hallow'd fire.
+And thou, too, Fancy, from thy starry sphere,
+Where to the hymning orbs thou lend'st thine ear,
+Do thou descend, and bless my ravish'd sight,
+Veil'd in soft visions of serene delight.
+At thy command the gale that passes by
+Bears in its whispers mystic harmony.
+Thou wavest thy wand, and lo! what forms appear!
+On the dark cloud what giant shapes career!
+The ghosts of Ossian skim the misty vale,
+And hosts of sylphids on the moonbeams sail.
+This gloomy alcove darkling to the sight,
+Where meeting trees create eternal night;
+Save, when from yonder stream the sunny ray,
+Reflected, gives a dubious gleam of day;
+Recalls, endearing to my alter'd mind,
+Times, when beneath the boxen hedge reclined,
+I watch'd the lapwing to her clamorous brood;
+Or lured the robin to its scatter'd food;
+Or woke with song the woodland echo wild,
+And at each gay response delighted smiled.
+How oft, when childhood threw its golden ray
+Of gay romance o'er every happy day,
+Here, would I run, a visionary boy,
+When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky,
+And, fancy-led, beheld the Almighty's form
+Sternly careering on the eddying storm;
+And heard, while awe congeal'd my inmost soul,
+His voice terrific in the thunders roll.
+With secret joy I view'd with vivid glare
+The vollied lightnings cleave the sullen air;
+And, as the warring winds around reviled,
+With awful pleasure big,--I heard and smiled.
+Beloved remembrance!--Memory which endears
+This silent spot to my advancing years,
+Here dwells eternal peace, eternal rest,
+In shades like these to live is to be bless'd.
+While happiness evades the busy crowd,
+In rural coverts loves the maid to shroud.
+And thou too, Inspiration, whose wild flame
+Shoots with electric swiftness through the frame,
+Thou here dost love to sit with upturn'd eye,
+And listen to the stream that murmurs by,
+The woods that wave, the gray owl's silken flight,
+The mellow music of the listening night.
+Congenial calms more welcome to my breast
+Than maddening joy in dazzling lustre dress'd,
+To Heaven my prayers, my daily prayers I raise,
+That ye may bless my unambitious days,
+Withdrawn, remote, from all the haunts of strife,
+May trace with me the lowly vale of life,
+And when her banner Death shall o'er me wave,
+May keep your peaceful vigils on my grave.
+Now as I rove, where wide the prospect grows,
+A livelier light upon my vision flows.
+No more above the embracing branches meet,
+No more the river gurgles at my feet,
+But seen deep down the cliff's impending side,
+Through hanging woods, now gleams its silver tide.
+Dim is my upland path,--across the green
+Fantastic shadows fling, yet oft between
+The chequer'd glooms the moon her chaste ray sheds,
+Where knots of bluebells droop their graceful heads.
+And beds of violets, blooming 'mid the trees,
+Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze.
+
+Say, why does Man, while to his opening sight
+Each shrub presents a source of chaste delight,
+And Nature bids for him her treasures flow,
+And gives to him alone his bliss to know,
+Why does he pant for Vice's deadly charms?
+Why clasp the syren Pleasure to his arms?
+And suck deep draughts of her voluptuous breath,
+Though fraught with ruin, infamy, and death?
+Could he who thus to vile enjoyment clings
+Know what calm joy from purer sources springs;
+Could he but feel how sweet, how free from strife,
+The harmless pleasures of a harmless life,
+No more his soul would pant for joys impure,
+The deadly chalice would no more allure,
+But the sweet potion he was wont to sip
+Would turn to poison on his conscious lip.
+
+Fair Nature! thee, in all thy varied charms,
+Fain would I clasp for ever in my arms!
+Thine are the sweets which never, never sate,
+Thine still remain through all the storms of fate.
+Though not for me, 't was Heaven's divine command
+To roll in acres of paternal land,
+Yet still my lot is bless'd, while I enjoy
+Thine opening beauties with a lover's eye.
+
+Happy is he, who, though the cup of bliss
+Has ever shunn'd him when he thought to kiss,
+Who, still in abject poverty or pain,
+Can count with pleasure what small joys remain:
+Though were his sight convey'd from zone to zone,
+He would not find one spot of ground his own,
+Yet as he looks around, he cries with glee,
+These bounding prospects all were made for me:
+For me yon waving fields their burden bear,
+For me yon labourer guides the shining share,
+While happy I in idle ease recline,
+And mark the glorious visions as they shine.
+This is the charm, by sages often told,
+Converting all it touches into gold.
+Content can soothe where'er by fortune placed,
+Can rear a garden in the desert waste.
+
+How lovely, from this hill's superior height,
+Spreads the wide view before my straining sight!
+O'er many a varied mile of lengthening ground,
+E'en to the blue-ridged hill's remotest bound,
+My ken is borne; while o'er my head serene
+The silver moon illumes the misty scene:
+Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade,
+In all the soft varieties of shade.
+
+Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies,
+The drowsy god has seal'd the cotter's eyes.
+No more, where late the social faggot blazed,
+The vacant peal resounds, by little raised,
+But locked in silence, o'er Arion's[1] star
+The slumbering Night rolls on her velvet car:
+The church bell tolls, deep sounding down the glade,
+The solemn hour for walking spectres made;
+The simple ploughboy, wakening with the sound,
+Listens aghast, and turns him startled round,
+Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes,
+Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise.
+Now ceased the long, the monitory toll,
+Returning silence stagnates in the soul;
+Save when, disturbed by dreams, with wild affright,
+The deep mouth'd mastiff bays the troubled night:
+Or where the village alehouse crowns the vale,
+The creaking signpost whistles to the gale.
+A little onward let me bend my way,
+Where the moss'd seat invites the traveller's stay.
+That spot, oh! yet it is the very same;
+That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name:
+There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom,
+There yet the violet sheds its first perfume,
+And in the branch that rears above the rest
+The robin unmolested builds its nest.
+'T was here, when hope, presiding o'er my breast,
+In vivid colours every prospect dress'd:
+'T was here, reclining, I indulged her dreams,
+And lost the hour in visionary schemes.
+Here, as I press once more the ancient seat,
+Why, bland deceiver! not renew the cheat!
+Say, can a few short years this change achieve,
+That thy illusions can no more deceive!
+Time's sombrous tints have every view o'erspread,
+And thou too, gay seducer, art thou fled?
+
+Though vain thy promise, and the suit severe,
+Yet thou couldst guile Misfortune of her tear,
+And oft thy smiles across life's gloomy way
+Could throw a gleam of transitory day.
+How gay, in youth, the flattering future seems;
+How sweet is manhood in the infant's dreams;
+The dire mistake too soon is brought to light.
+And all is buried in redoubled night.
+Yet some can rise superior to the pain,
+And in their breasts the charmer Hope retain;
+While others, dead to feeling, can survey,
+Unmoved, their fairest prospects fade away:
+But yet a few there be,--too soon o'ercast!
+Who shrink unhappy from the adverse blast,
+And woo the first bright gleam, which breaks the gloom,
+To gild the silent slumbers of the tomb.
+So in these shades the early primrose blows,
+Too soon deceived by suns and melting snows:
+So falls untimely on the desert waste,
+Its blossoms withering in the northern blast.
+
+Now pass'd whate'er the upland heights display,
+Down the steep cliff I wind my devious way;
+Oft rousing, as the rustling path I beat,
+The timid hare from its accustom'd seat.
+And oh! how sweet this walk o'erhung with wood,
+That winds the margin of the solemn flood!
+What rural objects steal upon the sight!
+What rising views prolong the calm delight!
+
+The brooklet branching from the silver Trent,
+The whispering birch by every zephyr bent,
+The woody island, and the naked mead,
+The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed,
+The rural wicket, and the rural stile,
+And frequent interspersed, the woodman's pile.
+Above, below, where'er I turn my eyes,
+Rocks, waters, woods, in grand succession rise.
+High up the cliff the varied groves ascend,
+And mournful larches o'er the wave impend.
+Around, what sounds, what magic sounds arise,
+What glimmering scenes salute my ravish'd eyes!
+Soft sleep the waters on their pebbly bed,
+The woods wave gently o'er my drooping head.
+And, swelling slow, comes wafted on the wind,
+Lorn Progne's note from distant copse behind.
+Still every rising sound of calm delight
+Stamps but the fearful silence of the night,
+Save when is heard between each dreary rest,
+Discordant from her solitary nest,
+The owl, dull screaming to the wandering moon;
+Now riding, cloud-wrapp'd, near her highest noon:
+Or when the wild duck, southering, hither rides,
+And plunges, sullen in the sounding tides.
+
+How oft, in this sequester'd spot, when youth
+Gave to each tale the holy force of truth,
+Have I long linger'd, while the milkmaid sung
+The tragic legend, till the woodland rung!
+That tale, so sad! which, still to memory dear,
+From its sweet source can call the sacred tear,
+And (lull'd to rest stern Reason's harsh control)
+Steal its soft magic to the passive soul.
+These hallow'd shades,--these trees that woo the wind,
+Recall its faintest features to my mind.
+A hundred passing years, with march sublime,
+Have swept beneath the silent wing of time,
+Since, in yon hamlet's solitary shade,
+Reclusely dwelt the far famed Clifton Maid,
+The beauteous Margaret; for her each swain
+Confess'd in private his peculiar pain,
+In secret sigh'd, a victim to despair,
+Nor dared to hope to win the peerless fair.
+No more the Shepherd on the blooming mead
+Attuned to gaiety his artless reed,
+No more entwined the pansied wreath, to deck
+His favourite wether's unpolluted neck,
+But listless, by yon bubbling stream reclined,
+He mix'd his sobbings with the passing wind,
+Bemoan'd his hapless love; or, boldly bent,
+Far from these smiling fields a rover went,
+O'er distant lands, in search of ease, to roam,
+A self-will'd exile from his native home.
+
+Yet not to all the maid express'd disdain;
+Her Bateman loved, nor loved the youth in vain.
+Full oft, low whispering o'er these arching boughs,
+The echoing vault responded to their vows,
+As here deep hidden from the glare of day,
+Enamour'd oft, they took their secret way.
+
+Yon bosky dingle, still the rustics name;
+'T was there the blushing maid confessed her flame.
+Down yon green lane they oft were seen to hie,
+When evening slumber'd on the western sky.
+That blasted yew, that mouldering walnut bare.
+Each bears mementos of the fated pair.
+
+One eve, when Autumn loaded every breeze
+With the fallen honours of the mourning trees,
+The maiden waited at the accustom'd bower.
+And waited long beyond the appointed hour,
+Yet Bateman came not;--o'er the woodland drear,
+Howling portentous did the winds career;
+And bleak and dismal on the leafless woods
+The fitful rains rush'd down in sullen floods;
+The night was dark; as, now and then, the gale
+Paused for a moment--Margaret listen'd pale;
+But through the covert to her anxious ear
+No rustling footstep spoke her lover near.
+Strange fears now fill'd her breast,--she knew not why,
+She sigh'd, and Bateman's name was in each sigh.
+She hears a noise,--'t is he,--he comes at last,--
+Alas! 't was but the gale which hurried past:
+But now she hears a quickening footstep sound,
+Lightly it comes, and nearer does it bound;
+'T is Bateman's self,--he springs into her arms,
+'T is he that clasps, and chides her vain alarms.
+"Yet why this silence?--I have waited long,
+And the cold storm has yell'd the trees among.
+
+And now thou'rt here my fears are fled--yet speak,
+Why does the salt tear moisten on thy cheek?
+Say, what is wrong?" Now through a parting cloud
+The pale moon peer'd from her tempestuous shroud,
+And Bateman's face was seen; 't was deadly white,
+And sorrow seem'd to sicken in his sight.
+"Oh, speak! my love!" again the maid conjured,
+"Why is thy heart in sullen woe immured?"
+He raised his head, and thrice essay'd to tell,
+Thrice from his lips the unfinished accents fell;
+When thus at last reluctantly he broke
+His boding silence, and the maid bespoke:
+"Grieve not, my love, but ere the morn advance
+I on these fields must cast my parting glance;
+For three long years, by cruel fate's command,
+I go to languish in a foreign land.
+Oh, Margaret! omens dire have met my view,
+Say, when far distant, wilt thou bear me true?
+Should honours tempt thee, and should riches fee,
+Wouldst thou forget thine ardent vows to me,
+And on the silken couch of wealth reclined,
+Banish thy faithful Bateman from thy mind?"
+
+"Oh! why," replies the maid, "my faith thus prove,
+Canst thou! ah, canst thou, then suspect my love?
+Hear me, just God! if from my traitorous heart
+My Bateman's fond remembrance e'er shall part,
+If, when he hail again his native shore,
+He finds his Margaret true to him no more,
+May fiends of hell, and every power of dread,
+Conjoin'd then drag me from my perjured bed,
+And hurl me headlong down these awful steeps,
+To find deserved death in yonder deeps!"[2]
+Thus spake the maid, and from her finger drew
+A golden ring, and broke it quick in two;
+One half she in her lovely bosom hides,
+The other, trembling, to her love confides.
+"This bind the vow," she said, "this mystic charm
+No future recantation can disarm,
+The right vindictive does the fates involve,
+No tears can move it, no regrets dissolve."
+
+She ceased. The death-bird gave a dismal cry,
+The river moan'd, the wild gale whistled by,
+And once again the lady of the night
+Behind a heavy cloud withdrew her light.
+Trembling she view'd these portents with dismay;
+But gently Bateman kiss'd her fears away:
+Yet still he felt conceal'd a secret smart,
+Still melancholy bodings fill'd his heart.
+
+When to the distant land the youth was sped,
+A lonely life the moody maiden led.
+Still would she trace each dear, each well known walk,
+Still by the moonlight to her love would talk,
+And fancy, as she paced among the trees,
+She heard his whispers in the dying breeze.
+
+Thus two years glided on in silent grief;
+The third her bosom own'd the kind relief:
+Absence had cool'd her love--the impoverish'd flame
+Was dwindling fast, when lo! the tempter came;
+He offered wealth, and all the joys of life,
+And the weak maid became another's wife!
+Six guilty months had mark'd the false one's crime,
+When Bateman hail'd once more his native clime.
+Sure of her constancy, elate he came,
+The lovely partner of his soul to claim;
+Light was his heart, as up the well known way
+He bent his steps--and all his thoughts were gay.
+Oh! who can paint his agonizing throes,
+When on his ear the fatal news arose!
+Chill'd with amazement,--senseless with the blow,
+He stood a marble monument of woe;
+Till call'd to all the horrors of despair,
+He smote his brow, and tore his horrent hair;
+Then rush'd impetuous from the dreadful spot,
+And sought those scenes (by memory ne'er forgot),
+Those scenes, the witness of their growing flame,
+And now like witnesses of Margaret's shame.
+'T was night--he sought the river's lonely shore,
+And traced again their former wanderings o'er.
+Now on the bank in silent grief he stood,
+And gazed intently on the stealing flood,
+Death in his mein and madness in his eye,
+He watch'd the waters as they murmur'd by;
+Bade the base murderess triumph o'er his grave--
+Prepared to plunge into the whelming wave.
+
+Yet still he stood irresolutely bent,
+Religion sternly stay'd his rash intent.
+He knelt.--Cool play'd upon his cheek the wind,
+And fann'd the fever of his maddening mind,
+The willows waved, the stream it sweetly swept,
+The paly moonbeam on its surface slept,
+And all was peace;--he felt the general calm
+O'er his rack'd bosom shed a genial balm:
+When casting far behind his streaming eye,
+He saw the Grove,--in fancy saw her lie,
+His Margaret, lull'd in Germain's[3] arms to rest,
+And all the demon rose within his breast.
+Convulsive now, he clench'd his trembling hand,
+Cast his dark eye once more upon the land,
+Then, at one spring he spurn'd the yielding bank,
+And in the calm deceitful current sank.
+
+Sad, on the solitude of night, the sound,
+As in the stream he plunged, was heard around:
+Then all was still--the wave was rough no more,
+The river swept as sweetly as before;
+The willows waved, the moonbeams shone serene,
+And peace returning brooded o'er the scene.
+
+Now, see upon the perjured fair one hang
+Remorse's glooms and never ceasing pang.
+Full well she knew, repentant now too late,
+She soon must bow beneath the stroke of fate.
+But, for the babe she bore beneath her breast,
+The offended God prolong'd her life unbless'd.
+But fast the fleeting moments roll'd away,
+And near and nearer drew the dreaded day;
+That day foredoom'd to give her child the light,
+And hurl its mother to the shades of night.
+The hour arrived, and from the wretched wife
+The guiltless baby struggled into life.--
+As night drew on, around her bed a band
+Of friends and kindred kindly took their stand;
+In holy prayer they pass'd the creeping time,
+Intent to expiate her awful crime.
+Their prayers were fruitless.--As the midnight came
+A heavy sleep oppress'd each weary frame.
+In vain they strove against the o'erwhelming load,
+Some power unseen their drowsy lids bestrode.
+They slept till in the blushing eastern sky
+The blooming Morning oped her dewy eye;
+Then wakening wide they sought the ravish'd bed,
+But lo! the hapless Margaret was fled;
+And never more the weeping train were doom'd
+To view the false one, in the deeps intomb'd.
+
+The neighbouring rustics told that in the night
+They heard such screams as froze them with affright;
+And many an infant, at its mother's breast,
+Started dismay'd, from its unthinking rest.
+And even now, upon the heath forlorn,
+They show the path down which the fair was borne,
+By the fell demons, to the yawning wave,
+Her own, and murder'd lover's, mutual grave.
+
+Such is the tale, so sad, to memory dear,
+Which oft in youth has charm'd my listening ear,
+That tale, which bade me find redoubled sweets
+In the drear silence of these dark retreats;
+And even now, with melancholy power,
+Adds a new pleasure to the lonely hour.
+'Mid all the charms by magic Nature given
+To this wild spot, this sublunary heaven,
+With double joy enthusiast Fancy leans
+On the attendant legend of the scenes.
+This sheds a fairy lustre on the floods,
+And breathes a mellower gloom upon the woods;
+This, as the distant cataract swells around,
+Gives a romantic cadence to the sound;
+This, and the deepening glen, the alley green,
+The silver stream, with sedgy tufts between,
+The massy rock, the wood-encompass'd leas,
+The broom-clad islands, and the nodding trees,
+The lengthening vista, and the present gloom,
+The verdant pathway breathing waste perfume:
+These are thy charms, the joys which these impart
+Bind thee, bless'd Clifton! close around my heart.
+
+Dear Native Grove! where'er my devious track,
+To thee will Memory lead the wanderer back.
+Whether in Arno's polish'd vales I stray,
+Or where "Oswego's" swamps obstruct the day;
+Or wander lone, where, wildering and wide,
+The tumbling torrent laves St. Gothard's side;
+Or by old Tejo's classic margent muse,
+Or stand entranced with Pyrenean views;
+Still, still to thee, where'er my footsteps roam,
+My heart shall point, and lead the wanderer home.
+When Splendour offers, and when Fame incites,
+I'll pause, and think of all thy dear delights,
+Reject the boon, and, wearied with the change,
+Renounce the wish which first induced to range;
+Turn to these scenes, these well known scenes once more,
+Trace once again old Trent's romantic shore,
+And tired with worlds, and all their busy ways,
+Here waste the little remnant of my days.
+But if the Fates should this last wish deny,
+And doom me on some foreign shore to die;
+Oh! should it please the world's supernal King,
+That weltering waves my funeral dirge shall sing;
+Or that my corse should, on some desert strand,
+Lie stretch'd beneath the Simoom's blasting hand;
+Still, though unwept I find a stranger tomb,
+My sprite shall wander through this favourite gloom,
+Ride on the wind that sweeps the leafless grove,
+Sigh on the wood-blast of the dark alcove,
+Sit a lorn spectre on yon well known grave,
+And mix its moanings with the desert wave.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] The constellation Delphinus. For authority for this appelation, see
+Ovid's Fasti, B. xi. 113.
+
+[2] This part of the Trent is commonly called "The Clifton Deeps."
+
+[3] Germain is the traditionary name of her husband.
+
+
+
+
+TIME,
+
+A POEM.[1]
+
+
+Genius of musings, who, the midnight hour
+Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
+Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,
+Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;
+Or when the vollied lightnings cleave the air,
+And Ruin gaunt bestrides the winged storm,
+Sitt'st in some lonely watchtower, where thy lamp,
+Faint blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,
+And, 'mid the howl of elements, unmoved,
+Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace
+The vast effect to its superior source,--
+Spirit, attend my lowly benison!
+For now I strike to themes of import high
+The solitary lyre; and, borne by thee
+Above this narrow cell, I celebrate
+The mysteries of Time!
+
+    Him who, august,
+Was e'er these worlds were fashion'd,--ere the sun
+Sprang from the east, or Lucifer display'd
+His glowing cresset in the arch of morn,
+Or Vesper gilded the serener eve.
+Yea, He had been for an eternity!
+Had swept unvarying from eternity
+The harp of desolation--ere his tones,
+At God's command, assumed a milder strain,
+And startled on his watch, in the vast deep,
+Chaos's sluggish sentry, and evoked
+From the dark void the smiling universe.
+
+Chain'd to the groveling frailties of the flesh,
+Mere mortal man, unpurged from earthly dross,
+Cannot survey, with fix'd and steady eye,
+The dim uncertain gulf, which now the muse,
+Adventurous, would explore; but dizzy grown,
+He topples down the abyss.--If he would scan
+The fearful chasm, and catch a transient glimpse
+Of its unfathomable depths, that so
+His mind may turn with double joy to God,
+His only certainty and resting place;
+He must put off awhile this mortal vest,
+And learn to follow, without giddiness,
+To heights where all is vision, and surprise,
+And vague conjecture.--He must waste by night
+The studious taper, far from all resort
+Of crowds and folly, in some still retreat;
+High on the beetling promontory's crest,
+Or in the caves of the vast wilderness,
+Where, compass'd round with Nature's wildest shapes,
+He may be driven to centre all his thoughts
+In the great Architect, who lives confess'd
+In rocks, and seas, and solitary wastes.
+
+So has divine Philosophy, with voice
+Mild as the murmurs of the moonlight wave,
+Tutor'd the heart of him, who now awakes,
+Touching the chords of solemn minstrelsy,
+His faint, neglected song--intent to snatch
+Some vagrant blossom from the dangerous steep
+Of poesy, a bloom of such a hue,
+So sober, as may not unseemly suit
+With Truth's severer brow; and one withal
+So hardy as shall brave the passing wind
+Of many winters,--rearing its meek head
+In loveliness, when he who gathered it
+Is number'd with the generations gone.
+Yet not to me hath God's good providence
+Given studious leisure,[2] or unbroken thought,
+Such as he owns,--a meditative man;
+Who from the blush of morn to quiet eve
+Ponders, or turns the page of wisdom o'er,
+Far from the busy crowd's tumultuous din:
+From noise and wrangling far, and undisturb'd
+With Mirth's unholy shouts. For me the day
+Hath duties which require the vigorous hand
+Of steadfast application, but which leave
+No deep improving trace upon the mind.
+But be the day another's;--let it pass!
+The night's my own!--They cannot steal my night!
+When evening lights her folding star on high,
+I live and breathe; and in the sacred hours
+Of quiet and repose my spirit flies,
+Free as the morning, o'er the realms of space.
+And mounts the skies, and imps her wing for Heaven.
+
+Hence do I love the sober-suited maid;
+Hence Night's my friend, my mistress, and my theme,
+And she shall aid me now to magnify
+The night of ages,--now when the pale ray
+Of starlight penetrates the studious gloom,
+And, at my window seated, while mankind
+Are lock'd in sleep, I feel the freshening breeze
+Of stillness blow, while, in her saddest stole,
+Thought, like a wakeful vestal at her shrine,
+Assumes her wonted sway.
+
+    Behold the world
+Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused
+From trouble and turmoil. The widow now
+Has ceased to weep, and her twin orphans lie
+Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest.
+The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;
+The outcast that his head is shelterless,
+His griefs unshared.--The mother tends no more
+Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surprised
+With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch,
+Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, lull'd
+On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapp'd,
+Crowning with Hope's bland wreath his shuddering nurse,
+Poor victim! smiles.--Silence and deep repose
+Reign o'er the nations; and the warning voice
+Of Nature utters audibly within
+The general moral:--tells us that repose,
+Deathlike as this, but of far longer span,
+Is coming on us--that the weary crowds,
+Who now enjoy a temporary calm,
+Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapp'd around
+With grave clothes: and their aching restless heads
+Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved,
+Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.
+
+Who needs a teacher to admonish him
+That flesh is grass, that earthly things are mist?
+What are our joys but dreams? and what our hopes
+But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?
+There's not a wind that blows but bears with it
+Some rainbow promise:--Not a moment flies
+But puts its sickle in the fields of life,
+And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares.
+'T is but as yesterday since on yon stars,
+Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd[3] gazed
+In his mid watch observant, and disposed
+The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shape.
+Yet in the interim what mighty shocks
+Have buffeted mankind--whole nations razed--
+Cities made desolate--the polish'd sunk
+To barbarism, and once barbaric states
+Swaying the wand of science and of arts;
+Illustrious deeds and memorable names
+Blotted from record, and upon the tongue
+Of gray Tradition, voluble no more.
+
+Where are the heroes of the ages past?
+Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones
+Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?
+All to the grave gone down. On their fallen fame
+Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,
+Sits grim Forgetfulness.--The warrior's arm
+Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;
+Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd the blaze
+Of his red eyeball.--Yesterday his name
+Was mighty on the earth.--To-day--'t is what?
+The meteor of the night of distant years,
+That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld,
+Musing at midnight upon prophecies,
+Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam
+Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly
+Closed her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up
+Safe in the enamel's treasures.
+
+    Oh how weak
+Is mortal man! how trifling--how confined
+His scope of vision! Puff'd with confidence,
+His phrase grows big with immortality,
+And he, poor insect of a summer's day!
+Dreams of eternal honours to his name;
+Of endless glory and perennial bays.
+He idly reasons of eternity,
+As of the train of ages,--when, alas!
+Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
+Are, in comparison, a little point
+Too trivial for account.--O, it is strange,
+'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies;
+Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,
+Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
+And smile, and say, My name shall live with this
+Till time shall be no more; while at his feet,
+Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
+Of the fallen fabric of the other day
+Preaches the solemn lesson.--He should know
+That time must conquer; that the loudest blast
+That ever fill'd Renown's obstreperous trump
+Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
+Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom
+Of the gigantic pyramid? or who
+Rear'd its huge walls? Oblivion laughs, and says,
+The prey is mine.--They sleep, and never more
+Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,
+Their memory burst its fetters.
+
+    Where is Rome?
+She lives but in the tale of other times;
+Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home,
+And her long colonnades, her public walks,
+Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,
+Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,
+Through the rank moss reveal'd, her honour'd dust.
+But not to Rome alone has fate confined
+The doom of ruin; cities numberless,
+Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,
+And rich Phoenicia--they are blotted out,
+Half razed from memory, and their very name
+And being in dispute.--Has Athens fallen?
+Is polish'd Greece become the savage seat
+Of ignorance and sloth? and shall we dare
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+And empire seeks another hemisphere.
+Where now is Britain?--Where her laurel'd names.
+Her palaces and halls? Dash'd in the dust.
+Some second Vandal hath reduced her pride,
+And with one big recoil hath thrown her back
+To primitive barbarity.----Again,
+Through her depopulated vales, the scream
+Of bloody Superstition hollow rings,
+And the scared native to the tempest howls
+The yell of deprecation. O'er her marts,
+Her crowded ports, broods Silence; and the cry
+Of the low curlew, and the pensive dash
+Of distant billows, breaks alone the void;
+Even as the savage sits upon the stone
+That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
+The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
+From the dismaying solitude.--Her bards
+Sing in a language that hath perished;
+And their wild harps suspended o'er their graves,
+Sigh to the desert winds a dying strain.
+
+Meanwhile the Arts, in second infancy,
+Rise in some distant clime, and then, perchance,
+Some bold adventurer, fill'd with golden dreams,
+Steering his bark through trackless solitudes,
+Where, to his wandering thoughts, no daring prow
+Hath ever ploughed before,--espies the cliffs
+Of fallen Albion.--To the land unknown
+He journeys joyful; and perhaps descries
+Some vestige of her ancient stateliness:
+Then he, with vain conjecture, fills his mind
+Of the unheard-of race, which had arrived
+At science in that solitary nook,
+Far from the civil world; and sagely sighs,
+And moralizes on the state of man.
+
+Still on its march, unnoticed and unfelt,
+Moves on our being. We do live and breathe,
+And we are gone. The spoiler heeds us not.
+We have our springtime and our rottenness;
+And as we fall, another race succeeds,
+To perish likewise.--Meanwhile Nature smiles--
+The seasons run their round--The Sun fulfils
+His annual course--and heaven and earth remain
+Still changing, yet unchanged--still doom'd to feel
+Endless mutation in perpetual rest.
+Where are conceal'd the days which have elapsed?
+Hid in the mighty cavern of the past,
+They rise upon us only to appall,
+By indistinct and half-glimpsed images,
+Misty, gigantic, huge, obscure, remote.
+
+Oh, it is fearful, on the midnight couch,
+When the rude rushing winds forget to rave,
+And the pale moon, that through the casement high
+Surveys the sleepless muser, stamps the hour
+Of utter silence, it is fearful then
+To steer the mind, in deadly solitude.
+Up the vague stream of probability;
+To wind the mighty secrets of the past,
+And turn the key of time!--Oh! who can strive
+To comprehend the vast, the awful truth,
+Of the eternity that hath gone by,
+And not recoil from the dismaying sense
+Of human impotence? The life of man
+Is summ'd in birthdays and in sepulchres;
+But the Eternal God had no beginning;
+He hath no end. Time had been with him
+For everlasting, ere the dredal world
+Rose from the gulf in loveliness.--Like him
+It knew no source, like him, 't was uncreate.
+What is it then? The past Eternity!
+We comprehend a future without end;
+We feel it possible that even yon sun
+May roll for ever: but we shrink amazed--
+We stand aghast, when we reflect that time
+Knew no commencement.--That heap age on age,
+And million upon million, without end,
+And we shall never span the void of days
+That were and are not but in retrospect.
+The Past is an unfathomable depth,
+Beyond the span of thought; 'tis an elapse
+Which hath no mensuration, but hath been
+For ever and for ever.
+
+    Change of days
+To us is sensible; and each revolve
+Of the recording sun conducts us on
+Further in life, and nearer to our goal.
+Not so with Time,--mysterious chronicler,
+He knoweth not mutation;--centuries
+Are to his being as a day, and days
+As centuries.--Time past, and Time to come,
+Are always equal; when the world began
+God had existed from eternity.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+    Now look on man
+Myriads of ages hence.--Hath time elapsed?
+Is he not standing in the selfsame place
+Where once we stood?--The same eternity
+Hath gone before him, and is yet to come;
+His past is not of longer span than ours,
+Though myriads of ages intervened;
+For who can add to what has neither sum,
+Nor bound, nor source, nor estimate, nor end?
+Oh, who can compass the Almighty mind?
+Who can unlock the secrets of the high?
+In speculations of an altitude
+Sublime as this, our reason stands confess'd
+Foolish, and insignificant, and mean.
+Who can apply the futile argument
+Of finite beings to infinity?
+
+He might as well compress the universe
+Into the hollow compass of a gourd,
+Scoop'd out by human art; or bid the whale
+Drink up the sea it swims in!--Can the less
+Contain the greater? or the dark obscure
+Infold the glories of meridian day?
+What does philosophy impart to man
+But undiscovered wonders?--Let her soar
+Even to her proudest heights--to where she caught
+The soul of Newton and of Socrates,
+She but extends the scope of wild amaze
+And admiration. All her lessons end
+In wider views of God's unfathom'd depths.
+
+Lo! the unletter'd hind, who never knew
+To raise his mind excursive to the heights
+Of abstract contemplation, as he sits
+On the green hillock by the hedge-row side,
+What time the insect swarms are murmuring,
+And marks, in silent thought, the broken clouds
+That fringe with loveliest hues the evening sky,
+Feels in his soul the hand of Nature rouse
+The thrill of gratitude, to him who form'd
+The goodly prospect; he beholds the God
+Throned in the west, and his reposing ear
+Hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze
+That floats through neighbouring copse or fairy brake,
+Or lingers playful on the haunted stream.
+Go with the cotter to his winter fire,
+Where o'er the moors the loud blast whistles shrill,
+And the hoarse ban-dog bays the icy moon;
+Mark with what awe he lists the wild uproar.
+Silent, and big with thought; and hear him bless
+The God that rides on the tempestuous clouds,
+For his snug hearth, and all his little joys:
+Hear him compare his happier lot with his
+Who bends his way across the wintry wolds,
+A poor night traveller, while the dismal snow
+Beats in his face, and, dubious of his path,
+He stops, and thinks, in every lengthening blast,
+He hears some village mastiff's distant howl,
+And sees, far streaming, some lone cottage light;
+Then, undeceived, upturns his streaming eyes,
+And clasps his shivering hands; or overpowered,
+Sinks on the frozen ground, weigh'd down with sleep,
+From which the hapless wretch shall never wake.
+Thus the poor rustic warms his heart with praise
+And glowing gratitude,--he turns to bless,
+With honest warmth, his Maker and his God!
+And shall it e'er be said, that a poor hind,
+Nursed in the lap of Ignorance, and bred
+In want and labour, glows with nobler zeal
+To laud his Maker's attributes, while he
+Whom starry Science in her cradle rock'd,
+And Castaly enchasten'd with his dews,
+Closes his eyes upon the holy word,
+And, blind to all but arrogance and pride,
+Dares to declare his infidelity,
+And openly contemn the Lord of Hosts?
+What is philosophy, if it impart
+Irreverence for the Deity, or teach
+A mortal man to set his judgment up
+Against his Maker's will? The Polygar,
+Who kneels to sun or moon, compared with him
+Who thus perverts the talents he enjoys,
+Is the most bless'd of men! Oh! I would walk
+A weary journey, to the furthest verge
+Of the big world, to kiss that good man's hand,
+Who, in the blaze of wisdom and of art,
+Preserves a lowly mind; and to his God,
+Feeling the sense of his own littleness,
+Is as a child in meek simplicity!
+What is the pomp of learning? the parade
+Of letters and of tongues? e'en as the mists
+Of the gray morn before the rising sun,
+That pass away and perish.
+
+    Earthly things
+Are but the transient pageants of an hour;
+And earthly pride is like the passing flower,
+That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die.
+'T is as the tower erected on a cloud,
+Baseless and silly as the schoolboy's dream.
+Ages and epochs that destroy our pride,
+And then record its downfall, what are they
+But the poor creatures of man's teeming brain?
+Hath Heaven its ages? or doth Heaven preserve
+Its stated eras? Doth the Omnipotent
+Hear of to-morrows or of yesterdays?
+There is to God nor future nor a past;
+Throned in his might, all times to him are present;
+He hath no lapse, no past, no time to come;
+He sees before him one eternal now.
+Time moveth not!--our being 't is that moves;
+And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream,
+Dream of swift ages and revolving years,
+Ordain'd to chronicle our passing days:
+So the young sailor in the gallant bark,
+Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast
+Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while,
+Struck with amaze, that he is motionless,
+And that the land is sailing.
+
+    Such, alas!
+Are the illusions of this proteus life!
+All, all is false: through every phasis still
+'T is shadowy and deceitful. It assumes
+The semblances of things and specious shapes;
+But the lost traveller might as soon rely
+On the evasive spirit of the marsh,
+Whose lantern beams, and vanishes, and flits,
+O'er bog, and rock, and pit, and hollow way,
+As we on its appearances.
+
+    On earth
+There is no certainty nor stable hope.
+As well the weary mariner, whose bark
+Is toss'd beyond Cimmerian Bosphorus,
+Where storm and darkness hold their drear domain,
+And sunbeams never penetrate, might trust
+To expectation of serener skies,
+And linger in the very jaws of death,
+Because some peevish cloud were opening,
+Or the loud storm had bated in its rage;
+As we look forward in this vale of tears
+To permanent delight--from some slight glimpse
+Of shadowy, unsubstantial happiness.
+
+The good man's hope is laid far, far beyond
+The sway of tempests, or the furious sweep
+Of mortal desolation.--He beholds
+Unapprehensive, the gigantic stride
+Of rampant Ruin, or the unstable waves
+Of dark Vicissitude.--Even in death,--
+In that dread hour, when, with a giant pang,
+Tearing the tender fibres of the heart,
+The immortal spirit struggles to be free,
+Then, even then, that hope forsakes him not,
+For it exists beyond the narrow verge
+Of the cold sepulchre. The petty joys
+Of fleeting life indignantly it spurn'd,
+And rested on the bosom of its God.
+This is man's only reasonable hope;
+And 't is a hope which, cherish'd in the breast,
+Shall not be disappointed. Even he,
+The Holy One--Almighty--who elanced
+The rolling world along its airy way,
+Even He will deign to smile upon the good,
+And welcome him to these celestial seats,
+Where joy and gladness hold their changeless reign.
+
+Thou, proud man, look upon yon starry vault,
+Survey the countless gems which richly stud
+The night's imperial chariot;--Telescopes
+Will show thee myriads more innumerous
+Than the sea sand;--each of those little lamps
+Is the great source of light, the central sun
+Round which some other mighty sisterhood
+Of planets travel, every planet stock'd
+With Hying beings impotent as thee.
+Now, proud man! now, where is thy greatness fled?
+What art thou in the scale of universe?
+Less, less than nothing!--Yet of thee the God
+Who built this wondrous frame of worlds is careful,
+As well as of the mendicant who begs
+The leavings of thy table. And shalt thou
+Lift up thy thankless spirit, and contemn
+His heavenly providence! Deluded fool,
+Even now the thunderbolt is wing'd with death,
+Even now thou totterest on the brink of hell.
+
+How insignificant is mortal man,
+Bound to the hasty pinions of an hour!
+How poor, how trivial in the vast conceit
+Of infinite duration, boundless space!
+God of the universe! Almighty One!
+Thou who dost walk upon the winged winds,
+Or with the storm, thy rugged charioteer,
+Swift and impetuous as the northern blast,
+Ridest from pole to pole; Thou who dost hold
+The forked lightnings in thine awful grasp,
+And reignest in the earthquake, when thy wrath
+Goes down towards erring man, I would address
+To thee my parting paean; for of Thee,
+Great beyond comprehension, who thyself
+Art Time and Space, sublime Infinitude,
+Of Thee has been my song!--With awe I kneel
+Trembling before the footstool of thy state,
+My God!--my Father!--I will sing to thee
+A hymn of laud, a solemn canticle,
+Ere on the cypress wreath, which overshades
+The throne of Death, I hang my mournful lyre,
+And give its wild strings to the desert gale.
+Rise, Son of Salem! rise, and join the strain,
+Sweep to accordant tones thy tuneful harp,
+And, leaving vain laments, arouse thy soul
+To exultation. Sing hosanna, sing,
+And halleluiah, for the Lord is great,
+And full of mercy! He has thought of man;
+Yea, compass'd round with countless worlds, has thought
+Of us poor worms, that batten in the dews
+Of morn, and perish ere the noonday sun.
+Sing to the Lord, for he is merciful:
+He gave the Nubian lion but to live,
+To rage its hour, and perish; but on man
+He lavish'd immortality and Heaven.
+The eagle falls from her aerial tower,
+And mingles with irrevocable dust:
+But man from death springs joyful,
+Springs up to life and to eternity.
+Oh, that, insensate of the favouring boon,
+The great exclusive privilege bestow'd
+On us unworthy trifles, men should dare
+To treat with slight regard the proffer'd Heaven,
+And urge the lenient, but All-Just, to swear
+In wrath, "They shall not enter in my rest."
+Might I address the supplicative strain
+To thy high footstool, I would pray that thou
+Wouldst pity the deluded wanderers,
+And fold them, ere they perish, in thy flock.
+Yea, I would bid thee pity them, through Him,
+Thy well beloved, who, upon the cross,
+Bled a dread sacrifice for human sin,
+And paid, with bitter agony, the debt
+Of primitive transgression.
+
+    Oh! I shrink,
+My very soul doth shrink, when I reflect
+That the time hastens, when, in vengeance clothed,
+Thou shalt come down to stamp the seal of fate
+On erring mortal man. Thy chariot wheels
+Then shall rebound to earth's remotest caves,
+And stormy Ocean from his bed shall start
+At the appalling summons. Oh I how dread,
+On the dark eye of miserable man,
+Chasing his sins in secrecy and gloom,
+Will burst the effulgence of the opening Heaven;
+When to the brazen trumpet's deafening roar
+Thou and thy dazzling cohorts shall descend,
+Proclaiming the fulfilment of the word!
+The dead shall start astonish'd from their sleep!
+The sepulchres shall groan and yield their prey,
+The bellowing floods shall disembogue their charge
+Of human victims. From the farthest nook
+Of the wide world shall troop the risen souls,
+From him whose bones are bleaching in the waste
+Of polar solitudes, or him whose corpse,
+Whelm'd in the loud Atlantic's vexed tides,
+Is wash'd on some Caribbean prominence,
+To the lone tenant of some secret cell
+In the Pacific's vast ... realm,
+Where never plummet's sound was heard to part
+The wilderness of water; they shall come
+To greet the solemn advent of the Judge.
+
+Thou first shalt summon the elected saints
+To their apportion'd Heaven! and thy Son,
+At thy right hand, shall smile with conscious joy
+On all his past distresses, when for them
+He bore humanity's severest pangs.
+Then shalt thou seize the avenging scimitar,
+And, with a roar as loud and horrible
+As the stern earthquake's monitory voice,
+The wicked shall be driven to their abode,
+Down the immitigable gulf, to wail
+And gnash their teeth in endless agony.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Rear thou aloft thy standard.--Spirit, rear
+Thy flag on high!--Invincible, and throned
+In unparticipated might. Behold
+Earth's proudest boasts, beneath thy silent sway,
+Sweep headlong to destruction, thou the while,
+Unmoved and heedless, thou dost hear the rush
+Of mighty generations, as they pass
+To the broad gulf of ruin, and dost stamp
+Thy signet on them, and they rise no more.
+Who shall contend with Time--unvanquish'd Time,
+The conqueror of conquerors, and lord
+Of desolation?--Lo! the shadows fly,
+The hours and days, and years and centuries,
+They fly, they fly, and nations rise and fall,
+The young are old, the old are in their graves.
+Heard'st thou that shout? It rent the vaulted skies;
+It was the voice of people,--mighty crowds,--
+Again! 't is hushed--Time speaks, and all is hush'd;
+In the vast multitude now reigns alone
+Unruffled solitude. They all are still;
+All--yea, the whole--the incalculable mass,
+Still as the ground that clasps their cold remains.
+
+Rear thou aloft thy standard.--Spirit, rear
+Thy flag on high, and glory in thy strength.
+But do thou know the season yet shall come,
+When from its base thine adamantine throne
+Shall tumble; when thine arm shall cease to strike,
+Thy voice forget its petrifying power;
+When saints shall shout, and Time shall be no more.
+Yea, he doth come--the mighty champion comes,
+Whose potent spear shall give thee thy death wound,
+Shall crush the conqueror of conquerors,
+And desolate stern Desolation's lord.
+Lo! where he cometh! the Messiah comes!
+The King! the Comforter! the Christ!--He comes
+To burst the bonds of Death, and overturn
+The power of Time.--Hark! the trumpet's blast
+Rings o'er the heavens! They rise, the myriads rise--
+Even from their graves they spring, and burst the chains
+Of torpor,--He has ransom'd them,...
+
+Forgotten generations live again,
+Assume the bodily shapes they own'd of old,
+Beyond the flood:--the righteous of their times
+Embrace and weep, they weep the tears of joy.
+The sainted mother wakes, and in her lap
+Clasps her dear babe, the partner of her grave,
+And heritor with her of Heaven,--a flower,
+Wash'd by the blood of Jesus from the stain
+Of native guilt, even in its early bud.
+And, hark! those strains, how solemnly serene
+They fall, as from the skies--at distance fall--
+Again more loud--the halleluiahs swell;
+The newly risen catch the joyful sound;
+They glow, they burn; and now with one accord
+Bursts forth sublime from every mouth the song
+Of praise to God on high, and to the Lamb
+Who bled for mortals.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Yet there is peace for man.--Yea, there is peace
+Even in this noisy, this unsettled scene;
+When from the crowd, and from the city far,
+Haply he may be set (in his late walk
+O'ertaken with deep thought) beneath the boughs
+Of honeysuckle, when the sun is gone,
+And with fix'd eye, and wistful, he surveys
+The solemn shadows of the Heavens sail,
+And thinks the season yet shall come, when Time
+Will waft him to repose, to deep repose,
+Far from the unquietness of life--from noise
+And tumult far--beyond the flying clouds,
+Beyond the stars, and all this passing scene,
+Where change shall cease, and Time shall be no more.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+Footnotes:
+
+
+[1] This Poem was begun either during the publication of Clifton Grove, or
+shortly afterwards, but never completed: some of the detached parts were
+among his latest productions.
+
+[2] The Author was then in an attorney's office.
+
+[3] Alluding to the first astronomical observations made by the Chaldean
+shepherds.
+
+
+
+
+CHILDHOOD.[1]
+
+A POEM.
+
+
+PART I.
+
+Pictured in memory's mellowing glass, how sweet
+Our infant days, our infant joys, to greet;
+To roam in fancy in each cherish'd scene,
+The village churchyard, and the village green,
+The woodland walk remote, the greenwood glade,
+The mossy seat beneath the hawthorn shade,
+The whitewashed cottage, where the woodbine grew,
+And all the favourite haunts our childhood knew!
+How sweet, while all the evil shuns the gaze,
+To view the unclouded skies of former days!
+
+Beloved age of innocence and smiles,
+When each wing'd hour some new delight beguiles.
+When the gay heart, to life's sweet dayspring true,
+Still finds some insect pleasure to pursue.
+Bless'd Childhood, hail!--Thee simply will I sing,
+And from myself the artless picture bring;
+These long-lost scenes to me the past restore,
+Each humble friend, each pleasure now no more,
+And every stump familiar to my sight
+Recalls some fond idea of delight.
+
+This shrubby knoll was once my favourite seat;
+Here did I love at evening to retreat,
+And muse alone, till in the vault of night,
+Hesper, aspiring, show'd his golden light.
+Here once again, remote from human noise,
+I sit me down to think of former joys;
+Pause on each scene, each treasured scene, once more,
+And once again each infant walk explore,
+While as each grove and lawn I recognize,
+My melted soul suffuses in my eyes.
+
+And oh! thou Power, whose myriad trains resort
+To distant scenes, and picture, them to thought;
+Whose mirror, held unto the mourner's eye,
+Flings to his soul a borrow'd gleam of joy;
+Bless'd Memory, guide, with finger nicely true,
+Back to my youth my retrospective view;
+Recall with faithful vigour to my mind
+Each face familiar, each relation kind;
+And all the finer traits of them afford,
+Whose general outline in my heart is stored.
+
+In yonder cot, along whose mouldering walls
+In many a fold the mantling woodbine falls,
+The village matron kept her little school,
+Gentle of heart, yet knowing well to rule;
+Staid was the dame, and modest was her mien;
+Her garb was coarse, yet whole, and nicely clean;
+Her neatly border'd cap, as lily fair,
+Beneath her chin was pinn'd with decent care;
+And pendent ruffles, of the whitest lawn,
+Of ancient make, her elbows did adorn.
+Faint with old age, and dim were grown her eyes,
+A pair of spectacles their want supplies;
+These does she guard secure, in leathern case,
+From thoughtless wights, in some unweeted place.
+
+Here first I enter'd, though with toil and pain,
+The low vestibule of learning's fane;
+Enter'd with pain, yet soon I found the way,
+Though sometimes toilsome, many a sweet display.
+Much did I grieve on that ill fated morn
+When I was first to school reluctant borne;
+Severe I thought the dame, though oft she tried
+To soothe my swelling spirits when I sigh'd;
+And oft, when harshly she reproved, I wept,
+To my lone corner broken-hearted crept,
+And thought of tender home, where anger never kept.
+
+But soon inured to alphabetic toils,
+Alert I met the dame with jocund smiles;
+First at the form, my task for ever true,
+A little favourite rapidly I grew:
+And oft she stroked my head with fond delight,
+Held me a pattern to the dunce's sight;
+And as she gave my diligence its praise,
+Talk'd of the honours of my future days.
+
+Oh! had the venerable matron thought
+Of all the ills by talent often brought;
+Could she have seen me when revolving years
+Had brought me deeper in the vale of tears,
+Then had she wept, and wish'd my wayward fate
+Had been a lowlier, an unlettered state;
+Wish'd that, remote from worldly woes and strife,
+Unknown, unheard, I might have pass'd through life.
+
+Where in the busy scene, by peace unbless'd,
+Shall the poor wanderer find a place of rest?
+A lonely mariner on the stormy main,
+Without a hope the calms of peace to gain;
+Long toss'd by tempests o'er the world's wide shore,
+When shall his spirit rest to toil no more?
+Not till the light foam of the sea shall lave
+The sandy surface of his unwept grave.
+Childhood, to thee I turn, from life's alarms,
+Serenest season of perpetual calms,--
+Turn with delight, and bid the passions cease,--
+And joy to think with thee I tasted peace.
+Sweet reign of innocence, when no crime defiles,
+But each new object brings attendant smiles;
+When future evils never haunt the sight,
+But all is pregnant with unmix'd delight;
+To thee I turn from riot and from noise,
+Turn to partake of more congenial joys.
+
+'Neath yonder elm, that stands upon the moor,
+When the clock spoke the hour of labour o'er,
+What clamorous throngs, what happy groups were
+In various postures scattering o'er the green!
+Some shoot the marble, others join the chase seen,
+Of self-made stag, or run the emulous race;
+While others, seated on the dappled grass,
+With doleful tales the light-wing'd minutes pass.
+Well I remember how, with gesture starch'd,
+A band of soldiers oft with pride we march'd;
+For banners to a tall ash we did bind
+Our handkerchiefs, flapping to the whistling wind;
+And for our warlike arms we sought the mead,
+And guns and spears we made of brittle reed;
+Then, in uncouth array, our feats to crown,
+We storm'd some ruin'd pigsty for a town.
+
+Pleased with our gay disports, the dame was wont
+To set her wheel before the cottage front,
+And o'er her spectacles would often peer,
+To view our gambols, and our boyish gear.
+Still as she look'd, her wheel kept turning round,
+With its beloved monotony of sound.
+When tired with play, we'd set us by her side
+(For out of school she never knew to chide),
+And wonder at her skill--well known to fame--
+For who could match in spinning with the dame?
+Her sheets, her linen, which she show'd with pride
+To strangers, still her thriftness testified;
+Though we poor wights did wonder much, in troth,
+How't was her spinning manufactured cloth.
+
+Oft would we leave, though well beloved, our play
+To chat at home the vacant hour away.
+Many's the time I' we scamper'd in the glade,
+To ask the promised ditty from the maid,
+Which well she loved, as well she knew to sing,
+While we around her form'd a little ring:
+She told of innocence foredoom'd to bleed,
+Of wicked guardians bent on bloody deed,
+Or little children murder'd as they slept;
+While at each pause we wrung our hands and wept.
+Sad was such tale, and wonder much did we
+Such hearts of stone there in the world could be.
+Poor simple wights, ah! little did we ween
+The ills that wait on man in life's sad scene!
+Ah, little thought that we ourselves should know
+This world's a world of weeping and of woe!
+
+Beloved moment! then 'twas first I caught
+The first foundation of romantic thought!
+Then first I shed bold Fancy's thrilling tear,
+Then first that poesy charm'd mine infant ear.
+Soon stored with much of legendary lore,
+The sports of childhood charm'd my soul no more.
+Far from the scene of gaiety and noise,
+Far, far from turbulent and empty joys,
+I hied me to the thick overarching shade,
+And there, on mossy carpet, listless laid,
+While at my feet the rippling runnel ran,
+The days of wild romance antique I'd scan;
+Soar on the wings of fancy through the air,
+To realms of light, and pierce the radiance there.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+PART II.
+
+There are who think that Childhood does not share
+With age the cup, the bitter cup, of care:
+Alas! they know not this unhappy truth,
+That every age, and rank, is born to ruth.
+
+From the first dawn of reason in the mind,
+Man is foredoomed the thorns of grief to find;
+At every step has farther cause to know
+The draught of pleasure still is dash'd with woe.
+
+Yet in the youthful breast, for ever caught
+With some new object for romantic thought,
+The impression of the moment quickly flies,
+And with the morrow every sorrow dies.
+
+How different manhood!--then does Thought's control
+Sink every pang still deeper in the soul;
+Then keen Affliction's sad unceasing smart
+Becomes a painful resident in the heart;
+And care, whom not the gayest can outbrave,
+Pursues its feeble victim to the grave.
+Then, as each long known friend is summon'd hence,
+We feel a void no joy can recompense,
+And as we weep o'er every new-made tomb,
+Wish that ourselves the next may meet our doom.
+
+Yes, Childhood, thee no rankling woes pursue,
+No forms of future ill salute thy view,
+No pangs repentant bid thee wake to weep,
+But halcyon peace protects thy downy sleep,
+And sanguine Hope, through every storm of life,
+Shoots her bright beams, and calms the internal strife.
+Yet e'en round childhood's heart, a thoughtless shrine,
+Affection's little thread will ever twine;
+And though but frail may seem each tender tie,
+The soul foregoes them but with many a sigh.
+Thus, when the long expected moment came,
+When forced to leave the gentle-hearted dame,
+Reluctant throbbings rose within my breast,
+And a still tear my silent grief express'd.
+
+When to the public school compelled to go,
+What novel scenes did on my senses flow?
+There in each breast each active power dilates,
+Which 'broils whole nations, and convulses states;
+Their reigns, by turns alternate, love and hate,
+Ambition burns, and factious rebels prate;
+And in a smaller range, a smaller sphere,
+The dark deformities of man appear.
+Yet there the gentler virtues kindred claim,
+There Friendship lights her pure untainted flame,
+There mild Benevolence delights to dwell,
+And sweet Contentment rests without her cell;
+And there, 'mid many a stormy soul, we find
+The good of heart, the intelligent of mind.
+
+'T was there, O George! with thee I learn'd to join
+In Friendship's bands--in amity divine.
+Oh, mournful though!--Where is thy spirit now?
+As here I sit on favorite Logar's brow,
+And trace below each well remember'd glade,
+Where arm in arm, erewhile with thee I stray'd.
+Where art thou laid--on what untrodden shore,
+Where nought is heard save ocean's sullen roar?
+Dost thou in lowly, unlamented state,
+At last repose from all the storms of fate?
+Methinks I see thee struggling with the wave,
+Without one aiding hand stretch'd out to save;
+See thee convulsed, thy looks to heaven bend,
+And send thy parting sigh unto thy friend:
+Or where immeasurable wilds dismay,
+Forlorn and sad thou bend'st thy weary way,
+While sorrow and disease, with anguish rife,
+Consume apace the ebbing springs of life.
+Again I see his door against thee shut,
+The unfeeling native turn thee from his hut;
+I see thee, spent with toil and worn with grief,
+Sit on the grass, and wish the long'd relief;
+Then lie thee down, the stormy struggle o'er,
+Think on thy native land--and rise no more!
+
+Oh! that thou couldst, from thine august abode,
+Survey thy friend in life's dismaying road,
+That thou couldst see him, at this moment here,
+Embalm thy memory with a pious tear,
+And hover o'er him as he gazes round,
+Where all the scenes of infant joys surround.
+
+Yes! yes! his spirit's near!--The whispering breeze
+Conveys his voice sad sighing on the trees;
+And lo! his form transparent I perceive,
+Borne on the gray mist of the sullen eve:
+He hovers near, clad in the night's dim robe,
+While deathly silence reigns upon the globe.
+
+Yet ah! whence comes this visionary scene?
+'T is Fancy's wild aerial dream I ween:
+By her inspired, when reason takes its flight,
+What fond illusions beam upon the sight!
+She waves her hand, and lo! what forms appear!
+What magic sounds salute the wondering ear!
+Once more o'er distant regions do we tread,
+And the cold grave yields up its cherish'd dead;
+While, present sorrows banish'd far away,
+Unclouded azure gilds the placid day,
+Or, in the future's cloud-encircled face,
+Fair scenes of bliss to come we fondly trace,
+And draw minutely every little wile,
+Which shall the feathery hours of time beguile.
+
+So when forlorn, and lonesome at her gate,
+The Royal Mary solitary sate,
+And view'd the moonbeam trembling on the wave,
+And heard the hollow surge her prison lave,
+Towards France's distant coast she bent her sight,
+For there her soul had wing'd its longing flight;
+There did she form full many a scheme of joy,
+Visions of bliss unclouded with alloy,
+Which bright thro' Hope's deceitful optics beam'd,
+And all became the surety which it seem'd;
+She wept, yet felt, while all within was calm,
+In every tear a melancholy charm.
+
+To yonder hill, whose sides, deform'd and steep,
+Just yield a scanty sustenance to the sheep,
+With thee, my friend, I oftentimes have sped,
+To see the sun rise from his healthy bed;
+To watch the aspect of the summer morn,
+Smiling upon the golden fields of corn,
+And taste, delighted, of superior joys,
+Beheld through sympathy's enchanted eyes:
+With silent admiration oft we view'd
+The myriad hues o'er heaven's blue concave strew'd;
+The fleecy clouds, of every tint and shade,
+Round which the silvery sunbeam glancing play'd,
+And the round orb itself, in azure throne,
+Just peeping o'er the blue hill's ridgy zone;
+We mark'd delighted, how with aspect gay,
+Reviving Nature hail'd returning day;
+Mark'd how the flowerets rear'd their drooping heads,
+And the wild lambkins bounded o'er the meads,
+While from each tree, in tones of sweet delight,
+The birds sung pasans to the source of light:
+Oft have we watch'd the speckled lark arise,
+Leave his grass bed, and soar to kindred skies,
+And rise, and rise, till the pain'd sight no more
+Could trace him in his high aerial tour;
+Though on the ear, at intervals, his song
+Came wafted slow the wavy breeze along;
+And we have thought how happy were our lot,
+Bless'd with some sweet, some solitary cot,
+Where, from the peep of day, till russet eve
+Began in every dell her forms to weave,
+We might pursue our sports from day to day,
+And in each other's arms wear life away.
+
+At sultry noon too, when our toils were done,
+We to the gloomy glen were wont to run;
+There on the turf we lay, while at our feet
+The cooling rivulet rippled softly sweet;
+And mused on holy theme, and ancient lore,
+Of deeds, and days, and heroes now no more;
+Heard, as his solemn harp Isaiah swept,
+Sung woe unto the wicked land--and wept;
+Or, fancy-led, saw Jeremiah mourn
+In solemn sorrow o'er Judea's urn.
+Then to another shore perhaps would rove,
+With Plato talk in his Ilyssian grove;
+Or, wandering where the Thespian palace rose,
+Weep once again o'er fair Jocasta's woes.
+
+Sweet then to us was that romantic band,
+The ancient legends of our native land--
+Chivalric Britomart, and Una fair,
+And courteous Constance, doom'd to dark despair,
+By turns our thoughts engaged; and oft we talk'd
+Of times when monarch superstition stalk'd,
+And when the blood-fraught galliots of Rome
+Brought the grand Druid fabric to its doom:
+While, where the wood-hung Meinai's waters flow,
+The hoary harpers pour'd the strain of woe.
+
+While thus employed, to us how sad the bell
+Which summon'd us to school! 'T was Fancy's knell,
+And, sadly sounding on the sullen ear,
+It spoke of study pale, and chilling fear.
+Yet even then, (for oh! what chains can bind,
+What powers control, the energies of mind!)
+E'en then we soar'd to many a height sublime,
+And many a day-dream charm'd the lazy time.
+
+At evening too, how pleasing was our walk,
+Endear'd by Friendship's unrestrained talk,
+When to the upland heights we bent our way.
+To view the last beam of departing day;
+How calm was all around! no playful breeze
+Sigh'd 'mid the wavy foliage of the trees,
+But all was still, save when, with drowsy song,
+The gray-fly wound his sullen horn along;
+And save when, heard in soft, yet merry glee,
+The distant church bells' mellow harmony;
+The silver mirror of the lucid brook,
+That 'mid the tufted broom its still course took;
+The rugged arch, that clasp'd its silent tides,
+With moss and rank weeds hanging down its sides;
+The craggy rock, that jutted on the sight;
+The shrieking bat, that took its heavy flight;
+All, all was pregnant with divine delight.
+We loved to watch the swallow swimming high,
+In the bright azure of the vaulted sky;
+Or gaze upon the clouds, whose colour'd pride
+Was scatter'd thinly o'er the welkin wide,
+And tinged with such variety of shade,
+To the charm'd soul sublimest thoughts convey'd.
+In these what forms romantic did we trace,
+While Fancy led us o'er the realms of space!
+Now we espied the Thunderer in his car,
+Leading the embattled seraphim to war,
+Then stately towers descried, sublimely high,
+In Gothic grandeur frowning on the sky--
+Or saw, wide stretching o'er the azure height,
+A ridge of glaciers in mural white,
+Hugely terrific.--But those times are o'er,
+And the fond scene can charm mine eyes no more;
+For thou art gone, and I am left below,
+Alone to struggle through this world of woe.
+
+The scene is o'er--still seasons onward roll,
+And each revolve conducts me toward the goal;
+Yet all is blank, without one soft relief,
+One endless continuity of grief;
+And the tired soul, now led to thoughts sublime,
+Looks but for rest beyond the bounds of time.
+
+Toil on, toil on, ye busy crowds, that pant
+For hoards of wealth which ye will never want:
+And lost to all but gain, with ease resign
+The calms of peace and happiness divine!
+Far other cares be mine--Men little crave
+In this short journey to the silent grave;
+And the poor peasant, bless'd with peace and health,
+I envy more than Croesus with his wealth.
+Yet grieve not I, that Fate did not decree
+Paternal acres to await on me;
+She gave me more, she placed within my breast
+A heart with little pleased--with little bless'd:
+I look around me, where, on every side,
+Extensive manors spread in wealthy pride;
+And could my sight be borne to either zone,
+I should not find one foot of land my own.
+
+But whither do I wander? shall the muse,
+For golden baits, her simple theme refuse?
+Oh, no! but while the weary spirit greets
+The fading scenes of childhood's far gone sweets,
+It catches all the infant's wandering tongue,
+And prattles on in desultory song.
+That song must close--the gloomy mists of night
+Obscure the pale stars' visionary light,
+And ebon darkness, clad in vapoury wet,
+Steals on the welkin in primaeval jet.
+
+The song must close.--Once more my adverse lot
+Leads me reluctant from this cherish'd spot:
+Again compels to plunge in busy life,
+And brave the hateful turbulence of strife.
+
+Scenes of my youth--ere my unwilling feet
+Are turn'd for ever from this loved retreat.
+Ere on these fields, with plenty cover'd o'er,
+My eyes are closed to ope on them no more,
+Let me ejaculate, to feeling due,
+One long, one last affectionate adieu.
+Grant that, if ever Providence should please
+To give me an old age of peace and ease,
+Grant that, in these sequester'd shades, my days
+May wear away in gradual decays:
+And oh! ye spirits, who unbodied play,
+Unseen upon the pinions of the day,
+Kind genii of my native fields benign,
+Who were....
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+
+[1] This appears to be one of the Author's earliest productions: written
+when about the age of fourteen.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTIAD.
+
+A DIVINE POEM.
+
+
+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 paean 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 Massagetae 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 primaeval 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 AEolian 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 aery 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 Paeon! 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 paeans 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 AEolian, 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 paean 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
+  Aerial 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.
+
+  Then, hermit, let us turn our feet
+To the low abbey's still retreat,
+Embower'd in the distant glen,
+Far from the haunts of busy men,
+Where as we sit upon the tomb,
+The glowworm's light may gild the gloom,
+And show to fancy's saddest eye
+Where some lost hero's ashes lie.
+And oh, as through the mouldering arch,
+With ivy fill'd and weeping larch,
+The night gale whispers sadly clear,
+Speaking dear things to fancy's ear,
+We'll hold communion with the shade
+Of some deep wailing, ruin'd maid--
+Or call the ghost of Spenser down,
+To tell of woe and fortune's frown;
+And bid us cast the eye of hope
+Beyond this bad world's narrow scope.
+Or if these joys, to us denied,
+To linger by the forest's side;
+Or in the meadow, or the wood,
+Or by the lone, romantic flood;
+Let us in the busy town,
+When sleep's dull streams the people drown,
+Far from drowsy pillows flee,
+And turn the church's massy key;
+Then, as through the painted glass
+The moon's faint beams obscurely pass,
+And darkly on the trophied wall
+Her faint, ambiguous shadows fall,
+Let us, while the faint winds wail
+Through the long reluctant aisle,
+As we pace with reverence meet,
+Count the echoings of our feet,
+While from the tombs, with confess'd breath,
+Distinct responds the voice of death.
+If thou, mild sage, wilt condescend
+Thus on my footsteps to attend,
+To thee my lonely lamp shall burn
+By fallen Genius' sainted urn,
+As o'er the scroll of Time I pore,
+And sagely spell of ancient lore,
+Till I can rightly guess of all
+That Plato could to memory call,
+And scan the formless views of things;
+Or, with old Egypt's fetter'd kings,
+Arrange the mystic trains that shine
+In night's high philosophic mine;
+And to thy name shall e'er belong
+The honours of undying song.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE GENIUS OF ROMANCE.
+
+
+Oh! thou who, in my early youth,
+When fancy wore the garb of truth,
+Wert wont to win my infant feet
+To some retired, deep fabled seat,
+Where, by the brooklet's secret tide,
+The midnight ghost was known to glide;
+Or lay me in some lonely glade,
+In native Sherwood's forest shade,
+Where Robin Hood, the outlaw bold,
+Was wont his sylvan courts to hold;
+And there, as musing deep I lay,
+Would steal my little soul away,
+And all my pictures represent,
+Of siege and solemn tournament;
+Or bear me to the magic scene,
+Where, clad in greaves and gabardine,
+The warrior knight of chivalry
+Made many a fierce enchanter flee;
+And bore the high-born dame away,
+Long held the fell magician's prey.
+Or oft would tell the shuddering tale
+Of murders, and of goblins pale,
+Haunting the guilty baron's side
+(Whose floors with secret blood were dyed),
+Which o'er the vaulted corridor
+On stormy nights was heard to roar,
+By old domestic, waken'd wide
+By the angry winds that chide:
+Or else the mystic tale would tell
+Of Greensleeve, or of Blue-Beard fell.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+
+
+
+TO MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+Season of general rest, whose solemn still
+Strikes to the trembling heart a fearful chill,
+  But speaks to philosophic souls delight;
+Thee do I hail, as at my casement high,
+My candle waning melancholy by,
+  I sit and taste the holy calm of night.
+
+Yon pensive orb, that through the ether sails,
+And gilds the misty shadows of the vales,
+  Hanging in thy dull rear her vestal flame;
+To her, while all around in sleep recline,
+Wakeful I raise my orisons divine,
+  And sing the gentle honours of her name;
+
+While Fancy lone o'er me, her votary, bends,
+To lift my soul her fairy visions sends,
+  And pours upon my ear her thrilling song,
+And Superstition's gentle terrors come,--
+See, see yon dim ghost gliding through the gloom!
+  See round yon churchyard elm what spectres throng!
+
+Meanwhile I tune, to some romantic lay,
+My flageolet--and as I pensive play,
+  The sweet notes echo o'er the mountain scene:
+The traveller late journeying o'er the moors,
+Hears them aghast,--(while still the dull owl pours
+  Her hollow screams each dreary pause between).
+
+Till in the lonely tower he spies the light,
+Now faintly flashing on the glooms of night,
+  Where I, poor muser, my lone vigils keep,
+And, 'mid the dreary solitude serene,
+Cast a much-meaning glance upon the scene,
+  And raise my mournful eye to Heaven, and weep.
+
+
+
+
+TO THOUGHT.
+
+WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+    Hence, away, vindictive thought;
+      Thy pictures are of pain;
+    The visions through thy dark eye caught,
+    They with no gentle charms are fraught,
+      So pr'y thee back again.
+        I would not weep,
+        I wish to sleep,
+Then why, thou busy foe, with me thy vigils keep?
+
+    Why dost o'er bed and couch recline?
+      Is this thy new delight?
+    Pale visitant, it is not thine
+    To keep thy sentry through the mine,
+      The dark vault of the night:
+        'Tis thine to die,
+        While o'er the eye
+The dews of slumber press, and waking sorrows fly.
+
+    Go thou, and bide with him who guides
+      His bark through lonely seas;
+    And as reclining on his helm,
+    Sadly he marks the starry realm,
+      To him thou mayst bring ease:
+        But thou to me
+        Art misery,
+So pr'ythee, pr'ythee, plume thy wings, and from my pillow flee.
+
+    And, memory, pray what art thou?
+      Art thou of pleasure born?
+    Does bliss untainted from thee flow?
+    The rose that gems thy pensive brow,
+      Is it without a thorn?
+        With all thy smiles,
+        And witching wiles,
+Yet not unfrequent bitterness thy mournful sway defiles.
+
+    The drowsy night-watch has forgot
+      To call the solemn hour;
+    Lull'd by the winds, he slumbers deep,
+    While I in vain, capricious sleep,
+      Invoke thy tardy power;
+        And restless lie,
+        With unclosed eye,
+And count the tedious hours as slow they minute by.
+
+
+
+
+GENIUS.
+
+AN ODE.
+
+
+I. 1.
+
+Many there be, who, through the vale of life,
+    With velvet pace, unnoticed, softly go,
+While jarring discord's inharmonious strife
+    Awakes them not to woe.
+  By them unheeded, carking care,
+  Green-eyed grief and dull despair;
+Smoothly they pursue their way,
+    With even tenor and with equal breath,
+Alike through cloudy and through sunny day,
+    Then sink in peace to death.
+
+II. 1.
+
+But, ah! a few there be whom griefs devour,
+    And weeping woe, and disappointment keen,
+Repining penury, and sorrow sour,
+    And self-consuming spleen.
+  And these are Genius' favourites: these
+  Know the thought-throned mind to please,
+And from her fleshy seat to draw
+    To realms where Fancy's golden orbits roll,
+Disdaining all but 'wildering rapture's law,
+    The captivated soul.
+
+III. 1.
+
+Genius, from thy starry throne,
+High above the burning zone,
+In radiant robe of light array'd,
+Oh! hear the plaint by thy sad favourite made,
+    His melancholy moan.
+He tells of scorn, he tells of broken vows,
+  Of sleepless nights, of anguish-ridden days,
+Pangs that his sensibility uprouse
+  To curse his being and his thirst for praise.
+Thou gavest to him with treble force to feel
+  The sting of keen neglect, the rich man's scorn,
+And what o'er all does in his soul preside
+  Predominant, and tempers him to steel,
+    His high indignant pride.
+
+I. 2.
+
+Lament not ye, who humbly steal through life.
+    That Genius visits not your lowly shed;
+For, ah, what woes and sorrows ever rife
+    Distract his hapless head!
+  For him awaits no balmy sleep,
+  He wakes all night, and wakes to weep;
+Or by his lonely lamp he sits
+    At solemn midnight, when the peasant sleeps,
+In feverish study, and in moody fits
+    His mournful vigils keeps.
+
+II. 2.
+
+And, oh! for what consumes his watchful oil?
+    For what does thus he waste life's fleeting breath?
+'T is for neglect and penury he doth toil,
+    'Tis for untimely death.
+  Lo! where dejected pale he lies,
+  Despair depicted in his eyes,
+He feels the vital flame decrease,
+    He sees the grave wide yawning for its prey,
+Without a friend to soothe his soul to peace,
+    And cheer the expiring ray.
+
+III. 2.
+
+  By Sulmo's bard of mournful fame,
+  By gentle Otway's magic name,
+  By him, the youth, who smiled at death,
+  And rashly dared to stop his vital breath,
+    Will I thy pangs proclaim;
+  For still to misery closely thou'rt allied,
+  Though gaudy pageants glitter by thy side,
+    And far resounding Fame.
+  What though to thee the dazzled millions bow,
+  And to thy posthumous merit bend them low;
+  Though unto thee the monarch looks with awe,
+  And thou at thy flash'd car dost nations draw,
+Yet, ah! unseen behind thee fly
+    Corroding Anguish, soul-subduing Pain,
+And Discontent that clouds the fairest sky,
+      A melancholy train.
+
+  Yes, Genius, thee a thousand cares await,
+  Mocking thy derided state;
+  Thee chill Adversity will still attend,
+  Before whose face flies fast the summer's friend
+    And leaves thee all forlorn;
+  While leaden Ignorance rears her head and laughs,
+    And fat Stupidity shakes his jolly sides,
+And while the cup of affluence he quaffs
+    With bee-eyed Wisdom, Genius derides,
+Who toils, and every hardship doth outbrave,
+To gain the meed of praise when he is mouldering in his grave.
+
+
+
+
+FRAGMENT OF AN ODE TO THE MOON.
+
+
+Mild orb, who floatest through the realm of night,
+  A pathless wanderer o'er a lonely wild,
+Welcome to me thy soft and pensive light,
+  Which oft in childhood my lone thoughts beguiled.
+    Now doubly dear as o'er my silent seat,
+    Nocturnal study's still retreat,
+  It casts a mournful melancholy gleam,
+    And through my lofty casement weaves,
+    Dim through the vine's encircling leaves,
+      An intermingled beam.
+
+These feverish dews that on my temples hang,
+  This quivering lip, these eyes of dying flame;
+These the dread signs of many a secret pang,
+  These are the meed of him who pants for fame!
+Pale Moon, from thoughts like these divert my soul;
+  Lowly I kneel before thy shrine on high;
+My lamp expires;--beneath thy mild control
+These restless dreams are ever wont to fly.
+
+Come, kindred mourner, in my breast
+Soothe these discordant tones to rest,
+    And breathe the soul of peace;
+Mild visitor, I feel thee here,
+It is not pain that brings this tear,
+    For thou hast bid it cease.
+Oh! many, a year has pass'd away
+Since I, beneath thy fairy ray,
+    Attuned my infant reed;
+When wilt thou, Time, those days restore,
+Those happy moments now no more--
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+When on the lake's damp marge I lay,
+  And mark'd the northern meteor's dance,
+Bland Hope and Fancy, ye were there
+  To inspirate my trance.
+    Twin sisters, faintly now ye deign
+Your magic sweets on me to shed,
+In vain your powers are now essay'd
+    To chase superior pain.
+
+And art thou fled, thou welcome orb!
+  So swiftly pleasure flies,
+So to mankind, in darkness lost,
+  The beam of ardour dies.
+Wan Moon, thy nightly task is done,
+And now, encurtain'd in the main,
+    Thou sinkest into rest;
+But I, in vain, on thorny bed
+Shall woo the god of soft repose--
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MUSE.
+
+WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
+
+
+  Ill-fated maid, in whose unhappy train
+Chill poverty and misery are seen,
+  Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane
+Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene.
+  Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel
+So keenly all the scorns--the jeers of life?
+Why not endow them to endure the strife
+  With apathy's invulnerable steel,
+  Of self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal?
+
+  Ah! who would taste your self-deluding joys,
+That lure the unwary to a wretched doom,
+  That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise,
+Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb?
+  What is the charm which leads thy victims on
+To persevere in paths that lead to woe?
+What can induce them in that route to go,
+  In which innumerous before have gone,
+  And died in misery poor and woe-begone?
+
+  Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found;
+I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill,
+  And tasted all the pleasures that abound
+Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill?
+  I, through whose soul the Muse's strains aye thrill!
+Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied;
+  And though our annals fearful stories tell,
+How Savage languish'd, and how Otway died,
+Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide.
+
+
+
+
+TO LOVE.
+
+
+Why should I blush to own I love?
+'Tis Love that rules the realms above.
+Why should I blush to say to all,
+That Virtue holds my heart in thrall?
+
+Why should I seek the thickest shade,
+Lest Love's dear secret be betray'd?
+Why the stern brow deceitful move,
+When I am languishing with love?
+
+Is it weakness thus to dwell
+On passion that I dare not tell?
+Such weakness I would ever prove;
+'Tis painful, though 'tis sweet to love.
+
+
+
+
+ON WHIT-MONDAY.
+
+
+Hark! how the merry bells ring jocund round,
+And now they die upon the veering breeze
+    Anon they thunder loud
+    Full on the musing ear.
+
+Wafted in varying cadence, by the shore
+Of the still twinkling river, they bespeak
+    A day of jubilee,
+    An ancient holiday.
+
+And lo! the rural revels are begun,
+And gaily echoing to the laughing sky,
+    On the smooth shaven green
+    Resounds the voice of Mirth.
+
+Alas! regardless of the tongue of Fate,
+That tells them 'tis but as an hour since they
+    Who now are in their graves
+    Kept up the Whitsun dance.
+
+And that another hour, and they must fall
+Like those who went before, and sleep as still
+    Beneath the silent sod,
+    A cold and cheerless sleep.
+
+Yet why should thoughts like these intrude to scare
+The vagrant Happiness, when she will deign
+    To smile upon us here,
+    A transient visitor?
+
+Mortals! be gladsome while ye have the power,
+And laugh and seize the glittering lapse of joy;
+    In time the bell will toll
+    That warns ye to your graves.
+
+I to the woodland solitude will bend
+My lonesome way--where Mirth's obstreperous shout
+    Shall not intrude to break
+    The meditative hour.
+
+There will I ponder on the state of man,
+Joyless and sad of heart, and consecrate
+    This day of jubilee
+    To sad reflection's shrine;
+
+And I will cast my fond eye far beyond
+This world of care, to where the steeple loud
+    Shall rock above the sod,
+    Where I shall sleep in peace.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE WIND, AT MIDNIGHT.
+
+
+Not unfamiliar to mine ear,
+Blasts of the night! ye howl as now
+    My shuddering casement loud
+    With fitful force ye beat.
+
+Mine ear has dwelt in silent awe,
+The howling sweep, the sudden rush;
+    And when the passing gale
+    Pour'd deep the hollow dirge.
+
+       *        *        *        *        *
+
+
+
+
+TO THE HARVEST MOON.
+
+          Cum ruit imbriferum ver:
+Spicea jam campis cum messis inhorruit, et cum
+Frumenta in viridi stipula lactentia turgent.
+Cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret.
+VIRGIL.
+
+
+    Moon of Harvest, herald mild
+    Of plenty rustic labour's child,
+    Hail! oh hail! I greet thy beam,
+    As soft it trembles o'er the stream,
+    And gilds the straw-thatch'd hamlet wide,
+    Where Innocence and Peace reside!
+'Tis thou that gladd'st with joy the rustic throng,
+Promptest the tripping dance, the exhilarating song.
+
+    Moon of Harvest, I do love
+    O'er the uplands now to rove,
+    While thy modest ray serene
+    Gilds the wide surrounding scene;
+    And to watch thee riding high
+    In the blue vault of the sky,
+Where no thin vapour intercepts thy ray,
+But in unclouded majesty thou walkest on thy way.
+
+    Pleasing 'tis, oh! modest Moon!
+    Now the night is at her noon,
+    'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
+    While around the zephyrs sigh,
+    Fanning soft the sun-tann'd wheat,
+    Ripen'd by the summer's heat;
+    Picturing all the rustic's joy
+    When boundless plenty greets his eye,
+      And thinking soon,
+      Oh, modest Moon!
+    How many a female eye will roam
+      Along the road,
+      To see the load,
+    The last dear load of harvest home.
+
+    Storms and tempests, floods and rains,
+    Stern despoilers of the plains,
+    Hence, away, the season flee,
+    Foes to light-heart jollity:
+    May no winds careering high
+    Drive the clouds along the sky,
+But may all nature smile with aspect boon,
+When in the heavens thou show'st thy face, oh Harvest Moon!
+
+    'Neath yon lowly roof he lies,
+    The husbandman, with deep-seal'd eyes:
+    He dreams of crowded barns, and round
+    The yard he hears the flail resound;
+    Oh! may no hurricane destroy
+    His visionary views of joy!
+God of the winds! oh, hear his humble prayer,
+And while the Moon of Harvest shines, thy blustering whirlwind spare.
+
+    Sons of luxury, to you
+    Leave I sleep's dull power to woo;
+    Press ye still the downy bed,
+    While feverish dreams surround your head;
+    I will seek the woodland glade,
+    Penetrate the thickest shade,
+    Wrapp'd in contemplation's dreams,
+    Musing high on holy themes,
+      While on the gale
+      Shall softly sail
+The nightingale's enchanting tune,
+      And oft my eyes
+      Shall grateful rise
+To thee, the modest Harvest Moon!
+
+
+
+
+TO THE HERB ROSEMARY.[1]
+
+
+Sweet scented flower! who art wont to bloom
+  On January's front severe,
+  And o'er the wintry desert drear
+To waft thy waste perfume!
+Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,
+And I will bind thee round my brow;
+  And as I twine the mournful wreath,
+I'll weave a melancholy song;
+And sweet the strain shall be, and long,
+  The melody of death.
+
+Come, funeral flower! who lovest to dwell
+  With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
+  And throw across the desert gloom
+A sweet decaying smell.
+Come, press my lips, and lie with me
+Beneath the lowly alder tree,
+  And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
+And not a care shall dare intrude
+To break the marble solitude,
+  So peaceful and so deep.
+
+And hark! the wind god, as he flies,
+  Moans hollow in the forest trees,
+  And sailing on the gusty breeze,
+Mysterious music dies.
+Sweet flower! that requiem wild is mine,
+It warns me to the lonely shrine,
+    The cold turf altar of the dead:
+  My grave shall be in yon lone spot,
+  Where as I lie, by all forgot,
+A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] The Rosemary buds in January. It is the flower commonly put in
+the coffins of the dead.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MORNING.
+
+WRITTEN DURING ILLNESS.
+
+
+  Beams of the daybreak faint! I hail
+    Your dubious hues, as on the robe
+    Of night, which wraps the slumbering globe,
+  I mark your traces pale.
+    Tired with the taper's sickly light,
+    And with the wearying, number'd night,
+      I hail the streaks of morn divine:
+  And lo! they break between the dewy wreaths
+      That round my rural casement twine;
+  The fresh gale o'er the green lawn breathes,
+It fans my feverish brow,--it calms the mental strife,
+And cheerily re-illumes the lambent flame of life.
+
+    The lark has her gay song begun,
+      She leaves her grassy nest,
+    And soars till the unrisen sun
+      Gleams on her speckled breast.
+
+  Now let me leave my restless bed,
+  And o'er the spangled uplands tread;
+    Now through the custom'd wood walk wend;
+  By many a green lane lies my way,
+    Where high o'er head the wild briers bend,
+  Till on the mountain's summit gray,
+I sit me down, and mark the glorious dawn of day.
+
+  Oh Heaven! the soft refreshing gale
+    It breathes into my breast!
+  My sunk eye gleams; my cheek, so pale,
+    Is with new colours dress'd.
+
+  Blithe Health! thou soul of life and ease!
+  Come thou, too, on the balmy breeze,
+    Invigorate my frame:
+  I'll join with thee the buskin'd chase,
+  With thee the distant clime will trace
+    Beyond those clouds of flame.
+
+  Above, below, what charms unfold
+    In all the varied view!
+  Before me all is burnish'd gold,
+    Behind the twilight's hue.
+  The mists which on old Night await,
+  Far to the west they hold their state,
+    They shun the clear blue face of Morn;
+    Along the fine cerulean sky
+    The fleecy clouds successive fly,
+While bright prismatic beams their shadowy folds adorn.
+
+  And hark! the thatcher has begun
+    His whistle on the eaves,
+  And oft the hedger's bill is heard
+    Among the rustling leaves.
+  The slow team creaks upon the road,
+    The noisy whip resounds,
+  The driver's voice, his carol blithe,
+  The mower's stroke, his whetting scythe
+    Mix with the morning's sounds.
+
+  Who would not rather take his seat
+    Beneath these clumps of trees,
+  The early dawn of day to greet,
+    And catch the healthy breeze,
+  Than on the silken couch of Sloth
+    Luxurious to lie;
+  Who would not from life's dreary waste
+  Snatch, when he could, with eager haste,
+    An interval of joy!
+
+  To him who simply thus recounts
+    The morning's pleasures o'er,
+  Fate dooms, ere long, the scene must close
+    To ope on him no more.
+  Yet Morning! unrepining still,
+    He'll greet thy beams awhile;
+  And surely thou, when o'er his grave
+  Solemn the whispering willows wave,
+    Wilt sweetly on him smile:
+  And the pale glowworm's pensive light
+Will guide his ghostly walks in the drear moonless night.
+
+
+
+
+ON DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+
+  Come, Disappointment, come!
+    Not in thy terrors clad:
+  Come, in thy meekest, saddest guise;
+  Thy chastening rod but terrifies
+    The restless and the bad.
+      But I recline
+      Beneath thy shrine,
+And round my brow resign'd thy peaceful cypress twine.
+
+  Though Fancy flies away
+    Before thy hollow tread,
+  Yet Meditation, in her cell,
+  Hears with faint eye the lingering knell
+    That tells her hopes are dead;
+      And though the tear
+      By chance appear,
+Yet she can smile, and say, My all was not laid here.
+
+  Come, Disappointment, come!
+    Though from Hope's summit hurl'd,
+  Still, rigid Nurse, thou art forgiven,
+  For thou severe wert sent from heaven
+    To wean me from the world;
+      To turn my eye
+      From vanity,
+And point to scenes of bliss that never, never die.
+
+  What is this passing scene?
+    A peevish April day!
+  A little sun--a little rain,
+  And then night sweeps along the plain.
+    And all things fade away.
+      Man (soon discuss'd)
+      Yields up his trust,
+And all his hopes and fears lie with him in the dust.
+
+  Oh, what is Beauty's power?
+    It flourishes and dies;
+  Will the cold earth its silence break,
+  To tell how soft, how smooth a cheek
+    Beneath its surface lies?
+      Mute, mute is all
+      O'er Beauty's fall;
+Her praise resounds no more when mantled in her pall.
+
+  The most beloved on earth
+    Not long survives to-day;
+  So music past is obsolete,
+  And yet 'twas sweet, 'twas passing sweet,
+    But now 'tis gone away.
+      Thus does the shade
+      In memory fade,
+When in forsaken tomb the form beloved is laid.
+
+  Then since this world is vain,
+    And volatile, and fleet,
+  Why should I lay up earthly joys,
+  Where rust corrupts, and moth destroys,
+    And cares and sorrows eat?
+      Why fly from ill
+      With anxious skill,
+When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still.
+
+  Come, Disappointment, come!
+    Thou art not stern to me;
+  Sad Monitress! I own thy sway,
+  A votary sad in early day,
+    I bend my knee to thee.
+      From sun to sun
+      My race will run,
+I only bow, and say, My God, thy will be done!
+
+On another paper are a few lines, written probably in the
+freshness of his disappointment.
+
+I dream no more--the vision flies away,
+And Disappointment....
+There fell my hopes--I lost my all in this,
+My cherish'd all of visionary bliss.
+Now hope farewell, farewell all joys below;
+Now welcome sorrow, and now welcome woe.
+Plunge me in glooms....
+
+
+
+
+ON THE DEATH OF DERMODY THE POET.
+
+
+Child of Misfortune! Offspring of the Muse!
+  Mark like the meteor's gleam his mad career;
+    With hollow cheeks and haggard eye,
+    Behold he shrieking passes by:
+      I see, I see him near:
+    That hollow scream, that deepening groan;
+      It rings upon mine ear.
+
+Oh come, ye thoughtless, ye deluded youth,
+  Who clasp the syren pleasure to your breast,
+    Behold the wreck of genius here,
+    And drop, oh drop the silent tear
+      For Dermody at rest:
+    His fate is yours, then from your loins
+      Tear quick the silken vest.
+
+Saw'st thou his dying bed! Saw'st thou his eye,
+  Once flashing fire, despair's dim tear distil;
+    How ghastly did it seem;
+    And then his dying scream:
+      Oh God! I hear it still:
+    It sounds upon my fainting sense,
+      It strikes with deathly chill.
+
+Say, didst thou mark the brilliant poet's death;
+  Saw'st thou an anxious father by his bed,
+    Or pitying friends around him stand:
+    Or didst thou see a mother's hand
+      Support his languid head:
+    Oh none of these--no friend o'er him
+      The balm of pity shed.
+
+Now come around, ye flippant sons of wealth,
+  Sarcastic smile on genius fallen low;
+    Now come around who pant for fame,
+    And learn from hence, a poet's name
+      Is purchased but by woe:
+    And when ambition prompts to rise,
+      Oh think of him below.
+
+For me, poor moralizer, I will run,
+  Dejected, to some solitary state:
+    The muse has set her seal on me,
+    She set her seal on Dermody,
+      It is the seal of fate:
+    In some lone spot my bones may lie,
+      Secure from human hate.
+
+Yet ere I go I'll drop one silent tear,
+  Where lies unwept the poet's fallen head:
+    May peace her banners o'er him wave;
+    For me in my deserted grave
+      No friend a tear shall shed:
+    Yet may the lily and the rose
+      Bloom on my grassy bed.
+
+
+
+
+SONNETS.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO THE RIVER TRENT.
+
+WRITTEN ON RECOVERY FROM SICKNESS.
+
+
+Once more, O Trent! along thy pebbly marge
+  A pensive invalid, reduced and pale,
+From the close sick-room newly set at large,
+  Woos to his wan worn cheek the pleasant gale.
+O! to his ear how musical the tale
+  Which fills with joy the throstle's little throat!
+And all the sounds which on the fresh breeze sail,
+  How wildly novel on his senses float!
+It was on this that many a sleepless night,
+  As lone he watch'd the taper's sickly gleam,
+And at his casement heard, with wild affright,
+  The owl's dull wing, and melancholy scream,
+On this he thought, this, this, his sole desire,
+Thus once again to hear the warbling woodland choir.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,
+  Where far from cities I may spend my days;
+And, by the beauties of the scene beguiled,
+  May pity man's pursuits and shun his ways.
+While on the rock I mark the browsing goat,
+  List to the mountain-torrent's distant noise,
+Or the hoarse bittern's solitary note,
+  I shall not want the world's delusive joys;
+But with my little scrip, my book, my lyre,
+  Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more;
+And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire,
+  I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore,
+And lay me down to rest where the wild wave
+Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.[1]
+
+SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED BY A FEMALE LUNATIC TO A LADY.
+
+
+Lady, thou weepest for the Maniac's woe,
+  And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young;
+Oh! may thy bosom never, never know
+  The pangs with which my wretched heart is wrung.
+I had a mother once--a brother too--
+  (Beneath yon yew my father rests his head:)
+I had a lover once, and kind and true,
+  But mother, brother, lover, all are fled!
+Yet, whence the tear which dims thy lovely eye?
+  Oh! gentle lady--not for me thus weep,
+The green sod soon upon my breast will lie,
+  And soft and sound will be my peaceful sleep.
+Go thou, and pluck the roses while they bloom--
+  My hopes lie buried in the silent tomb.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] This Quatorzain had its rise from an elegant Sonnet, "occasioned by
+seeing a young female Lunatic," written by Mrs. Lofft, and published in
+the Monthly Mirror.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+Supposed to be written by the unhappy Poet Dermody in
+Storm, while on board a Ship in his Majesty's service.
+
+
+Lo! o'er the welkin the tempestuous clouds
+  Successive fly, and the loud piping wind
+Rocks the poor sea-boy on the dripping shrouds,
+  While the pale pilot, o'er the helm reclined,
+Lists to the changeful storm: and as he plies
+  His wakeful task, he oft bethinks him, sad,
+  Of wife, and little home, and chubby lad,
+And the half strangled tear bedews his eyes;
+  I, on the deck, musing on themes forlorn,
+View the drear tempest, and the yawning deep,
+Nought dreading in the green sea's caves to sleep,
+  For not for me shall wife or children mourn,
+And the wild winds will ring my funeral knell,
+Sweetly as solemn peal of pious passing-bell.
+
+
+
+
+
+SONNET. THE WINTER TRAVELLER.
+
+
+God help thee, Traveller, on thy journey far;
+  The wind is bitter keen,--the snow o'erlays
+  The hidden pits, and dangerous hollow ways,
+And darkness will involve thee. No kind star
+To-night will guide thee, Traveller,--and the war
+  Of winds and elements on thy head will break,
+  And in thy agonizing ear the shriek
+Of spirits howling on their stormy car
+Will often ring appalling--I portend
+  A dismal night--and on my wakeful bed
+  Thoughts, Traveller, of thee will fill my head,
+And him who rides where winds and waves contend,
+  And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide
+  His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+BY CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
+
+
+This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this volume, and
+was occasioned by several little Quatorzains, misnomered
+Sonnets, which he published in the Monthly Mirror. He begs
+leave to return his thanks to the much respected writer, for
+the permission so politely granted to insert it here, and for the
+good opinion he has been pleased to express of his productions.
+
+Ye whose aspirings court the muse of lays,
+"Severest of those orders which belong,
+  Distinct and separate, to Delphic song,"
+Why shun the sonnet's undulating maze?
+And why its name, boast of Petrarchian days,
+  Assume, its rules disown'd? whom from the throng
+The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys
+  Of its full harmony:--they fear to wrong
+The sonnet, by adorning with a name
+  Of that distinguish'd import, lays, though sweet,
+  Yet not in magic texture taught to meet
+Of that so varied and peculiar frame.
+O think! to vindicate its genuine praise
+Those it beseems, whose lyre a favouring impulse sways.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+RECANTATORY, IN REPLY TO THE FOREGOING ELEGANT
+ADMONITION.
+
+
+Let the sublimer muse, who, wrapp'd in night,
+  Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,
+  Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm,
+Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight;
+Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,
+  Disdain the plaintive sonnet's little form,
+  And scorn to its wild cadence to conform,
+The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight.
+But me, far lowest of the sylvan train,
+  Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest shade
+  With wildest song;--me, much behoves thy aid
+Of mingled melody, to grace my strain,
+And give it power to please, as soft it flows
+Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent close.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET ON HEARING THE SOUNDS OF AN AEOLIAN HARP.
+
+
+So ravishingly soft upon the tide
+  Of the infuriate gust, it did career,
+  It might have soothed its rugged charioteer,
+And sunk him to a zephyr; then it died,
+Melting in melody;--and I descried,
+  Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
+  Of Druid sage, who on the far-off ear
+Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
+Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
+  Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
+  By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
+Such as, 'tis said, at night are known to swell
+By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
+Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
+  Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands.
+  And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
+The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
+Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
+  Thou guidest the northern storm at night's dead noon,
+  Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon,
+Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
+In the drear silence of the polar span
+  Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
+Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan
+  Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?
+Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
+Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
+
+
+Lofft, unto thee one tributary song
+  The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring;
+She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng,
+  And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring.
+Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,
+  Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild,
+Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth,
+  And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child:
+Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal,
+  Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire,
+  Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the lyre,
+And show thy labours for the public weal,
+  Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme,
+  But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO THE MOON.
+
+WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.
+
+
+Sublime, emerging from the misty verge
+  Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
+  As, sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale
+Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge.
+Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight,
+  And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way,
+Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night,
+  With double joy my homage do I pay.
+  When clouds disguise the glories of the day,
+And stern November sheds her boisterous blight,
+  How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray
+Shoot through the mist from the ethereal height,
+  And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring
+  The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.
+
+
+Fast from the west the fading day-streaks fly,
+  And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway,
+Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,
+  And o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay.
+Oh! 'tis not long since, George, with thee I woo'd
+The maid of musings by yon moaning wave;
+And hail'd the moon's mild beam, which, now renew'd,
+  Seems sweetly sleeping on thy silent grave!
+The busy world pursues its boisterous way,
+  The noise of revelry still echoes round,
+Yet I am sad while all beside is gay;
+  Yet still I weep o'er thy deserted mound.
+Oh! that, like thee, I might bid sorrow cease,
+And 'neath the greensward sleep the sleep of peace.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO MISFORTUNE.
+
+
+Misfortune, I am young, my chin is bare,
+  And I have wonder'd much when men have told.
+How youth was free from sorrow and from care,
+  That thou shouldst dwell with me, and leave the old.
+Sure dost not like me!--Shrivel'd hag of hate,
+  My phiz, and thanks to thee, is sadly long;
+  I am not either, beldame, over strong;
+Nor do I wish at all to be thy mate,
+For thou, sweet Fury, art my utter hate.
+Nay, shake not thus thy miserable pate;
+I am yet young, and do not like thy face;
+And, lest thou shouldst resume the wild-goose chase,
+I'll tell thee something all thy heat to assuage,
+--Thou wilt not hit my fancy in my age.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+As thus oppressed with many a heavy care
+  (Though young yet sorrowful), I turn my feet
+  To the dark woodland, longing much to greet
+The form of Peace, if chance she sojourn there;
+Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair,
+  Fills my sad breast; and, tired with this vain coil,
+  I shrink dismay'd before life's upland toil.
+And as, amid the leaves, the evening air
+Whispers still melody,--I think ere long,
+  When I no more can hear, these woods will speak;
+  And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek,
+And mournful phantasies upon me throng,
+And I do ponder, with most strange delight,
+On the calm slumbers of the dead man's night.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO APRIL.
+
+
+Emblem of life! see changeful April sail
+  In varying vest along the shadowy skies,
+  Now bidding summer's softest zephyrs rise,
+Anon recalling winter's stormy gale,
+And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail;
+  Then, smiling through the tear that dims her eyes,
+  While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes,
+Promise of sunshine, not so prone to fail.
+So, to us, sojourners in life's low vale,
+  The smiles of fortune flatter to deceive,
+  While still the fates the web of misery weave.
+So Hope exultant spreads her aery sail,
+And from the present gloom the soul conveys
+To distant summers and far happier days.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,
+  At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,
+  Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
+As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies;
+When he, who now invokes you, low is laid,
+  His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed;
+Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head,
+  And chant a dirge to his reposing shade!
+For he was wont to love your madrigals;
+  And often by the haunted stream, that laves
+  The dark sequester'd woodland's inmost caves,
+Would sit and listen to the dying falls,
+Till the full tear would quiver in his eye,
+And his big heart would heave with mournful ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO A TAPER.
+
+
+'Tis midnight. On the globe dead slumber sits,
+  And all is silence--in the hour of sleep;
+Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits,
+  In the dark wood roars fearfully and deep.
+I wake alone to listen and to weep,
+  To watch my taper, thy pale beacon burn;
+And, as still Memory does her vigils keep,
+  To think of days that never can return.
+By thy pale ray I raise my languid head,
+  My eye surveys the solitary gloom;
+And the sad meaning tear, unmix'd with dread,
+  Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb.
+Like thee I wane;--like thine my life's last ray
+Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO MY MOTHER.
+
+
+And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think
+  That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
+  Its blanching honours on thy weary head,
+Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
+Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
+  Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
+  To pine in solitude thy life away,
+Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
+Banish the thought!--where'er our steps may roam,
+  O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
+  Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
+And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;
+While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
+And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+Yes, 'twill be over soon.--This sickly dream
+  Of life will vanish from my feverish brain;
+And death my wearied spirit will redeem
+  From this wild region of unvaried pain.
+Yon brook will glide as softly as before,
+  Yon landscape smile, yon golden harvest grow.
+Yon sprightly lark on mountain wing will soar
+  When Henry's name is heard no more below.
+I sigh when all my youthful friends caress,
+  They laugh in health, and future evils brave;
+Them shall a wife and smiling children bless,
+  While I am mouldering in the silent grave.
+God of the just, Thou gavest the bitter cup;
+I bow to thy behest, and drink it up.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO CONSUMPTION.
+
+
+Gently, most gently, on thy victim's head.
+  Consumption, lay thine hand!--let me decay
+  Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away,
+And softly go to slumber with the dead.
+  And if 'tis true what holy men have said,
+  That strains angelic oft foretell the day
+Of death to those good men who fall thy prey,
+O let the aerial music round my bed,
+Dissolving sad in dying symphony,
+  Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear;
+That I may bid my weeping friends good-by
+  Ere I depart upon my journey drear:
+And, smiling faintly on the painful past,
+Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. DESBARREAUX.
+
+
+Thy judgments, Lord, are just; thou lovest to wear
+  The face of pity and of love divine;
+But mine is guilt--thou must not, canst not spare,
+  While heaven is true, and equity is thine.
+Yes, oh my God!--such crimes as mine, so dread,
+  Leave but the choice of punishment to thee;
+Thy interest calls for judgment on my head,
+  And even thy mercy dares not plead for me!
+Thy will be done, since 'tis thy glory's due,
+  Did from mine eyes the endless torrents flow;
+Smite--it is time--though endless death ensue,
+  I bless the avenging hand that lays me low.
+But on what spot shall fall thine anger's flood,
+That has not first been drench'd in Christ's atoning blood?
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+When I sit musing on the chequer'd past
+  (A term much darken'd with untimely woes),
+  My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows
+The tear, though half disown'd; and binding fast
+Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,
+  I say to her she robb'd me of my rest,
+  When that was all my wealth. 'Tis true my breast
+Received from her this wearying, lingering smart;
+Yet, ah! I cannot bid her form depart;
+  Though wrong'd, I love her--yet in anger love,
+  For she was most unworthy.--Then I prove
+Vindictive joy; and on my stern front gleams,
+Throned in dark clouds, inflexible....
+The native pride of my much injured heart.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+Sweet to the gay of heart is Summer's smile,
+  Sweet the wild music of the laughing Spring;
+But ah! my soul far other scenes beguile,
+  Where gloomy storms their sullen shadows fling.
+Is it for me to strike the Idalian string--
+  Raise the soft music of the warbling wire,
+While in my ears the howls of furies ring,
+  And melancholy waste the vital fire?
+Away with thoughts like these--To some lone cave
+  Where howls the shrill blast, and where sweeps the wave,
+Direct my steps; there, in the lonely drear,
+  I'll sit remote from worldly noise, and muse
+  Till through my soul shall Peace her balm infuse,
+And whisper sounds of comfort in mine ear.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET.
+
+
+Quick o'er the wintry waste dart fiery shafts--
+  Bleak blows the blast--now howls--then faintly dies--
+And oft upon its awful wings it wafts
+  The dying wanderer's distant, feeble cries.
+Now, when athwart the gloom gaunt Horror stalks,
+  And midnight hags their damned vigils hold,
+The pensive poet 'mid the wild waste walks,
+  And ponders on the ills life's paths unfold.
+Mindless of dangers hovering round, he goes,
+  Insensible to every outward ill;
+Yet oft his bosom heaves with rending throes,
+  And oft big tears adown his worn cheeks trill.
+Ah! 'tis the anguish of a mental sore,
+Which gnaws his heart, and bids him hope no more.
+
+
+
+
+BALLADS, SONGS, AND HYMNS.
+
+
+
+
+GONDOLINE
+
+A BALLAD.
+
+
+The night it was still, and the moon it shone
+  Serenely on the sea,
+And the waves at the foot of the rifted rock
+  They murmur'd pleasantly,
+
+When Gondoline roam'd along the shore,
+  A maiden full fair to the sight;
+Though love had made bleak the rose on her cheek,
+  And turn'd it to deadly white.
+
+Her thoughts they were drear, and the silent tear
+  It fill'd her faint blue eye,
+As oft she heard, in fancy's ear,
+  Her Bertrand's dying sigh.
+
+Her Bertrand was the bravest youth
+  Of all our good king's men,
+And he was gone to the Holy Land
+  To fight the Saracen.
+
+And many a month had pass'd away,
+  And many a rolling year,
+But nothing the maid from Palestine
+  Could of her lover hear.
+
+Full oft she vainly tried to pierce
+  The ocean's misty face;
+Full oft she thought her lover's bark
+  She on the wave could trace.
+
+And every night she placed a light
+  In the high rock's lonely tower,
+To guide her lover to the land,
+  Should the murky tempest lower.
+
+But now despair had seized her breast,
+  And sunken in her eye;
+"Oh tell me but if Bertrand live,
+  And I in peace will die."
+
+She wander'd o'er the lonely shore,
+  The curlew scream'd above,
+She heard the scream with a sickening heart,
+  Much boding on her love.
+
+Yet still she kept her lonely way,
+  And this was all her cry.
+"Oh! tell me but if Bertrand live,
+  And I in peace shall die."
+
+And now she came to a horrible rift
+  All in the rock's hard side,
+A bleak and blasted oak o'erspread
+  The cavern yawning wide.
+
+And pendant from its dismal top
+  The deadly nightshade hung;
+The hemlock and the aconite
+  Across the mouth was flung.
+
+And all within was dark and drear,
+  And all without was calm;
+Yet Gondoline enter'd, her soul upheld
+  By some deep-working charm.
+
+And as she enter'd the cavern wide,
+  The moonbeam gleamed pale,
+And she saw a snake on the craggy rock,
+  It clung by its slimy tail.
+
+Her foot it slipp'd, and she stood aghast,
+  She trod on a bloated toad;
+Yet, still upheld by the secret charm,
+  She kept upon her road.
+
+And now upon her frozen ear
+  Mysterious sounds arose;
+So, on the mountain's piny top
+  The blustering north wind blows.
+
+Then furious peals of laughter loud
+  Were heard with thundering sound,
+Till they died away in soft decay,
+  Low whispering o'er the ground.
+
+Yet still the maiden onward went,
+  The charm yet onward led,
+Though each big glaring ball of sight
+  Seem'd bursting from her head.
+
+But now a pale blue light she saw,
+  It from a distance came;
+She follow'd, till upon her sight
+  Burst full a flood of flame.
+
+She stood appall'd; yet still the charm
+  Upheld her sinking soul;
+Yet each bent knee the other smote,
+  And each wild eye did roll.
+
+And such a sight as she saw there
+  No mortal saw before,
+And such a sight as she saw there
+  No mortal shall see more.
+
+A burning cauldron stood in the midst,
+  The flame was fierce and high,
+And all the cave so wide and long
+  Was plainly seen thereby.
+
+And round about the cauldron stout
+  Twelve withered witches stood;
+Their waists were bound with living snakes,
+  And their hair was stiff with blood.
+
+Their hands were gory too; and red
+  And fiercely flamed their eyes:
+And they were muttering indistinct
+  Their hellish mysteries.
+
+And suddenly they join'd their hands,
+  And utter'd a joyous cry,
+And round about the cauldron stout
+  They danced right merrily.
+
+And now they stopp'd; and each prepared
+  To tell what she had done,
+Since last the lady of the night
+  Her waning course had run.
+
+Behind a rock stood Gondoline,
+  Thick weeds her face did veil,
+And she lean'd fearful forwarder,
+  To hear the dreadful tale.
+
+The first arose: She said she'd seen
+  Rare sport since the blind cat mew'd,
+She'd been to sea in a leaky sieve,
+  And a jovial storm had brew'd.
+
+She'd called around the winged winds,
+  And raised a devilish rout;
+And she laugh'd so loud, the peals were heard
+  Full fifteen leagues about.
+
+She said there was a little bark
+  Upon the roaring wave,
+And there was a woman there who'd been
+  To see her husband's grave.
+
+And she had got a child in her arms,
+  It was her only child,
+And oft its little infant pranks
+  Her heavy heart beguiled.
+
+And there was too in that same bark
+  A father and his son:
+The lad was sickly, and the sire
+  Was old and woe-begone.
+
+And when the tempest waxed strong,
+  And the bark could no more it 'bide,
+She said it was jovial fun to hear
+  How the poor devils cried.
+
+The mother clasp'd her orphan child
+  Unto her breast and wept;
+And sweetly folded in her arms
+  The careless baby slept.
+
+And she told how, in the shape of the wind,
+  As manfully it roar'd,
+She twisted her hand in the infant's hair,
+  And threw it overboard.
+
+And to have seen the mother's pangs,
+  'Twas a glorious sight to see;
+The crew could scarcely hold her down
+  From jumping in the sea.
+
+The hag held a lock of her hair in her hand,
+  And it was soft and fair:
+It must have been a lovely child,
+  To have had such lovely hair.
+
+And she said the father in his arms
+  He held his sickly son,
+And his dying throes they fast arose,
+  His pains were nearly done.
+
+And she throttled the youth with her sinewy hands,
+  And his face grew deadly blue;
+And the father he tore his thin gray hair,
+  And kiss'd the livid hue.
+
+And then she told how she bored a hole
+  In the bark, and it fill'd away:
+And 'twas rare to hear how some did swear,
+  And some did vow and pray.
+
+The man and woman they soon were dead,
+  The sailors their strength did urge;
+But the billows that beat were their winding-sheet,
+  And the winds sung their funeral dirge.
+
+She threw the infant's hair in the fire,
+  The red flame flamed high,
+And round about the cauldron stout
+  They danced right merrily.
+
+The second begun: She said she had done
+  The task that Queen Hecate had set her,
+And that the devil, the father of evil,
+  Had never accomplished a better.
+
+She said, there was an aged woman,
+  And she had a daughter fair,
+Whose evil habits fill'd her heart
+  With misery and care.
+
+The daughter had a paramour,
+  A wicked man was he,
+And oft the woman him against
+  Did murmur grievously.
+
+And the hag had work'd the daughter up
+  To murder her old mother,
+That then she might seize on all her goods,
+  And wanton with her lover.
+
+And one night as the old woman
+  Was sick and ill in bed.
+And pondering solely on the life
+  Her wicked daughter led,
+
+She heard her footstep on the floor,
+  And she raised her pallid head,
+And she saw her daughter, with a knife,
+  Approaching to her bed.
+
+And said, My child, I'm very ill,
+  I have not long to live,
+Now kiss my cheek, that ere I die
+  Thy sins I may forgive.
+
+And the murderess bent to kiss her cheek,
+  And she lifted the sharp bright knife,
+And the mother saw her fell intent,
+  And hard she begg'd for life.
+
+But prayers would nothing her avail,
+  And she scream'd aloud with fear,
+But the house was lone, and the piercing screams
+  Could reach no human ear
+
+And though that she was sick, and old,
+  She struggled hard, and fought;
+The murderess cut three fingers through
+  Ere she could reach her throat.
+
+And the hag she held her fingers up,
+  The skin was mangled sore,
+And they all agreed a nobler deed
+  Was never done before.
+
+And she threw the fingers in the fire,
+  The red flame flamed high,
+And round about the cauldron stout
+  They danced right merrily.
+
+The third arose: She said she'd been
+  To holy Palestine;
+And seen more blood in one short day
+  Than they had all seen in nine.
+
+Now Gondoline, with fearful steps,
+  Drew nearer to the flame,
+For much she dreaded now to hear
+  Her hapless lover's name.
+
+The hag related then the sports
+  Of that eventful day,
+When on the well contested field
+  Full fifteen thousand lay.
+
+She said that she in human gore
+  Above the knees did wade,
+And that no tongue could truly tell
+  The tricks she there had play'd.
+
+There was a gallant featured youth,
+  Who like a hero fought;
+He kiss'd a bracelet on his wrist,
+  And every danger sought.
+
+And in a vassal's garb disguised,
+  Unto the knight she sues,
+And tells him she from Britain comes,
+  And brings unwelcome news.
+
+That three days ere she had embark'd
+  His love had given her hand
+Unto a wealthy Thane:--and thought
+  Him dead in Holy Land.
+
+And to have seen how he did writhe
+  When this her tale she told,
+It would have made a wizard's blood
+  Within his heart run cold.
+
+Then fierce he spurr'd his warrior steed,
+  And sought the battle's bed;
+And soon all mangled o'er with wounds
+  He on the cold turf bled.
+
+And from his smoking corse she tore
+  His head, half clove in two.
+She ceased, and from beneath her garb
+  The bloody trophy drew.
+
+The eyes were starting from their socks,
+  The mouth it ghastly grinn'd,
+And there was a gash across the brow,
+  The scalp was nearly skinn'd.
+
+'Twas Bertrand's head! With a terrible scream
+  The maiden gave a spring
+And from her fearful hiding-place
+  She fell into the ring.
+
+The lights they fled--the cauldron sunk,
+  Deep thunders shook the dome,
+And hollow peals of laughter came
+  Resounding through the gloom.
+
+Insensible the maiden lay
+  Upon the hellish ground,
+And still mysterious sounds were heard
+  At intervals around.
+
+She woke--she half arose--and wild
+  She cast a horrid glare,
+The sounds had ceased, the lights had fled,
+  And all was stillness there.
+
+And through an awning in the rock
+  The moon it sweetly shone,
+And show'd a river in the cave
+  Which dismally did moan.
+
+The stream was black, it sounded deep
+  As it rush'd the rocks between,
+It offer'd well, for madness fired
+  The breast of Gondoline.
+
+She plunged in, the torrent moan'd
+  With its accustom'd sound,
+And hollow peals of laughter loud
+  Again rebellow'd round.
+
+The maid was seen no more.--But oft
+  Her ghost is known to glide,
+At midnight's silent, solemn hour,
+  Along the ocean's side.
+
+
+
+
+A BALLAD.
+
+Be hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,
+  Ye pelting rains, a little rest;
+Lie still, lie still, ye busy thoughts,
+  That wring with grief my aching breast.
+
+Oh! cruel was my faithless love,
+  To triumph o'er an artless maid;
+Oh! cruel was my faithless love,
+  To leave the breast by him betray'd.
+
+When exiled from my native home,
+  He should have wiped the bitter tear;
+Nor left me faint and lone to roam,
+  A heart-sick weary wanderer here.
+
+My child moans sadly in my arms,
+  The winds they will not let it sleep:
+Ah, little knows the hapless babe
+  What makes its wretched mother weep!
+
+Now lie thee still, my infant dear,
+  I cannot bear thy sobs to see,
+Harsh is thy father, little one,
+  And never will he shelter thee.
+
+Oh, that I were but in my grave,
+  And winds were piping o'er me loud,
+And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,
+  Wert nestling in thy mother's shroud!
+
+
+
+
+THE LULLABY OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD THE NIGHT PREVIOUS
+TO EXECUTION.
+
+
+Sleep, baby mine,[1] enkerchieft on my bosom,
+  Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast;
+Sleep, baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother
+  To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.
+
+Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining?
+  Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled;
+Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning,
+  And I would fain compose my aching head.
+
+Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weeping,
+  When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be?
+Who then will soothe thee, when thy mother's sleeping
+  In her low grave of shame and infamy?
+
+Sleep, baby mine--Tomorrow I must leave thee,
+  And I would snatch an interval of rest:
+Sleep these last moments ere the laws bereave thee,
+  For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] Sir Philip Sidney has a poem, beginning, "Sleep, baby mine."
+
+
+
+
+THE SAVOYARD'S RETURN.
+
+
+Oh! yonder is the well known spot,
+  My dear, my long lost native home!
+Oh, welcome is yon little cot,
+  Where I shall rest, no more to roam!
+Oh! I have travell'd far and wide,
+  O'er many a distant foreign land;
+Each place, each province I have tried.
+  And sung and danced my saraband.
+    But all their charms could not prevail
+    To steal my heart from yonder vale.
+
+Of distant climes the false report
+  It lured me from my native land;
+It bade me rove--my sole support
+  My cymbals and my saraband.
+The woody dell, the hanging rock,
+  The chamois skipping o'er the heights;
+The plain adorn'd with many a flock,
+  And, oh! a thousand more delights,
+    That grace yon dear beloved retreat,
+    Have backward won my weary feet.
+
+Now safe return'd, with wandering tired,
+  No more my little home I'll leave;
+And many a tale of what I've seen
+  Shall while away the winter's eve.
+Oh! I have wandered far and wide,
+  O'er many a distant foreign land;
+Each place, each province I have tried,
+  And sung and danced my saraband;
+    But all their charms could not prevail
+    To steal my heart from yonder vale.
+
+
+
+
+A PASTORAL SONG.
+
+Come, Anna! come, the morning dawns,
+  Faint streaks of radiance tinge the skies;
+Come, let us seek the dewy lawns,
+  And watch the early lark arise;
+    While nature, clad in vesture gay,
+    Hails the loved return of day.
+
+Our flocks, that nip the scanty blade
+  Upon the moor, shall seek the vale;
+And then, secure beneath the shade,
+  We'll listen to the throstle's tale;
+    And watch the silver clouds above,
+    As o'er the azure vault they rove.
+
+Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute,
+  That with its tones, so softly sweet,
+In cadence with my mellow flute,
+  We may beguile the noontide heat;
+    While near the mellow bee shall join,
+    To raise a harmony divine.
+
+And then at eve, when silence reigns,
+  Except when heard the beetle's hum,
+We'll leave the sober tinted plains,
+  To these sweet heights again we'll come;
+    And thou to thy soft lute shalt play
+    A solemn vesper to departing day.
+
+
+
+
+MELODY.
+
+
+Yes, once more that dying strain,
+  Anna, touch thy lute for me;
+Sweet, when pity's tones complain,
+  Doubly sweet is melody.
+
+While the Virtues thus enweave
+  Mildly soft the thrilling song,
+Winter's long and lonesome eve
+  Glides unfelt, unseen, along.
+
+Thus when life hath stolen away,
+  And the wintry night is near,
+Thus shall virtue's friendly ray
+  Age's closing evening, cheer.
+
+
+
+
+SONG.
+
+BY WALLER.
+
+
+A Lady of Cambridge lent Waller's Poems to the Author, and
+when he returned them to her, she discovered an additional
+stanza written by him at the bottom of the song here copied.
+
+  Go, lovely rose!
+Tell her, that wastes her time on me,
+  That now she knows,
+When I resemble her to thee,
+How sweet and fair she seems to be.
+
+  Tell her that's young,
+And shuns to have her graces spied,
+  That hadst thou sprung
+In deserts, where no men abide,
+Thou must have uncommended died.
+
+  Small is the worth
+Of beauty from the light retired,
+  Bid her come forth,
+Suffer herself to be desired,
+And not blush so to be admired.
+
+  Then die, that she
+The common fate of all things rare
+  May read in thee;
+How small a part of time they share,
+That are so wondrous sweet and fair.
+
+  [Yet, though thou fade,
+From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;
+  And teach the maid
+That Goodness Time's rude hand defies,
+That Virtue lives when Beauty dies.
+        H. K. WHITE.]
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING BOY.
+
+A SONG.
+
+
+When the winter wind whistles along the wild moor,
+And the cottager shuts on the beggar his door;
+When the chilling tear stands in my comfortless eye,
+Oh, how hard is the lot of the Wandering Boy.
+
+The winter is cold, and I have no vest,
+And my heart it is cold as it beats in my breast;
+No father, no mother, no kindred have I,
+For I am a parentless Wandering Boy.
+
+Yet I had a home, and I once had a sire,
+A mother who granted each infant desire;
+Our cottage it stood in a wood-embower'd vale,
+Where the ringdove would warble its sorrowful tale.
+
+But my father and mother were summoned away,
+And they left me to hard-hearted strangers a prey;
+I fled from their rigour with many a sigh,
+And now I'm a poor little Wandering Boy.
+
+The wind it is keen, and the snow loads the gale,
+And no one will list to my innocent tale;
+I'll go to the grave where my parents both lie,
+And death shall befriend the poor Wandering Boy.
+
+
+
+
+CANZONET.
+
+
+Maiden! wrap thy mantle round thee,
+  Cold the rain beats on thy breast:
+Why should Horror's voice astound thee?
+  Death can bid the wretched rest!
+    All under the tree
+    Thy bed may be,
+And thou mayst slumber peacefully.
+
+Maiden! once gay pleasure knew thee,
+  Now thy cheeks are pale and deep:
+Love has been a felon to thee,
+  Yet, poor maiden, do not weep:
+    There's rest for thee
+    All under the tree,
+Where thou wilt sleep most peacefully.
+
+
+
+
+SONG.
+
+WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
+
+
+Softly, softly blow, ye breezes,
+  Gently o'er my Edwy fly!
+Lo! he slumbers, slumbers sweetly;
+  Softly, zephyrs, pass him by!
+    My love is asleep,
+    He lies by the deep,
+All along where the salt waves sigh.
+
+I have cover'd him with rushes,
+  Water-flags, and branches dry.
+Edwy, long have been thy slumbers;
+  Edwy, Edwy, ope thine eye!
+    My love is asleep,
+    He lies by the deep,
+All along where the salt waves sigh.
+
+Still he sleeps; he will not waken,
+  Fastly closed is his eye;
+Paler is his cheek, and chiller
+  Than the icy moon on high.
+    Alas! he is dead,
+    He has chose his death-bed
+All along where the salt waves sigh.
+
+Is it, is it so, my Edwy?
+  Will thy slumbers never fly?
+Couldst thou think I would survive thee?
+  No, my love, thou bid'st me die.
+    Thou bid'st me seek
+    Thy death-bed bleak
+All along where the salt waves sigh.
+
+I will gently kiss thy cold lips,
+  On thy breast I'll lay my head,
+And the winds shall sing our death dirge,
+  And our shroud the waters spread;
+    The moon will smile sweet,
+    And the wild wave will beat,
+Oh! so softly o'er our lonely bed.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHIPWRECKED SOLITARY'S SONG TO THE NIGHT.
+
+
+Thou, spirit of the spangled night!
+I woo thee from the watchtower high,
+Where thou dost sit to guide the bark
+  Of lonely mariner.
+
+The winds are whistling o'er the wolds,
+The distant main is moaning low;
+Come, let us sit and weave a song--
+  A melancholy song!
+
+Sweet is the scented gale of morn,
+And sweet the noontide's fervid beam,
+But sweeter far the solemn calm
+  That marks thy mournful reign.
+
+I've pass'd here many a lonely year,
+And never human voice have heard;
+I've pass'd here many a lonely year,
+  A solitary man.
+
+And I have linger'd in the shade,
+From sultry noon's hot beams; and I
+Have knelt before my wicker door,
+  To sing my evening song.
+
+And I have hail'd the gray morn high,
+On the blue mountain's misty brow,
+And tried to tune my little reed
+  To hymns of harmony.
+
+But never could I tune my reed,
+At morn, or noon, or eve, so sweet,
+As when upon the ocean shore
+  I hail'd thy star-beam mild.
+
+The dayspring brings not joy to me,
+The moon it whispers not of peace;
+But oh! when darkness robes the heavens,
+  My woes are mix'd with joy.
+
+And then I talk, and often think
+Aerial voices answer me;
+And oh! I am not then alone--
+  A solitary man.
+
+And when the blustering winter winds
+Howl in the woods that clothe my cave,
+I lay me on my lonely mat,
+  And pleasant are my dreams.
+
+And fancy gives me back my wife;
+And fancy gives me back my child;
+She gives me back my little home,
+  And all its placid joys.
+
+Then hateful is the morning hour,
+That calls me from the dream of bliss,
+To find myself still lone, and hear
+  The same dull sounds again.
+
+The deep-toned winds, the moaning sea,
+The whispering of the boding trees,
+The brook's eternal flow, and oft
+  The condor's hollow scream.
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL JUGGLER.
+
+A SONG.
+
+
+Come all ye true hearts, who, Old England to save,
+Now shoulder the musket, or plough the rough wave,
+I will sing you a song of a wonderful fellow,
+Who has ruin'd Jack Pudding, and broke Punchinello.
+  Derry down, down, high derry down.
+
+This juggler is little, and ugly, and black,
+But, like Atlas, he stalks with the world at his back;
+'Tis certain, all fear of the devil he scorns;
+Some say they are cousins; we know he wears horns.
+  Derry down.
+
+At hop, skip, and jump, who so famous as he?
+He hopp'd o'er an army, he skipped o'er the sea;
+And he jump'd from the desk of a village attorney
+To the throne of the Bourbons--a pretty long journey.
+  Derry down.
+
+He tosses up kingdoms the same as a ball,
+And his cup is so fashion'd it catches them all;
+The Pope and Grand Turk have been heard to declare
+His skill at the long bow has made them both stare.
+  Derry down.
+
+He has shown off his tricks in France, Italy, Spain;
+And Germany too knows his legerdemain;
+So hearing John Bull has a taste for strange sights,
+He's coming to London to put us to rights.
+  Derry down.
+
+To encourage his puppets to venture this trip,
+He has built them such boats as can conquer a ship;
+With a gun of good metal, that shoots out so far,
+It can silence the broadsides of three men of war.
+  Derry down.
+
+This new Katterfelto, his show to complete,
+Means his boats should all sink as they pass by our fleet;
+Then, as under the ocean their course they steer right on,
+They can pepper their foes from the bed of old Triton.
+  Derry down.
+
+If this project should fail, he has others in store;
+Wooden horses, for instance, may bring them safe o'er;
+Or the genius of France (as the Moniteur tells)
+May order balloons, or provide diving-bells.
+  Derry down.
+
+When Philip of Spain fitted out his Armada,
+Britain saw his designs, and could meet her invader;
+But how to greet Bonny she never will know,
+If he comes in the style of a fish or a crow.
+  Derry down.
+
+Now if our rude tars will so crowd up the seas,
+That his boats have not room to go down when they please,
+Can't he wait till the channel is quite frozen over,
+And a stout pair of skates will transport him to Dover.
+  Derry down.
+
+How welcome he'll be it were needless to say;
+Neither he nor his puppets shall e'er go away;
+I am sure at his heels we shall constantly stick,
+Till we know he has play'd off his very last trick.
+  Derry down, down, high derry down.
+
+
+
+
+HYMN.
+
+In Heaven we shall be purified, so as to be able to endure the
+splendours of the Deity.
+
+
+Awake, sweet harp of Judah, wake,
+Retune thy strings for Jesus' sake;
+We sing the Saviour of our race,
+The Lamb, our shield, and hiding-place.
+
+When God's right arm is bared for war,
+And thunders clothe his cloudy car,
+Where, where, oh, where shall man retire,
+To escape the horrors of his ire?
+
+'Tis he, the Lamb, to him we fly,
+While the dread tempest passes by;
+God sees his Well-beloved's face,
+And spares us in our hiding-place.
+
+Thus while we dwell in this low scene,
+The Lamb is our unfailing screen;
+To him, though guilty, still we run,
+And God still spares us for his Son.
+
+While yet we sojourn here below,
+Pollutions still our hearts o'erflow;
+Fallen, abject, mean, a sentenced race,
+We deeply need a hiding-place.
+
+Yet, courage--days and years will glide,
+And we shall lay these clods aside,
+Shall be baptized in Jordan's flood,
+And wash'd in Jesus' cleansing blood.
+
+Then pure, immortal, sinless, freed,
+We through the Lamb shall be decreed;
+Shall meet the Father face to face,
+And need no more a hiding-place.[1]
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] The last stanza of this hymn was added extemporaneously, by the
+Author, one summer evening, when he was with a few friends on the Trent,
+and singing as he was used to do on such occasions.
+
+
+
+
+A HYMN FOR FAMILY WORSHIP.
+
+O Lord, another day is flown,
+  And we, a lonely band,
+Are met once more before thy throne,
+  To bless thy fostering hand.
+
+And wilt thou bend a listening ear,
+  To praises low as ours?
+Thou wilt! for thou dost love to hear
+  The song which meekness pours.
+
+And, Jesus, thou thy smiles wilt deign,
+  As we before thee pray;
+For thou didst bless the infant train,
+  And we are less than they.
+
+O let thy grace perform its part,
+  And let contention cease;
+And shed abroad in every heart
+  Thine everlasting peace!
+
+Thus chasten'd, cleansed, entirely thine,
+  A flock by Jesus led;
+The Sun of Holiness shall shine
+  In glory on our head.
+
+And thou wilt turn our wandering feet,
+  And thou wilt bless our way;
+Till worlds shall fade, and faith shall greet
+  The dawn of lasting day.
+
+
+
+
+THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.
+
+
+When marshal'd on the nightly plain,
+  The glittering host bestud the sky;
+One star alone, of all the train,
+  Can fix the sinner's wandering eye.
+
+Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks,
+  From every host, from every gem;
+But one alone the Saviour speaks,
+  It is the Star of Bethlehem.
+
+Once on the raging seas I rode,
+  The storm was loud,--the night was dark,
+The ocean yawn'd--and rudely blow'd
+  The wind that toss'd my foundering bark.
+
+Deep horror then my vitals froze,
+  Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
+When suddenly a star arose,
+  It was the Star of Bethlehem.
+
+It was my guide, my light, my all,
+  It bade my dark forebodings cease;
+And through the storm and dangers' thrall
+  It led me to the port of peace.
+
+Now safely moor'd--my peril's o'er,
+  I'll sing, first in night's diadem,
+For ever, and for evermore,
+  The Star!--The Star of Bethlehem!
+
+
+
+
+A HYMN.
+
+O Lord, my God, in mercy turn,
+In mercy hear a sinner mourn!
+To thee I call, to thee I cry,
+O leave me, leave me not to die!
+
+I strove against thee, Lord, I know,
+I spurn'd thy grace, I mock'd thy law;
+The hour is past--the day's gone by,
+And I am left alone to die.
+
+O pleasures past, what are ye now
+But thorns about my bleeding brow!
+Spectres that hover round my brain,
+And aggravate and mock my pain.
+
+For pleasure I have given my soul;
+Now, Justice, let thy thunders roll!
+Now, Vengeance, smile--and with a blow
+Lay the rebellious ingrate low.
+
+Yet, Jesus, Jesus! there I'll cling,
+I'll crowd beneath his sheltering wing;
+I'll clasp the cross, and holding there,
+Even me, oh bliss!--his wrath may spare.
+
+
+
+
+TRIBUTARY VERSES.
+
+
+
+
+EULOGY ON HENRY KIRKE WHITE, BY
+LORD BYRON.
+
+FROM THE ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS.
+
+
+Unhappy White![1] while life was in its spring,
+And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
+The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
+Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
+Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
+When science self destroy'd her favourite son!
+Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
+She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.
+'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
+And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low.
+So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
+No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
+View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
+And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
+Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel,
+He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel;
+While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
+Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge in October, 1806, in consequence
+of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured
+a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself
+destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must
+impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was
+allotted to talents, which would have dignified even the sacred functions
+he was destined to assume.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET ON HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY CAPEL LOFFT.
+
+
+Master so early of the various lyre
+  Energic, pure, sublime!--Thus art thou gone?
+  In its bright dawn of fame that spirit flown,
+Which breathed such sweetness, tenderness, and fire!
+Wert thou but shown to win us to admire,
+  And veil in death thy splendour?--But unknown
+  Their destination who least time have shone,
+And brightest beamed.--When these the Eternal Sire,
+--Righteous, and wise, and good are all his ways--
+  Eclipses as their sun begins to rise,
+Can mortal judge, for their diminish'd days,
+  What blest equivalent in changeless skies,
+What sacred glory waits them?--His the praise;
+  Gracious, whate'er he gives, whate'er denies.
+
+24th Oct. 1806.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET OCCASIONED BY THE SECOND OF
+HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY CAPEL LOFFT.
+
+
+Yes, fled already is thy vital fire,
+  And the fair promise of thy early bloom
+  Lost, in youth's morn extinct; sunk in the tomb;
+Mute in the grave sleeps thy enchanted lyre!
+And is it vainly that our souls aspire?
+  Falsely does the presaging heart presume
+  That we shall live beyond life's cares and gloom;
+Grasps it eternity with high desire,
+But to imagine bliss, feel woe, and die;
+  Leaving survivors to worse pangs than death?
+    Not such the sanction of the Eternal Mind.
+The harmonious order of the starry sky,
+  And awful revelation's angel breath,
+    Assure these hopes their full effect shall find.
+
+25th December, 1806.
+
+
+
+
+WRITTEN IN THE HOMER OF
+MR. H. K. WHITE.
+
+PRESENTED TO ME BY HIS BROTHER, J. NEVILLE WHITE.
+
+BY CAPEL LOFFT.
+
+
+Bard of brief days, but ah, of deathless fame!
+  While on these awful leaves my fond eyes rest,
+  On which thine late have dwelt, thy hand late press'd,
+I pause; and gaze regretful on thy name.
+By neither chance nor envy, time nor flame,
+  Be it from this its mansion dispossessed!
+  But thee, Eternity, clasps to her breast,
+And in celestial splendour thrones thy claim.
+
+No more with mortal pencil shalt thou trace
+  An imitative radiance:[1] thy pure lyre,
+Springs from our changeful atmosphere's embrace,
+  And beams and breathes in empyreal fire:
+The Homeric and Miltonian sacred tone
+Responsive hail that lyre congenial to their own.
+
+Bury, 11th Jan. 1807.
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] Alluding to his pencilled sketch of a head surrounded with a glory.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF H. K. WHITE.
+
+BY THE REV. W. B. COLLYER, A. M.
+
+
+O Lost too soon! accept the tear
+  A stranger to thy memory pays!
+Dear to the muse, to science dear,
+  In the young morning of thy days!
+
+All the wild notes that pity loved
+  Awoke, responsive still to thee,
+While o'er the lyre thy fingers roved
+  In softest, sweetest harmony.
+
+The chords that in the human heart
+  Compassion touches as her own,
+Bore in thy symphonies a part--
+  With them in perfect unison.
+
+Amidst accumulated woes
+  That premature afflictions bring,
+Submission's sacred hymn arose,
+  Warbled from every mournful string.
+
+When o'er thy dawn the darkness spread,
+  And deeper every moment grew;
+When rudely round thy youthful head
+  The chilling blasts of sickness blew;
+
+Religion heard no 'plainings loud,
+  The sigh in secret stole from thee;
+And pity, from the "dropping cloud,"
+  Shed tears of holy sympathy.
+
+Cold is that heart in which were met
+  More virtues than could ever die;
+The morning star of hope is set--
+  The sun adorns another sky.
+
+O partial grief! to mourn the day
+  So suddenly o'erclouded here,
+To rise with unextinguish'd ray--
+  To shine in a superior sphere!
+
+Oft Genius early quits this sod,
+  Impatient of a robe of clay,
+Spreads the light pinion, spurns the clod,
+  And smiles, and soars, and steals away!
+
+But more than genius urged thy flight,
+  And mark'd the way, dear youth! for thee:
+Henry sprang up to worlds of light
+On wings of immortality!
+
+Blackheath Hill, 24th June, 1808.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET TO HENRY KIRKE WHITE, ON HIS
+POEMS LATELY PUBLISHED.
+
+BY ARTHUR OWEN, ESQ.
+
+
+Hail! gifted youth, whose passion-breathing lay
+  Portrays a mind attuned to noblest themes,
+  A mind, which, wrapt in Fancy's high-wrought dreams,
+To nature's veriest bounds its daring way
+Can wing: what charms throughout thy pages shine,
+  To win with fairy thrill the melting soul!
+  For though along impassion'd grandeur roll,
+Yet in full power simplicity is thine.
+Proceed, sweet bard! and the heaven-granted fire
+  Of pity, glowing in thy feeling breast,
+  May nought destroy, may nought thy soul divest
+Of joy--of rapture in the living lyre,
+  Thou tunest so magically: but may fame
+  Each passing year add honours to thy name.
+
+Richmond, Sept. 1803.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET,
+
+ON SEEING ANOTHER WRITTEN TO H. K. WHITE, IN SEPTEMBER,
+1803, INSERTED IN HIS "REMAINS."
+
+BY ARTHUR OWEN, ESQ.
+
+
+  Ah! once again the long left wires among,
+  Truants the Muse to weave her requiem song;
+With sterner lore now busied, erst the lay
+Cheer'd my dark morn of manhood, wont to stray
+O'er fancy's fields in quest of musky flower;
+  To me nor fragrant less, though barr'd from view
+And courtship of the world: hail'd was the hour
+  That gave me, dripping fresh with nature's dew,
+Poor Henry's budding beauties--to a clime
+  Hapless transplanted, whose exotic ray
+  Forced their young vigour into transient day,
+And drain'd the stalk that rear'd them! and shall time
+Trample these orphan blossoms?--No! they breathe
+Still lovelier charms--for Southey culls the wreath!
+
+Oxford, Dec. 17, 1807.
+
+
+
+
+REFLECTIONS ON READING THE LIFE OF
+THE LATE HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY WILLIAM HOLLOWAY,
+AUTHOR OF THE "PEASANT'S FATE."
+
+
+Darling of science and the muse,
+How shall a son of song refuse
+  To shed a tear for thee?
+To us, so soon, for ever lost,
+What hopes, what prospects have been cross'd
+  By Heaven's supreme decree?
+
+How could a parent, love-beguiled,
+In life's fair prime resign a child
+  So duteous, good, and kind?
+The warblers of the soothing strain
+Must string the elegiac lyre in vain
+  To soothe the wounded mind!
+
+Yet, Fancy, hovering round the tomb,
+Half envies, while she mourns thy doom,
+  Dear poet, saint, and sage!
+Who into one short span, at best,
+The wisdom of an age compress'd,
+  A patriarch's lengthen'd age!
+
+To him a genius sanctified,
+And purged from literary pride,
+  A sacred boon was given:
+Chaste as the psalmist's harp, his lyre
+Celestial raptures could inspire,
+  And lift the soul to Heaven.
+
+'Twas not the laurel earth bestows,
+'Twas not the praise from man that flows,
+  With classic toil he sought:
+He sought the crown that martyrs wear,
+When rescued from a world of care;
+  Their spirit too he caught.
+
+Here come, ye thoughtless, vain, and gay,
+Who idly range in Folly's way,
+  And learn the worth of time:
+Learn ye, whose days have run to waste,
+How to redeem this pearl at last,
+  Atoning for your crime.
+
+This flower, that droop'd in one cold clime
+Transplanted from the soil of time
+  To immortality,
+In full perfection there shall bloom;
+And those who now lament his doom
+  Must bow to God's decree.
+
+London, 27th Feb. 1808.
+
+
+
+
+ON THE DEATH OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY T. PARK.
+
+
+Too, too prophetic did thy wild note swell,
+  Impassion'd minstrel! when its pitying wail
+Sigh'd o'er the vernal primrose as it fell
+  Untimely, wither'd by the northern gale.[1]
+Thou wert that flower of promise and of prime!
+  Whose opening bloom, 'mid many an adverse blast,
+Charm'd the lone wanderer through this desert clime,
+  But charm'd him with a rapture soon o'ercast,
+To see thee languish into quick decay.
+  Yet was not thy departing immature;
+For ripe in virtue thou wert reft away,
+  And pure in spirit, as the bless'd are pure;
+Pure as the dewdrop, freed from earthly leaven,
+That sparkles, is exhaled, and blends with heaven!
+
+Footnotes:
+
+[1] See Clifton Grove.
+
+
+
+
+LINES ON THE DEATH OF MR. HENRY
+KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY THE REV. J. PLUMPTRE.
+
+
+Such talents and such piety combined,
+With such unfeign'd humility of mind,
+Bespoke him fair to tread the way to fame,
+And live an honour to the Christian name.
+But Heaven was pleased to stop his fleeting hour,
+And blight the fragrance of the opening flower.
+We mourn--but not for him, removed from pain;
+Our loss, we trust, is his eternal gain:
+With him we'll strive to win the Saviour's love,
+And hope to join him with the blest above.
+
+October 24th, 1806.
+
+
+
+
+TO MR. HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY H. WELKER.
+
+
+Hark! 'tis some sprite who sweeps a funeral knell,
+  For Dermody no more.--That fitful tone
+From Eolus' wild harp alone can swell,
+  Or Chatterton assumes the lyre unknown.
+
+No; list again! 'tis Bateman's fatal sigh
+  Swells with the breeze, and dies upon the stream:
+'Tis Margaret mourns, as swift she rushes by,
+  Roused by the demons from adulterous dream.
+
+O! say, sweet youth! what genius fires thy soul?
+  The same which tuned the frantic nervous strain
+To the wild harp of Collins?--By the pole,
+  Or 'mid the seraphim and heavenly train,
+Taught Milton everlasting secrets to unfold,
+To sing Hell's flaming gulf, or Heaven high arch'd with gold?
+
+
+
+
+VERSES OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF
+HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY JOSIAH CONDER.
+
+
+  What is this world at best,
+  Though deck'd in vernal bloom,
+By hope and youthful fancy dress'd,
+What, but a ceaseless toil for rest,
+  A passage to the tomb?
+    If flowrets strew
+    The avenue,
+Though fair, alas! how fading, and how few!
+
+  And every hour comes arm'd
+  By sorrow, or by woe:
+Conceal'd beneath its little wings,
+A scythe the soft-shod pilferer brings,
+  To lay some comfort low:
+    Some tie to unbind,
+    By love entwined,
+Some silken bond that holds the captive mind.
+
+  And every month displays
+  The ravages of time:
+Faded the flowers!--The spring is past!
+The scattered leaves, the wintry blast,
+  Warn to a milder clime:
+    The songsters flee
+    The leafless tree,
+And bear to happier realms their melody.
+
+  Henry! the world no more
+  Can claim thee for her own!
+In purer skies thy radiance beams!
+Thy lyre employ'd on nobler themes
+  Before the eternal throne:
+    Yet, spirit dear,
+    Forgive the tear
+Which those must shed who're doom'd to linger here.
+
+  Although a stranger, I
+  In friendship's train would weep:
+Lost to the world, alas! so young,
+And must thy lyre, in silence hung,
+  On the dark cypress sleep?
+    The poet, all
+    Their friend may call;
+And Nature's self attends his funeral.
+
+  Although with feeble wing
+  Thy flight I would pursue,
+With quicken'd zeal, with humbled pride,
+Alike our object, hopes, and guide,
+  One heaven alike in view;
+    True, it was thine
+    To tower, to shine;
+But I may make thy milder virtues mine.
+
+  If Jesus own my name
+  (Though, fame pronounced it never),
+Sweet spirit, not with thee alone,
+But all whose absence here I moan,
+Circling with harps the golden throne,
+  I shall unite for ever.
+    At death then why
+    Tremble or sigh?
+Oh! who would wish to live, but he who fears to die?
+
+Dec. 5, 1807.
+
+
+
+
+ON READING HENRY KIRKE WHITE'S
+POEM ON SOLITUDE.
+
+BY JOSIAH CONDER.
+
+
+But art thou thus indeed "alone?"
+Quite unbefriended--all unknown?
+And hast thou then his name forgot
+Who form'd thy frame, and fix'd thy lot?
+
+Is not his voice in evening's gale?
+Beams not with him the "star" so pale?
+Is there a leaf can fade and die
+Unnoticed by his watchful eye?
+
+Each fluttering hope--each anxious fear--
+Each lonely sigh--each silent tear--
+To thine Almighty Friend are known;
+And say'st thou, thou art "all alone?"
+
+
+
+
+ODE ON THE LATE H. KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY JUVENIS.
+
+
+And is the minstrel's voyage o'er?
+  And is the star of genius fled?
+And will his magic harp no more,
+  Mute in the mansions of the dead,
+Its strains seraphic pour?
+
+A pilgrim in this world of woe,
+  Condemn'd, alas! awhile to stray,
+Where bristly thorns, where briers grow,
+  He bade, to cheer the gloomy way,
+Its heavenly music flow.
+
+And oft he bade, by fame inspired,
+  Its wild notes seek the ethereal plain,
+Till angels, by its music fired,
+  Have, listening, caught the ecstatic strain,
+Have wonder'd, and admired.
+
+But now secure on happier shores,
+  With choirs of sainted souls he sings;
+His harp the Omnipotent adores,
+  And from its sweet, its silver strings
+Celestial music pours.
+
+And though on earth, no more he'll weave
+  The lay that's fraught with magic fire,
+Yet oft shall Fancy hear at eve
+  His now exalted heavenly lyre
+In sounds AEolian grieve.
+
+B. Stoke.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET IN MEMORY OF HENRY
+KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY J. G.
+
+
+"'Tis now the dead of night," and I will go
+To where the brook soft murmuring glides along
+In the still wood; yet does the plaintive song
+Of Philomela through the welkin flow;
+And while pale Cynthia carelessly doth throw
+  Her dewy beams the verdant boughs among,
+  Will sit beneath some spreading oak tree strong,
+And intermingle with the streams my woe!
+Hush'd in deep silence every gentle breeze;
+  No mortal breath disturbs the awful gloom;
+Cold, chilling dewdrops trickle down the trees,
+  And every flower withholds its rich perfume:
+'Tis sorrow leads me to that sacred ground
+Where Henry moulders in a sleep profound!
+
+
+
+
+LINES ON THE DEATH OF HENRY
+KIRKE WHITE.
+
+LATE OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+  Sorrows are mine--then let me joys evade.
+And seek for sympathies in this lone shade.
+The glooms of death fall heavy on my heart,
+And, between life and me, a truce impart.
+Genius has vanish'd in its opening bloom,
+And youth and beauty wither in the tomb!
+  Thought, ever prompt to lend the inquiring eye,
+Pursues thy spirit through futurity.
+Does thy aspiring mind new powers essay,
+Or in suspended being wait the day,
+When earth shall fall before the awful train
+Of Heaven and Virtue's everlasting reign?
+  May goodness, which thy heart did once enthrone,
+Emit one ray to meliorate my own!
+And for thy sake, when time affliction calm,
+Science shall please, and poesie shall charm.
+  I turn my steps whence issued all my woes,
+Where the dull courts monastic glooms impose;
+Thence fled a spirit whose unbounded scope
+Surpass'd the fond creations e'en of hope.
+  Along this path thy living step has fled,
+Along this path they bore thee to the dead.
+All that this languid eye can now survey
+Witnessed the vigour of thy fleeting day:
+And witness'd all, as speaks this anguish'd tear,
+The solemn progress of thy early bier.
+  Sacred the walls that took thy parting breath,
+Own'd thee in life, encompass'd thee in death!
+  Oh! I can feel as felt the sorrowing friend
+Who o'er thy corse in agony did bend;
+Dead as thyself to all the world inspires,
+Paid the last rites mortality requires;
+Closed the dim eye that beam'd with mind before,
+Composed the icy limbs to move no more!
+  Some power the picture from my memory tear,
+Or feeling will rush onward to despair.
+  Immortal hopes! come, lend your blest relief,
+And raise the soul bow'd down with mortal grief;
+Teach it to look for comfort in the skies:
+Earth cannot give what Heaven's high will denies.
+
+Cambridge, Nov. 1806.
+
+
+
+
+SONNET
+
+ADDRESSED TO H. K. WHITE, ON HIS POEMS
+LATELY PUBLISHED.
+
+BY G. L. C.
+
+
+Henry! I greet thine entrance into life!
+Sure presage that the myrmidons of fate,
+The fool's unmeaning laugh, the critic's hate,
+Will dire assail thee; and the envious strife
+Of bookish schoolmen, beings over rife,
+Whose pia-mater studious is fill'd
+With unconnected matter, half distill'd
+From letter'd page, shall bare for thee the knife,
+Beneath whose edge the poet ofttimes sinks:
+But fear not! for thy modest work contains
+The germ of worth; thy wild poetic strains,
+How sweet to him, untutor'd bard, who thinks
+Thy verse "has power to please, as soft it flows
+Through the smooth murmurs of the frequent close."
+
+1803.
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY A LADY.
+
+
+If worth, if genius, to the world are dear,
+To Henry's shade devote no common tear;
+His worth on no precarious tenure hung.
+From genuine piety his virtues sprung;
+If pure benevolence, if steady sense,
+Can to the feeling heart delight dispense:
+If all the highest efforts of the mind,
+Exalted, noble, elegant, refined,
+Call for fond sympathy's heart-felt regret,
+Ye sons of genius, pay the mournful debt:
+His friends can truly speak how large his claim,
+And "Life was only wanting to his fame."
+Art thou, indeed, dear youth, for ever fled?
+So quickly number'd with the silent dead?
+Too sure I read it in the downcast eye,
+Hear it in mourning friendship's stifled sigh.
+Ah! could esteem or admiration save
+So dear an object from the untimely grave,
+This transcript faint had not essay'd to tell
+The loss of one beloved, revered so well;
+Vainly I try, even eloquence were weak,
+The silent sorrow that I feel to speak.
+No more my hours of pain thy voice will cheer,
+And bind my spirit to this lower sphere;
+Bend o'er my suffering frame with gentle sigh,
+And bid new fire relume my languid eye:
+No more the pencil's mimic art command,
+And with kind pity guide my trembling hand;
+Nor dwell upon the page in fond regard,
+To trace the meaning of the Tuscan bard.
+Vain all the pleasures thou canst not inspire,
+And "in my breast the imperfect joys expire."
+I fondly hoped thy hand might grace my shrine,
+And little dream'd I should have wept o'er thine:
+In fancy's eye methought I saw thy lyre
+With virtue's energies each bosom fire;
+I saw admiring nations press around,
+Eager to catch the animating sound:
+And when, at length, sunk in the shades of night,
+To brighter worlds thy spirit wing'd its flight,
+Thy country hail'd thy venerated shade,
+And each graced honour to thy memory paid.
+Such was the fate hope pictured to my view--
+But who, alas! e'er found hope's visions true?
+And, ah! a dark presage, when last we met,
+Sadden'd the social hour with deep regret;
+When thou thy portrait from the minstrel drew,
+The living Edwin starting on my view--
+Silent, I ask'd of Heaven a lengthen'd date;
+His genius thine, but not like thine his fate.
+Shuddering I gazed, and saw too sure revealed,
+The fatal truth, by hope till then conceal'd.
+Too strong the portion of celestial flame
+For its weak tenement the fragile frame;
+Too soon for us it sought its native sky,
+And soar'd impervious to the mortal eye,
+Like some clear planet, shadow'd from our sight,
+Leaving behind long tracks of lucid light:
+So shall thy bright example fire each youth
+With love of virtue, piety, and truth.
+Long o'er thy loss shall grateful Granta mourn,
+And bid her sons revere thy favour'd urn.
+When thy loved flower "spring's victory makes known,"
+The primrose pale shall bloom for thee alone:
+Around thy urn the rosemary well spread,
+Whose "tender fragrance,"--emblem of the dead--
+Shall "teach the maid, whose bloom no longer lives,"
+That "virtue every perish'd grace survives."
+Farewell! sweet Moralist; heart-sickening grief
+Tells me in duty's path to seek relief,
+With surer aim on faith's strong pinions rise,
+And seek hope's vanish'd anchor in the skies.
+Yet still on thee shall fond remembrance dwell,
+And to the world thy worth delight to tell;
+Though well I feel unworthy thee the lays
+That to thy memory weeping friendship pays.
+
+
+
+
+STANZAS,
+
+SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE
+OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
+
+BY A LADY.
+
+
+Ye gentlest gales! oh, hither waft,
+  On airy undulating sweeps,
+Your frequent sighs so passing soft,
+  Where he, the youthful Poet, sleeps!
+He breathed the purest tenderest sigh,
+The sigh of sensibility.
+
+And thou shalt lie, his favourite flower,
+  Pale primrose, on his grave reclined;
+Sweet emblem of his fleeting hour,
+  And of his pure, his spotless mind!
+Like thee he sprung in lowly vale;
+And felt, like thee, the trying gale.
+
+Nor hence thy pensive eye seclude,
+  O thou, the fragrant rosemary,
+Where he, "in marble solitude,
+  So peaceful and so deep" doth lie!
+His harp prophetic sung to thee
+In notes of sweetest minstrelsy.
+
+Ye falling dews, Oh! ever leave
+  Your crystal drops these flowers to steep:
+At earliest morn, at latest eve,
+  Oh let them for their poet weep!
+For tears bedew'd his gentle eye,
+The tears of heavenly sympathy.
+
+Thou western Sun, effuse thy beams;
+  for he was wont to pace the glade,
+To watch in pale uncertain gleams,
+  The crimson-zoned horizon fade--
+Thy last, they setting radiance pour,
+Where he is set to rise no more.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White, by
+Henry Kirke White
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