Imatges de pàgina
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That veiling strove to deck your charms divine,
Rich viands, and the pleasurable wine,
Were yours unearn'd by toil; nor could you see
The unenjoying toiler's misery.
And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child,
You hail'd the Chapel and the Platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Whence learnt you that heroic measure?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame,
All living faculties of bliss;
And Genius to your cradle came,
His forehead wreathed with lambent flame,
And bending low, with godlike kiss
Breathed in a more celestial life;
But boasts not many a fair compeer,
A heart as sensitive to joy and fear?
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,

| Some few, to nobler being wrought,

Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought.
Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurell'd War and plumy State,
Or in verse and music dress
Tales of rustic happiness—
Pernicious Tales' insidious Strains!
That steel the rich man's breast,
And mock the lot unblest,
The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be
The doom of Ignorance and Penury!
But you, free Nature's nncorrupted child,
You hail'd the chapel and the Platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell"
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Where learnt you that heroic measure?

You were a Mother! That most holy name,
Which Heaven and Nature bless,
I may not vilely prostitute to those
Whose Infants owe them less
Than the poor Caterpillar owes
Its gaudy Parent Fly.
You were a Mother! at your bosom fed
The Babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye,
Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,
Which you yourself created. Oh! delight!
A second time to be a Mother,
Without the Mother's bitter groans:
Another thought, and yet another,
By touch, or taste, by looks or tones -
O'er the growing Sense to roll,
The Mother of your infant's Soul!
The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides
His chariot-planet round the goal of day,
All trembling gazes on the Eye of God,
A moment turn'd his awful face away;
And as he view d you, from his aspect sweet
New influences in your being rose,
Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet
With living Nature, in her joys and woes!
Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see
The shrine of social Liberty!

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Such a green mountain't were most sweet to climb, E’en while the bosom ached with loneliness— How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow : the glad landscape round, Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

0 then 't were loveliest sympathy, to mark The berries of the half-uprooted ash Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,_ Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark, Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock; In social silence now, and now to unlock The treasured heart; arin link'd in friendly arm, Save if the one, his muse's witching charm Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag; Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears, And from the forehead of the topmost crag Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs, Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight Seen from below, when eve the valley dims, Tinged yellow with the rich departing light; And haply, bason'd in some unsunn'd cleft, A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears, Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale! Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left, Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine, And bending o'er the clear delicious fount, Ah! dearest youth' it were a lot divine To cheat our noons in moralizing mood, While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedev'd: Then downwards slope, of pausing, from the mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss Gives this the Husband's, that the Brother's kiss!

Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore, The Hill of Knowledge I essay'd to trace; That verdurous hill with many a resting-place, And many a stream, whose warblins; waters pour

To glad, and fertilize the subject plains; That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod, And many a fancy-blest and holy sod,

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains Low mushuring, lay; and starting from the rocks Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age, And Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

0 meek retiring spirit! we will climb, Cheering and cheer'd, this lovely hill sublime; And from the stirring world up-lifted high (whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind, To quiet musings shall attune the mind, And of the melancholy theme supply), There, while the prospect through the gazing eye Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, we'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole : Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth we'll discipline the heart to pure delight, bekindling sober joy's domestic flame. They whom I love shall love thee. Honour'd youth! Now may heaven realize this vision bright!

LINEs to w. L. ESQ. while ne sANG A song to puncell's Music.

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

AddRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

Who ABANDoNed himself to AN INdolent AND causeless Mel ANChoi.Y.

Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten Infant hear
Moan haply in a dying Mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves strew'd,
Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave life's common-weal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

Dean native Brook' wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
what happy, and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps' yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

SONNET. coviposed on A journxfy HoviewARD ; The AUTHoh HAv1.Ng RECEived INTELLIGENCE of THE BIRTH OF

a sox, september 20, 1796.

Orr o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll which makes the present (while the flash doth last)

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seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mixd with such feelings, as perplex the soul Self-question'd in her sleep; and some have said " we lived, ere yet this robe of Flesh we wore. o my sweet baby! when I reach my door, if heavy looks should tell me thou art dead (As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear), I think that I should struggle to believe Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve; Didstscream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve, while we wept idly o'er thy little bier'

SONNET.

NURSE FIRST PRESENtEd MY INFANT to M.E.

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

to A FRIEND who AskEd. How I felt whex the

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She listen’d to the tale divine, And closer still the Babe she press'd; And while she cried, the Babe is mine! The milk rush’d faster to her breast: Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn; Peace, Peace on Earth the Prince of Peace is born.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, Poor, simple, and of low estate That Strife should vanish, Battle cease, O why should this thy soul elate? Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's story, — Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of Fame and Glory?

And is not War a vouthful King, A stately Hero clad in Mail? Beneath his footsteps laurels spring; Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail Their Friend, their Playmate! and his bold bright eye Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

“Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state' I am a woman poor and mean, And ther, fore is my Soul elate. War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, That from the aged Father tears his Child'

• A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the Sire and starves the Son; The Husband kills, and from her board Steals all his Widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the Night, all comfort from the Day.

. Then wisely is my soul elate, That Strife should vanish, Battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate, The Mother of the Prince of Peace. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born."

HUMAN LIFE, on The DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY.

If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
swallow up life's brief flash for ave, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being ! If the Breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of nature's dread activity,
which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She form'd with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly'
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy slopes, thy Fears,
The counter-weights!—Thy Laughter and thy Tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

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the correspondent expressions, without any sensation, or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines ibat are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him al-ove an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification. that though he still retained some vague and diru recollection of the general purport of the vision, y, t, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter:

Then all the charin Is broken—all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other. Stay awbile, Poor youth: who scarcely darest list up thine eyes— the stream will soon renew its smootbness, soon the visions will return! And lo he stays, And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms Come trembling back, unite, and now once more The pool becomes a mirror.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Author

has frequently purposed to finish for himself what bad been origi

nally, as it were, given to him. Szaszow 22:2, 2:2: but the to-morrow is yet to come. As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease. —Note to the first Edition, 1816.]

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree ?
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

, as far as the Author's own opi

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