But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd These shapings of the unregenerate mind, Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, Th' Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healed me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honor'd Maid!

REFLECTIONS

ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.

Low was our pretty cot: our tallest rose Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear

At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, The sea's faint murmur. In the open air Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round

Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. It was a spot which you might aptly call The VALLEY of SECLUSION! Once I saw

(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd

With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again,

And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place. And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen Gleaming on sunny wing) in whisper'd tones I've said to my beloved: Such, sweet girl! The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,

And the heart listens! But the time, when first From that low dell, steep up the stony mount I climb'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,

Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount, The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep; Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;

And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;

And seats, and lawns, the abbey, and the wood, And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire: The channel there, the islands and white sails, Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless ocean

It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought, Had built him there a Temple: the whole world

Seem'd imag'd in its vast circumference. No wish profan'd my overwhelmed heart. Blest hour! It was a luxury,—to be!

Ah! quiet dell! dear cot! and mount sublime!

I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,

Time,

Which I have fram'd in many a various mood,

Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance

Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) If aught of error or intemperate truth Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age

Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with Bees,Such tents the Patriarchs lov'd! O long unharm'd

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting

stone

Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the spring, Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath, Send up cold waters to the traveller With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, As and no taller, dances still, merry Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the fount.

Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss, A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. Thou mayst toil far and find no second tree; Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy

heart

Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Thy spirit, list'ning to some gentle sound, Or passing gale, or hum of murmuring bees!

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane! (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise

And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,

Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths
And honoring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow puppets of an hollow age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever

(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,

Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintained
The Citadel unconquer'd, and in joy
Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Of the belov'd Parnassian forest leads,
Lurk'd undiscover'd by him; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had trac'd it upward to its source;
Thro' open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and
cull'd

Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of od'rous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
O fram'd for calmer times and nobler hearts!
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher! contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love!
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

WELL, they are gone, and here must I remain, This Lime-Tree-Bower my Prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been Most sweet to my remembrance, even when age

Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile, Friends, whom I never more may meet again, On springy heath, along the hill-top-edge, Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told; The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep, And only speckled by the mid-day Sun; Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to rock

Flings arching like a bridge;-that branchless Ash,

leaves

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone. Now, my friends

emerge

Beneath the wide wide heaven-and view again

The many-steepled track magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails
light up

Beat its straight path along the dusky air Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, While thou stoodst gazing; or when all was still,

Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to

whom

isles

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou,methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast
pined

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and
pain

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves! And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my Friend Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Less gross than bodily and of such hues As veil the almighty Spirit, when he makes Spirits perceive his presence. A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little lime-tree-bower, have I not mark'd Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest

mass

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall
know

That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure,
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to love and beauty! and sometimes
"Tis well to be bereft of promised good,

TO A FRIEND

WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY.

DEAR Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween

That Genius plunged thee in that wizard-
fount
Hight Castalie; and (sureties of thy faith)
That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promised for thee, that thou shouldst

renounce

The world's low cares and lying vanities,
Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,
And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful
hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son:
And with those recreant unbaptized Heels
Thou'rt flying from thy bounden Minis-
teries-

So sore it seems and burthensome a task To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy,
And I have arrows mystically dipt,
Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns
dead?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth
Without the meed of one melodious tear?
Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard,
Who to the Illustrious of his native Land
So properly did look for Patronage.
Ghost of Maecenas! hide thy blushing face!
They snatch'd him from the sickle and the
plough-

To gauge Ale-Firkins.-Oh! for shame return!
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight-blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bongh,
Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be ex-
haled,

And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers

fruit. These with stopped nostril and gloveguarded hand

Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN IN

DIVIDUAL MIND.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the
Good!

Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung
aright)

Of the foundations and the building up
Of the Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to th' understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital breathings, like the secret soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words!-Theme
hard as high!

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twinbirth)

Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power stream'd from thee, and thy
soul received

The light reflected, as a light bestow'd-
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way!

Of more than fancy, of the social sense Distending wide, and man belov'd as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Even as a bark becalm'd beneath the burst Of heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud

Is visible, or shadow on the main.

solute Self,

With light unwaning on her eyes, to look
Far on-herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy!-An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chaunted! O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I view'd thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame,
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of truth,
Of truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural
notes!

Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drown'd,
Life's joy rekindling rous'd a throng of
pains-

Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye
of Hope;
And Hope that scarce would know itself
from Fear;

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,

And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; And all which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild,

And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all, Commune with thee had open'd out-but flowers

Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

By pity or grief, already felt too long! Nor let my words import more blame than

needs.

The tumult rose and ceas'd: for peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart.

Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal Hours Already on the wing!-Eve following eve,