.

Such a green mountain 't were most sweet to climb,

LINES TO W. L ESQ.
E'en while the bosom ached with loneliness-
How more than sweet, if some dear friend should

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC, bless

WHILE my young check retains its healthful hues, The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime And I have many friends who hold me dear; Now lead, now follow : the glad landscape round, L! methinks, I would not often hear Wide and more wide, increasing without bound! Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose

All memory of the wrongs and sore distress, O then 't were loveliest sympathy, to mark

For which my miserable brethren weep!

But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
The berries of the halt-uprooted ash
Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,--

My daily bread in tears and bitterness ;

And if at death's dread moment I should lie Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,

With no beloved face at my bod-side,
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock ;

To fix the last glance of my closing eye,
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart ; arm link'd in friendly arm,

Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guido

Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Save if the one, his muse's witching charın

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died ! Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag;

Till high o'erhead his beckoning friend appears,
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight

CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basin'd in some unsunu'd cleft,

O Youth to partial Forinne vaiuly dear!
A beauteous spring, ihe rock's collected tears,

To plunder'd Want's bralf-shelter'd hovel go, Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

Go, and some hunger-bitien lusant hear Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,

Moan haply in a dying Mother's ear: Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine,

Or when the cold and dismal tog-damps brood And bending o'er the clear delicious fount, O’er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine

sirew'd, To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd :

Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncollin'd limbs Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy

heart mount,

Groans, and thine oye a fiercer sorrow dims, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss

Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) Gives this the Husband's, that the Brother's kiss !

What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject! if, to sickly dreains resign'd,

All efforiless thou leave life's commonweal
Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,

A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.
The Hill of Knowledge l-essay'd to trace ;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.
To glad and fertilize the subject plains ;
Thai hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod, Dear native Brook! will Streamlet of the West!
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod,

How many various-lated years have past, W'here Inspiration, his diviner strains

What happy, and whai mournful hours, since last Low murmuring, tay; and starting from the rocks I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Sit evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age, Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes All Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tinis thy waters rise, Oiseek re!iring spirit! we will climh,

Thy crossing plank, ihy marge with willows gray, Ch e ing and cheerd, this lovely hill sublime;

And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes

Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my And from the stirring world uplified high

way, (Wose noises, faintly wasted on the mind,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled To quiet musings shall attune the mind,

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs : And of the melancholy theme supply),

Ah! that once more I were a careless child ! 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,

SONNET.
As neighboring fountains image, each the whole :
Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth,

COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR
We'll discipline the heart 10 pure delight,

HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH Rekindling sober Joy's domestic llame.

OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796. They whom I love shall love thee. Honor'd youth: Oft o'er my brain does that sirange fancy roll Now may Heaven realize this vision bright! Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)

e

While others wish thee wise and fair,

A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer-

Mayst thou deserve thy name!

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mix'd 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 sear),
I think that I should struggle to believe

Thou wert a spirit, to this nęther sphere
Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve ;
Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick

reprieve, While we wept idly o'er thy little bier !

SONNET.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE

NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

So when, her tale of days all flown,

Thy Mother shall be miss'd here;
When Heaven at length shall claim its own,

And Angels snatch their Sister;

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 thrilld 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 "T was even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the Mother's sake the Child was dear, And dearer was the Mother for the Child.

Some hoary-headed Friend, perchance,

May gaze with 'stifled breath ;
And oft, in momentary trance,

Forget the waste of death.

Ev'n thus a lovely rose I view'd

In summer-swelling pride ;
Nor mark'd the bud, ihat green and rude

Peep'd át the Rose's side.

It chanced, I pass'd again that way

In Autumn's latest hour,
And wond'ring saw the self-same spray

Rich with the self-sarne flower.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A CATHOLIC

VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

Ah fond deceit! the rude green bad

Alike in shape, place, name,
Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud

Another and the same!

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quæ tam dulcem sumnum videt,

Dormi, Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat

Blande, veni, somnule.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

ENGLISH.

Its balmy lips the Infant blest
Relaxing from its Mother's breast,
How sweet it heaves the happy sigh
of innocent Satiety!

Sleep, sweet babe ! my cares beguiling
Mother sits beside thee smiling :

Sleep, my darling, tenderly !
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as lier wheel she turneth :

Come, soft slumber, balmily!

And such my Infant's latest sigh!
O tell, rude stone! the passer-by,
That here the pretty babe doth lie,
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.
This day among the faithful placed
And fed with fontal manna ;

MELANCHOLY.
O with maternal title graced

A FRAGMENT.
Dear Anna's dearest Anna !

STRETCH'D on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest Bow Ην που ημων η ψυχη πριν εν τωδε τω, ανθρωπινω Where ruining ivies propp'd the ruins steep ειδει γενεσθαι.

Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall, Plat. in Phædon Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.

The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

She listen'd to the tale divine,
The dark-green Adder's Tongue* was there; And closer still the Babe she press'd ;
And still as past the fagging sea-gale weak,

And while she cried, the Babe is mine!, l'he long lank leaf bow'd Auttering o'er her cheek. The milk rush'd faster to her breast :

Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn; That pallid cheek was flush'd : her eager look Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, And her bent forehead work'd with troubled

Poor, simple, and of low estate!
thought.

That Strife should vanish, Battle cease,
Strange was the dream-

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?
TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE.

And is not War a youthful King,
IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.

A stately Hero clad in mail?
MARK this holy chapel well!

Beneath his footsteps laurels spring ;
The Birth-place, this, of William Tell.

Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail
Here, where stands God's altar dread,

Their Friend, their Play-mate! and his bold bright eye
Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh

IF dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
THE Shepherds went their hasty way,

As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
* And found the lowly stable-shed

But are their whole of being! If the Breath
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
And now they check'd their eager tread,

If even a soul like Milton's can know death,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,

O Man! thou vessel, purposeless, unmeant,
A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother şung.

Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes !
They told her how a glorious light,

Sarplus of Nature's dread activity,
Strearning from a heavenly throng,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase,
Around them shone, suspending night!

Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
While, sweeter than a Mother's song,

She formd with restless hands unconsciously! Blest Angels heralded the Savior's birth,

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! Glory to God on high! and peace on Earth.

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,

Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy Hopes, thy Fears, • A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet bere de- The counter-weights !—Thy Laughter and thy Tears scribes is called the Hart's Tongue.

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

63

And to repay the other! Why rejoices

But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue! Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good ? Where'er with wilderd steps she wander'd pale,

Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale.

Image of image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold! With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms,
Yet what and whence thy gain if thou withhold Amid the pomp of affluence she pined :

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arins Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!

Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none :
Thy being's being is contradiction.

Go, Traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught

Some tearful maid, perchance, or blooming youth
May hold it in remembrance; and be taught

That Riches cannot pay for Love or Truin.
THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.

NEVER, believe me,

KUBLA KHAN;
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone :

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,
lacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler;

(The following fragment is here published at the request of a Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne! poet of great and deserved celebrity, and, as far as the Author's They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, With Divinities fills my

than on the ground of any supposed poctic merits. Terrestrial Hall !

In the summer of the year 1797, the Autitor, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton,

on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In conHow shall I yield you

sequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been preDue entertainment,

scribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in bis chair at Celestial Quire ?

the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of up-*Ilere the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a

words of the same substance, in Purchas's “ Pilgrimage:"buoyance

stately garden thereunto ; and thus ten miles of fertile grouod Bear aloft to your homes, 10 your banquets of joyance, were inclosed with a wall." The author continued for abou That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!

three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, Ila! we mount! on their pinions they wafi up my Soul! during which time he has the most vivid confidence tbat he could

not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if

that indeed can be called composition in which all the images O give me the Nectar!

rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the O fill me the Bowl!

correspondent expressions, without any sensation, or conscious Give him the Nectar!

ness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to bare a

distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and Pour out for the Poet,

paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here Hebe! pour free!

preserved. At this moment be was unfortunately called out by Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him aboro

an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small That Styx the detested no more he may view,

surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!

vngue and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Paan, I cry!

yet, with the exception of some cight or len scattered lines and The Wine of the Immortals

images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the Forbids me to die!

surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas!
without the after restoration of the latter.

Then all the charm
Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair

Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
ELEGY,

And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes

The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE

The visions will return ! And lo, he stays,
INSCRIPTIONS.

And soon the fragments dim of lovely forns

Come trembling back, unite, and now once more Near the lone pile with ivy overspread,

The pool becomes a mirror. Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound,

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Autho Where “sleeps the moonlight” on yon verdant bed— has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had been O humbly press that consecrated ground! originally, as it were, given to him. Eaucpov adıcv arw

but the to-morrow is yet to come. For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a

very different character, describing with equal fidelt the And there his spirit most delights to rove:

dream of pain and disease. Note to the first Edition, 1916.) Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain, And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, A stately pleasure-dome decree;

And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran His manhood blossom'd: till the faithless pride Through caverns measureless to man, of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

Down to a sunless sea.

64

Since in me, round me, everywhere,
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Infolding sunny spois of greenery.

But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seeth-

ing,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles, meandering with a mažy motion,
l'hrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

But yester-night I pray'd aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorn'd, those only strong!
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning sull!
Desire with lothing strangely mix'd,
On wild or hateful objects fixd.
Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know,
Whether I suffer'd, or I did :
For all seem'd guilt, remorse, or woe,
My own or others', still the same
Life-stilling fear, soul-stilling shame.

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she play'd,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 't would win me,
That with music loud and long,
'would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drank the milk of Paradise.

So two rights pass’d: the night's dismay
Sadden'd and stunn'd the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me
Distemper's worst calamily.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stain'd with sin
For ayo entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and lothe, yet wish and do!
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.

APPENDIX.

APOLOGETIC PREFACE

a

THE PAINS OF SLEEP.

Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees;
Bat silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble Trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought express'd!
Only a sense of supplication,
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,

TO "FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER."

(See page 26) At the house of a gentleman, who by the principles

and corresponding virtues of a sincere Christian consecrates a cultivated genius and the favorable acci. dents of birth, opulence, and splendid connexions, it was my good fortune to meet, in a dinner-party, with more men of celebrity in science or polite literature, than are commonly found collected round the same table. In the course of conversation, one of the party reminded an illustrious Poet, then present, of somo

verses which he had reciled that morning, and which had appeared in a newspaper under the name of a War-Eclogue, in which Fire, Fanine, and Slaughter were introduced as the speakers. The gentleman so addressed replied, that he was rather surprised that