THOU gentle look, that didst my soul beguile,
Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious smile!
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam;
What time, in sickly mood, at parting day,
I lay me down and think of happier years;
Of joys, that glimmered in hope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of hope-for ever flown!
Could I recall you?-but that thought is vain.
Availeth not persuasion's sweetest tone
To lure the fleet-winged travellers back again :
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam
Like the bright rainbow on an evening stream.
Ir was some spirit, Sheridan! that breathed
O'er thy young mind such wildly various power;
My soul hath marked thee in her shaping hour,
Thy temples with Hymettian flow'rets wreathed:
And sweet thy voice, as when o'er Laura's bier
Sad music trembled through Vauclusa's glade;
Sweet, as at dawn, the love-lorn serenade,
That wafts soft dreams to slumber's listening ear.
Now patriot rage and indignation high
Swell the full tones! and now thine eye-beams dance
Meanings of scorn and wit's quaint revelry!
Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance
The apostate by the brainless rout adored,
As erst that elder fiend beneath great Michael's sword.
DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the west!
How many various-fated years have past,
What blissful and what anguished hours, since last
I skimmed 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 blaze,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy margin's willowy maze,
And bedded sand, that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence to the gaze.
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs,-
Ah, that once more I were a careless child!
ON RECEIVING INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF HIS INFANT CHILD.
OFT o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash doth last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep
We lived, ere yet this fleshly
and some have said
robe we wore.
O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,
If heavy looks should tell me thou wert 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;
Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve, While we wept idly o'er thy little bier.
CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scanned that face of feeble infancy :
For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my babe 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 thrilled and melted, and most warm
Impressed a father's kiss: and all beguiled
Of dark remembrance, and presageful fear,
I seemed to see an angel's form appear―
'Twas even thine, belovèd woman mild!
So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.
was born in the Temple, London, on the 10th of February, 1775. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, where he formed a friendship with Coleridge, his schoolmate, which lasted till the grave closed over his "fifty-years-old friend without a dissension," an eloquent fact in praise of the gentleness and sweetness of the disposition of both. For the greater portion of his life he held a clerkship in the India House. The necessity of attending his official duties agreed well with his love of London, where he constantly resided. He knew every spot that had been hallowed by the residence or sojourn of great men of former days. His death took place at his house in Islington, on the 27th of December, 1834. His poetry is all highly finished; and to this cause, and the circumstance that he was never compelled to write, may be attributed the small number of works that he gave to the public.
WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire,
Without reproach ?-we trace our stream no higher;
And I a childless man may end the same.
Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received thee first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains.
Perchance from Salem's holier fields returned,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorred
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took His meek title, in whose zeal he burned.
Whate'er the fount whence thy beginning came,
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.
METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclined
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid!
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.
Was it some sweet device of faëry
That mocked my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair-haired maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlightened up the semblance of a smile
In those fine eyes? Methought they spake the while
Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair-haired maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While I forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.
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