THE PELICAN ISLAND.

The following EAC SIMILE is from a copy
of the Pelican Island, sent by
MR. MONTGOMERY

TO THE REV. GEORGE BOURNE.

Time grows not old with length of yours :
Charges he brings but charges not.
New born each menuuttuappears:
- We run ouraces and are forget.
Stars in perennial rounds return;
As from eternity they came,
And to ctunity might bein,

– we are mother one hour the same

- flowers recue their old perfume, Buture a seconds poupthey fly: Cur life is lage than their bloom. Our bloom is sweetu, —yetu. die.

Jetstars like flowers have but their day. And tune, like stars, shall cease to role: We have the Arun can decay, -Alivip and immortal soul.

Lord God. Her line shall end his flight, Stars set and fluvus revive no more: May we beheld thy face in light Thy love in Chint way we adore.

OS. 4. 1818.

THE PELICAN ISLAND.

CANTO FIRST.

METHOUGHT I lived through ages, and beheld
Their generations pass so swiftly by me,

That

years were moments in their flight, and hours The scenes of crowded centuries reveal'd;

While Time, Life, Death, the world's great actors, wrought
New and amazing changes :-these I sing.

Sky, sun, and sea were all the universe;
The sky, one blue, interminable arch,
Without a breeze, a wing, a cloud: the sun
Sole in the firmament, but in the deep
Redoubled; where the circle of the sea,
Invisible with calmness, seem'd to lie
Within the hollow of a lower heaven.

I was a Spirit in the midst of these,
All eye, ear, thought; existence was enjoyment;
Light was an element of life, and air
The clothing of my incorporeal form,-
A form impalpable to mortal touch,
And volatile as fragrance from the flower,
Or music in the woodlands. What the soul
Can make itself at pleasure, that I was;
A child in feeling and imagination,
Learning new lessons still, as Nature wrought
Her wonders in my presence.

All I saw

(Like Adam when he walk'd in Paradise)
I knew and named by secret intuition.
Actor, spectator, sufferer, each in turn,
I ranged, explored, reflected. Now I sail'd,
And now I soar'd; anon expanding, seem'd

VOL. I.

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