Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend,
And close behind them, hidden from my view,
is my own lowly cottage, where my babe
And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light
And quicken'd footsteps thitherward I tend,
Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!
And grateful, that, by nature's quietness
And solitary musings, all my heart

Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge

Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human-kind. Nether Stowey, April 28th, 1798.

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER.

A WAR ECLOGUE.

WITH AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE.

FAMINE.

SISTERS! sisters! who sent you here?

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo'
To him alone the praise is due.

FAMINE.

Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled,
Their wives and their children faint for bread.
I stood in a swampy field of battle;
With bones and sculls I made a rattle,
To frighten the wolf and carrion crow,
And the homeless dog-but they would not go.
So off I flew; for how could I bear
To see them gorge their dainty fare?
I heard a groan and a peevish squall,
And through the chink of a cottage-wall-
Can you guess what I saw there?

FAMINE.

The same! the same!

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

FIRE.

Sisters! I from Ireland came!
Hedge and corn-fields all on flame,

I triumph'd o'er the setting sun!
And all the while the work was done

On as I strode with my huge strides,

I flung back my head and I held my sides,

It was so rare a piece of fun

To see the swelter'd cattle run

With uncouth gallop through the night,
Scared by the red and noisy light!

By the light of his own blazing cot
Was many a naked rebel shot:

The house-stream met the flame and hiss'd,
While crash! fell in the roof, I wist,
On some of those old bedrid nurses,
That deal in discontent and curses.

And who sent you?

BOTH.

FIRE.
The same! the same!

Letters four do form his name.
He let me loose, and cried Halloo!
To him alone the praise is due.

ALL.

He let us loose, and cried Halloo! How shall we yield him honor due?

FAMINE.

Wisdom comes with lack of food. I'll gnaw, I'll gnaw the multitude,

Till the cup of rage o'erbrim:

They shall seize him and his brood

SLAUGHTER.

They shall tear him limb from limb!

FIRE.

O thankless beldames and untrue!
And is this all that you can do

For him who did so much for you?
Ninety months he, by my troth!
Hath richly cater'd for you both;
And in an hour would you repay

An eight years' work?-Away! away!
alone arm faithful! I
Cing to him everlastingly.

1796.

RECANTATION

ILLUSTRATED IN THE STORY OF THE MAD OX.

An Ox, long fed with musty hay,

And work'd with yoke and chain,

Was turn'd out on an April day,
When fields are in their best array,
And growing grasses sparkle gay,
At once with sun and rain.

The grass was fine, the sun was bright,
With truth I may aver it;
The Ox was glad, as well he might,
Thought a green meadow no bad sight,
And frisk'd to show his huge delight,
Much like a beast of spirit.

"Stop, neighbors! stop! why these alarms? The Ox is only glad."

But still they pour from cots and farmsHalloo! the parish is up in arms

(A hoaring hunt has always charms), Halloo! the Ox is mad.

"You'd have him gore the parish-priest,
And run against the altar-

You Fiend!"-The sage his warnings ceased,
And North, and South, and West, and East,
Halloo! they follow the poor beast,
Mat, Dick, Tom, Bob, and Walter.

Old Lewis, 't was his evil day,
Stood trembling in his shoes;
The Ox was his--what could he say?
His legs were stiffen'd with dismay,
The Ox ran o'er him 'mid the fray,
And gave him his death's bruise.

The frighted beast ran on-but here,
The Gospel scarce more true is—
My muse stops short in mid-career-
Nay! gentle reader! do not sneer,
I cannot choose but drop a tear,
A tear for good old Lewis.

The frighted beast ran through the town,
All follow'd, boy and dad,

Bull-dog, Parson, Shopman, Clown,
The Publicans rush'd from the Crown,
"Halloo! hamstring him! cut him down!'
They drove the poor Or mad.

Should you a rat to madness tease,

Why even a rat might plague you: There's no philosopher but sees That rage and fear are one diseaseThough that may burn and this may freeze They're both alike the ague.

And so this Ox, in frantic mood,

Faced round like any BullThe mob turn'd tail, and he pursued, Till they with fright and fear were stew'd, And not a chick of all this brood

But had his belly-full.

Old Nick's astride the beast, 't'is clear-
Old Nicholas to a tittle!

But all agree he'd disappear,
Would but the parson venture near,
And through his teeth, right o'er the steer
Squirt out some fasting-spittle.t

Achilles was a warrior fleet,

The Trojans he could worryOur parson too was swift of feet, But show'd it chiefly in retreat! The victor Ox scour'd down the street, The mob fled hurry-skurry.

Through gardens, lanes, and fields new-plow'd,
Through his hedge and through her hedge,
He plunged and toss'd, and bellow'd loud,
Till in his madness he grew proud
To see this helter-skelter crowd

That had more wrath than courage.

According to the superstition of the West Countries, if you meet the Devil, you may either cut him in half with a straw, or you may cause him instantly to disappear by spitting over his horns.

Alas! to mend the breaches wide
He made for these poor ninnies,
They all must work, whate'er betide,
Both days and months, and pay beside
(Sad news for Avarice and for Pride)
A sight of golden guineas.

But here once more to view did pop

The man that kept his senses. And now he cried-" Stop, neighbors! stop! The Ox is mad! I would not swop, No, not a school-boy's farthing top For all the parish fences.

"The Ox is mad! Ho! Dick, Bob, Mat!
What means this coward fuss?
Ho! stretch this rope across the plat-
"T will trip him up-or if not that,
Why, damme! we must lay him flat-
See, here's my blunderbuss!"

"A lying dog! just now he said,
The Ox was only glad,
Let's break his Presbyterian head!"-
"Hush!" quoth the sage, "you've been misled,
No quarrels now-let's all make head-
You drove the poor Ox mad!"

As thus I sat in careless chat,

With the morning's wet newspaper,
In eager haste, without his hat,
As blind and blundering as a bat,
In came that fierce aristocrat,
Our pursy woollen draper.

And so my Muse perforce drew bit,

And in he rush'd and panted: : "Well, have you heard?" -"No! not a whit." "What! han't you heard?"-Come, out with it!" "That Tierney votes for Mister Pitt,

And Sheridan's recanted."

II. LOVE POEMS.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in ævo.
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acutâ
Ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus,
Omnia paulatim consumit longior ætas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ispe mihi collatus enim non ille videbor:
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-

Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes,
Jamque arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumultus
Mens horret relegensque alium putat ista locutum.

Petrarch.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.

The following Poem is intended as the introduction to a somewhat longer one. The use of the old Ballad word Ladie for Lady, is the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times, I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity [as Camden says] will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and propriety in it, A heavier objection may be adduced against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties explode around us in all directions, he should

presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love: and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But, alas! explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear new; and it is possible that now even a simple story,wholly uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention amid the bubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinct ly audible. S. T. C

Dec. 21, 1799.

O LEAVE the lily on its stem;

O leave the rose upon the spray;

O leave the elder bloom, fair maids! And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle-bough

This morn around my harp you twined Because it fashion'd mournfully

Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a Tale of Love and Woe, A woful Tale of Love I sing ; Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve,

It sighs and trembles most for thee! O come, and hear what cruel, wrongs Befell the Dark Ladie.

Few Sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope, my joy, my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stir this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oh! ever in my waking dreams,
I dwell upon that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I sate,
Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight, She stood and listen'd to my harp, Amid the ling'ring light.

I play'd a sad and doleful air.
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that fitted well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen'd with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest graco, For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And how for ten long years he woo'd The Ladie of the Land:

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sung another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listen'd with a flitting blush;

With downcast eyes, and modest grace ; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed this bold and lonely Knight, And how he roam'd the mountain-woods, Nor rested day or night;

And how he cross'd the woodman's paths, Through briers and swampy mosses beat; How boughs rebounding scourged his limbs, And low stubs gored his feet;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade ;

There came and look'd him in the face
An Angel beautiful and bright;
And how he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And how, unknowing what he did,
He leapt amid a lawless band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Ladie of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; And how she tended him in vain

And meekly strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain:

And how she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words-but when I reach'd
That tend'rest strain of all the ditty,
My falt'ring voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve; The music and the doleful tale, The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love and maiden-shame;
And, like the murmurs of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

I saw her bosom heave and swell,
Heave and swell with inward sighs-
I could not choose but love to see
Her gentle bosom rise.

Her wet cheek glow'd: she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stepp'd;
Then suddenly, with tim'rous eye,
She flew to me and wept.

She half inclosed me with her arms,

She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.

"T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel than see
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

And now once more a tale of woe, A woeful tale of love I sing: For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,

And trembles on the string.

When last I sang the cruel scorn

That crazed this bold and lonely Knight, And how he roam'd the mountain-woods Nor rested day or night;

I promised thee a sister tale

Of man's perfidious cruelty:

Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong Befell the Dark Ladie.

LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN
LOVE-CHAUNT.

AT midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

The moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;

But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half-shelter'd from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew-
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it pass'd;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colors not a few,

Till it reach'd the moon at last:
Then the cloud was wholly bright
With a rich and amber light!
And so with many a hope I seek

And with such joy I find my Lewti:

And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,

Away it goes away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are gray-
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 't is whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,

When, Lewti! on my couch I lie, A dying man for love of thee.

Nay, treacherous image! leave my mindAnd yet thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapor in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud:

Perhaps the breezes that can fly
Now below and now above,
Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud
Of Lady fair-that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind-
For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush! my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever:
Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river.
The river-swans have heard my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous Birds! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune!
O beauteous Birds! 't is such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies,
When silent night has closed her eyes:
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:

Voice of the Night! had I the power That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread, I then might view her bosom white

Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave
On the gently swelling wave.

Oh! that she saw me in a dream,
And dreamt that I had died for care;
All pale and wasted I would seem,
Yet fair withal, as spirits are!
I'd die indeed, if I might see
Her bosom heave, and heave for me!.
Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1795.

THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S
RESOLUTION.

THROUGH Weeds and thorns, and matted underwood
I force my way; now climb, and now descend

O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil,
I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.

Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse;
Here too the lovelorn man who, sick in soul,
And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of unconscious life
In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle Lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to be,
He would far rather not be that, he is;
But would be something, that he knows not of,
In winds or waters, or among the rocks!

But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagio here!

No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves
Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird
Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!
And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at morn
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!
You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed-
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp,
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back

This is my hour of triumph! I can now
With my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes as with net-work here will I couch m
limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
And list'ning only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound
Or to the bees, that in the neighboring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze, that visits me
Was never Love's accomplice, never raised
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;
Ne'er play'd the wanton-never half-disclosed
The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence
Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth,
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen-grove