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O then 't were loveliest sympathy, to mark
The berries of the half-uprooted ash
Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,-

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart; arm link'd in friendly arm,
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
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
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,
Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basin'd in some unsunn'd cleft,
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!
Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,
Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine,
And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,

Ah! dearest youth!,it were a lot divine
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,

While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd:|

LINES TO W. L. ESQ.

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC.

WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues,
And I have many friends who hold me dear;
L! methinks, I would not often hear
Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose
All memory of the wrongs and sore distress,
For which my miserable brethren weep!
But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
My daily bread in tears and bitterness;

And if at death's dread moment I should lie
With no beloved face at my bed-side,
To fix the last glance of my closing eye,
Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guide
Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,
Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died!

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE
WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND
CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vaiuly dear!
To plunder'd Want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten Infant hear
Moan haply in a dying Mother's ear:
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves
strew'd,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy

mount,

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss
Gives this the Husband's, that the Brother's kiss!

Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,
The Hill of Knowledge I-essay'd to trace ;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour
To glad and fertilize the subject plains;
That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod,

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains
Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks
Stil evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks
Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
And Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

O week retiring spirit! we will climb,
Che.ing and cheer'd, this lovely hill sublime;
And from the stirring world uplifted high
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
To
quiet musings shall attune the mind,
And oft the melancholy theme supply),
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,

As neighboring fountains image, each the whole:
Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth,
We'll discipline the heart to pure delight,
Rekindling sober Joy's domestic flame.
They whom I love shall love thee. Honor'd youth!
Now may Heaven realize this vision bright!

heart

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,
All effortless thou leave life's commonweal
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

DEAR native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy, and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd 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 ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray,
And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes
Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my

way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

SONNET.

COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR
HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH
OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796.
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, 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 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!

SONNET.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

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 thrill'd 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.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN IN A CATHOLIC

VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet,

Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,

Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

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

Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, `balmily!

ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.

THIS day among the faithful placed

And fed with fontal manna;

O with maternal title graced

Dear Anna's dearest Anna!

Ην που ημων η ψυχη πριν εν τωδε τω ανθρωπινω είδει γενέσθαι.

PLAT. in Phædon

While others wish thee wise and fair,
A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer-
Mayst thou deserve thy name!

Thy Mother's name, a potent spell,
That bids the Virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell
Confest to Fancy's eye ;

Meek Quietness, without offence;
Content, in homespun kirtle;
True Love; and True Love's Innocence,
White Blossom of the Myrtle!

Associates of thy name, sweet Child! These Virtues mayst thou win; With Face as eloquently mild

To say, they lodge within.

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;

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, that green and rude Peep'd at 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-same flower.

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!

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

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

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.

MELANCHOLY.

A FRAGMENT.

STRETCH'D on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest"
Where ruining ivies propp'd the ruins steep-
Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall,
Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.

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IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.

MARK this holy chapel well!

The Birth-place, this, of William Tell.
Here, where stands God's altar dread,
Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

Here first, an infant to her breast,
Him his loving mother prest;

And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day,
And pray'd as mothers use to pray :

"Vouchsafe him health, O God, and give
The Child thy servant still to live!"
But God has destined to do more
Through him, than through an armed power.

God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause-
A spirit to his rocks akin,

The eye of the Hawk, and the fire therein!

To Nature and to Holy writ
Alone did God the boy commit:

Where flash'd and roar'd the torrent, oft
His soul found wings, and soar'd aloft!

The straining oar and chamois chase
Had form'd his limbs to strength and grace:
On wave and wind the boy would toss,
Was great, nor knew how great he was!

He knew not that his chosen hand,
Made strong by God, his native land
Would rescue from the shameful yoke
Of Slavery- -the which he broke!

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
THE Shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

And now they check'd their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother sung.

They told her how a glorious light,

Streaming from a heavenly throng, Around them shone, suspending night! While, sweeter than a Mother's song, Blest Angels heralded the Savior's birth, Glory to God on high! and peace on Earth.

HUMAN LIFE,

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

Ir dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the Breath
Be Life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death,
O Man! thou vessel, purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of Nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She form'd with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!

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 here de- The counter-weights!-Thy Laughter and thy Tears

scribes is called the Hart's Tongue.

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

And to repay the other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good?
Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,

Image of image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold!
Yet what and whence thy gain if thou withhold

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none :
Thy being's being is contradiction.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.
NEVER, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone:

Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,
Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler;
Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne!
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!
With Divinities fills my

Terrestrial Hall!

How shall I yield you

Due entertainment,

Celestial Quire?

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[The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits.

In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, of words of the same substance, in Purchas's "Pilgrimage:"

Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of up-"Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and s

buoyance

Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance,
That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!
Ila! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my Soul!

O give me the Nectar!

O fill me the Bowl!
Give him the Nectar!
Pour out for the Poet,
Hebe! pour free!

Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

That Styx the detested no more he may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!
Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!
The Wine of the Immortals

Forbids me to die!

ELEGY,

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE
INSCRIPTIONS.

NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread,

Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, Where" sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant O humbly press that consecrated ground!

stately garden thereunto; and thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall." The author continued for abou three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses,

during which time he has the most vivid confidence that 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 rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation, or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the 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,
And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes→
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror.

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Autho bed-has frequently purposed to finish for himself what had bee originally, as it were, given to him. Zauɛpov adiev arw. but the to-morrow is yet to come.

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!
And there his spirit most delights to rove:
Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain,
And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide,
And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume,
His manhood blossom'd: till the faithless pride
Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease.-Note to the first Edition, 1916.]

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree;
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

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 spots 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 seething,

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 mazy motion,
Through 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!

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.

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

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 still!
Desire with lothing strangely mix'd,
On wild or hateful objects fix'd.
Fantastic passions! maddening brawl!
And shame and terror over all!
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused 1 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-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.

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 calamity.

The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked mne 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 aye 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.

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;
But 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,

APOLOGETIC PREFACE

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

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