of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firin,
And with a natural gladness, he maintain'd
The citadel unconquer'd, and in joy
was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden Path, that to the Shades
Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Lurk'd undiscover'd by him; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had traced it upward to its source,
Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and cull'd
Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of odorous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
0 framed for calmer times and nobler hearts'
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth !
Philosopher! contemming wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of life and love!
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his check.

THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.

in the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit to the Author's Cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One Evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the Garden Bower.

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This Lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance, even when age
IIad dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told :
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless Ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark-green file of long lank weeds,'
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my Friends emerge

Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up

The Asplenium Scolopendrium, called in some countries the Adder's Tongue, in others the Hart's Tongue; but withering gives the Adder's Tongue as the trivial name of the Ophioglossum only.

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles

of purple shadow! Yes, they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great city pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! -
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers' richlier burn, ye clouds !
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my Friend,
Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.

A delight Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad As I myself were there! Nor in this bower, This little line-tree bower, have I not mark’d Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see The shadow of the leaf and stem above Dappling its sunshine ! And that Walnut-tree Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay Full on the ancient Ivy, which usurps Those fronting clims, and now, with blackest mass, Makes their dark branches Gleam a lighter hue Through the late twilight: and though now the Bat Wheels silent by, and not a Swallow twitters, Yet still the solitary humble Bee Sings in the bean-flower! [lenceforth I shall know That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure : No plot so narrow, be but Nature there, No waste so vacant, but may well employ Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart Awake to Love and Beauty' and sometimes 'T is well to be bereft of promised good, That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles' when the last Rook Beat its straight path along the dusky air Ilomewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light) Ilad cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory, While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still, Flew creaking o'er thy head, and had a charm For thce, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

TO A FRIEND

Who had declartrid his intextion of Writix G. No More poet hy.

DEAR Charles' whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween That Genius plunged thee in that wizard fount

* Some months after I had written this line, it gave me pleasure to observe that bariram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. - When these ords move their wongs in fight. their stroke, are slow, moderate and regular; and even when at a

Hight Castalie; and (suretics of thy faith)
That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promised for thee, that thou shouldst renounce
The world's low cares and lying vanities,
Stedrast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,
And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes—thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand
tield, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son:
And with those recreant unbaptized heels
Thou 'rt flying from thy bounden ministeries—
So sore it seems and burthensome a task
To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:
For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy,
And I have arrows' mystically dipp'd,
Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?
And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth
... without the meed of one melodious tear?"
Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard,

| Who to the . Illustrious” of his native land

. So properly did look for patronage.”
Ghost of Mecenas' hide thy blushing face!
They snatch'd him from the Sickle and the Plough-
To gauge Ale-Firkins.

Oh! for shame return! On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian Mount, There stands a lone and melancholy tree, whose aged branches in the midnight blast Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough, Fre yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb. Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, Pick the rank lenbane and the dusky flowers of night-shade, or its red and tempting fruit. These with stopp'd nostril and glove-guarded hand Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.

1796.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

cowposed ox rhe Night Aften his REcitation of A

pof M ox The growth of AN INDIVIDUAL MIND.

Friend of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good! Into my heart have 1 received that lay More than historic, that prophetic lay, Wherein (bith theme by thce first sung aright) of the foundations and the building up of a Human spirit thou hast dared to tell what may be told, to the understanding mind Revealable; and what within the mind, By vital breathings secret as the soul of vermal growth, oft quickens in the heart Thoughts all too deep for words!–

Theme hard as high' of smiles spontancous, and mysterious fears The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), of tides obedient to external force,

considerable distance or high above us, we plainly bear the quillfeatuer... their shatt, and webs upon one another creak as the joints vo working of a vessel in n tempestuous sea." vide Pind. Olymp. iii, i. 56. * v-roatim from darn.” dedication of his Poems to the Nobility and Centry of the Calcdonian Hunt.

And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When Power stream'd from thee, and thy soul received
The light reflected, as a light bestow'd—
Of Fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in Wales and Glens
Native or outland, Lakes and famous Hills!
Or on the lonely High-road, when the Stars
Were rising; or by secret Mountain-streams,
The Guides and the Companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and Man beloved as Man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the Main. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the trenior of a realm at low, Amid a mighty nation jubilant, When from the general heart of human kind Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity! --Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summond homeward, thenceforth calm and sure, From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute Self, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look Far on—herself a glory to behold, The Angel of the vision . Then (last strain) Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice, Action and Joy!—An orphic song indeed, A song divine of high and passionate thoughts, To their own music chaunted

--

O great Bard! Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air, With stedfast eye I view'd thee in the choir Of ever-enduring men. The truly Great Ilave all one age, and from one visible space Shed influence! They, both in power and act, Are permanent, and Time is not with them, Save as it worketh for them, they in it. Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old, And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Among the archives of mankind, thy work Makes audible a linked lay of Truth, Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Not learnt, but mative, her own natural notcs! All ! as 1 listen’d with a heart forlorn, The pulses of my being beat anew : And even as life returns upon, the drown'd, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains– Keen Pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart; And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of Ilope; And Ilope that scarce would know itself from Fear; Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain, And Genius given, and knowledge won in vain; And all which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all, Commune with thee had open'd out—but flowers Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave'

that way no more and ill beseems it me, Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,

• Most musical, most melancholy. bird! A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy.

But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love
(And so poor Wretch! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow), he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain.
And many a poet echoes the conceit:
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme
When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs
Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By Sun or Moon-light, to the intluxes
Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements
Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song
And of his fame forgetful! so his fame
Should share in Nature's immortality,
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Beloved like Nature! But 't will not be so;
And youths and maidens most poetical,
Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring
In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still,
Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs
O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

My friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! T is the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!

And I know a grove of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths. But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many Nightingales; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all– Stirring the air with such a harmony, That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.

* This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton a charge than which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiculed his Bible.

His little hand, the small forefinger up, And bid us listen' And I deem it wise

To make him Nature's Play-mate. He knows well
The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Ilad made up that strange thing, an infant's dream),
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,
And he beheld the Moon, and, hush'd at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
while his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears
Did glitier in the yellow moon-beam! Well!—
It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up
Familiar with these songs, that with the night
He may associate joy! Once more farewell,
Sweet Nightingale: Once more my friends! farewell.

By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.

But O' how oft, Ilow oft, at school, with most believing mind Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that sluttering stranger! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lull'd me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreams' And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fix'd with mock study on my swimming hook: Save if the door half open'd, and I snatch'd A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister inore beloved, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momertary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was rear'd In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister——
She loved me dearly, and I doated on her!
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows
(As a sick patient in his nurse's arms),
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That shrink ashamed from even Friendship's eye.
Oh! I have woke at midnight, and have wept
Because sue was Not —Cheerily, dear Charles'
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year:
Such warm presages feel I of high Ilope.
For not uninterested the dear inaid
I've view’d—her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories,
That play around a sainted infant's head.
lie knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind)
That iny mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes,
To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart,
And praise ilim Gracious with a Brother's joy!
December, 1794.

| THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN.

Coxiposed DURING illNess AND IN ABSExce.

Dnt hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar, O rise and yoke the turtles to thy car:

, Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove,

And tive me to the bosom of my love!
My gentle love, caressing and carest,
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest;
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and medicine me with sighs:
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek.
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day;
Young Day, returning at her promised hour,
Weeps o'er the sorrows of her favorite flower;
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs,
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th’ expanding slow'ret feels:
His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals'

LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE.

My honour'd friend! whose verse concise, yet clear,
Tunes to smooth melodv unconquer'd sense,
May your fame fadeless live, as - never-sere -
The ivy wreathes yon oak, whose broad defence

" I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines of whose omniscient and all-spreading love Aught to implore were impotence of mind, it being written in Scripture, - Ask, and it shall be given you, - and my human reason being moreover convinced of the propriety of offering petitions as well as thanksgivings to the Deity.

Embow'rs me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless riv'let stealing by,
Your modest verse, to musing Quiet dear,
ls rich with tints heaven-borrow'd: the charm'd eve
Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften’d sky.

Circling the base of the Poetic mount
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy slow
Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount:
The vapour-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet,
Beneath the Mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,
A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlab'ring feet.

Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That like some giant king, o'erglooms the hill;
Northere the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music . But th' unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill
Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander’d—there collecting flow'rs
Of sober tint, and herbs of medicinable powers'

There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb
You wove th' unfinish’d wreath of saddest hues;"
And to that holier chaplet” added bloom,
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your Ilenderson 3 awakes the Muse——
His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain and soard 'mid richer views!
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of night!

Still soar, my friend, those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent, flashing Fancy's beam!
Virtue and Truth shall love your gentler song;
But Poesy demands th’ impassion'd theme:
Waked by Heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam,
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around !
But if the vext air rush a stormy stream,
or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound,
With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest-honour’d
ground.

IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

The Three GRAVES.

A FRAGMENT of A sexton's TALE.

Tar Anthor has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was intended to be dramatic; that is, saited to the narrator; and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a Poem, but of a common Ballad-tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the Author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as Poetry, and it is in no way connected with the Author's judgment concerning Poetic diction. Its unerits, if any, are exclusively Psychological.

' War, a Fragment. * John the Baptist, a Poem. * Monody on John Ilenderson.