Singing of Glory, and Futurity, • Most musical, most melancholy,' bird! To wander back on such unhealthful road, A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought! Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill In nature there is nothing melancholy. Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths But some night-wandering man, whose heart was picrccd Strew'd before thy advancing ! With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love (And so poor Wretch! filled all things with himself, Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of thy communion with my nobler mind Of his own sorrow), be, and such as lie, First named these notes a melancholy strain. Poet who bath been building up the rhyme Beside a brook in mossy forest-cell, The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours By Sun or Moon-light, to the intluxcs Already on the wing. Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame A venerable thing! and so bis song Be loved like Nature! But 't will not be so; And youtlıs and maidens most poetical, Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring With momentary Stars of my own birth, In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, Fair constellated Foam,' still darting off Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains. My friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt And joyance! 'T is the merry Nightingale With fast thick warble his delicious notes, That happy vision of beloved faces As he were fearful that an April niglit Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close Would be too short for him to utter forth I sate, my being blended in one thought His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul (Thought was it? or Aspiration? or Resolve ?) Of all its music! And I know a grove 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, Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip They answer and provoke each other's song, Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. With skirmish and capricious passagings, Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, And one low piping sound more sweet than allDut hear no murmuring: it flows silently, Stirring the air with such a harmony, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, That should you close your eyes, you might almost A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, That gladden the green earth, and we shall find You may perchance behold them on the twigs, A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch. 1. A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals ' This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to coursed by tbe side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the meAame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and lancholy man, and bas therefore a dramatic propriety. The author tben ligbt detachments of this wbite cloud-like foam darted off from makes this remark, to rescue bimself from the charge of having althe vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the luded with levity 10 a line in Milton: a charge than which pope sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilder conld be more painful to him, except perhaps that of having ridiness..-The Friend, p. 220. culed his Bible, A most gentle Maid, By its own moods interprets, every where Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Echo or mirror seeking of itself, Hard by the castle, and at latest eve And makes a toy of Thought. (Even like a lady vow'd and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove) But O! how oft, Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, How oft, at school, with most believing mind That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, What time the Moon was lost behind a cloud, To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft Hath heard a pause of silence; till the Moon With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-lower, With one sensation, and these wakeful Birds Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, As if some sudden gale had swept at once So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me A hudred airy barps! And she hath wateh'd With a wild pleasure, falling on mine car Many a Nightingale perch'd giddily Most like articulate sounds of things to come! On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, And to that motion tune his wanton song Lulld me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreams! Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head. And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Farewell, o Warbler! till to-morrow eve, Fix'd with mock study on my swimming book : And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! Save if the door half open'd, and I snatch'd We have been loitering long and pleasantly, A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up, And now for our dear homes. That strain again? For still I hoped to see the@tranger's face, Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, Who, capable of no articulate sound, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike! Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, His little hand, the small forefinger up, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, And bid us listen! And I deem it wise Fill up the interspersed vacancies To make him Nature's Play-mate. He knows well And momentary pauses of the thought! The evening-star; and once, when he awoke My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart In most distressful mood (some inward pain With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, I hurried with him to our orchard-plot, And in far other scenes! For I was rear'd And he beheld the Moon, and, hush'd at once, In the great city, pent'mid cloisters dim, Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. While his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a brecze Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well: By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores Familiar with these songs, that with the night And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear He may associate joy! Once more farewell, The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Ulters, who from eternity doth teach Uimself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth Have left me to that solitude, which suits With greenness, or the red breast sit and sing Abstruser musings: save that at my side Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch 'T' is calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the cave-drops fall And vexes meditation with its strange Heard only in the trances of the blast, And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, Or if the secret ministry of frost Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. TO A FRIEND, TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM. Methinks, its motion in this bush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme Naking it a coinpanionable form, Elaborate and swelling: yet the heart Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers Embow'ss me from noon's sultry infuence! gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky. Circling the base of the Poetic mount I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse, December, 1794. Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast, There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN, COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE. Dim hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds'afar, Still soar, my friend, those richer views among, ground. IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. THE THREE GRAVES. A FRAGMENT OF A sexton's tale. LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE. My honour'd friend! whose verse concise, yet clear, of wbose omniscient and all-spreading love Aughi 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. (The Author has pablished the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recomiendation of inore than one of our most celebrated living Poets. The language was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited 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-alo. Wbether this is sufficient to justify ibo 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 witb the Author's judgment concerning Poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusively Psychological. I War, a Fragment. » John the Baptist, a Poom. 3 Monody on John Henderson. On the hedge-elms in the narrow lane Still swung the spikes of corn : Dear Lord! it seems but yesterday Young Edward's marriage-morn. Up through that wood behind the church, There leads from Edward's door A mossy track, all over-bough'd For half a mile or more. And from their house-door by that track The Bride and Bridegroom' went; Sweet Mary, though she was not gay, Seem'd cheerful and content. But when they to the church-yard came, I've heard poor Mary say, Her heart it died away. And when the vicar join'd their hands, Iler limbs did creep and freeze; But when they pray'd, she thought she saw Her mother on her knees. The story which must be sapposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts is as follows. Edward, a young farmer, meets at the house of Ellen, her bosomfriend, Mary, and commences an acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's Mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession of a competent property. and from having had no o her children but Mary and another daughter (the Father died in their infancy), retaining, for the greater part, her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance ; but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer wbich sbe at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable-. Well, Edward ! you are a handsome young fellow, and soa shall have my Daughter.. From this time all tbeir wooing passed under the Mother's eye; and, in fine, she became berself epamoured of her future Son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, 10 transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the Tale are positive fiets, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by ber strange detractions from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mixtıking ber increasing fondness for motherly affection ; she. at length overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's lemper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion-.0 Edward: indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you--she has not a henrt to love you as you deserve. It is I ibat love you! Marry mc, Edward : and I will ibis very day settle all my property on you..-The Lorer's eyes were now opened ; and thus taken by sarprise, whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of guilt of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeress and absurdity, he flung her from bim and burst into a fit of laughter, Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a loud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a Curse both on him and on ber own Cbild. Mary bappened to be in ibe room directly above them, beard Edward's laugh and be: Mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the fall, ran up stairs, and taking lier in bis arms, carried her off to Ellen's bome; and after some fruitless attempts on her part toward a reconciliation with her Mother, she was married to him. And bere tbe third part of the Tale begins. I was not led to cbuse this story from any partiality to tragic, much less to monstrous events (though at the time that I composed the verses, somen hat more than twelve years ago, I was less averso to such subjects than at present), bat from finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an Idea violently and suddenly impressed on it. I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effect of the Oby Witchcraft on ibo Negroes in the West-Indies, and learne's deeply interesting Ancedotes of similar workings on the imaginatiou of the Copper Indians (those of my readers who have it in their power will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to those works for the passages alluded to), and I conceived the design of showing that instances of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of illustrating the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and the progress and symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the beginning. The Talo is supposed to be narrated by an old Sexton, in a country churcb-yard, to a Traveller wbose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, closu by coch other, to two only of wbich there were grave-stones. On the first of these was the name, and dates, as uscal: on the second, no name, but only a date, and the words, The Mercy of God is infinite.) And o'er the church-path they return'd I saw poor Mary's back, Into the mossy track. Her feet upon the mossy track The married maiden set : That moment I have heard her say She wish'd she could forget. The shade o'er-flush'd her limbs with heat Then came a chill like death : And when the merry bells rang out, They seem'd to stop her breath. Beneath the foulest Mother's curse No child could ever thrive : A Mother is a Mother still, The holiest thing alive. So five months pass'd : the Mother still Would never heal the strife; But Edward was a loving man, And Mary a fond wife. says nay: More lifesome and more gay. I know I have no reason ! And 't is a gloomy season.» 'T was a drizzly time-noice, no snow! And on the few fine days She stirr'd not out, lest she might meet Her Mother in the ways. But Ellen, spite of miry ways And weather dark and dreary, Trudged every day to Edward's house, And made them all more cheery. PART III. Toe grapes upon the vicar's wall Were ripe as ripe could be ; And yellow leaves in sun and wind Were falling from the tree. |