Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element!

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hi'ls,
Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

LINES

WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE
HARTZ FOREST.

I STOOD on Brocken's sovran height, and saw
Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,
A surging scene, and only limited

By the blue distance. Heavily my way
Downward I dragg'd through fir-groves evermore,
Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms
Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,
The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook's chatter; 'mid whose islet stones
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell
Leap'd frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on
In low and languid mood: for I had found
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive
Their finer influence from the Life within:
Fair ciphers else: fair, but of import vague
Or unconcerning, where the Heart not finds
History or prophecy of Friend, or Child,
Or gentle Maid, our first and early love,
Or Father, or the venerable name

Of our adored Country! O thou Queen,
Thou delegated Deity of Earth,

O dear, dear England! how my longing eye
Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Thy sands and high white cliffs!

[blocks in formation]

My native land! Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart was proud, Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills, Floated away, like a departing dream, Feeble and dim! Stranger, these impulses Blame thou not lightly; nor will I profane, With hasty judgment or injurious doubt, That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel That God is everywhere! the God who framed Mankind to be one mighty Family,

Himself our Father, and the World our Home.

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST
OF FEBRUARY, 1796.

SWEET Flower! that peeping from thy russet stem
Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month
Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee
With blue voluptuous eye), alas, poor Flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
E'en now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth,
Nipp'd by Consumption 'mid untimely charms?
Or to Bristowa's Bard, the wondrous boy!
An Amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own,
Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope,
Bright flower of flope kill'd in the opening bud?
Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine,
And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
From anxious SELF, Life's cruel Task-Master!
And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame and harmonize
The attemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Play'd deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

THE EOLIAN HARP.

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE.

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown

With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)

And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,

Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)

Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents

Snatch'd from yon bean-field! and the world so hush'd!

The stilly murmur of the distant Sea

Tells us of Silence.

[blocks in formation]

SOUTHEY'S Hymn to the Penates.

1 Chatterton.

It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O the one life within us and abroad,

Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where-
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps,
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable Man,
Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid!

Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paused, and look'd
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round agaiu,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note
(Viewless or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings), in whisper'd tones
I've said to my beloved, «Such, sweet girl!
The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,
And the Heart listens!»

But the time, when first

From that low dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climb'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,
Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak Mount,
The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey and the Wood,
And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint City-spire;
The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails,
Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless Ocean-
It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought,
lad built him there a Temple: the whole World
Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference,
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury, -to be!

Ah! quiet dell; dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?

Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye
Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth:
And He that works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My Benefactor, not my Brother Man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence

Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st
The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe!
Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude

REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies!

RETIREMENT.

Sermoni propriora.-Hon.

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the Porch
Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round

I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

Yet oft, when after honourable toil

Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet Abode!

[blocks in formation]

A BLESSED lot hath he, who having pass'd
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb Life's upland road,
Yet cheer'd and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

To me th' Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind-
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade

E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mix'd their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend,
Beneath th' impervious covert of one Oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of Husband and of Father; nor unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!

Yet at times

My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a Father's eye;
And boding evil, yet still hoping good,
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,

That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever,

Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee! Oh! 't is to me an ever new delight,

To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We, in our sweet sequester'd orchard-plot,
Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads!

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours, When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind, Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times, Cope with the tempest's swell!

These various strains,

Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of Error or intemperate Truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with bees,-
Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharm'd
May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,
Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou mayst toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!

A TOMBLESS EPITAΡΗ.

'T is true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!

(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal)
'T is true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow puppets of a hollow age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time,
(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war

Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 't is 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, firm,
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.
O framed for calmer times aud nobler hearts!
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher! contemning 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 cheek.

[blocks in formation]

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
lad 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,1
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 liglıt, 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 lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
lung 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 elms, 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 Dee

Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth 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
Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had cross'd the miglity 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 thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

TO A FRIEND

WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO
MORE POETRY.

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 Bartram had observed the same circumstance of the Savanna Crane. When these Birds move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, moderate and regular; and even when at a

Hight Castalie: and (sureties 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,

Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,

And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful hand
Held, 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 Mæcenas! 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,
Ere 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 henbane 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.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

1796.

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 Vales 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 tremor of a realm aglow,
Amid a mighty nation jubilant,
When from the general heart of human kind
Hope sprang fortlı like a full-born Deity!
--Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down,
So summon'd 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
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A Save as it worketh for them, they in it.

POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL MIND.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!
Into my heart have I received that lay
More than historic, that prophetic lay,
Wherein (high theme by thee 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 vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words!-

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 native, her own natural notes!
Ah! as I 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 Hope;
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear;

Theme hard as high! Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain,

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,

[blocks in formation]

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,

6

« AnteriorContinuar »