3. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget Here, where men sit and hear each other Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where but to think is to be full of sorrow Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, morrow. 4. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, Save what from heaven is with the breezes Through verdurous glooms and winding I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, eves. 6. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain To thy high requiem become a sod. 7. Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! She stood in tears amid the alien corn; THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness! A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 2. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 3. Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed For ever piping songs for ever new; For ever panting and for ever young; Who are these coming to the sacrifice? To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 586 5. O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ODE TO PSYCHE. O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrang The winged Psyche with awaken'd eyes! And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise, Saw two fair creatures, couched side by side In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran A brooklet, scarce espied: But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove? O latest-born and loveliest vision far Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky; Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none, Nor altar heap'd with flowers; Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat O brightest! though too late for antique vows, Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreathed trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a EVER let the Fancy roam, At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, When the soundless earth is muffled, To banish Even from her sky. Fancy, high commission'd: send her! And thou shalt quaff it :-thou shalt hear Rustle of the reaped corn; When the bee-hive casts its swarm ; O, sweet Fancy! let her loose; = Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh ODE. BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, With the whisper of heaven's trees Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away. Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new! ROBIN HOOD. TO A FRIEND. No! those days are gone away, No, the bugle sounds no more, And the twanging bow no more; Silent is the ivory shrill Past the heath and up the hill; There is no mid-forest laugh, Where lone Echo gives the half To some wight, amazed to hear Jesting, deep in forest drear. On the fairest time of June You may go, with sun or moon, Or the seven stars to light you, Or the polar ray to right you; But you never may behold Little John, or Robin bold; Never one, of all the clan, Thrumming on an empty can Some old hunting ditty, while He doth his green way beguile To fair hostess Merriment, Down beside the pasture Trent; For he left the merry tale Messenger for spicy ale. Gone, the merry morris din; Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the "grené shawe;" All are gone away and past! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his tufted grave, And if Marian should have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall'n beneath the dock-yard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her-strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money! So it is; yet let us sing Honour to the old bow-string! Honour to the bugle-horn? Honour to the woods unshorn! Honour to the Lincoln green! Honour to the archer keen! Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon! Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood! Honour to maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan! Though their days have hurried by, Let us two a burden try. TO AUTUMN. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves' run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. ODE ON MELANCHOLY. No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be But when the melancholy fit shall fall Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. She dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strens ous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. LEIGH HUNT. LEIGH HUNT is the son of a clergyman of the complexion, are dark-but they have a gentle exChurch of England, and was born at Southgate, pression, akin to that of the gazelle. His look in Middlesex, October the 19th, 1784. He, as and his manner are both kindly and persuasive; well as Coleridge and Lamb, received his early indeed we have rarely met any one who so comeducation at Christ's Hospital, and chiefly under pletely realizes our notions of benevolence. His the same grammar-master; and, like Lamb, he conversation is exquisitely pleasing,-"combining was prevented from going to the University (on the vivacity of the school boy with the resources the Christ's Hospital foundation, it is understood of the wit, and the taste of the scholar." We to be a preparatory step to holy orders) by an im- know little of his political writings; they must pediment in his speech-which, however, he had have been fierce and bitter,-for they alarmed his the good fortune to overcome. At school, as in opponents, and delighted and encouraged his after life, he was remarkable for exuberance of friends; but unquestionably the MAN is to be seen animal spirits, and for passionate attachment to his friends,—a feeling, also, which years have not diminished; but he evinced little care for study, except when the exercises were in verse, when he would "give up" double the quantity demanded from him. His prose themes (he has told us among other interesting facts) were generally so bad, that the master used to crumple them in his hand, and throw them to the boys for their amusement. Mr. Hunt has been an ardent though never an ungenerous, political partisan, and has suffered in almost every possible way for the advocacy of opinions, which, whether right or wrong, he has lived to see in a great measure triumph. He is not the only early struggler for "Reform," who has been left by Reformers in power, to be recompensed by his own feelings. The acquaintance of Mr. Hunt and Lord Byron began in prison, where Mr. Hunt was confined for the publication of an article in the "Examiner," which he then conducted. It was pronounced to be a libel on the Prince Regent ;-and originated n his sympathy with the sufferings of the people of Ireland. To the history of their after intercourse we have not space to refer. Time has pretty nearly satisfied the world that Mr. Hunt by 10 means overdrew the picture of the noble Bard. The leading feature in Mr. Hunt's character is a ove of truth. This was unpalatable to Lord Byron, and, for a time also, to the public. Aninal spirits, a power of receiving delight from the commonest every-day objects, as well as from renote ones, and a sort of luxurious natural piety, so to speak,) are the prevailing influences of his writings. His friend, Hazlitt, used to say of him, n allusion to his spirits, and to his family stock which is from the West Indies,) that he had 'tropical blood in his veins." In person he is tall, and slightly formed; his ountenance is singularly fine; his eyes, like his in the tender, graceful, and affectionate effusions of the Poet. He is only at home where the heart presides. In the earlier part of his career, his opinions were assailed with the severest hostility. He has outlived the animosity to which he was subjected; the misfortunes to which he has been exposed have been met with philosophy; and his enemies have, like generous antagonists, aided in binding up the wounds they had inflicted. He has at length received justice from all,-save his political "friends." The poetry of Leigh Hunt has been, and ever will be, appreciated, by all who love nature, and sympathize with humanity. It is liable to the charge of occasional affectation; and it is to be lamented that, at times, he defaces the beauty of a composition by some trifling puerilities. Mr. Hazlitt appears to have divined the cause of these defects. "From great sanguineness of temper, from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to the public as he does at his own fireside, and talks about himself, forgetting that he is not always among friends." This disposition, however, is also the main source of his success. His nature is essentially GOOD; and what he writes makes its way to the heart. The models he consults are the true old English Poets; and the gayer spirits of Italy. He is a scholar, and "a special lover of books;" yet we never find in him a touch of pedantry. His poetry is like his mind,-a sort of buoyant outbreak of joyousness; and when a tone of sadness pervades it, is so gentle, confiding, and hoping, as to be far nearer allied to resigna. tion than repining. Perhaps there is no Poet who so completely pictures himself; it is a fine and natural and all-unselfish egotism; and a glorious contrast to the gloomy and misanthropic moods which some Bards have laboured first to acquire, and then to portray. (589) |