ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

Upon a tyrant's head. Ah! had I never seen,
Or known your kindness, what might I have been?
What my enjoyments in my youthful years,
Bereft of all that now my life endears?
And can I e'er these benefits forget?
And can I e'er repay the friendly debt?

No, doubly no;-yet should these rhymings please,
I shall roll on the grass with twofold ease;
For I have long time been my fancy feeding
With hopes that you would one day think the reading
Of my rough verses not an hour misspent ;

Should it e'er be so, what a rich content!
Some weeks have passed since last I saw the spires
In lucent Thames reflected:-warm desires

To see the sun o'er-peep the eastern dimness,
And morning-shadows streaking into slimness
Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water;

To mark the time as they grow broad and shorter;
To feel the air that plays about the hills,
And sips its freshness from the little rills;
To see high, golden corn wave in the light
When Cynthia smiles upon a summer's night,
And peers among the cloudlets, jet and white,
As though she were reclining in a bed
Of bean-blossoms, in heaven freshly shed.
No sooner had I stepped into these pleasures,
Than I began to think of rhymes and measures;
The air that floated by me seemed to say
"Write! thou wilt never have a better day."
And so I did. When many lines I'd written,
Though with their grace I was not oversmitten,
Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I'd better
Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter.

Such an attempt required an inspiration

Of a peculiar sort,-a consummation;—

Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been
Verses from which the soul would never ween;
But many days have past since last my heart
Was warmed luxuriously by divine Mozart;
By Arne delighted, or by Handel maddened;
Or by the song of Erin pierced and saddened:
What time you were before the music sitting,
And the rich notes to each sensation fitting.
Since I have walked with you through shady lanes
That freshly terminate in open plains,

And revelled in a chat that ceased not,

When, at nightfall, among your books we got:
No, nor when supper came, nor after that,-
Nor when reluctantly I took my hat;
No, nor till cordially you shook my hand

Midway between our homes:-your accents bland
Still sounded in my ears, when I no more
Could hear your footsteps touch the gravelly floor.
Sometimes I lost them, and then found again;
You changed the foot-path for the grassy plain.
In those still moments I have wished you joys
That well you know to honor:-"Life's very toys
With him," said I, "will take a pleasant charm;
It cannot be that aught will work him harm."

These thoughts now come o'er me with all their might:—
Again I shake your hand,-friend Charles, good night.

September, 1816.

SONNETS.

I.

TO A FRIEND WHO SENT ME SOME ROSES.

As late I rambled in the happy fields,

What time the skylark shades the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;-when anew

Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields;
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,

A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew

As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,

I thought the garden-rose it far excelled;
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,

My sense with their deliciousness was spelled: Soft voices had they, that with tender plea Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.

II.

TO MY BROTHER GEORGE.

MANY the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kissed away the tears
That filled the eyes of Morn;-the laurelled peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;-

The Ocean with its vastness, its blue green,

Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,-
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears

Must think on what will be, and what has been.
E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write,
Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,

And she her half-discovered revels keeping.
But what, without the social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?

ΤΟ

III.

HAD I a man's fair form, then might my sighs
Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell,
Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well
Would passion arm me for the enterprise:
But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies;
No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell;
I am no happy shepherd of the dell

Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.
Yet must I doat upon thee,-call thee sweet,
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honeyed roses
When steeped in dew rich to intoxication.
Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet,
And when the moon her pallid face discloses,
I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.

IV.

O SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,-
Nature's observatory-whence the dell,

In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilioned, where the deer's swift leap

Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.

But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refined, Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

V.

How many bards gild the lapses of time!
A few of them have ever been the food
Of my delighted fancy,-I could brood
Over their beauties, earthly or sublime:
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
But no confusion, no disturbance rude

Do they occasion; 'tis a pleasing chime.
So the unnumbered sounds that evening store;
The songs of birds-the whispering of the leaves-
The voice of waters-the great bell that heaves
With solemn sound,-and thousand others more,
The distance of recognizance bereaves,

Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

VI.

TO G. A. W.

NYMPH of the downward smile and sidelong glance! In what diviner moments of the day

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »