Slowly, or rapidly-unwilling still

For you to try my dull, unlearned quill.

Nor should I now, but that I've known you long; That you first taught me all the sweets of song: The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine : What swell'd with pathos, and what right divine: Spenserian vowels that elope with ease,

And float along like birds o'er summer seas: Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tender

ness:

Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve's fair slenderness.

Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly Up to its climax, and then dying proudly? Who found for me the grandeur of the ode, Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load? Who let me taste that more than cordial dram, The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram?

Show'd me that epic was of all the king,

Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring?
You too up-held the veil from Clio's beauty,
And pointed out the patriot's stern duty;
The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell;
The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell

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 pass'd 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 stepp'd into these pleasures,
Than I began to think of rhymes and mea-

sures;

The air that floated by me seem'd to say

"Write! thou wilt never have a better day."

And so I did.

When many lines I'd written,

grace I was not oversmitten,

Though with their

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 warm'd luxuriously by divine Mozart;
By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden'd;
Or by the song of Erin pierced and sadden'd:
What time you were before the music sitting,
And the rich notes to each sensation fitting.
Since I have walk'd with you through shady
lanes

That freshly terminate in open plains,

And revell'd in a chat that ceased not,

When, at night-fall, 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 Mid-way 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 wish'd you joys That well you know to honour :-"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.