These things are, doubtless: yet in truth we've had
Strange thunders from the potency of song;
Mingled indeed with what is sweet and strong,
From majesty: but in clear truth the themes
Are ugly cubs, the Poets' Polyphemes
Disturbing the grand sea. A drainless shower
Of light is poesy; "t is the supreme of power;
'T is might half slumb'ring on its own right arm.
The very archings of her eye-lids charm
A thousand willing agents to obey, -
And still she governs with the mildest sway:
But strength alone though of the Muses born
Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs
And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
Of poesy, that it should be a friend
To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.

Yet I rejoice: a myrtle fairer than Eer grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds A silent space with ever-sprouting green. All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen, Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering, Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing. Then let us clear away the choking thorns From round its gentle stem; let the young fawns, Yeaned in after-times, when we are flown, Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown With simple flowers: let there nothing be More boisterous than a lover's bended knee; Nought more ungentle than the placid look Of one who leans upon a closed book; Nought more untranquil than the grassy slopes Between two hills. All hail, delightful hopes! As she was wont, th’ imagination Into most lovely labyrinths will be gone, And they shall be accounted poet kings Who simply tell the most heart-easing things. O may these joys be ripe before I die!

Will not some say that I presumptuously Have spoken that from hastening disgrace "T were better far to hide my foolish face? That whining boy-hood should with reverence bow Ere the dread thunderbolt could reach? How! If I do hide myself, it sure shall be In the very fane, the light of Poesy: If I do fall, at least I will be laid Beneath the silence of a poplar shade; And over me the grass shall be smooth shaven; And there shall be a kind memorial graven. But off, Despondence! miserable bane! They should not know thee, who athirst to gain A noble end, are thirsty every hour.

What though I am not wealthy in the dower

Of spanning wisdom; though I do not know
The shiftings of the mighty winds that blow
Hither and thither all the changing thoughts
Of man: though no great ministring reason sorts
Out the dark mysteries of human souls
To clear conceiving; yet there ever rolls
A vast idea before me, and I glean
Therefrom my liberty; thence too 1 've seen

The end and aim of Poesy. T is clear
As any thing most true; as that the year
Is made of the four seasons—manifest
As a large cross, some old cathedral's crest.
Lifted to the white clouds. Therefore should I
Be but the essence of deformity,
A coward, did my very eye-lids wink
At speaking out what I have dared to think-
Ah! rather let me like a madman run
Over some precipice; let the hot sun
Melt my Dedalian wings, and drive me down
Convulsed and headlong! Stay! an inward frown
Of conscience bids me be more calm awhile.
An ocean dim, sprinkled with many an isle.
Spreads awfully before me. How much toil'
How many days! what desperate turmoil"
Ere I can have explored its widenesses.
Ah, what a task! upon my bended knees,
I could unsay those—no, impossible

Impossible!

For sweet relief I'll dwell On humbler thoughts, and let this strange assay Begun in gentleness die so away. Een now all-tumult from my bosom fades: I turn full-hearted to the friendly aids That smooth the path of honour; brotherhood, And friendliness, the nurse of mutual good. The hearty grasp that sends a pleasant sonnet Into the brain ere one can think upon it; The silence when some rhymes are coming out: And when they're come, the very pleasant rout: The message certain to be done to-morrow. "T is perhaps as well that it should be to borrow Some precious book from out its snug retreat, To cluster round it when we next shall meet. Scarce can I scribble on; for lovely airs Are fluttering round the room like doves in Pairs; Many delights of that glad day recalling, When first my senses caught their tender failing And with these airs come forms of elegance Stooping their shoulders o'er a horse's prance, Careless, and grand–fingers soft and round Parting luxuriant curls;—and the swift bound of Bacchus from his chariot, when his eye Made Ariadne's cheek look blushingly. Thus I remember all the pleasant flow Of words at opening a portfolio.

Things such as these are ever harbingers
To trains of peaceful images: the stirs
Of a swan's neck unseen among the rushes:
A linnet starting all about the bushes:
A butterfly, with golden wings broad-parted,
Nestling a rose, convulsed as though it smartei
With over-pleasure—many, many more,
Might I indulge at large in all my store
Of luxuries: yet I must not forget
Sleep, quiet with his poppy coronet:
For what there may be worthy in these rhymes
I partly owe to him : and thus, the chime.
Of friendly voices had just given place
To as sweet a silence, when I gan retrace
The pleasant day, upon a couch at ease.
It was a poet's house who keeps the keys

Of pleasure's temple.—Round about were hung
The glorious features of the bards who sung
In other ages—cold and sacred busts
Smiled at each other. Happy he who trusts
To clear Futurity his darling fame!
Then there were fauns and satyrs taking aim
At swelling apples with a frisky leap
And reaching fingers, 'mid a luscious heap
Of vine-leaves. Then there rose to view a fane
Of liney marble, and thereto a train
Of nymphs approaching fairly o'er the sward:
One, loveliest, holding her white hand toward
The dazzling sun-rise: two sisters sweet
Bending their graceful figures till they meet
Over the trippings of a little child:
And some are hearing, eagerly, the wild
Thrilling liquidity of dewy piping.
See, in another picture, nymphs are wiping
Cherishingly Diana's timorous limbs;–
A fold of lawny mantle dabbling swims
At the bath's edge, and keeps a gentle motion
With the subsiding crystal: as when ocean
Heaves calmly its broad swelling smoothness o'er
Its rocky marge, and balances once more
The patient weeds; that now unshent by foam
Feel all about their undulating home.
Sappho's meek head was there half smiling down
At nothing; just as though the earnest frown
Of over-thinking had that moment gone
From off her brow, and left her all alone.

Great Alfred's too, with anxious, pitying eyes,
As if he always listen'd to the sighs
Of the goaded world; and Kosciusko's, worn
By horrid suffrance—mightily forlorn.

Petrarch, outstepping from the shady green,
Starts at the sight of Laura; nor can wean
His eyes from her sweet face. Most happy they!
For over them was seen a free display
of out-spread wings, and from between them shone
The face of Poesy: from off her throne
She overlook'd things that I scarce could tell,
The very semse of where I was might well
Keep Sleep aloof: but more than that there came
Thought after thought to nourish up the flame
Within my breast; so that the morning light
Surprised me even from a sleepless night;
And up I rose refresh'd, and glad, and gay,
Resolving to begin that very day
These lines; and howsoever they be done,
I leave them as a father does his son.

SONNETS. To My Bhotheft George.

Many the wonders I this day have seen :
The sun, when first he kist away the tears
That fill'd the eyes of Morn;–the laurel'd 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.

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 dote upon thee,_call thee sweet,
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honey'd roses
When steep'd in dew rich to intoxication.
Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet,
And when the moon her pallied face discloses,
I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.

WRITTEN on THE DAY. That MR Leich Huxt left prison.

What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state,
Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,
In his immortal spirit, been as free
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.
Minion of grandeur' think you he did wait?
Think you he nought but prison-walls did see,
Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key?
Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!
In Spenser's halls he stray'd, and bowers fair,
Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew
with daring Milton through the fields of air:
To regions of his own his genius true
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair
When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?

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; "t is a pleasing chime.
So the unnumber'd sounds that evening store;
The songs of birds—the whisp'ring of the leaves-
The voice of waters—the great bell that heaves
With solemn sound,-and thousand others more,
That distance of recognizance bereaves,
Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

To A FRIEND who sent ME SOME ROSES.

As late I rambled in the happy fields, what time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert;-when anew

Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:

5rwza of the downward smile, and tideo-ro złorce: in what divider moments of the day Art to not to when zone far astray into the labyrinths of oreet atterance? Or when erenely war fring in a trance of voter thought or when starting away, with career roo to meet the morning ray, Thou sparest the flowers in to mory dance? Haply to when thy ruby lips part sweetly, And a remain. because thou listenest: But thou to please were nurtured to completely That I can never tell what mood is bestI shall as soon pronounce which Grace more neatly Trips it before Apollo than the rest.

O Solor:da 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, -
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seen a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongat boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swiftleap,
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove 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.

to My Buothers.

Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix'd, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day, Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passessinoothly, quietly,
Many such eves of gently whispring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world's true joys, ere the great Voice,
From its fair face shall bid our spirits fly.

November 18, 1816.

Mces have I travelrd in the realms of gold,
And many good!y states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Asolo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had Î been told
That deep-browd Homer ruled as his demeste
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Corter when with eagle eves
He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surnise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

ox LEAVING Sovie Fairvos AT Ax ratly hott.

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heap'd up flowers, in regions clear, and for; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star, Or hand of hymning angel, when 't is seen The silver strings of heavenly harp at ween And let there glide by many a pearly car, Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar. And half-discover'd wings, and glances keen. The while let music wander round my ears, And as it reaches each delicious ending, | Let me write down a line of glorious tone, And full of many wonders of the spheres: For what a height my spirit is contending! T is not content so soon to be alone.

ON THE GRASShopper AND chicket. o Tur poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the grasshopper's—he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, "le rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost 'las wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warinth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. December 30, 1816.

--

to kosciusko.

Good Kosciusko thy great name alone Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; it * upon us like the glorious pealing 9 the wide spheres—an everlasting tone. **w it tells me, that in world, unknown, The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing, And changed to harmonies, for ever stealing Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.

II appy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own ; -
To feel no other breezes than are blown -
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes fell a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging :
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

- The human SEASONS.

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man :
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming nigh
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
Ile furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would sorego his mortal nature.

--

oN A. Picture of LEAN deft.

Come hither all sweet maidens soberly,
Down-looking aye, and with a chasten’d light,
Hid in the fringes of your eye-lids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,
Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea:
'T is young Leander toiling to his death;
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her sinile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips
Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile :
He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!

to AllSA ROCK.

Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!
Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams!
When were thv shoulders mantled in huge streams?
When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid?

f

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother poets joy'd,
Who, with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.
The thought of this great partnership diffuses
Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling
Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.
Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee
Past each horizon of fine poesy;
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted :
But 'tis impossible; far different cares
Beckon me sternly from soft « Lydian airs,”
And hold iny faculties so long in thrall,
That I am oft in doubt whether at all
I shall again see Phoebus in the morning:
Or slush’d Aurora in the roseate dawning!
Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;
Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;
Or again witness what with thee I've seen,
The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,
After a night of some quaint jubilee
Which every elf and fay had come to see:
When bright processions took their airy march
Beneath the curved moon's triumphal arch.

But might I now each passing moment give
To the coy muse, with me she would not live
In this dark city, nor would condescend
"Mid contradictions her delights to lend.
Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,
Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find
Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,
That often must have seen a poet frantic;
Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,
And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;
Where the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping clusters
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,
And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,
With its own drooping buds, but very white.

Yet this is vain–0 Mathew lend thy and
To find a place where I may greet the maid-
Where we may soft humanity put on,
And sit, and rhyme, and think on Chatterton.
And that warm-hearted Shakespeare sent to me: *
Four laurell’d spirits, heavenward to entreat him.
With reverence would we speak of all the sago
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages
†. thou shouldst moralize on Milton's blindnes,
nd mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness
To those who strove with the bright golden wing
Of genius, to flap away each sting
Thrown by the pitiless world. We next could tell
Of those who in the cause of freedom fell;
Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell;
Of him whose name to every heart 's a solace.
High-minded and unbending William Wallace.
While to the rugged north our musing turns
We well might drop a tear for him, and Burns
Felton! without incitements such as these,
How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease:
For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace,
And make - a sun-shine in a shady place:-
For thou wast once a flowret blooming wild.
Close to the source, bright, pure, and undefiled,
Whence gush the streams of song: in happy hour
Came chaste Diana from her shady bower,
Just as the sun was from the east uprising:
And, as for him some gift she was devising.
Beheld thee, pluck'd thee, cast thee in the tream
To meet her glorious brother's greeting beam
I marvel much that thou hast never told
How, from a flower, into a fish of gold
Apollo changed thee: how thou next didst seen
A black-eyed swan upon the widening stream,
And when thou first didst in that mirror trace
The placid features of a human face:
That thou hast never told thy travels strange,
And all the wonders of the mary range
O'er pebbly chrystal, and o'er golden sands;
Kissing thy daily food from Naiad's Pearly hand-

November, 1815.

- TO MY BROThen croRoseFull many a dreary hour have I past, My brain bewilder'd, and my mind o'ercast With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought No sphery strains by me could eer be caught From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays, Or, on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely, Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely. That I should never hear Apollo's song, Though feathery clouds were floating all alous