WINTER EVENING AT HOME.

FAIR Moon! that at the chilly day's decline
Of sharp December, through my cottage pane
Dost lovely look, smiling, though in thy wane;
In thought to scenes serene and still as thine
Wanders my heart, whilst I by turns survey
Thee slowly wheeling on thy evening way,
And this my fire, whose dim, unequal light,

Just glimmering, bids each shadowy image fall
Sombrous and strange upon the darkening wall,
Ere the clear tapers chase the deepening night!
Yet thy still orb, seen through the freezing haze,
Shines calm and clear without; and whilst I gaze,
I think, Around me in this twilight gloom
I but remark mortality's sad doom;

Whilst hope and joy, cloudless and soft, appear

In the sweet beam that lights thy distant sphere.

VI.

HOPE.

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,
Weary has watched the lingering night, and heard,
Heartless, the carol of the matin bird

Salute his lonely porch, now first at morn

Goes forth, leaving his melancholy bed;

He the green slope and level meadow views,
Delightful bathed in slow ascending dews;

Or marks the clouds that o'er the mountain's head, In varying forms, fantastic wander white;

Or turns his ear to every random song

Heard the green river's winding marge along,

The whilst each sense is steeped in still delight:

With such delight o'er all my heart I feel

Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense

steal!

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

I.

ON LEAVING SCHOOL.*

(Written at Eighteen.)

FAREWELL, parental scenes! a sad farewell!
To you my grateful heart still fondly clings,
Though fluttering round on Fancy's burnished wings,
Her tale of future joy Hope loves to tell.
Adieu, adieu! ye much-loved cloisters pale !
Ah! would those happy days return again,
When 'neath your arches, free from every stain,
I heard of guilt, and wondered at the tale!
Dear haunts! where oft my simple lays I sang,

Listening meanwhile the echoing of my feet :
Lingering I quit you with as great a pang
As when, erewhile, my weeping childhood, torn
By early sorrow from my native seat,

Mingled its tears with hers, my widowed parent lorn.

* At Christ's Hospital, where he was contemporary with Lamb, who has recorded the wonderful powers of his conversation, even when a school-boy.

II.

66 WITH FIELDING'S AMELIA.” *

VIRTUES and woes alike too great for man

In the soft tale oft claim the useless sigh:
For vain the attempt to realize the plan;
On folly's wings must imitation fly.
With other aim has Fielding here displayed
Each social duty and each social care;
With just yet vivid coloring portrayed
What every wife should be, what many are.
And sure the parent of a race so sweet

With double pleasure on the page shall dwell;
Each scene with sympathizing breast shall meet,
While reason still with smiles delights to tell
Maternal Hope, that the loved progeny

In all but sorrows shall Amelias be.

* The heading given to this sonnet by the author has no other words than those which are here given. The sonnet, however, is evidently addressed to some mother. Its extremely conventional style announces nothing of the future author of "Christabel" and the “Ancient Mariner "; yet we extract it in honor both of the poet and of Fielding; of the poet because Fielding was a favorite with him to the last; and of Fielding because it is one of his glories to have made an impression on a poet so fine. The "virtues and

woes " alluded to in the first line are those of Richardson; the human nature of whose novels, compared with that of Fielding, appeared to Coleridge to be forced, like flowers in a hothouse. He said that reading Fielding after Richardson was like going out of a close, stifling room into the open air.