"My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard.
"Thus fares it still in our decay : And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind.
IF thou indeed derive thy light from
Shine, poet, in thy place, and be content! The star that from the zenith darts its beams, Visible though it be to half the earth, Though half a sphere be conscious of its brightness,
Is yet of no diviner origin,
No purer essence, than the one that burns, Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem [lamps, Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter Let loose their carols when they please, Among the branches of the leafless trees. Are quiet when they will.
"The blackbird in the summer trees, The lark upon the hill,
"With nature never do they wage A foolish strife; they see
A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free:
"But we are pressed by heavy laws; And often glad no more,
We wear a face of joy, because We have been glad of yore.
"If there is one who need bemoan
His kindred laid in earth,
WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S "OSSIAN."
OFT have I caught from fitful breeze Fragments of far-off melodies, With ear not coveting the whole, A part so charmed the pensive soul: While a dark storm before my sight. Was yielding, on a mountain height Loose vapours have I watched, that won Prismatic colours from the sun;
The household hearts that were his own, Nor felt a wish that heaven would show It is the man of mirth.
The image of its perfect bow.
What need, then, of these finished strains? Away with counterfeit remains !
An abbey in its lone recess,
A temple of the wilderness,
Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling
The majesty of honest dealing.
"Now both himself and me he wrongs, Spirit of Ossian ! if imbound
The man who thus corolains!
I live and sing my idle angs Upon these happy plains,
"And, Matthew, for thy children dead I'll be a son to thee!"
At this he grasped my hand, and said, "Alas! that cannot be."
We rose up from the fountain-side; And down the smooth descent Of the green sheep-track did we glide; And through the wood we went ;
And, ere we came to Leonard's rock, He sang those witty rhymes About the crazy old church clock, And the bewildered chimes.
In language thou mayst yet be found, If aught (intrusted to the pen, Or floating on the tongues of men, Albeit shattered and impaired) Subsist thy dignity to guard, In concert with memorial claim Of old gray stone, and high-born name, That cleaves to rock or pillared cave, Where moans the blast or beats the wave, Let truth, stern arbitress of all Interpret that original,
And for presumptuous wrongs atone; Authentic words be given, or none !
Time is not blind;-yet he, who spares Pyramid pointing to the stars, Hath preyed with ruthless appetite On all that marked the primal flight Of the poetic ecstasy
Into the land of mystery.
No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse; Musæus, stationed with his lyre Supreme among the Elysian quire, Is, for the dwellers upon earth, Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Appeared, in pres nce of that spiritual
That aids or supersedes our grosser sight, The form and rich habiliments of one Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun,
Why grieve for these, though passed away When it reveals, in evening majesty,
The music, and extinct the lay? When thousands, by severer doom, Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at nature's call; or strayed From hope and promise, self-betrayed; The garland withering on their brows; Stand with remorse for broken vows; Frantic-else how might they rejoice? And friendless, by their own sad choice.
Hail, bards of mightier grasp ! on you I chiefly call, the chosen few, Who cast not off the acknowledged guide, Who faltered not, nor turned aside; Whose lofty genius could survive Privation, under sorrow thrive ; In whom the fiery muse revered The symbol of a snow-white beard. Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.
Brothers in soul ! though distant times Produced you, nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained; Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind; Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Though smiling on the last hill top !
Such to the tender-hearted maid Even ere her joys begin to fade; Such, haply, to the rugged chief By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief; Appears, on Morven's lonely shore, Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore, The Son of Fingal; such was blind Mæonides of ampler mind; Such Milton, to the fountain head Of glory by Urania led!
"Rerum natura tota est nusquam magis quam
in minimis."-PLIN. Nat. Hist. BENEATH the concave of an April sky, When all the ficlds with freshest green were dight,
Features half lost amid their own pure
'And though to every draught of vital breath Lor ocean, Renewed throughout the bounds of earth The melancholy gates of death Respond with sympathetic motion; Though all that feeds on nether air, Howe'er magnificent or fair, Grows but to perish, and intrust Its ruins to their kindred dust;
Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care, Her procreant vigils nature keeps Amid the unfathomable deeps; And saves the peopled fields of earth From dread of emptiness or dearth. [sky Thus, in their stations, lifting toward the The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty, The shadow-casting race of trees survive : Thus, in the train of spring, arrive Sweet flowers ;--what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads ?-endlessly renewed, Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray; Where'er the subtle waters stray; Wherever sportive zephyrs bend Their course or genial showers descend! Mortals, rejoice! the very angels quit Their mansions unsusceptible of change, Amid your pleasant bowers to sit, And through your sweet vicissitudes to range !"
Oh, nursed at happy distance from the cares Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral
To lie and listen, till o'er-drowsed sense Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence, To the soft murmur of the vagrant bee. A slender sound! yet hoary time Doth to the soul exalt it with the chime Of all his years;-a company Of ages coming, ages gone; (Nations from before them sweeping, Regions in destruction steeping,) But every awful note in unison With that faint utterance, which tells Of treasure sucked from buds and bells, For the pure keeping of those waxen cells; Where she, a statist prudent to confer Upon the public weal; a warrior bold,- Radiant all over with unburnished gold, And armed with living spear for mortal A cunning forager [fight; That spreads no waste;-a social builder; In whom all busy offices unite
With all fine functions that afford delight, Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!
And is she brought within the power Of vision ?-o'er this tempting flower Hovering until the petals stay Her flight, and take its voice away!— Observe each wing-a tiny van!- The structure of her laden thigh, How fragile !--yet of ancestry Mysteriously remote and high, High as the imperial front of man, The roseate bloom on woman's cheek; The soaring eagle's curvèd beak; The white plumes of the floating swan; Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain At which the desert trembles.-Humming bee ! [unknown;
Thy sting was needless then, perchance The seeds of malice were not sown; All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free,
And no pride blended with their dignity. Tears had not broken from their source; Nor anguish strayed from her Tartarian den;
The golden years maintained a course Not undiversified, though smooth and [shadow, then
We were not mocked with glimpse and Bright seraphs mixed familiarly with men ; And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!
ODE TO LYCORIS. MAY, 1817.
AN age hath been when earth was proud Of lustre too intense
To be sustained; and mortals bowed The front in self-defence.
Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed, Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed While on the wing the urchin played, Could fearlessly approach the shade? Enough for one soft vernal day, If I, a bard of ebbing time, And nurtured in a fickle clime, May haunt this horned bay; Whose amorous water multiplies The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes; And smooths her liquid breast-to show [one! These swan-like specks of mountain snow,
White as the pair that slid along the plains | In anxious bondage to such nice array Of heaven, when Venus held the reins !
In youth we love the darksome lawn Brushed by the owlet's wing; Then, twilight is preferred to dawn, And autumn to the spring. Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness. Lycoris (if such name befit Thee, thee my life's celestial sign!) When nature marks the year's decline, Be ours to welcome it;
Pleased with the harvest hope that runs Before the path of milder suns, Pleased while the sylvan world displays Its ripeness to the feeding gaze;
Pleased when the sullen winds resound the Of the resplendent miracle.
But something whispers to my heart That, as we downward tend, Lycoris! life requires an art To which our souls must bend; A skill--to balance and supply; And, ere the flowing fount be dry, As soon it must, a sense to sip, Or drink, with no fastidious lip. Frank greeting, then, to that blithe guest Diffusing smiles o'er land and sea To aid the vernal Deity Whose home is in the breast! May pensive autumn ne'er present A claim to her disparagement ! While blossoms and the budding spray Inspire us in our own decay; Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal, Be hopeful spring the favourite of the soul!
And formal fellowship of petty things! Oh! 'tis the heart that magnifies this
Making a truth and beauty of her own: And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze
Ocean and earth contending for regard.
The umbrageous woods are left-how far beneath!
But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth
Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still And sultry air, depending motionless. Yet cool the space within, and not un- cheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive) By stealthy influx of the timid day Mingling with night, such twilight to compose
As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian grot,
From the sage nymph appearing at his wish,
He gained whate'er a regal mind might
That, were power granted to replace them (fetched
From out the pensive shadows where they lie)
In the first warmth of their original sunshine,
Loth should I be to use it: passing sweet Are the domains of tender memory!
A BARKING Sound the shepherd hears, A cry as of a dog or fox; He halts and searches with his eyes Among the scattered rocks : And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern; And instantly a dog is seen, Glancing through that covert green.
The dog is not of mountain breed ; Its motions, too, are wild and shy; With something, as the shepherd thinks, Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there any one in sight All round, in hollow or on height; Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear; What is the creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess, That keeps, till June, December's snow; A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn* below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn, Remote from public road or dwelling, Pathway, or cultivated land; From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, In symphony austere;
Thither the rainbow comes-the cloud- And mists that spread the flying shroud; And sunbeams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past; But that enormous barrier binds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, a while The shepherd stood: then makes his way Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones, As quickly as he may;
Not far had gone before he found A human skeleton on the ground; The appalled discoverer with a sigh Looks round, to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks The man had fallen, that place of fear! At length upon the shepherd's mind It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name, And who he was, and whence he came ; Remembered, too, the very day
On which the traveller passed this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake This lamentable tale I tell! A lasting monument of words This wonder merits well.
The dog, which still was hovering nigh, Repeating the same timid cry, [space This dog had been through three months' A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain that since the day When this ill-fated traveller died, The dog had watched about the spot, Or by his master's side:
How nourished here through such long time He knows who gave that love sublime; And gave that strength of feeling great Above all human estimate.
ON SEEING THE FOUNDATION PREPARING FOR THE ERECTION OF CHAPEL,
BLEST is this isle-our native land; Where battlement and moated gate Are objects only for the hand Of hoary time to decorate:
Where shady hamlet, town that breathes Its busy smoke in social wreaths, No rampart's stern defence require, Nought but the heaven-directed spire, And steeple tower (with pealing bells Far heard)-our only citadels.
O lady! from a noble line
Of chieftains sprung, who stoutly bore
* A tarn is a small mere or lake, mostly high The spear, yet gave to works divine up in the mountains,
A bounteous help in days of yore,
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