ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD. THIS day among the faithful placed, And fed with fontal manna; O with maternal title graced Dear Anna's dearest Anna! While others wish thee wise and fair, A maid of spotless fame, I'll breathe this more compendious prayerMayst thou deserve thy name! Thy mother's name, a potent spell, That bids the virtues hie From mystic grove and living cell Confest to fancy's eye; Meek quietness, without offence; Associates of thy name, sweet child! So when, her tale of days all flown, Thy mother shall be miss'd here; When Heaven at length shall claim its own, And angels snatch their sister; Some hoary-headed friend, perchance, E'en thus a lovely rose I view'd In summer-swelling pride; Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude Peep'd at the rose's side. It chanced, I pass'd again that way And wondering saw the selfsame spray Ah fond deceit! the rude green bud Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud, EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. Irs balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant's latest sigh! O tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with lullaby. MELANCHOLY. A FRAGMENT. STRETCH'D on a moulder'd abbey's broadest wall, The dark green adder's tongue* was there; That pallid cheek was flush'd: her eager look And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought. Strange was the dream A CHRISTMAS CAROL. THE shepherds went their hasty way, And now they check'd their eager tread, They told her how a glorious light, While, sweeter than a mother's song, Blest angels heralded the Saviour's birth, Glory to God on high! and peace on earth. She listen'd to the tale divine, And closer still the babe she press'd; Joy rose within her, like a summer morn; O why should this thy soul elate? And is not war a youthful king, Him earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye Conpels the maiden's love-confessing sigh. "Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state! I am a woman poor and mean, And therefore is my soul elate. War is a run, all with guilt defiled, That from the aged father tears his child! * A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet hea describes is called the hart's tongue, "A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the sire and starves the son; The husband kills, and from her board Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day. "Then wisely is my soul elate, That strife should vanish, battle cease: The mother of the Prince of peace. TELL'S BIRTHPLACE. IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. MARK this holy chapel well! The birthplace, this, of William Tell. Here first, an infant to her breast, God gave him reverence of laws, The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein! To nature and to holy writ The straining oar and chamois chase HUMAN LIFE. ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. Ir dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be life itself, and not its task and tent, If e'en a soul like Milton's can know death, O man! thou vessel, purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes! Surplus of nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She form'd with restless hands unconsciously! Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create, And to repay the other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold! Yet what and whence thy gain if thou withhold These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun! Thou hast no reason why! Thou canst have none: Thy being's being is a contradiction. ELEGY, IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE INSCRIPTIONS. NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, Where "sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bed O humbly press that consecrated ground! For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain! Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue! Where'er with wilder'd steps she wander'd pale Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view, Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale. With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms, Go, traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught: THE VISIT OF THE GODS. IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. NEVER, believe me, Appear the immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler; Lo! Phoebus the glorious descends from his throne! Terrestrial hall! How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joy- That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! O give me the nectar! O fill me the bowl! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, The wine of th' immortals Forbids me to die! KUBLA KHAN; OR, A VISION IN A DREAM. [THE following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and, as far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits. return to his room, found, to his no small surprise Then all the charm thine eyes Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Yet, from the still surviving recollections in his As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan So twice five miles of fertile ground In the summer of the year 1797, the author, then But O that deep romantic chasm which slanted As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, The shadow of the dome of pleasure and detained by him above an hour, and on his A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! A damsel with a dulcimer It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she play'd, Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, Such punishments, I said, were due To know and loath, yet wish and do! And whom I love, I love indeed. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. IN SEVEN PARTS. THE PAINS OF SLEEP. ERE on my bed my limbs I lay, In humble trust mine eyelids close, No wish conceived, no thought express'd! Only a sense of supplication, A sense o'er all my soul imprest But yesternight I pray'd aloud Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: And whom I scorn'd, those only strong! So two nights pass'd: the night's dismay The third night, when my own loud scream Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit? et gradus et cognationes et discri mina et singulorum munera ? Quid agunt ? quæ loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incer. tis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.-T. BURNET: Archaol. Phil. p. 68. In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perch'd for vespers nine: The mariner tells The sun came up upon the left, how the ship sail. ed southward Out of the sea came he! with a good wind And he shone bright, and on the right Whiles all the night, through fog and fair weather, Went down into the sea. till it reached the line. Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon smoke white, Glimmer'd the white moonshine. "God save thee, ancient mariner! The wedding-guest here beat his From the fiends that plague thee thus! breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. The bride hath paced into the hall, Nodding their heads before her goes The wedding-guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear; And now the STORM-BLAST came, Was tyrannous and strong; and Why look'st thou so?"-With my cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS. PART II. THE SUN now rose upon the right: Went down into the sea. And the good south wind still blew behind, But no sweet bird did follow, He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And I had done an hellish thing, With sloping masts and dripping prow, And it would work 'em wo: The ancient mari. ner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen. His shipmates cry out against the ancient mariner, for killing the bird of good-luck. The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, But when the fog blast, And southward aye we filed. cleared off, they The glorious sun uprist: justify the same, Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird and thus make And now there came both mist and That brought the fog and mist. snow, And it grew wondrous cold; themselves accomplices in the 'Twas right, said they, such birds to crime. And ice, mast-high, came floating by, That bring the fog and mist. 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and The silence of the sea! Till a great sea. At length did cross an albatross: bird, called the albatross, came Thorough the fog it came; through the snow As if it had been a Christian soul, ceived with grea: We hail'd it in God's name. It ate the food it ne'er had eat, The ice did split with a thunder-fit; And lo! the alba. And a good south wind sprung up tross proveth a All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; Water, water, everywhere, The very deep did rot: O Christ! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs been suddenly becalmed. And the albatross begins to be avenged. |