Loathing thy polluted lot, Hie thee, maiden, hie thee hence! Thou hast known deceit and folly, Inly arm'd, go, maiden! go. Mother sage of self-dominion, Firm thy steps, O melancholy! The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion Is the memory of past folly. Mute the sky-lark and forlorn, While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimm'd the tender corn, Or the bean-field's odorous blooms; Soon with renovated wing Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring, And embathe in heavenly light. LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM. NOR cold nor stern my soul! yet I detest These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast, In intricacies of laborious song. These feel not music's genuine power, nor deign To melt at nature's passion-warbled plaint; But when the long-breathed singer's uptrill'd strain Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment. Hark the deep buzz of vanity and hate! Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer My lady eyes some maid of humbler state, While the pert captain, or the primmer priest, Prattles accordant scandal in her ear. O give me, from this heartless scene released, To hear our old musician, blind and gray, (Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kiss'd,) His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, The while I dance amid the tedded hay With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light. Or lies the purple evening on the bay Unheard, unseen, behind the alder trees, Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears. But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the outhouse shed Makes the cock shrilly on the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of wo, Ballad of shipwreck'd sailor floating dead, Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The things of nature utter; birds or trees, Or moan of ocean gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. THE KEEPSAKE. THE tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil, By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side, And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair. In the cool morning twilight, early waked In the smooth, scarcely-moving river-pool. Nor yet th' entrancement of that maiden kiss She would resign one-half of that dear name, TO A LADY. WITH FALCONER'S "SHIPWRECK." AH! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams, In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice; Nor while half-listening, 'mid delicious dreams, To harp and song from lady's hand and voice; One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole empire of Germany, (Vergissmein nicht,) and, we believe, in Denmark and Sweden. And sweet it is, in summer bower, Sincere, affectionate, and gay, One's own dear children feasting round, To celebrate one's marriage-day. But what is all, to his delight, Who having long been doom'd to roam, Throws off the bundle from his back Before the door of his own home? Home-sickness is a wasting pang; This feel I hourly more and more: There's healing only in thy wings, Thou breeze that playest on Albion's shore! ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION. Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove, The linnet and thrush, say, "I love and I love!" THE VISIONARY HOPE. SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly kneeling He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of heal ing, That his sick body might have ease and rest; Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast, That hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he would For love's despair is but hope's pining ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, Pierced, as with light from heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noontide bower! Or let it stay! yet this one hope should give SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL. WRITTEN IN GERMANY. IF I had but two little wings, But thoughts like these are idle things, But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! The world is all one's own. But then one wakes, and where am I? Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids: RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE. How warm this woodland wild recess ! Love surely hath been breathing here, And this sweet bed of heath, my dear! Swells up, then sinks, with faint caress, As if to have you yet more near. Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On seaward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden rills Float here and there, like things astray, And high o'erhead the sky-lark shrills. No voice as yet had made the air Be music with your name; yet why That asking look? that yearning sigh? That sense of promise everywhere? Beloved flew your spirit by? As when a mother doth explore The rose mark on her long-lost child, I met, I loved ycu, maiden mild! As whom I long had loved beforeSo deeply, had I been beguiled. You stood before me like a thought, Has not, since then, love's prompture deep, THE HAPPY HUSBAND. A FRAGMENT. OFT, oft methinks, the while with thee I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear And dedicated name, I hear A promise and a mystery, A pledge of more than passing life, A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep! A feeling that upbraids the heart With happiness beyond desert, That gladness half requests to weep! Nor bless I not the keener sense And unalarming turbulence Of transient joys, that ask no sting From jealous fears, or coy denying; But born beneath love's brooding wing, And into tenderness soon dying, Wheel out their giddy moment, then A more precipitated vein Of notes, that eddy in the flow Of smoothest song, they come, they go, And leave the sweeter under-strain, Its own sweet self-a love of thee That seems, yet cannot greater be! ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE, AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT God be with thee, gladsome ocean! Dissuading spake the mild physician, "Those briny waves for thee are death!" But my soul fulfill'd her mission, And lo! I breathe untroubled breath! Fashion's pining sons and daughters, That seek the crowd they seem to fly, Trembling they approach thy waters; And what cares nature, if they die? Me a thousand hopes and pleasures, Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking,) Tearful raptures, boyish mirth; Silent adorations, making A blessed shadow of this earth! O ye hopes, that stir within me, THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS. CUPID, if storying legends* tell aright, With these the magic dews, which evening brings, Brush'd from th' Idalian star by faery wings: And hope, the blameless parasite of wo. Sweet sounds transpired, as when th' enamour'd dove Pours the soft murmuring of responsive love. III. MEDITATIVE POEMS. IN BLANK VERSE. Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived, Schiller. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY. Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the gentiana major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue." HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star * Effinixt quondam blandum meditata laborem On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc ! O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! O struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink: Companion of the morning star at dawn, Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams? And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! And who commanded, (and the silence came,) Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?— God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! Decussos violæ foliis ad miscet odores Et spolia æstivis plurima rapta rosis. Addit et illecebras et mille et mille lepores, Et quot Acidalius gaudia Cestus habet. Ex his composuit Dea basia; et omnia libans Invenias nitidæ sparsa per ora Cloës. Carm. Quod. Vol. II. God! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! Ye living flowers that skirt th' eternal frost! Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Or father, or the venerable name O dear, dear England! how may longing eye My native land! Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart was proud, Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Himself our Father, and the world our home. To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth! LINES WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN I STOOD on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw By the blue distance. Heavily my way Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard, And the brook's chatter: 'mid whose islet stones ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST SWEET flower! that peeping from thy russet stem month Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee THE EOLIAN HARP. COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE. My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Chatterton. |