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; Content, in homespun kirtle; True love; and true love's innocence, White blossom of the myrtle! 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, May gaze with stifled breath, And oft, in momentary trance, Forget the waste of death. 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 In autumn's latest hour, And wondering saw the selfsame spray Rich with the selfsame flower, Ah fond deceit! the rude green bud Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud, EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. Its 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. 70 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, She listen'd to the tale divine, And closer still the babe she press'd; And while she cried, the babe is mine! The milk rush'd faster to her breast: Joy rose within her, like a summer morn; Peace, peace on earth! the Prince of peace is born. Thou mother of the Prince of peace, Poor, simple, and of low estate ! That strife should vanish, battle cease, O why should this thy soul elate? Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,Didst thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory? And is not war a youthful king, A stately hero clad in mail? Him earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye Compels 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 ruffian, all with guilt defiled, A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet here describes is called the hart's tongue, ЗА "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! 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 Be life itself, and not its task and tent, 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! 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, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler; Lo! Phœbus the glorious descends from his throne! 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! Hebe pour free! 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 and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter. Then all the charm 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 fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease. -Note to the first edition, 1816.] 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, 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! 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! For all seem'd guilt, remorse, or wo, 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 incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.-T. BURNET: Archaol. Phil. p. 68. In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 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. The wedding. guest heareth the bridal music; but the mariner con tinueth his tale. The ship drawn by a storm toward the south pole. Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon smoke white, "God save thee, ancient mariner ! The wedding-guest here beat his From the fiends that plague thee thus! And thus spake on that ancient man, And the good south wind still blew And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he Was tyrannous and strong; behind, But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play 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 And now there came both mist and That brought the fog and mist. snow, And it grew wondrous cold; 'Twas right, said they, such birds to crime. slay And ice, mast-high, came floating by, That bring the fog and mist. 'Twas sad as sad could be ; All in a hot and copper sky, 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. |