WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND

Such a green mountain 't were most sweet to climb,

LINES TO W. L. ESQ.
E'en while the bosom ached with loneliness-
How more than sweet, if some dear friend should

WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC, bless

WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues, The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime And I have many friends who hold me dear; Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round, -!methinks, I would not often hear Wide and more wide, increasing without bound ! Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose

All memory of the wrongs and sore distress,

For which my miserable brethren weep! ;
O then 't were loveliest sympathy, to mark

But should uncomforted misfortunes steep
The berries of the halt-uprooted ash
Iripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash - My daily bread in tears and bitterness ;

And if at death's dread moment I should lie
Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark,
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock;

With no beloved face at my bod-side,

To fix the last glance of my closing eye,
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart; arm link'd in friendly arm,

Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guide

Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatch'd distance lag;

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died !
Till high o'erhead his beckoning friend appears,
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly : for haply, there uprears

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE That shadowing pine iis old romantic limbs, Which latest shall detain the enamour'd sight

CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basind in some unsunu'd cleft,

O Youth to partial Foriune vainly dear!
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected lears,

To plunder'd Wani's tralf-shelter'd hovel go, Sleeps shelter'd there, scarce wrinkled by the gale!

Go, and some hunger-bitten Infant hear Together thus, the world's rain turmoil left,

Moan haply in a dying Mother's ear: Streich'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine,

Or wben the cold and dismal fog-damps brood And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,

O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine

strew'd, To cbeat our noons in moralizing mood,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedewid :

Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoflin'd limbs Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy

heart mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,

Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Where smiling with blue cye, domestic bliss

Know (and the truth shall kindle ihy young mind)

What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! Gives this the Ilusband's, thal the Brother's kiss!

O abject! if, 10 sickly dreams resign'd,

All efforiless thou leave life's commonweal
Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,

A prey to Tyranis, Murderers of Mankind.
The Hill of Knowledge I essay'd to trace ;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
Ami many a stream, whose warbling waters pour SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

To giad and fertilize the subject plains ;
Thai hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod, Dear native Brook! will Sireamlet of the West!
Ant many a fancy-blest and holy sod,

How many various-fated years have past, Where Inspiration, his diviner strains

What happy, and whai mournful hours, since last Lou murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks I skimm'd the smooth thin sione along thy breast, Severgreens, whose spreading foliage mocks Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age, Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes Ani Bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tinis thy waters rise, orek retiring spirit! we will climh,

Thy crossing planli, thy marge with willows gray,

And bedded sand ibat veind with various dyes Che ing and cheer'd, ihis lovely hill sublime ; in from the stirring world uplified ligh

Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my se noises, faintly wasted on the sind,

way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled To quiet musings shall attune the mind, And oft the niclancholy theme supply),

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs :

Ah! that once more I were a careless child ! There, while the prospect through ihe gazing eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,
W-"il smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,
Or hoses, our knowledge, and our joys the same,

SONNET.
As neighboring fountains image, each the whole:
Ther, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth,

COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR We'll discipline the heart to pure delight,

HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH Rekiniling sober Joy's domestic Name.

OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796. They whom I love shall love thee. Honor'd youth! Oft o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Now may Heaven realize this vision bright! Which makes the present while the flash doth last)

Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past,
Mix'd with such feelings, as perplex the soul
Self-question’d in her sleep; and some have said

We lived, ere yet this robe of Flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead
(As sometimes, through excess of hope, I sear),
I think that I should struggle to believe

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere
Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve ;
Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick

reprieve, While we wept idly o'er thy little bier !

While others wish thee wise and fair,

A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer-

Mayst thou deserve thy name!
Thy Mother's name, a potent spell,

That bids the Virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell

Confest 10 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 !

These Virtues mayst thou win;
With face as eloquently mild

To say, they lodge within.
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.

SONNET.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE

NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

CHARLES ! my slow heart was only sad, when first

I scann'd that face of feeble infancy: For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst

All I had been, and all my child might be! But when I saw it on its Mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom (she the while

Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) Then I was thrill’d and melted, and most warm Impress’d a Father's kiss : and all beguiled

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,

I seem'd to see an angel-form appear 'T was even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the Mother's sake the Child was dear, And dearer was the Mother for the Child.

Ev'n 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.

A FRAGMENT.

ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.
This day among the faithful placed
And fed with fontal manna ;

MELANCHOLY.
O with maternal title graced
Dear Anna's dearest Anna!

STRETCH'D on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest selle • Ην που ημων η ψυχη πριν εν τωδε των ανθρωπινω Where ruining ivies propp'd the ruins steep ειδει γενεσθαι. .

Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall, Plat. in Phædon Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.

The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

She listend to the tale divine,
The dark-green Adder's Tongue* was there; And closer still the Babe she press'd;
And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,

And while she cried, the Babe is mine!, l'he long lank leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek. The milk rush'd faster to her breast :

'Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn; l'hat pallid cheek was flush'd : her eager look Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, And her bent forehead work'd with troubled

Poor, simple, and of low estate! thought.

That Strife should vanish, Battle cease,
Strange was the dream-

O why should this thy soul elate ?
Sweet Music's loudest note, the Poet's story,

Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of Fame and Glory?
TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE.

And is not War a youthful King,
IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.

A stately Hero clad in mail ?
MARK this holy chapel well !

Beneath his footsteps laurels spring ; The Birth-place, this, of William Tell.

Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail Here, where stands God's altar dread,

Their Friend, their Play-mate! and his bold bright eye Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh Here first, an infant to her breast,

“ Tell this in some more courtly scene, Him his loving mother prest;

To maids and youths in robes of state ! And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day,

I am a woman poor and mean, And pray'd as mothers use to pray:

And therefore is my Soul elate.

War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, • Vouchsafe him health, O God, and give

That from the aged Father tears his Child !
The Child thy servant still to live !"
But God has destined to do more
Through him, than through an armed power. “ A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,

He kills the Sire and starves the Son ;
God gave him reverence of laws,

The Husband kills, and from her board Yel stirring blood in Freedom's cause

Steals all his Widow's toil had won; A spirit to his rocks akin,

Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away The eye of the Hawk, and the fire therein! All safety from the Night, all comfort from the Day To Nature and to Holy writ

" Then wisely is my soul elate, ( Alone did God the boy commit:

That Strife should vanish, Battle cease : Where flash'd and roar'd the torrent, oft

I'm poor and of a low estale, His soul found wings, and soar'd aloft!

The Mother of the Prince of Peace, The straining oar and chamois chase

Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Had form’d his limbs to strength and grace:

Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born!" On wave and wind the boy would toss, Was great, nor knew how great he was ! He knew not that his chosen hand, Made stzong by God, his native land Would rescue from the shameful yoke

HUMAN LIFE, of Slavery-the which he broke!

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY

IF dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Swallow

up life's brief flash for aye, we fare THE Shepherds went their hasty way,

As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

But are their whole of being! If the Breath
And now they check d their eager tread,

Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,

If even a soul like Milton's can know death,

O Man! thou vessel, purposeless, unmeant, A Mother's song the Virgin-Mother şung.

Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes ! They told her how a glorious light,

Sarplus of Nature's dread activity, Strearning from a heavenly throng,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase, Around them shone, suspending night!

Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
While, sweeter than a Mother's song,

She formd with restless hands unconsciously! Blest Angels heralded the Savior's birth,

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! Glory to God on high! and peace on Earth.

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,

Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy Hopes, thy Fears, A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet bere de- The counter-weights!—Thy Laughter and thy Tears scribes is called the Hart's Tongue.

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

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.

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 contradiction.

With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms,

Amid the pomp of affluence she pined:
Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arms

Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind.

Go, Traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught

Some tearful maid, perchance, or blooming youth May hold it in remembrance, and be taught

That Riches cannot pay for Love or Trutn.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER

NEVER, believe me,

KUBLA KHAN;
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone :

OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler,
lacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler;
Lo! Phæbus the Glorious descends from his Throne ! poet of great and deserved celebrity, and, as far as the Author's

(The following fragment is here published at the request of a They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!. own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, With Divinities fills my

than on the ground of any supposed poctic merits. Terrestrial Hall !

In the summer of the year 1797, the Autifor, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton,

on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In conHow shall I yield you

sequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been preDue entertainment,

scribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at Celestial Quire ?

the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of up-Iere the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a

words of the game sabstance, in Purchas's “ Pilgrimage:"buoyance

stately garden thereunto ; and thus ten miles of fertile grouod Bear aloft to your homes, 10 your banquets of joyance, were inclosed with a wall." The author continued for abou That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!

three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, Ila! we mount! on their pinions they wafi up my Soul! during which time he has the most vivid confidence that he could

not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if

that indeed can be called composition in which all the images O give me the Nectar!

rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the O fill me the Bowl!

correspondent expression, without any sensation, or conscious Give him the Nectar!

ness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to bare a

distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and Pour out for the Poet,

paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here Ilebe! pour free!

preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above

an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small That Styx the detested no more he may view,

surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!

vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision Thanks, Hlebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!

yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and The Wine of the Immortals

images, all the rest had passed away ike the images on the Forbids me to die!

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

Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
ELEGY,

And each misshapes the other. Stay awhile,
Poor youth! who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes

The stream will soon renew its smoothneks, soon IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE

The visions will return! And lo, he stays,
INSCRIPTIONS.

And soon the fragments dim of lovely forns

Come trembling back, unite, and now once more Near the lone pile with ivy overspread,

The pool becomes a mirror. Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound,

Yet from the still surviving recollections in his mind, the Autho Where “sleeps the moonlight” on yon verdant bed— has frequently purposed 10 finish for himself what had beco O humbly press that consecrated ground ! originally, as it were, given to him. Eauepov adıcy asw.

but the to-morrow is yet to come. For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!

As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a And there his spirit most delights to rove:

very different character, describing with equal fidelt tho

dream of pain and disease. --Note to the first Edition, 1916.) Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain, And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, A stately pleasure-dome decree;

And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran His manhood blossom’d: till the faithless pride Through caverns measureless to man, Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb. ;

Down to a sunless sea.

64

So twice five miles of fertile ground

Since in me, round me, everywhere,
With walls and towers were girdled round : Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; But yester-night I pray'd aloud
And here were forests ancient as the hills,

In anguish and in agony,
Infolding sunny spots of greenery.

Up-starting from the fiendish crowd

Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
But oh that deep romantic chasm which slanted A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! Sense of intolerable wrong,
A savage place! as holy and enchanted

And whom I scorn'd, those only strong!
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Still baffled, and yet burning still! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seeth Desire with lothing strangely mix’d, ing,

On wild or hateful objects fix'd.
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl!
A mighty fountain momently was forced :

And shame and terror over all!
Amd whose swift half-intermitted burst

Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Which all confused I could not know,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :

Whether I suffer'd, or I did :
And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and ever For all seem'd guilt, remorse, or woe,
It flung up momently the sacred river.

My own or others', still the same
Five miles, meandering with a mazy motion, Life-stifling fear, soul-stilling shame.
l'hrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, So two rights pass’d: the night's dismay
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

Sadden'd and stunn'd the coming day.
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Sleep, the wide blessing, seem'd to me
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

Distemper's worst calamily.

The third night, when my own loud scream The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
Floated midway on the waves;

O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
Where was heard the mingled measure I wept as I had been a child ;
From the fountain and the caves.

And having thus by tears subdued
It was a miracle of rare device,

My anguish to a milder mood,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! Such punishments, I said, were due
A damsel with a dulcimer

To natures deepliest stain'd with sin •
In a vision once I saw:

For ayo entempesting anew It was an Abyssinian maid,

The unfathomable hell within, And on her dulcimer she play'd,

The horror of their deeds to view, Singing of Mount Abora.

To know and lothe, yet wish and do! Could I revive within me

Such griefs with such men well agree,
Her symphony and song,

But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To such a deep delight 't would win me, To be beloved is all I need,
That with music loud and long,

And whom I love, I love indeed.
'would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

APPENDIX.
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed
And drank the milk of Paradise.

APOLOGETIC PREFACE
TO "FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER."

[See page 26)

At the house of a gentleman, who by the principles THE PAINS OF SLEEP.

and corresponding virtues of a sincere Christian con

secrates a cultivated genius and the favorable acci. Eee on my bed my limbs I lay,

dents of birth, opulence, and splendid connexions, it It hath not been my use to pray

was my good fortune to meet, in a dinner-party, with With moving lips or bended knees ;

more men of celebrity in science or polite literature, Bor silently, by slow degrees,

than are commonly found collected round the same My spint I to Love compose,

table. In the course of conversation, one of the parIn humble Trust mine eye-lids close,

ty reminded an illustrious Poet, then present, of somo With reverential resignation,

verses which he had recited that morning, and which No wish conceived, no thought express'd !

had appeared in a newspaper under the name of a Only a sence of supplication,

War-Eclogue, in which Fire, Famine, and Slaughter A sense o'er all my soul imprest

were introduced as the speakers. The gentleman so That I am weak, yet not unblest,

addressed replied, that he was rather surprised that