A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? * Yet these delight to celebrate The sordid vices and the abject pains, The doom of ignorance and penury ! ‡ Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! IV. You were a mother! That most holy name, * But many of thy many fair compeers Have frames as sensible of joys and fears :-1799. + The plastic powers of thought.—Ib. + Poverty-il. § Hail'd the low Chapel, &c.-il. You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, Without the mother's bitter groans: By touch, or taste, by looks or tones, O'er the growing sense to roll, The mother of your infant's soul ! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides All trembling gazes on the eye of God, Blest intuitions and communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes! O beautiful! O Nature's child! 'Twas thence you hail'd the Platform wild, Beneath the shaft of Tell ! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! *Than the poor reptile owes-1799. TRANQUILLITY:* AN ODE. Vix ea nostra voco. WHAT statesmen scheme and soldiers` work, Whether the Pontiff or the Turk Will e'er renew th'expiring lease Disturb not me! Some tears I shed Since then, with quiet heart have view'd (Live Discord's green combustibles, And future fuel of the funeral pyre) Now hide, and soon, alas! will feed the low-burnt fire.] Tranquillity thou better name To low intrigue, or factious rage; For oh dear child of thoughtful Truth, * Printed in the Morning Post, Dec. 4, 1801. Reprinted without the first two stanzas in the first number of The Friend, 1809. To thee I gave my early youth, And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest roar. rose and scared me with its Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle hand will lead † Will build me up a mossy seat ; And when the gust of Autumn crowds, And breaks the busy moonlight clouds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon. The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole ! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future race, The present works of present man— A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile! *The storm-wind-1801. † The Power divine will lead-ib. She best the thought will lift—il'. DEJECTION: AN ODE.* WRITTEN APRIL 4, 1802. Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE. I. WELL! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made For lo the New-moon winter-bright! The coming-on of rain and squally blast. 66 * Printed in The Morning Post, Oct. 4, 1802. The poem in its original form is addressed to Edmund," not, as in the later version, to a "lady." |