II. TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL CROWN. RESH morning gusts have blown away all fear I mount forever. not an atom less Than the proud laurel shall content my bier. In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear. down My will from its high purpose ? Who say, 66 Stand," Or "Go?" This mighty moment I would frown A III. FTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle south, and clears away From the sick heavens all unseemly stains. The anxious mouth, relieved from its pains, Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, The eyelids with the passing coolness play, Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. And calmest thoughts come round us as, of leaves Budding, fruit ripening in stillness, autumn suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, breath, a sleeping infant's The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs, A woodland rivulet, - Jan. 1817. IV. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF "THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE." HIS pleasant tale is like a little copse: TH The honeyed lines so freshly interlace, Come cool and suddenly against his face, Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings V. ON THE SEA. It keeps eternal whisperings around That scarcely will the very smallest shell Be moved for days from where it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; O ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody, Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired! VI. ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, THE 66 STORY OF W RIMINI." HO loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek For meadows where the little rivers run; Who loves to linger with that brightest one Of Heaven Hesperus- let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. He who knows these delights, and too is prone A bower for his spirit, and will steer 1817 VII. W1 HEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charact❜ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance And when I feel, fair creature of an hour That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think___ 1817. VIII. TO HOMER. TANDING aloof in giant ignorance, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas. So thou wast blind! - but then the veil was rent, For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live, And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent, And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive; Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light, And precipices show untrodden green; There is a budding morrow in midnight; There is a triple sight in blindness keen: Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell 1818. IX. ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS: BL "Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that made the hyacinthine bell.” BY J. H. REYNOLDS LUE! 'Tis the life of heaven, -the domain Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun,The tent of Hesperus, and all his train, The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray, and dun. Blue! 'Tis the life of waters ocean And all its vassal streams: pools numberless Married to green in all the sweetest flowersForget-me-not, - the blue-bell, and, that queen Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great, When in an Eye thou art alive with fate! Feb. 1818 X. TO J. H. REYNOLDS. THAT a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week; Then one poor year a thousand years would be, The flush of welcome ever on the cheek: So could we live long life in little space, So time itself would be annihilate, So a day's journey in oblivious haze To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind! To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind, And keep our souls in one eternal pant! This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbor such a happy thought. XI. ΤΟ IME'S sea hath been five years at its low ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. And yet I never look on midnight sky, But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye, But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight: I cannot look on any budding flower, But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour Its sweets in the wrong sense: - Thou dost eclipse Every delight with sweet remembering, And grief unto my darling joys dost bring. * A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall. |