III. AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains 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, au IV. WRITTEN ON THE BLANK 66 SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE." THIS pleasant tale is like a little copse: Come cool and suddenly against his face, Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings Feb. 1817. V. ON THE SEA. . Ir keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 't is in such gentle temper found, 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! Aug. 1817. VI. 66 ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, THE STORY OF RIMINI." WHO loves to peer up at the morning sun, 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 To moralize upon a smile or tear, Will find at once a region of his own, A bower for his spirit, and will steer To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone, Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear. 1817. VII. WHEN 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, ever have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 1817. |