COMPOSED DURING A STORM.
ONE who was suffering tumult in his soul Yet failed to seek the sure relief of prayer, Went forth his course surrendering to the care Of the fierce wind, while mid-day lightnings prowl Insidiously, untimely thunders growl;
While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers, tear The lingering remnant of their yellow hair, And shivering wolves, surprised with darkness, howl As if the sun were not. He raised his eye Soul-smitten; for, that instant, did appear Large space (mid dreadful clouds) of purest sky, An azure disc-shield of Tranquillity; Invisible, unlooked-for, minister
Of providential goodness ever nigh!
LADY! the songs of Spring were in the grove While I was shaping beds for winter flowers; While I was planting green unfading bowers, And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove, And sheltering wall; and still, as Fancy wove The dream, to time and nature's blended powers I gave this paradise for winter hours, A labyrinth, Lady! which your feet shall rove. Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines, Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom Or of high gladness you shall hither bring; And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines Be gracious as the music and the bloom And all the mighty ravishment of spring.
LONE Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as But hardier far, once more I see thee bend [they Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day, Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, way-lay The rising sun, and on the plains descend; Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May Shall soon behold this border thickly set With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers; Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
THERE is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only Poets know;—'t was rightly said; Whom could the Muses else allure to tread Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains? When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains, How oft the malice of one luckless word Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board, Haunts him belated on the silent plains! Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear, At last, of hindrance and obscurity, Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn; Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear The moment it has left the virgin's eye, Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.
TO THE LADY MARY LOWTHER.
With a selection from the Poems of Anne, Countess of Winchilsea; and extracts of similar character from other Writers; transcribed by a female friend.
LADY! I rifled a Parnassian Cave
(But seldom trod) of mildly-gleaming ore; And culled, from sundry beds, a lucid store Of genuine crystals, pure as those that pave The azure brooks, where Dian joys to lave Her spotless limbs; and ventured to explore Dim shades for reliques, upon Lethe's shore, Cast up at random by the sullen wave.
To female hands the treasures were resigned; And lo this Work!-a grotto bright and clear From stain or taint; in which thy blameless mind May feed on thoughts though pensive not austere ; Or, if thy deeper spirit be inclined
To holy musing, it may enter here.
THE Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said, "Bright is thy veil, O Moon, as thou art bright!" Forthwith, that little cloud, in ether spread
And penetrated all with tender light, She cast away, and showed her fulgent head Uncovered; dazzling the Beholder's sight As if to vindicate her beauty's right, Her beauty thoughtlessly disparagèd. Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside, Went floating from her, darkening as it went; And a huge mass, to bury or to hide, Approached this glory of the firmament; Who meekly yields, and is obscured-content With one calm triumph of a modest pride.
WHEN haughty expectations prostrate lie, And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing, Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring Mature release, in fair society
Survive, and Fortune's utmost anger try; Like these frail snow-drops that together cling, And nod their helmets, smitten by the wing Of many a furious whirl-blast sweeping by. Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to stand The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate; And so the bright immortal Theban band, Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove's command, Might overwhelm, but could not separate!
EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp, So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless: The lake below reflects it not; the sky Muffled in clouds, affords no company To mitigate and cheer its loneliness. Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing Which sends so far its melancholy light, Perhaps are seated in domestic ring A gay society with faces bright, Conversing, reading, laughing;-or they sing, While hearts and voices in the song unite.
HAIL, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night; But studious only to remove from sight Day's mutable distinctions.—Ancient Power! Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower, To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen The self-same Vision which we now behold,
At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power! brought forth;
These mighty barriers, and the gulf between ; The flood, the stars,-a spectacle as old As the beginning of the heavens and earth!
THE stars are mansions built by Nature's hand, And, haply, there the spirits of the blest Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest; Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand, A habitation marvellously planned, For life to occupy in love and rest; All that we see is dome, or vault, or nest, Or fortress, reared at Nature's sage command. Glad thought for every season! but the Spring Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart, 'Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring; And while the youthful year's prolific art- Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.
WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky, 'How silently, and with how wan a face!' Where art thou? Thou so often seen on high Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race! Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh Which they would stifle, move at such a pace! The northern Wind, to call thee to the chase, Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had I The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be: And all the stars, fast as the clouds were riven, Should sally forth, to keep thee company, Hurrying and sparkling through the clear blue heaven;
But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given, Queen both for beauty and for majesty.
DESPONDING Father! mark this altered bough, So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed, Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now, Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed, Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay As false to expectation. Nor fret thou At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow, Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall (Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call : In all men, sinful is it to be slow To hope-in Parents, sinful above all.
CAPTIVITY.-MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
"As the cold aspect of a sunless way Strikes through the Traveller's frame with deadlier chill,
Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill, Glistening with unparticipated ray,
Or shining slope where he must never stray; So joys, remembered without wish or will, Sharpen the keenest edge of present ill,— On the crushed heart a heavier burthen lay. Just Heaven, contract the compass of my mind To fit proportion with my altered state! Quench those felicities whose light I find Reflected in my bosom all too late!-- O be my spirit, like my thraldom, strait; And, like mine eyes that stream with sorrow, blind!"
FOUR fiery steeds impatient of the rein Whirled us o'er sunless ground beneath a sky As void of sunshine, when, from that wide plain, Clear tops of far-off mountains we descry, Like a Sierra of cerulean Spain,
All light and lustre. Did no heart reply? Yes, there was One;-for One, asunder fly The thousand links of that ethereal chain; And green vales open out, with grove and field, And the fair front of many a happy Home; Such tempting spots as into vision come While Soldiers, weary of the arms they wield And sick at heart of strifeful Christendom, Gaze on the moon by parting clouds revealed.
ST. CATHERINE OF LEDBURY.
WHEN human touch (as monkish books attest) Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells, And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest; Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest To rapture! Mabel listened at the side Of her loved mistress: soon the music died, And Catherine said, Here I set up my rest. Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought A home that by such miracle of sound Must be revealed :—she heard it now, or felt The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought; And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.
BROOK! whose society the Poet seeks, Intent his wasted spirits to renew; And whom the curious Painter doth pursue Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks, And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks; If wish were mine some type of thee to view, Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks, Channels for tears; no Naiad should'st thou be,— Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints nor hairs: It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee With purer robes than those of flesh and blood, And hath bestowed on thee a safer good; Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.
'gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.'
THOUGH narrow be that old Man's cares, and near, The poor old Man is greater than he seems: For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams; An ample sovereignty of eye and ear. Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer; The region of his inner spirit teems With vital sounds and monitory gleams Of high astonishment and pleasing fear. He the seven birds hath seen, that never part, Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds, And counted them: and oftentimes will start- For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!
COMPOSED ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM.
DOGMATIC Teachers, of the snow-white fur! Ye wrangling Schoolmen, of the scarlet hood! Who, with a keenness not to be withstood, Press the point home, or falter and demur, Checked in your course by many a teasing burr; These natural council-seats your acrid blood Might cool; and, as the Genius of the flood Stoops willingly to animate and spur Each lighter function slumbering in the brain, Yon eddying balls of foam, these arrowy gleams That o'er the pavement of the surging streams Welter and flash, a synod might detain With subtle speculations, haply vain, But surely less so than your far-fetched themes!
THIS, AND THE TWO FOLLOWING, WERE SUGGESTED BY MR. W. WESTALL'S VIEWS OF THE CAVES, ETC. IN YORKSHIRE.
PURE element of waters! wheresoe'er Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts, Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry-bearing plants,
Rise into life and in thy train appear:
And, through the sunny portion of the year, Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursuivants: And, if thy bounty fail, the forest pants; And hart and hind and hunter with his spear, Languish and droop together. Nor unfelt In man's perturbed soul thy sway benign; And, haply, far within the marble belt
Of central earth, where tortured Spirits pine For grace and goodness lost, thy murmurs melt Their anguish, and they blend sweet songs with thine.*
WAS the aim frustrated by force or guile, When giants scooped from out the rocky ground, Tier under tier, this semicirque profound? (Giants the same who built in Erin's isle That Causeway with incomparable toil!)— O, had this vast theatric structure wound With finished sweep into a perfect round, No mightier work had gained the plausive smile Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of is and was, Things incomplete and purposes betrayed Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass Than noblest objects utterly decayed.
Ar early dawn, or rather when the air Glimmers with fading light, and shadowy Eve Is busiest to confer and to bereave; Then, pensive Votary! let thy feet repair To Gordale-chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch; for so, by leave
*Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letter-press prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these caverns.
Of the propitious hour, thou may'st perceive The local Deity, with oozy hair
And mineral crown, beside his jagged urn, Recumbent: Him thou may'st behold, who hides His lineaments by day, yet there presides, Teaching the docile waters how to turn, Or (if need be) impediment to spurn, And force their passage to the salt-sea tides!
COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802. EARTH has not any thing to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
If these brief Records, by the Muses' art Produced as lonely Nature or the strife That animates the scenes of public life * Inspired, may in thy leisure claim a part; And if these Transcripts of the private heart Have gained a sanction from thy falling tears; Then I repent not. But my soul hath fears Breathed from eternity; for as a dart Cleaves the blank air, Life flies: now every day Is but a glimmering spoke in the swift wheel Of the revolving week. Away, away,
All fitful cares, all transitory zeal!
So timely Grace the immortal wing may heal, And honour rest upon the senseless clay.
*This line alludes to Sonnets which will be found in another Class.
THOUGH the bold wings of Poesy affect
The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt,
Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect The lingering dew-there steals along, or stops Watching the least small bird that round her hops, Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect. Her functions are they therefore less divine, Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave intent Her simplest fancies? Should that fear be thine, Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present One offering, kneel before her modest shrine, With brow in penitential sorrow bent!
RECOLLECTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF KING HENRY EIGHTH, TRINITY LODGE, CAMBRIDGE. THE imperial Stature, the colossal stride, Are yet before me; yet do I behold The broad full visage, chest of amplest mould, The vestments 'broidered with barbaric pride: And lo! a poniard, at the Monarch's side, Hangs ready to be grasped in sympathy With the keen threatenings of that fulgent eye, Below the white-rimmed bonnet, far-descried. Who trembles now at thy capricious mood? 'Mid those surrounding Worthies, haughty King, We rather think, with grateful mind sedate, How Providence educeth, from the spring Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good, Which neither force shall check nor time abate!
YE sacred Nurseries of blooming Youth! In whose collegiate shelter England's Flowers Expand, enjoying through their vernal hours The air of liberty, the light of truth; Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth: Yet, O ye spires of Oxford! domes and towers! Gardens and groves! your presence overpowers The soberness of reason; till, in sooth, Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange, I slight my own beloved Cam, to range Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet; Pace the long avenue, or glide adown
The stream-like windings of that glorious street- An eager Novice robed in fluttering gown!
ON THE DEATH OF HIS MAJESTY (GEORGE THE THIRD). WARD of the LAW!-dread Shadow of a King! Whose realm had dwindled to one stately room; Whose universe was gloom immersed in gloom, Darkness as thick as life o'er life could fling, Save haply for some feeble glimmering Of Faith and Hope-if thou, by nature's doom, Gently hast sunk into the quiet tomb, Why should we bend in grief, to sorrow cling, When thankfulness were best?-Fresh-flowing tears, Or, where tears flow not, sigh succeeding sigh, Yield to such after-thought the sole reply Which justly it can claim. The Nation hears In this deep knell, silent for threescore years, An unexampled voice of awful memory!
SHAME on this faithless heart! that could allow Such transport, though but for a moment's space; Not while to aid the spirit of the place- The crescent moon clove with its glittering prow The clouds, or night-bird sang from shady bough; But in plain daylight :-She, too, at my side, Who, with her heart's experience satisfied, Maintains inviolate its slightest vow! Sweet Fancy! other gifts must I receive; Proofs of a higher sovereignty I claim;
Take from her brow the withering flowers of eve, And to that brow life's morning wreath restore; Let her be comprehended in the frame Of these illusions, or they please no more.
FAME tells of groves-from England far away- * Groves that inspire the Nightingale to trill And modulate, with subtle reach of skill Elsewhere unmatched, her ever-varying lay; Such bold report I venture to gainsay: For I have heard the quire of Richmond hill Chanting, with indefatigable bill, Strains that recalled to mind a distant day; When, haply under shade of that same wood, And scarcely conscious of the dashing oars Plied steadily between those willowy shores, The sweet-souled Poet of the Seasons stood- Listening, and listening long, in rapturous mood, Ye heavenly Birds! to your Progenitors.
* Wallachia is the country alluded to.
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