་་ PESOA.SE SONNETS. I. H! how I love, on a fair summer's eve, OF When streams of light pour down the golden And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest on Sydney's bier Till their stern forms before my mind arise: Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar, Full often dropping a delicious tear, When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes. 1816. II. TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL FR CROWN. RESH morning gusts have blown away all fear 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 “Do this?" Who dares call My will from its high purpose? "Stand,” Who say, Or "Go?" This mighty moment I would frown A III. FTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains Born of the gentle south, and clears away suns Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves, Sweet Sappho's cheek, a sleeping infant's breath, The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs, A woodland rivulet, a Poet's death. 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. T keeps eternal whisperings around IT Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis 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. ON LEIGH HUNTS POEM, THE STORY OF W RIMINI." HO loves to peer up at the morning sun, He who knows these delights, and too is prone A bower for his spirit, and will steer To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone, 1817 VII. W HEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactʼry, 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 Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink. 1817. VIII. TO HOMER. S TANDING aloof in giant ignorance, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance So thou wast blind! but then the veil was rent, 1818. IX. ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS: "Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that made the hyacinthine bell." BY J. H. REYNOLDS LUE! 'Tis the life of heaven, the domain BLU 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 May range, and foam, and fret, but never can Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness. Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green, Married to green in all the sweetest flowers Forget-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. |