Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air,
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.
And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind ;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healed me,
A sinful and most miserable Man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honoured Maid!
ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST
OF FEBRUARY, 1796.
SWEET Flower! that peeping from thy russet stem
Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Month
Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee
With blue voluptuous eye) alas, poor Flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
E'en now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth
Nipped by Consumption 'mid untimely charmis?
Or to Bristowa's Bard,* the wondrous boy!
An Amaranth, which Earth scarce seemed to own,
Blooming 'mid poverty's drear wintry waste,
Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to Earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope,
Bright flower of Hope killed in the opening bud?
Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine
And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
From anxious SELF, Life's cruel Task-Master!
And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame and harmonize
The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.
REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.
Sermoni propriora.--HOR.
Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest Rose
Peeped at the chamber-window.
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossomed; and across the Porch
Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refreshed the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The VALLEY of SECLUSION! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calmed
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paused, and looked
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again,
And sighed, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones
I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!
"The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
"Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
"When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed, "And the Heart listens !"
But the time, when first
From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top,
Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the Bleak Mount,
The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey, and the Wood,
And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint City-spire:
The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails,
Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless Ocean-
It seemed like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a Temple: the whole World
Seemed imaged in its vast circumference.
No wish profaned my overwhelmed Heart.
Blest hour! It was a Luxury,-to be!
Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime!
I was constrained to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf Beds, pampering the coward Heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye
Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth:
And He that works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half he chills me while he aids,
My Benefactor, not my Brother Man!
Yet even this, this cold Beneficence
Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st
The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving Tribe!
Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies !
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.
Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,
And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet Abode !
Ah-had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so--but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come !
OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.
WITH SOME POEMS.
Notus in fratres animi paterni.
HOR, Carm. lib. 1. 2.
A BLESSED lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the Heart,
To the same Dwelling where his Father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own Infancy
Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend!
Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb Life's upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal Love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!
To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind-
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed
Its first domestic loves; and hence through Life
Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills;
But, like a Tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poisoned! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one Oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of Husband and of Father; nor unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!
My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life
Still most a Stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest Friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a Father's eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrowed in Silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
Loved as a brother, as a Son revered thee!
Oh! 'tis to me an ever new delight,
To talk of thee and thine or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequestered Orchard-Plot
Sit on the Tree crooked earth-ward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirred by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads!
Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest's swell !
Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of Error or intemperate Truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy Love forgive it!
INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.
THIS Sycamore, oft musical with Bees,—
Such Tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed
May all its aged Boughs o'er-canopy
The small round Basin, which this jutting stone
Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,
Quietly as a sleeping Infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the Traveller
With soft and even Pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny Cone of Sand its soundless Dance,
Which at the Bottom, like a Fairy's Page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth Surface of the Fount.
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