O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady ! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

ODE TO GEORGIANA,

DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER “ PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD."

"And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild!

Where Tell directed the avenging dart,
With well strung arm, that first preserved his child,

Then aimed the arrow at the tyrant's heart."

SPLENDOR’S fondly fostered child !

And did you hail the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learned you that heroic measure ?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran,
From all that teaches brotherhood to Man
Far, far removed ! from want, from hope, from fear !
Enchanting music lulled your infant ear,
Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart'

Emblazonments and old ancestral crests,
With many a bright obtrusive form of art,

Detained your eye from nature; stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, Rich viands and the pleasurable wine, Were yours unearned by toil ; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure,
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure ?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame

All living faculties of bliss;
And Genius to your cradle came,
His forehead wreathed with lambent dame,

And bending low, with godlike kiss

Breath'd in a more celestial life; But boasts not many a fair compeer,

A heart as sensitive to joy and fear ?
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,
Some few, to nobler being wrought,
Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought.

Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurelled war and plumy state;
Or in verse and music dress

Tales of rustic happiness --
Pernicious tales ! insidious strains !

That steel the rich man's breast,

And mock the lot unblest,
The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be

The doom of ignorance and penury!
But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child,
You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learn'd

you

that heroic measure ?

You were a mother! That most holy name
Which Heaven and Nature bless,

I may not vilely prostitute to those

Whose infants owe them less Than the poor caterpillar owes

Its gaudy parent fly. You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing

eye,
Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,
Which you yourself created. Oh! delight!
A second time to be a mother,

Without the mother's bitter groans :
Another thought, and yet another,

By touch, or taste, by looks or tones
O’er the growing sense to roll,

The mother of your infant's soul !
The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides

His chariot-planet round the goal of day,
All trembling gazes on the eye of God,

A moment turned his awful face away ;
And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet

New influences in your being rose,
Blest intuitions and communions fleet
With living Nature, in her joys and woes !

Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see
The shrine of social Liberty !
O beautiful! O Nature's child !
'Twas thence you hailed the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure,
Thence learn’d you that heroic measure,

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY.
TRANQUILLITY! thou better name

Than all the family of Fame !
Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age
To low intrigue, or factious rage;
For oh ! dear child of thoughtful Truth,

To thee I gave my early youth,
And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore,
Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,
On him but seldom, Power divine,
Thy spirit rests! Satiety
And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope

And dire remembrance interlope,
To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind :
The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle nand will lead
At morning through the accustomed mead;
And in the sultry summer's heat
Will build me up a mossy seat;
And when the gust of Autumn crowds,

And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,
Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune,
Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,
To thee I dedicate the whole !
And while within myself I trace
The greatness of some future race,

II.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear-
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,

All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,

And its peculiar tint of yellow green : And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye ! And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars, That give away their motion to the stars ; Those stars, that glide behind them or between, Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue ; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel how beautiful they are !

III.

My genial spirits fail :

And what can these avail To lift the smothering weight from off my breast ?

It were a vain endeavor,

Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I

may not hope from outward forms to win The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.

IV.

O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live :
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud !

And would we aught behold, of higher worth,