LUCY. I TRAVELLED among unknown men, 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire. Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed And thine is too the last green field THE PRAISE OF DAPHNE. "TIS sung in ancient minstrelsy Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit At her own prayer transformed, took root, Then did the Penitent adorn His brow with laurel green; The bay; and Conquerors thanked the gods, With laurel chaplets crowned. Into the mists of fabling Time Of Beauty, that disdains to climb That scorns temptation; power defies And to the tomb for rescue flies TO MARY. LET other bards of angels sing, Such if thou wert in all men's view, What would my fancy have to do The world denies that thou art fair; If nought in loveliness compare :0: SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. 1772-1834. LOVE. ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I, The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, She leaned against the armèd man, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land. I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush, But when I told the cruel scorn That sometimes from the savage den, In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face She wept with pity and delight, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside, She half enclosed me with her arms, She pressed me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face. 'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart. I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beauteous Bride. :0: ROBERT SOUTHEY. 1774-1843. LOVE'S IMMORTALITY. THEY sin who tell us Love can die! All others are but vanity. Its holy flame for ever burneth, Hath she not then, for pains and fears, WHEN the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies deadWhen the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute: No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell. When hearts have once mingled, To endure what it once possest. The frailty of all things here, Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? Its passions will rock thee As the storms rock the ravens on high: VERSES FOUND IN BOTHWELL'S POCKET-BOOK. "With these letters was a lock of hair, wrapped in a copy of verses, written obviously with a feeling which atoned, in Morton's opinion, for the roughness of the poetry, and the conceits with which it abounded, according to the taste of the period." THY hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright, Since then how often hast thou pressed With the first sin which peopled hell! Oh, if such clime thou canst endure, Although we now can form no more Long schemes of life, as heretofore; Yet you, while time is running fast, Can look with joy on what is past. [fore: Were future happiness and pain A mere contrivance of the brain, As atheists argue, to entice And fit their proselytes for vice (The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes): Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard That virtue, styled its own reward, And by all sages understood To be the chief of human good, Should acting die, nor leave behind Some lasting pleasure in the mind, Which by remembrance will assuage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age, And strongly shoot a radiant dart To shine through life's declining part. Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent? Your skilful hand employed to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragged from death beSo Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage, which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glittering dress; That patience under torturing pain, Where stubborn stoics would complain; Must these like empty shadows pass, Or forms reflected from a glass? Or mere chimæras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind? Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago? And, had it not been still supplied. It must a thousand times have died. Then who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain ? And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind; Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last? Then who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end? Believe me, Stella, when you show That true contempt for things below, Nor prize your life for other ends Than merely to oblige your friends, Your former actions claim their part, And join to fortify your heart. For virtue in her daily race, Like Janus, bears a double face,— Oh, then, whatever Heaven intends, -:0: WILLIAM COWPER. 1731-1800. ON THE RECEIPT OF MY The Gift of my Cousin, Ann Bodham. OH that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine-thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, "Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" The meek intelligence of those dear eyes same. Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, O welcome guest, though unexpected here! Who bid'st me honour with an artless song, Affectionate, a mother lost so long. I will obey, not willingly alone, But gladly, as the precept were her own; Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? |