Arrested in the realms of Frost,
Or in the wilds of Ether lost.
Far happier thou! 'twas thine to soar
Careering on the winged wind.
Thy triumphs who shall dare explore?
Suns and their systems left behind.
No tract of space, no distant star,
No shock of elements at war,
Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire
Bore thee amidst the Cherub-choir;
And there awhile to thee 't was given
Once more that Voice' beloved to join,
Which taught thee first a flight divine,
Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew
The kindred forms her closing eye required.
There didst thou stand-there, with the smile she
knew,
She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired.
And now to thee she comes; still, still the same
As in the hours gone unregarded by!
To thee, how changed! comes as she ever came,
Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!
Nor less, less oft, as on that day, appears,
When lingering, as prophetic of the truth,
By the way-side she shed her parting tears-
And nursed thy infant years with many a strain For ever lovely in the light of Youth!
from Heaven!
FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM.
WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.
Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.
TO THE FRAGMENT OF A STATUE OF HERCULES,
COMMONLY CALLED THE TORSO.
AND dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone,
(Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurl'd),
Still sit as on the fragment of a world;
Surviving all, majestic and alone?
What though the Spirits of the North, that swept
Rome from the earth, when in her pomp she slept,
Smote thee with fury, and thy headless trunk
Deep in the dust 'mid tower and temple sunk;
Soon to subdue mankind 't was thine to rise,
Still, still unquell'd thy glorious energies!
Aspiring minds, with thee conversing, caught
Bright revelations of the Good they sought;
By thee that long-lost spell in secret given,
To draw down Gods, and lift the soul to Heaven!
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WRITTEN IN A SICK CHAMBER.
THERE, in that bed so closely curtain'd round,
Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay,
A father sleeps! Oh hush'd be every sound!
Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away!
He stirs yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams
Long o'er his smooth and settled pillow rise;
Till through the shutter'd pane the morning streams,
And on the hearth the glimmering rush-light dies.
THE BOY OF EGREMOND.'
"SAY, what remains when Hope is fled ?"
She answer'd, "Endless weeping!"
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.
At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest-green,
With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more!
"I was but a step! the gulf he pass'd;
But that step-it was his last!
As through the mist he wing'd his way
(A cloud that hovers night and day),
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The Master and his merlin too.
That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of Life!
There now the matin-bell is rung;
The "Miserere!" duly sung;
1 In the twelfth century William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword; and was afterwards established there by his uncle, David, King of Scotland.
He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here related; when a Priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened. That place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in Wharfedale.-See Whitaker's Hist. of Craven.
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they? Ruthless Lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the innocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan,
The child before thee is thy own.
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,
Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,
Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;
Of those who would not be consoled
When red with blood the river roll'd.
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE.
Ox thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers
The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew.
Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers;
Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.
As on she moves with hesitating grace,
She wins assurance from his soothing voice;
And, with a look the pencil could not trace,
Smiles through her blushes, and confirms the choice.
Spare the fine tremors of her feeling frame!
To thee she turns-forgive a virgin's fears!
To thee she turns with surest, tenderest claim:
Weakness that charms, reluctance that endears!
At each response the sacred rite requires,
From her full bosom bursts the unbidden sigh.
A strange mysterious awe the scene inspires;
And on her lips the trembling accents die.
O'er her fair face what wild emotions play!
What lights and shades in sweet confusion blend!
Soon shall they fly, glad harbingers of day,
And settled sunshine on her soul descend!
Ah soon, thine own confest, ecstatic thought!
That hand shall strew thy summer-path with flowers;
And those blue eyes, with mildest lustre fraught,
Gild the calm current of domestic hours!
THE ALPS AT DAY-BREAK.
THE sun-beams streak the azure skies,
And line with light the mountain's brow:
With hounds and horns the hunters rise,
And chase the roe-buck through the snow.
From rock to rock, with giant-bound,
High on their iron poles they pass;
Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound,
Rend from above a frozen mass.1
The goats wind slow their wonted way
Up craggy steeps and ridges rude;
Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey,
From desert cave or hanging wood.
1 There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above.
YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF LADY ****
AH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal1 What most her blushes would conceal? Why lift that modest veil to trace The seraph-sweetness of her face? Some fairer, better sport prefer; And feel for us, if not for her.
For this presumption, soon or late, Know thine shall be a kindred fate. Another shall in vengeance riseSing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes; And, echoing back her wood-notes wild, -Trace all the mother in the child!
AN EPITAPH ON A ROBIN-REDBREAST.
TREAD lightly here; for here, is said,
When piping winds are hush'd around,
A small note wakes from under-ground,
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,
With ruffled wing and faded breast,
His friendless, homeless spirit roves;
-Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never cat glides o'er the green,
Or school-boy's giant form is seen;
But Love, and Joy, and smiling Spring
Inspire their little souls to sing!
WHEN by the greenwood side, at summer eve,
Poetic visions charm my closing eye;
And fairy scenes, that Fancy loves to weave,
Shift to wild notes of sweetest minstrelsy;
1 Alluding to some verses which she had written on an elder sister.
2 Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod. 103
"Tis thine to range in busy quest of
prey,
Thy feathery antlers quivering with delight,
Brush from my lids the hues of heaven away,
And all is Solitude, and all is Night!
-Ah now thy barbed shaft, relentless fly,
Unsheathes its terrors in the sultry air!
No guardian sylph, in golden panoply,
Lifts the broad shield, and points the glittering spear.
Now near and nearer rush thy whirring wings,
Thy dragon-scales still wet with human gore.
Hark, thy shrill horn its fearful larum flings!
-I wake in horror, and dare sleep no more!
MINE be a cot beside the hill,
A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall, shall linger near.
The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a welcome guest.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.
The village-church, among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heaven.
WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. 1786. WHILE through the broken pane the tempest sighs, And my step falters on the faithless floor, Shades of departed joys around me rise, With many a face that smiles on me no more; With many a voice that thrills of transport gave, Now silent as the grass that tufts their grave!
AN ITALIAN SONG.
DEAR is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and murmurs there; Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.
In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.
The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent greenwood shade,
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.
SHEPHERD, or Huntsman, or worn Mariner,
Whate'er thou art, who wouldst allay thy thirst,
Drink and be glad. This cistern of white stone,
Arch'd, and o'erwrought with many a sacred verse
This iron cup chain'd for the general use,
And these rude seats of earth within the grove,
Were given by FATIMA. Borne hence a bride,
"T was here she turn'd from her beloved sire,
To see his face no more.' Oh, if thou canst,
(T is not far off) visit his tomb with flowers;
And with a drop of this sweet water fill
The two small cells scoop'd in the marble there,
That birds may come and drink upon his grave,
Making it holy! 2
WRITTEN IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1812.
BLUE was the loch, the clouds were gone
Ben Lomond in his glory shone,
When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze,
Bore me from thy silver sands,
Thy kirk-yard wall among the trees,
Where, grey with age, the dial stands;
That dial so well known to me!
-Though many a shadow it had shed,
Beloved Sister, since with thee
The legend on the stone was read.
The fairy-isles fled far away;
That with its woods and uplands green,
Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen,
And songs are heard at close of day;
That, too, the deer's wild covert, fled,
And that, the asylum of the dead:
While, as the boat went merrily,
Much of Rob Roy3 the boatman told,
His arm, that fell below his knee,
His cattle-ford and mountain-hold.
Tarbat, thy shore I climb'd at last,
And, thy shady region pass'd,
Upon another shore I stood,
And look'd upon another flood; "
Great Ocean's self! (Tis He who fills
That vast and awful depth of hills);
Where many an elf was playing round
Who treads unshod his classic ground;
And speaks, his native rocks among,
As Fingal spoke, and Ossian sung.
Night fell; and dark and darker grev
That narrow sea, that narrow sky,
As o'er the glimmering waves we flew;
The sea-bird rustling, wailing by.
And now the grampus, half-descried,
Black and huge above the tide;
The cliffs and promontories there,
Front to front, and broad and bare;
Each beyond each, with giant-feet
Advancing as in haste to meet;
1 See an anecdote related by Pausanias, iii, 20.
2 A Turkish superstition.
3 A famous outlaw.
4 Signifying, in the Erse language, an Isthmus.
The shatter'd fortress, whence the Dane
Blew his shrill blast, nor rush'd in vain,
Tyrant of the drear domain:
All into midnight-shadow sweep,
When day springs upward from the deep!'
Kindling the waters in its flight,
The prow wakes splendor; and the oar,
That rose and fell unseen before,
Flashes in a sea of light!
Glad sign, and sure! for now we hail
Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale;
And bright indeed the path should be
That leads to Friendship and to thee!
Oh blest retreat, and sacred too!
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
Toll'd duly on the desert air,
And crosses deck'd thy summits blue.
Oft, like some loved romantic tale,
Oft shall my weary mind recall,
Amid the hum and stir of men,
Thy beechen grove and waterfall,
Thy ferry with its gliding sail,
And her the Lady of the Glen!
ONCE more, enchanting maid adieu!
I must be gone while yet I may;
Oft shall I weep to think of you,
But here I will not, cannot stay.
The sweet expression of that face,
For ever changing, yet the same,
Ah no, I dare not turn to trace-
It melts my soul, it fires my frame!
Yet give me, give me, ere I go,
One little lock of those so blest,
That lend your cheek a warmer glow,
And on your white neck love to rest.
-Say, when to kindle soft delight,
That hand has chanced with mine to meet,
How could its thrilling touch excite
A sigh so short, and yet so sweet?
O say-but no, it must not be.
Adieu! a long, a long adieu!
-Yet still, methinks, you frown on me,
Or never could I fly from you.
INSCRIPTION FOR A TEMPLE
DEDICATED TO THE GRACES.2 APPROACH with reverence. There are those within Whose dwelling-place is Heaven. Daughters of Jove, From them flow all the decencies of life; Without them nothing pleases, Virtue's self Admired, not loved; and those on whom they smile, Great though they be, and wise, and beautiful, Shine forth with double lustre.
1 A phenomenon described by many navigators.
CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight, Mingling with her thou lovest in fields of light; And, where the flowers of Paradise unfold, Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold. There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky, Expand and shut with silent ecstacy! -Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept And such is man; soon from his cell of clay To burst a seraph in the blaze of day!
WRITTEN IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
OCTOBER 10, 1806.'
WHOE'ER thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of greatness lie.2
There sleeps the dust of Fox, for ever gone :
How near the Place where late his glory shone!
And, though no more ascends the voice of Prayer,
Though the last footsteps cease to linger there,
Still, like an awful dream that comes again,
Alas! at best as transient and as vain,
Still do I see (while through the vaults of night
The funeral-song once more proclaims the rite)
The moving Pomp along the shadowy aisle,
That, like a Darkness, fill'd the solemn Pile;
The illustrious line, that in long order led,
Of those that loved Him living, mourn'd Him dead;
Of those the Few, that for their Country stood
Round Him who dared be singularly good:
All, of all ranks, that claim'd Him for their own;
And nothing wanting-but himself alone!"
Oh say, of Him now rests there but a name;
Wont, as He was, to breathe ethereal flame?
Friend of the Absent, Guardian of the Dead! 4
Who but would here their sacred sorrows shed?
(Such as He shed on Nelson's closing grave;
How soon to claim the sympathy He gave!)
In Him, resentful of another's wrong,
The dumb were eloquent, the feeble strong.
Truth from his lips a charm celestial drew-
Ah, who so mighty and so gentle too? ❜
What though with War the madding nations rung Peace," when He spoke, was ever on his tongue! Amidst the frowns of Power, the tricks of State, Fearless, resolved, and negligently great!
In vain malignant vapors gather'd round;
He walk'd, erect, on consecrated ground.
The clouds, that rise to quench the Orb of day,
Reflect its splendor, and dissolve away!
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4 Alluding particularly to his speech on moving a new writ for the borough of Tavistock, March 16, 1802.
5 See that admirable delineation of his character by Sir James Mackintosh, which first appeared in the Bombay Courier January 17, 1807.
When in retreat He laid his thunder by,
For letter'd ease and calm Philosophy,
Blest were his hours within the silent grove,
Where still his godlike Spirit deigns to rove;
Blest by the orphan's smile, the widow's prayer,
For many a deed, long done in secret there.
There shone his lamp on Homer's hallow'd page;
There, listening, sate the hero and the sage;
And they, by virtue and by blood allied,
Whom most He loved, and in whose arms He died
Friend of all human-kind! not here alone
(The voice that speaks, was not to thee unknown)
Wilt Thou be missed.-O'er every land and sea,
Long, long shall England be revered in Thee!
And, when the Storm is hush'd-in distant years-
Foes on Thy grave shall meet, and mingle tears'
THE END OF ROGERS'S WORKS.
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