The voice which I did more esteem Than music in her sweetest key, Those eyes which unto me did seem More comfortable than the day Those now by me, as they have been! Shall never more be heard or seen; But what I once enjoyed in them Shall seem hereafter as a dream. All earthly comforts vanish thus Yet we are neither just nor wise I therefore do not so bemoan, Lord, keep me faithful to the trust For though our being man and wife Yet neither life nor death should end He was reviled, yet naught replied, Those helps which I through him en- | And I will imitate the same; joyed, Let Thy continual aid supply For though some faults may be de nied, That, though some hopes in him are In part I always faulty am: void, I always may on Thee rely; Content with meek and humble heart, And act an humble servant's part, JOHN WOLCOT (PETER PINDAR). TO MY CANDLE. THOU lone companion of the spectred night! I wake amid thy friendly watchful light. To steal a precious hour from lifeless sleep. Hark, the wild uproar of the winds! and hark! [the dark, Hell's genius roams the regions of And swells the thundering horrors of the deep! From cloud to cloud the pale moon hurrying flies, Now blackened, and now flashing through the skies; [beam. But all is silence here, beneath thy I own I labor for the voice of praise For who would sink in dull oblivion's stream? Who would not live in songs of distant days? TO MARY. CHARLES WOLFE. And now I feel, as well I may, If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art, I still might press thy silent heart, And where thy smiles have been! While e'en thy chill, bleak corpse I have, Thou seemest still mine own; But there I lay thee in thy graveAnd I am now alone! I do not think, where'er thou art, In thinking too of thee: His little, nameless, unremembered [From Lines Composed a Few Miles Above acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burden of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Es lightened; that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on, Until, the breath of this corporeal frame, And even the motion of our human blood, Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things. I have learned To look on Nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music of humanity, Not harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. Tintern Abbey. APOSTROPHE TO THE POET'S SISTER. THOU art with me, here, upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest friend, My dear, dear friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear sister! And this prayer I make, Knowing that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy: for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith that all which we behold Is full of blessings. the moon Therefore let Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee: and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind |