HIGH-MINDEDNESS, a jealousy for food,
A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, Dwells here and there with people of no name, In noisome alley, and in pathless wood: And where we think the truth least understood, Oft may be found a "singleness of aim," That ought to frighten into hooded shame A money-mong'ring, pitiable brood. How glorious this affection for the cause
Of stedfast genius, toiling gallantly! What when a stout unbending champion awes Envy, and malice to their native sty? Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause, Proud to behold him in his country's eye.
ADDRESSED TO THE SAME.
GREAT spirits now on earth are sojourning: He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake: And lo! whose stedfastness would never take A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?
Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.
THE poetry of earth is never dead :
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the Grasshopper's-he takes the lead
In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. December 30, 1816.
GOOD Kosciusko! thy great name alone
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; It comes upon us like the glorious pealing Of the wide spheres-an everlasting tone. And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown, The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing. And changed to harmonies, for ever stealing Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.
It tells me too, that on a happy day,
When some good spirit walks upon the earth, Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away
To where the great God lives for evermore.
HAPPY is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent: Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant. Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters; Enough their simple loveliness for me, Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging: Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, And float with them about the summer waters.
FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming nigh
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness-to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER.
COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, As if so gentle that ye could not see, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea: "Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!
HEARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid ! Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams! When were thy shoulders maniled in huge streams? When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ?
Now I direct my eyes into the West, Which at this moment is in sunbeams drest: Why westward turn? "T was but to say adieu! 'Twas but to kiss my hand, dear George, to you! August, 1816.
TO CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE.
OFT have you seen a swan superbly frowning, And with proud breast his own white shadow crown- ing;
He slants his neck beneath the waters bright So silently, it seems a beam of light Come from the galaxy: anon he sports,- With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts, Or ruffles all the surface of the lake In striving from its crystal face to take Some diamond water-drops, and them to treasure In milky nest, and sip them off at leisure. But not a moment can he there insure them, Nor to such downy rest can he allure them; For down they rush as though they would be free, And drop like hours into eternity.
Just like that bird am I in loss of time,
Whene'er I venture on the stream of rhyme ; With shatter'd boat, oar snapt, and canvas rent, I slowly sail, scarce knowing my intent; Still scooping up the water with my fingers, In which a trembling diamond never lingers.
By this, friend Charles, you may full plainly see Why I have never penn'd a line to thee: Because my thoughts were never free, and clear, And little fit to please a classic ear; Because my wine was of too poor a savor For one whose palate gladdens in the flavor Of sparkling Helicon-small good it were To take him to a desert rude and bare, Who had on Baia's shore reclined at ease, While Tasso's page was floating in a breeze That gave soft music from Armida's bowers, Mingled with fragrance from her rarest flowers: Small good to one who had by Mulla's stream Fondled the maidens with the breasts of cream; Who had beheld Belphoebe in a brook, And lovely Una in a leafy nook, And Archimago leaning o'er his book: Who had of all that's sweet, tasted, and seen, From silv'ry ripple, up to beauty's queen; From the sequester'd haunts of gay Titania, To the blue dwelling of divine Urania: One, who, of late had ta'en sweet forest walks With him who elegantly chats and talks- The wrong'd Libertas-who has told you stories Of laurel chaplets, and Apollo's glories; Of troops chivalrous prancing through a city, And tearful ladies, made for love and pity: With many else which I have never known. Thus have I thought; and days on days have flown Slowly, or rapidly-unwilling still
For you to try my dull, unlearned quill. Nor should I now, but that I've known you long; That you first taught me all the sweets of song: The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine: What swell'd with pathos, and what right divine:
Spenserian vowels that elope with ease, And float along like birds o'er summer seas: Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tenderness: Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve's fair slender
Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly Up to its climax, and then dying proudly? Who found for me the grandeur of the ode, Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load? Who let me taste that more than cordial dram, The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram? Show'd me that epic was of all the king, Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring! You too upheld the veil from Clio's beauty, And pointed out the patriot's stern duty; The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell; The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell Upon a tyrant's head. Ah! had I never seen, Or known your kindness, what might I have been? What my enjoyments in my youthful years, Bereft of all that now my life endears? And can I e'er these benefits forget? And can I e'er repay the friendly debt?
No, doubly no-yet should these rhymings please, I shall roll on the grass with twofold ease; For I have long time been my fancy feeding With hopes that you would one day think the reading Of my rough verses not an hour misspent ; Should it e'er be so, what a rich content! Some weeks have pass'd since last I saw the spires In lucent Thames reflected:-warm desires To see the sun o'er-peep the eastern dimness, And morning-shadows streaking into slimness Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water; To mark the time as they grow broad and shorter; To feel the air that plays about the hills, And sips its freshness from the little rills; To see high, golden corn wave in the light When Cynthia smiles upon a summer's night, And peers among the cloudlets, jet and white, As though she were reclining in a bed Of bean-blossoms, in heaven freshly shed. No sooner had I stept into these pleasures, Than I began to think of rhymes and measures; The air that floated by me seem'd to say
Write! thou wilt never have a better day." And so I did. When many lines I'd written, Though with their grace I was not over-smitten, Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I'd better Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter. Such an attempt required an inspiration Of a peculiar sort,—a consummation;— Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been Verses from which the soul would never wean; But many days have past since last my heart Was warm'd luxuriously by divine Mozart; By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden'd; Or by the song of Erin pierced and sadden'd: What time you were before the music sitting, And the rich notes to each sensation fitting. Since I have walk'd with you through shady lanes That freshly terminate in open plains, And revell'd in a chat that ceased not, When, at night-fall, among your books we got: No, nor when supper came, nor after that,- Nor when reluctantly I took my hat;
No, nor till cordially you shook my hand Midway between our homes:-your accents bland Still sounded in my ears, when I no more Could hear your footsteps touch the gravelly floor. Sometimes I lost them, and then found again; You changed the foot-path for the grassy plain. In those still moments I have wish'd you joys That well you know to honor:-" Life's very toys With him," said I. "will take a pleasant charm; It cannot be that aught will work him harm." These thoughts now come o'er me with all their might:
Again I shake your hand,-friend Charles, good-night. September, 1816.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them, With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time.
Ah! would 't were so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steal it, Was never said in rhyme.
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