Did incense-bearing altars rise,
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From suppliants panting for the skies!

II.

What though this ancient Earth be trod
No more by step of Demi-god
Mounting from glorious deed to deed,
As thou from clime to clime didst lead;
Yet still, the bosom beating high,
And the hush'd farewell of an eye,
Where no procrastinating gaze
A last infirmity betrays,

Prove that thy heaven-descended sway
Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.
By thy divinity impell'd,

The Stripling seeks the tented field;
Th' aspiring Virgin kneels; and, pale
With awe, receives the hallow'd veil,
A soft and tender Heroine
Vow'd to severer discipline:
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground, -
-or a couch of rest:
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
Thou to his dangers dost enchain
The Chamois-chaser awed in vain
By chasm or dizzy precipice:

And hast Thou not with triumph seen
How soaring mortals glide between
Or through the clouds, and brave the light
With bolder than Icarian flight? 5
How they, in bells of crystal, dive,
(Where winds and waters cease to strive,)
For no unholy visitings,
Among the monsters of the Deep;
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?
Or, adverse tides and currents headed,
And breathless calms no longer dreaded,
In never-slackening voyage go
Straight as an arrow from the bow;

|And, slighting sails and scorning oars,
Keep faith with Time on distant shores?-
Within our fearless reach are placed
The secrets of the burning Waste;
Egyptian tombs unlock their dead,
Nile trembles at his fountain head;
Thou speak'st, and, lo! the polar Seas
Unbosom their last mysteries.- [reward,
But, O! what transports, what sublime
Won from the world of mind, dost thou
prepare

For philosophic Sage; or high-souled Bard
Who, for thy service train'd in lonely
woods,
[the air,
Hath fed on pageants floating through
Or calentured in depth of limpid floods;
Nor grieves, though doom'd thro' silent
night to bear

The domination of his glorious themes,
Or struggle in the net-work of thy dreams!

III.

If there be movements in the Patriot's
soul,
[worth,
From source still deeper, and of higher
'Tis thine the quickening impulse to con-
trol,

And in due season send the mandate forth:
Thy call a prostrate Nation can restore,
When but a single Mind resolves to crouch

no more.

IV.

Dread Minister of wrath!

Who to their destined punishment dost
urge
[harden'd heart!
The Pharaohs of the Earth, the men of
Not unassisted by the flattering stars,
Thou strew'st temptation o'er the path
When they in pomp depart

6 This is the only instance I remember to have met with of calenture thus used as a verb. The word properly means a fever, and hence is put for the furious delirium 5 Alluding, of course, to the bold spirit or frenzy caused by the heat of the tropi of Enterprise as displayed in balloon-voy. cal sun at sea, which often leads sailors to aging. The unclassical reader may like throw themselves into the water. The to be told that Icarus was the son of that sense of the word in this place may be wonderful mechanic, Dædalus, whose tri-gathered from a passage in Swift's South umphs of ingenuity ca sed him to be im. Sea Project, 1721: prisoned by Minos. Being released by Pasiphaë, to aid his flight from Minos, he procured wings for himself and his son, and fastened them on with wax. In their flight, the youngster, being something over-bold, flew too near the Sun, so that the wax was melted, and he fell down into what was thence called the Icarian sea.

"So, by a calenture misled,
The mariner with rapture sees,
On the smooth ocean's azure bed,
Enamell'd fields and verdant trees:
With eager haste he longs to rove
In that fantastic scene, and thinks
It must be some enchanted grove:
And in he leaps and down he sinks.”

[lymph

With trampling horses and refulgent cars, | That wakes the breeze, the sparkling
Soon to be swallow'd by the briny surge; Doth hurry to the lawn;
Or cast, for lingering death, on unknown She, who inspires that strain of joyance

holy
[ancholy,'
Which the sweet Bird, misnamed the mel.
Pours forth in shady groves, shall plead
for me;

And vernal mornings opening bright
With views of undefin'd delight,

And cheerful songs, and suns that shine
On busy days, with thankful nights, be
mine.

Back flows the willing current of my Song: But thou, O Goddess! in thy favourite
If to provoke such doom the Impious dare, (Freedom's impregnable redoubt, [Isle,
Why should it daunt a blameless prayer? The wide Earth's store-house fenced
Bold Goddess! range our Youth among;
about
Nor let thy genuine impulse fail to beat
In hearts no longer young:
Still may a veteran Few have pride
In thoughts whose sternness makes them
sweet;

In fix'd resolves by Reason justified;
That to their object cleave like sleet
Whitening a pine tree's northern side,
When fields are naked far and wide,
And wither'd leaves, from earth's cold
breast

Up-caught in whirlwinds, nowhere can
find rest.

VI.

But, if such homage thou disdain

As doth with mellowing years agree,
One rarely absent from thy train
More humble favours may obtain
For thy contented Votary.
She, who incites the frolic lambs
In presence of their heedless dams,
And to the solitary fawn

Vouchsafes her lessons, bounteous Nymph

7 So Milton, in Il Penseroso, addressing the nightingale:

"Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly,

Most musical, most melancholy !" Coleridge, also, in his Nightingale, repudiates the epithet:

"A melancholy bird! O, idle thought! In Nature there is nothing melancholy."

With breakers roaring to the gales
That stretch a thousand thousand sails,)
Quicken the slothful, and exalt the vile!
Thy impulse is the life of Fame;
Glad Hope would almost cease to be
If torn from thy society;

| And Love, when worthiest of his name,
Is proud to walk the Earth with Thee!

THE EGYPTIAN MAID;

OR,

THE ROMANCE OF THE WATER-LILY."

[For the names and persons in the following poem, see the "History of the re nowned Prince Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; " for the rest the Author is answerable; only it may be proper to add, that the Lotus, with the bust of the Goddess appearing to rise out of the flull-blown flower, was suggested by the beautiful work of ancient art, once included among the Townley Marbles, and now in the British Museum.]

WHILE Merlin paced the Cornish sands,
Forth-looking toward the rocks of Scilly,
The pleased Enchanter was aware

Of a bright Ship that seem'd to hang in air;
Yet was she work of mortal hands,

And took from men her name, THE WATER-LILY.

Soft was the wind that landward blew;
And, as the Moon, o'er some dark hill ascendant,
Grows from a little edge of light

To a full orb, this Pinnace bright

Became, as nearer to the coast she drew,

More glorious, with spread sail and streaming pendant.

Upon this wingèd Shape so fair

Sage Merlin gazed with admiration:

Her lineaments, thought he, surpass

Aught that was ever shown in magic glass;

Was ever built with patient care;

Or, at a touch, produced by happiest transformation.

Now, though a Mechanist whose skill

Shames the degenerate grasp of modern science,

Grave Merlin (and belike the more

For practising occult and perilous lore)

Was subject to a freakish will

That sapp'd good thoughts, or scared them with defiance.

Provoked to envious spleen, he cast

An alter'd look upon th' advancing Stranger

Whom he had hail'd with joy, and cried,

66

My Art shall help to tame her pride:'

Anon the breeze became a blast,

And the waves rose, and sky portended danger.

8 This poem rose out of a few words casually used in conversation by my nephew, Henry Hutchinson. He was describing with great spirit the appearance and movement of a vessel which he seemed to admire more than any other he had ever seen, and said her name was the Water-Lily. This plant has been my delight from my boyhood, as I have seen it floating on the lake; and that conversation put me upon constructing and composing the poem. Had I not heard those words, it would never have been written. Author's Notes.

With thrilling word, and potent sign

Traced on the beach, his work the Sorcerer urges;
The clouds in blacker clouds are lost,

Like spiteful Fiends that vanish, cross'd

By Fiends of aspect more malign;

And the winds roused the Deep with fiercer scourges.

But worthy of the name she bore
Was this Sea-flower, this buoyant Galley;
Supreme in loveliness and grace

Of motion, whether in th' embrace

Of trusty anchorage, or scudding o'er
The main flood roughen'd into hill and valley.

Behold, how wantonly she laves

Her sides, the Wizard's craft confounding;
Like something out of Ocean sprung
To be for ever fresh and young,
Breasts the sea-flashes, and huge waves
Top-gallant high, rebounding and rebounding!

But Ocean under magic heaves,

And cannot spare the Thing he cherish'd:
Ah! what avails that she was fair,
Luminous, blithe, and debonair?

The storm has stripp'd her of her leaves;
The Lily floats no longer!-she hath perish'd.

Grieve for her, she deserves no less;
So like, yet so unlike, a living Creature!
No heart had she, no busy brain;

Though loved, she could not love again;
Though pitied, feel her own distress;

Nor aught that troubles us, the fools of Nature.

Yet is there cause for gushing tears,
So richly was this Galley laden:
A fairer than herself she bore,
And, in her struggles, cast ashore;

A lovely One, who nothing hears

Of wind or wave, a meek and guileless Maiden.

Into a cave had Merlin fled

From mischief caused by spells himself had mutter'd; And while, repentant all too late,

In moody posture there he sate,

He heard a voice, and saw, with half-raised head,

A Visitant by whom these words were utter'd: