The sons of France shake off the tyrant yoke; BARRERE. [Shouts without. Hark! how the noise increases! through the gloom BARRERE (mounts the Tribune). [Cry without-Down with the Tyrant! Dragg'd from their hovels by despotic power, Enter LECOINTRE. LECOINTRE. So may eternal justice blast the foes Of France! so perish all the tyrant brood, [Loud and repeated applauses. "To arms" in vain, whilst Bourdon's patriot voice call'd For vengeance! Long time, obstinate in despair, Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon, [Loud and repeated applauses. Rush'd o'er her frontiers, plunder'd her fair hamlets And sack'd her populous towns, and drench'd with blood The reeking fields of Flanders.-When within, Depopulate all Europe, so to pour The accumulated mass upon our coasts, 29 Miscellaneous Poems. PROSE IN RHYME: OR EPIGRAMS, MORALITIES, AND THINGS WITHOUT A NAME Ἔρως ἄει λάληδρος ἔταιρος. In many ways does the full heart reveal The absence of the love, which yet it fain would show. LOVE.* ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking drearns do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruin'd tower. The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve! She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listen'd to my lay, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, I play'd a soft and doleful air, She listen'd 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. his piece may be found, as originally published, under anwther title at page 28. She listen'd with a flitting blush, Too fondly on her face. But when I told the cruel scorn That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade. And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and look'd him in the face And that, unknowing what he did, And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; The scorn that crazed his brain. A dying man he lay. His dying words-but when I reach'd All impulses of soul and sense And hopes, and fears that kindle hope She wept with pity and delight, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved-she stept aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'dThen suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept. She half inclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face. Twas partly Love, and partly Fear, And partly 't was a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart. I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beauteous Bride. DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE, THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. A SOLILOQUY. UNCHANGED within to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' warnings shouldst thou fret? Then only mightst thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou mayest-shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite; And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they are: nor love them less, Because to thee they are not what they were. PHANTOM OR FACT? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE. AUTHOR. A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet— Or rather say at once, within what space AUTHOR. Call it a moment's work (and such it seems), This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matured the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of Life. WORK WITHOUT HOPE. LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827. ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair- Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, YOUTH AND AGE. VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, When I was young?-Ah, woful when! That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like, Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, But springtide blossoms on thy lips, And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! What outward form and feature are He guesseth but in part; 1 A DAY DREAM. My eyes make pictures, when they are shut :- A willow and a ruin'd hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow! A wild-rose roofs the ruin'd shed, And that and summer well agree: Two dear names carved upon the tree! "T was day! But now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night, The balmiest of the month of June! A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain. O ever-ever be thou blest! For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together. The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they melt to one deep shade! But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee: I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee! Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play- Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women! LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS. OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope, REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE. Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, And myriads had reach'd Heaven, who never knew Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own, Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye TO A LADY, THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN FROM his brimstone bed at break of day HAVE NO SOULS. NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave? For what you are you cannot have: "Tis I, that have one since I first had you! I HAVE heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I holdHis eyes are in his mind A-walking the DEVIL is gone, To visit his little snug farm of the earth, And see how his stock went on. He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper On a dung-heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel. A POTHECARY on a white horse Rode by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old Friend DEATH in the Revelations. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college; For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.* Down the river there plied with wind and tide, And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, it cut its own throat. There! quoth he, with a smile, Goes "England's commercial prosperity." As he went through Cold-Bath Fields, he saw And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT. Still, still as though some dear embodied good, I mourn to thee and say-" Ah! loveliest friend' Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "Life" Cod. quid habent," Trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called, Karyny, may be regarded as Life sansu eminentiori: a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call Life now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.-Sic nos non Dobis mellificamus Apes. Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted as grounded on subjects that have lost their interest-and for better reasons. If any one should ask, who General meant, the Author beg leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT. ERE the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no NATURE'S ANSWER. Is't return'd as 't was sent? Is 't no worse for the wear? I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel. †This phenomenon, which the Author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively in the following passage of the Aids to Reflection: on different characters, holds equally true of Genius: as many "Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 220 |