CATHERINE.

ity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of guise of playful raillery, and the countless other modesty which will arise in delicate minds, when infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial they are conscious of possessing the same or the feeling. correspondent excellence in their own characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow, and dares make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged VIRTUE the caressing fondness that belongs to the INNOCENCE of childhood, and repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies as had been dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.

Well, Sir; you have said quite enough to make me despair of finding a "John Anderson, my jo, John," to totter down the hill of life with.

ELIZA.

What a soothing-what an elevating idea!

CATHERINE.

If it be not only an idea.

FRIEND.

FRIEND.

Not so! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer

than good women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.

ELIZA.

Surely, he who has described it so beautifully, must have possessed it?

FRIEND.

If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment!

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes).
ANSWER (ex improviso).
Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat,
He had, or fancied that he had;
Say, 't was but in his own conceit-

At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world| under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife! A person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as neighbor, friend, housemate-in short, in all the concentric circles of attachment, save only the last and inmost; and yet from how many causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper-one or the other-too often proves "the dead fly in the But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain compost of spices," and any one is enough to unfit it Unnourish'd wane!

The fancy made him glad!
Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish!
The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish!
The fair fulfilment of his poesy,

When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy!

for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty Faith asks her daily bread, good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of And Fancy must be fed! solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that Now so it chanced-from wet or dry, keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own self- It boots not how-I know not whyimportance. And as this high sense, or rather sensa-She miss'd her wonted food: and quickly tion of their own value is, for the most part, ground- Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly. ed on negative qualities, so they have no better means Then came a restless state, 't wixt yea and nay, of preserving the same but by negatives-that is, by His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow; not doing or saying any thing, that might be put down Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay, for fond, silly, or nonsensical, or (to use their own Above its anchor driving to and fro. phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most worthless object they could be employed in remembering.

ELIZA (in answer to a whisper from CATHERINE). To a hair! He must have sate for it himself. Save me from such folks! But they are out of the question.

FRIEND.

That boon, which but to have possess'd
In a belief, gave life a zest
Uncertain both what it had been,
And if by error lost, or luck;
And what it was an evergreen
Which some insidious blight had struck,
Or annual flower, which past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive;
Uncertain, and afraid to know,

True! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too general insensibility to a very important Doubts toss'd him to and fro; truth; this, namely, that the MISERY of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive, other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a Like babes bewilder'd in a snow, child; years after, a failure in trade; after another That cling and huddle from the cold longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have In hollow tree or ruin'd fold. married unhappily;-in all but the singularly un

fortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum Those sparkling colors, once his boast, total of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily Fading, one by one away,

counted, and distinctly remembered. The HAPPINESS Thin and hueless as a ghost,

Poor Fancy on her sick-bed lay;

of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute frac-
tions the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a Ill at distance, worse when near,
smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the dis-Telling her dreams to jealous Fear!

233

Where was it then, the sociable sprite
That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish!
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,
Itself a substance by no other right
But that it intercepted Reason's light;

It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!
Thank Heaven! 'tis not so now.

O bliss of blissful hours!

The boon of Heaven's decreeing,
While yet in Eden's bowers

Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless Mate!
The one sweet plant which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them through Eden's closing gate!
Of life's gay summer-tide the sovran Rose!
Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When Passion's flowers all fall or fade;
If this were ever his, in outward being,
Or but his own true love's projected shade,
Now, that at length by certain proof he knows,
That whether real or magic show,
Whate'er it was, it is no longer so;
Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,
Yet, Lady! deem him not unblest :
The certainty that struck Hope dead,
Hath left Contentment in her stead:
And that is next to best!

THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO.

Of late, in one of those most weary hours,
When life seems emptied of all genial powers,
A dreary mood, which he who ne'er has known
May bless his happy lot, I sate alone;
And, from the numbing spell to win relief,
Call'd on the past for thought of glee or grief.
In vain! bereft alike of grief and glee,
I sate and cower'd o'er my own vacancy!
And as I watch'd the dull continuous ache,
Which, all else slumb'ring, seem'd alone to wake;
O Friend! long wont to notice yet conceal,
And soothe by silence what words cannot heal,
I but half saw that quiet hand of thine
Place on my desk this exquisite design,
Boccaccio's Garden and its faëry,

The love, the joyaunce, and the gallantry!
An Idyll, with Boccaccio's spirit warm,
Framed in the silent poesy of form.
Like flocks adown a newly-bathed steep
Emerging from a mist: or like a stream
Of music soft that not dispels the sleep,

Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan

Of manhood, musing what and whence is man!
Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves
Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids,
That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades;
Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast;
Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,
Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,
To high-church pacing on the great saint's day.
And many a verse which to myself I sang,
That woke the tear, yet stole away the pang,
Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd.
And last, a matron now, of sober mien,
Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,
Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd
Even in my dawn of thought-Philosophy.
Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,
She bore no other name than Poesy;

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee,
That had but newly left a mother's knee,
Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone,
As if with elfin playfellows well known,
And life reveal'd to innocence alone.

Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer,
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop,
The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there,
Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
"Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings,
And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings:
Or pause and listen to the tinkling bells
From the high tower, and think that there she dwells
With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest,
And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.

The brightness of the world, O thou once free,
And always fair, rare land of courtesy!
O, Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills!
And famous Arno fed with all their rills;
Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy!
Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine,
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old,
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn,
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn;
Palladian palace with its storied halls;
Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls

But casts in happier moulds the slumberer's dream, Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span,

Gazed by an idle eye with silent might
The picture stole upon my inward sight.
A tremulous warmth crept gradual o'er my chest,
As though an infant's finger touch'd my breast.
And one by one (I know not whence) were brought
All spirits of power that most had stirr'd my thought.
In selfless boyhood, on a new world tost
Of wonder, and in its own fancies lost;
Or charm'd my youth, that kindled from above,
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love;

And Nature makes her happy home with man;
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed,
And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head,
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn,
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine:
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance'
'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance,

See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees
The new-found roll of old Mæonides ;*

But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart,
Peers Ovid's Holy Book of Love's sweet smart!†

Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first introduced the works of Homer to his countrymen.

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks,
And see in Dian's vest between the ranks
Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,
With that sly satyr peering through the leaves!

I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imagipations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio: where the sage instructor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancafiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of nato a conoscer le lettere, fece legere il santo libro d' Onvidio, Love. Incominciò Racheo a mettere il suo officio in essecu- nel quale il sommo poeta mostra, come i santi fuochi di Venere zione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, inseg- si debbano ne freddi cuori occendere."

THE END OF COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS.

235

THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.