Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. For thy sake, TOBACCO, I Would do any thing but die, And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise. But, as she, who once hath been A king's consort, is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any tittle of her state, Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarr'd the full fruition Of thy favours, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odours, that give life
Like glances from a neighbour's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquer'd Canaanite.
Thinks upon the former days, when he was well to do,
Had children to stand by him, both friends and kinsmen too.
In a costly palace Youth his temples hides With a new devised peruke that reaches to his sides;
In a wretched workhouse Age's crown is bare, With a few thin locks just to fence out the cold air.
In peace, as in war, 'tis our young gallants' pride, To walk, each one i' the streets, with a rapier by his side,
That none to do them injury may have pretence; Wretched Age, in poverty, must brook offence.
MODEL of thy parent dear, Serious infant worth a fear;
In thy unfaultering visage well Picturing forth the son of TELL, When on his forehead, firm and good, Motionless mark, the apple stood; Guileless traitor, rebel mild, Convict unconscious, culprit-child! Gates that close with iron roar
Have been to thee thy nursery door; Chains that chink in cheerless cells Have been thy rattles and thy bells; Walls contrived for giant sin
Have hemmed thy faultless weakness in; Near thy sinless bed black Guilt Her discordant house hath built, And filled it with her monstrous brood- Sights, by thee not understood- Sights of fear and of distress, That pass a harmless infant's guess!
But the clouds, that overcast Thy young morning, may not last. Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour, That yields thee up to Nature's power. Nature, that so late doth greet thee, Shall in o'er-flowing measure meet thee. She shall recompense with cost For every lesson thou hast lost. Then wandering up thy sire's lov'd hill,* Thou shalt take thy airy fill
Of health and pastime. Birds shall sing For thy delight each May morning. 'Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play, Hardly less a lamb than they. Then thy prison's lengthened bound Shall be the horizon skirting round. And, while thou fill'st thy lap with flowers, To make amends for wintery hours, The breeze, the sunshine, and the place, Shall from thy tender brow efface Each vestige of untimely care, That sour restraint had graven there;
And on thy every look impress A more excelling childishness.
So shall be thy days beguil'd,
THORNTON HUNT, my favourite child.
ON THE CELEBRATED PICTURE BY LEONARDO DA VINCI, CALLED THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS.
WHILE young John runs to greet The greater Infant's feet,
The Mother standing by, with trembling passion Of devout admiration,
Beholds the engaging mystic play, and pretty adoration;
Nor knows as yet the full event
Of those so low beginnings,
From whence we date our winnings,
But wonders at the intent
Of those new rites, and what that strange childworship meant.
But at her side
An angel doth abide,
With such a perfect joy
As no dim doubts alloy,
An intuition,
A glory, an amenity,
Passing the dark condition
Of blind humanity,
THE clouds are blackening, the storms threaten
And ever the forest maketh a moan:
Billows are breaking, the damsel's heart aching, Thus by herself she singeth alone,
Weeping right plenteously.
"The world is empty, the heart is dead surely, In this world plainly all seemeth amiss: To thy breast, holy one, take now thy little one, I have had earnest of all earth's bliss, Living right lovingly."
All the blest wonders should ensue,
Or he had lately left the upper sphere,
You are not, Kelly, of the common strain, That stoop their pride and female honour down To please that many-headed beast the town, And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain; By fortune thrown amid the actors' train, You keep your native dignity of thought: The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
And had read all the sovran schemes and divine As tributes due unto your natural vein. riddles there.
"SUCK, baby, suck, mother's love grows by giving,
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by
Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Kiss, baby, kiss, mother's lips shine by kisses,
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow; Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,
That vanish and return we know not how- And please the better from a pensive face, A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
Choke the warm breath that else would fall in ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KEN
Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses
Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.
Hang, baby, hang, mother's love loves such forces,
Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging;
QUEEN-BIRD that sittest on thy shining nest, And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest, And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest Lest the white mother wandering feet molest: Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle, Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first
Black manhood comes, when violent lawless Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able
Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging."
So sang a wither'd Beldam energetical,
To tread the land or waters with security. Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin, In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in Confessing weakness, error, and impurity.
And bann'd the ungiving door with lips pro- Did heavenly creatures own succession's line,
The births of heaven like to your's would shine.
WAS it some sweet device of Faery That mocked my steps with many a lonely glade, And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid? Have these things been? or what rare witchery, Impregning with delights the charmed air, Enlighted up the semblance of a smile
In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while
Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair To drop the murdering knife, and let go by His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade Still court the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid? Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh? While I forlorn do wander reckless where, And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.
METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie, Nor of the busier scenes we left behind Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid! Beloved! I were well content to play With thy free tresses all a summer's day, Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade. Or we might sit and tell some tender tale Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn, A tale of true love, or of friend forgot; And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail In gentle sort, on those who practise not Or love or pity, though of woman born.
WHEN last I roved these winding wood-walks
Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet, Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene, Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat. No more I hear her footsteps in the shade: Her image only in these pleasant ways Meets me self-wandering, where in happier days I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid. I passed the little cottage which she loved, The cottage which did once my all contain; It spake of days which ne'er must come again, Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved. "Now fair befall thee, gentle maid!" I said, And from the cottage turned me with a sigh.
A TIMI grace sits trembling in her eye, As loth to meet the rudeness of men's sight, Yet shedding a delicious lunar light, That steeps in kind oblivious ecstasy The care-crazed mind, like some still melody: Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,
And innocent loves, and maiden purity: A look whereof might heal the cruel smart Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind; Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart Of him who hates his brethren of mankind. Turned are those lights from me, who fondly yet Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.
Ir from my lips some angry accents fell, Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind, 'Twas but the error of a sickly mind And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well, And waters clear, of Reason; and for me Let this my verse the poor atonement be- My verse, which thou to praise wert ever inclined Too highly, and with a partial eye to see No blemish. Thou to me didst ever shew Kindest affection; and would oft-times lend An ear to the desponding love-sick lay, Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay But ill the mighty debt of love I owe, Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.
THE FAMILY NAME. WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name, Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire, Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher And I, a childless man, may end the same. Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains, In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks, Received thee first amid the merry mocks And arch allusions of his fellow swains. Perchance from Salem's holier fields returned, With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd. Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.
TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE SOUTH-SEA-HOUSE.
JOHN, you were figuring in the gay career Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy, When I was yet a little peevish boy- Though time has made the difference disappear Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so great- And still by rightful custom you retain Much of the old authoritative strain, And keep the elder brother up in state. O! you do well in this. 'Tis man's worst deea To let the " things that have been" run to waste, And in the unmeaning present sink the past: In whose dim glass even now I faintly read Old buried forms, and faces long ago, Which you, and I, and one more, only know,
O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind, That, rushing on its way with careless sweep, Scatters the ocean waves. And I could weep Like to a child. For now to my raised mind On wings of winds comes wild-eyed Phantasy, And her rude visions give severe delight. O winged bark! how swift along the night Pass'd thy proud keel! nor shall I let go by Lightly of that drear hour the memory, When wet and chilly on thy deck I stood, Unbonnetted, and gazed upon the flood, Even till it seemed a pleasant thing to die,- To be resolv'd into th' elemental wave, Or take my portion with the winds that rave.
We were two pretty babes, the youngest she, The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween, And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been, We two did love each other's company; Time was, we two had wept to have been apart. But when by show of seeming good beguil'd, I left the garb and manners of a child, And my first love for man's society, Defiling with the world my virgin heart- My loved companion dropped a tear, and fled, And hid in deepest shades her awful head. Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art- In what delicious Eden to be found- That I may seek thee the wide world around?
'Tis darkness and conjecture all beyond; Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope, And Fancy, most licentious on such themes Where decent reverence well had kept her mute, Hath o'er-stock'd hell with devils, and brought down,
By her enormous fablings and mad lies, Discredit on the gospel's serious truths And salutary fears. The man of parts, Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates
A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he, Their heads encompassed with crowns, their heels With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far re- moved
From damned spirits, and the torturing cries Of men, his brethren, fashioned of the earth, As he was, nourish'd with the self-same bread, Belike his kindred or companions once- Through everlasting ages now divorced, In chains and savage torments to repent Short years of folly on earth. Their groans un- heard
In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care For those thus sentenced-pity might disturb The delicate sense and most divine repose Of spirits angelical. Blessed be God, The measure of his judgments is not fixed By man's erroneous standard. He discerns No such inordinate difference and vast Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with him, No man on earth is holy called: they best Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield To him of his own works the praise, his due.
FROM broken visions of perturbed rest
I wake, and start, and fear to sleep again. How total a privation of all sounds, Sights, and familiar objects, man, bird, beast, Herb, tree, or flower, and prodigal light of heaven. 'Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise Of revel reeling home from midnight cups. Those are the moanings of the dying man, Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans, And interrupted only by a cough Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs. So in the bitterness of death he lies, And waits in anguish for the morning's light. What can that do for him, or what restore? Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices, And little images of pleasures past,
Of health, and active life-health not yet slain, Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold For sin's black wages. On his tedious bed He writhes, and turns him from the accusing light, And finds no comfort in the sun, but says "When night comes I shall get a little rest." Some few groans more, death comes, and there an end.
THE GRANDAME. ON the green hill top, Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof, And not distinguish'd from its neighbour-barn, Save by a slender-tapering length of spire, The Grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells The name and date to the chance passenger. For lowly born was she, and long had eat, Well-earned, the bread of service:-her's was else
A mounting spirit, one that entertained Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable, Or aught unseemly. I remember well Her reverend image: I remember, too, With what a zeal she served her master's house; And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was, And wondrous skilled in genealogies, And could in apt and voluble terms discourse Of births, of titles, and alliances; Of marriages, and intermarriages; Relationship remote, or near of kin; Of friends offended, family disgraced- Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying Parental strict injunction, and regardless Of unmixed blood, and ancestry remote,
Stooping to wed with one of low degree. But these are not thy praises; and I wrong Thy honour'd memory, recording chiefly Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell, How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love, She served her heavenly Master. I have seen That reverend form bent down with age and pain, And rankling malady. Yet not for this Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew Her trust in him, her faith, and humble hope- So meekly had she learned to bear her cross- For she had studied patience in the school
Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute Sudden! his heart awakes, his ears drink in The cheering music; his relenting soul Yearns after all the joys of social life, And softens with the love of human kind.
Of Christ, much comfort she had thence derived, ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON And was a follower of the NAZARENE.
CHILDHOOD.
In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse Upon the days gone by; to act in thought Past seasons o'er, and be again a child; To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope,
Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers,
Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand (Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled,) Would throw away, and straight take up again, Then fling them to the winds, and o'er the lawn Bound with so playful and so light a foot, That the press'd daisy scarce declined her head.
FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE SUBJECTS.
THE truant Fancy was a wanderer ever, A lone enthusiast maid. She loves to walk In the bright visions of empyreal light, By the green pastures, and the fragrant meads, Where the perpetual flowers of Eden blow; By crystal streams, and by the living waters, Along whose margin grows the wondrous tree Whose leaves shall heal the nations; underneath Whose holy shade a refuge shall be found From pain and want, and all the ills that wait On mortal life, from sin and death for ever.
THE SABBATH BELLS.
THE cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims Tidings of good to Zion: chiefly when Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear Of the contemplant, solitary man,
I SAW where in the shroud did lurk
A curious frame of Nature's work. A flow'ret crushed in the bud,
A nameless piece of Babyhood, Was in her cradle-coffin lying; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality. Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health, and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe, or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock,
And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is dark; And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivel'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years.
Whom thoughts abtruse or high have chanced to Mother's prattle, mother's kiss,
Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft, And oft again, hard matter, which eludes And baffles his pursuit-thought-sick and tired Of controversy, where no end appears, No clue to his research, the lonely man Half wishes for society again.
Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee;
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