III.

Jan. 1817.

AFTER dark vapours have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious mouth, relieved from its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May,
The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us-as, of leaves
Budding, fruit ripening in stillness,―autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,—

Sweet Sappho's cheek,-a sleeping infant's breath,— The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,

A woodland rivulet,—a Poet's death.

IV.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF

CHAUCER'S TALE OF 66 THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE."

Feb. 1817.

THIS pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines so freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops

Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And, by the wandering melody, may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power has white simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I, that do ever feel athirst for glory,

Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

V.

ON THE SEA.

Aug. 1817.

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell

Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from where it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; Oh ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody,Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!

VI.

ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, THE STORY OF RIMINI.'

WHO loves to peer up at the morning sun,

With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek
For meadows where the little rivers run;
Who loves to linger with that brightest one

1817.

Of Heaven-Hesperus-let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.

He who knows these delights, and too is prone
To moralise upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,
A bower for his spirit, and will steer
To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone,

Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.

VII.

1817.

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact❜ry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.