Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold! 'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence! over It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud! A tale of less affright, And tempered with delight, As Otway's self had framed the tender lay, 'Tis of a little child Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her way: VIII. 'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep : Gay fancy, cheerful eyes, Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice, To her may all things live, from pole to pole, O simple spirit, guided from above, ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER "PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD.” "AND hail the chapel! hail the platform wild! With well strung arm, that first preserved his child, SPLENDOR'S fondly fostered child! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Light as a dream your days their circlets ran, Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear! With many a bright obtrusive form of art, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the chapel and the platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, There crowd your finely-fibred frame And Genius to your cradle came, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, But boasts not many a fair compeer, A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought. The sordid vices and the abject pains, The doom of ignorance and penury! But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child, Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! You were a mother! That most holy name I may not vilely prostitute to those Than the poor caterpillar owes Its gaudy parent fly. You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. eye, You, with laughing Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, Without the mother's bitter groans: By touch, or taste, by looks or tones O'er the growing sense to roll, The mother of your infant's soul! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides All trembling gazes on the eye of God, A moment turned his awful face away; And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet New influences in your being rose, Blest intuitions and communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes! O beautiful! O Nature's child! Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth, To thee I gave my early youth, And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle nand will lead At morning through the accustomed mead; Will build me up a mossy seat; And when the gust of Autumn crowds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole! The greatness of some future race, |