Aloof, with hermit-eye I scan The present works of present man— A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, TO A YOUNG FRIEND, ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, Where o'er the jutting rocks soft mosses creep, Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, That rustling on the bushy cliff above, With melancholy bleat of anxious love, Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb: Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosom ached with loneliness How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round, Wide and more wide, increasing without bound O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark The berries of the half-uprooted ash Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,— Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark, Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock; While west-winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed: Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; Where Inspiration, his diviner strains Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks They whom I love shall love thee, honored youth! LINES TO W. L. WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC. WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues, And I have many friends who hold me dear; With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angelguide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, ADDRESSED то A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE, WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY. ENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe, HENCE O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear! To plundered Want's half-sheltered hovel go, Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strewed, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's common-weal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind. SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West! How many various-fated years have past, What happy, and what mournful hours, since last I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny ray, But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes, Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: Ah! could I be once more a careless child! SONNET. COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796. OFT FT o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past. Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said* * *Ην που ἡμῶν ἡ ψύχη πρὶν ἐν τῷδε τῷ ἀνθρωπίνῳ εἴδει γενέσθαι -Plat. in Phædon. |