SONNETS.

I.

OH! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far-far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
From little cares; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest.
And there into delight my soul deceive.
There warm my breast with patriotic lore,
Musing on Milton's fate-on Sydney's bier-
Till their stern forms before my mind arise:
Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,

When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

1816.

II.

TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL CROWN.

FRESH morning gusts have blown away all fear.

From my glad bosom-now from gloominess

I mount for ever-not an atom less

Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.

No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press
Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

Lo! who dares say, "Do this ?" Who dares call down
My will from its high purpose ? Who say, 66

Or "Go?" This mighty moment I would frown
On abject Cæsars-not the stoutest band

Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:
Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

Stand,"

III.

AFTER dark vapors 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.

Jan. 1817.

IV.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE."

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.
Feb. 1817.

V.

ON THE SEA.

Ir 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!

Aug. 1817.

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

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 moralize 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.

1817.

VII.

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.

VIII.

TO HOMER.

STANDING aloof in giant ignorance,

Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.

So thou wast blind!-but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spermy tent,

And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Aye, on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green!
There is a budding morrow in midnight;
There is a triple sight in blindness keen;
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befell,

To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

1818.

IX.

ANSWER TO A SONNET ENDING THUS :

"Dark eyes are dearer far

Than those that made the hyacinthine bell;"
By J. H. REYNOLDS.

BLUE! 'Tis the life of heaven,—the domain
Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun,-
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,—

The bosomer of clouds, gold, gray and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters-ocean

And all its vassal streams: pools numberless
May rage, and foam, and fret, but never can
Subside, if not to dark-blue nativeness.
Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest-green,

Married to green in all the sweetest flowersForget-me-not, the blue bell,-and, that queen Of secrecy, the violet: what strange powers Hast thou, as a mere shadow! But how great, When in an Eye thou art alive with fate!

Feb. 1818.