IV.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK

SPACE OF A LEAF

66

AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE."

THIS pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honeyed 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 't is 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. O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; O 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 66 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.

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.