WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climbest the sky,
How silently, and with how wan a face!*
Where art thou? thou whom I have seen on high,
Running among the clouds a wood-nymph's race!
Unhappy nuns, whose common breath's a sigh
Which they would stifle, move at such a pace!
The northern wind, to call thee to the chase,
Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had I
The power of Merlin, goddess! this should be;
And the keen stars, fast as the clouds were riven,
Should sally forth, an emulous company,
All hurrying with thee through the clear blue heaven;
But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given,
Queen both for beauty and for majesty.
STRANGE Visitation! at Jemima's lip
Thus hadst thou pecked, wild redbreast! Love might say,
A half-blown rose had tempted thee to sip
Its glistening dews; but hallowed is the clay
Which the Muse warms; and I, whose head is grey,
Am not unworthy of thy fellowship :
Nor could I let one thought-one motion-slip
That might thy sylvan confidence betray.
For are we not all His without whose care
Vouchsafed, no sparrow falleth to the ground?
Who gives His angels wings to speed through air,
And rolls the planets through the blue profound;
Then peck or perch, fond flutterer! nor forbear
To trust a poet in still vision bound.
* From a sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney.
OFT have I seen, ere Time had ploughed my cheek,
Matrons and sires who, punctual to the call
Of their loved Church, on fast or festival,
Through the long year the House of Prayer would seek:
By Christmas snows, by visitation bleak
Of Easter winds, unscared, from hut or hall
They came to lowly bench or sculptured stall,
But with one fervour of devotion meek.
I see the places where they once were known,
And ask, surrounded even by kneeling crowds,
Is ancient piety for ever flown?
Alas! even then they seemed like fleecy clouds
That, struggling through the western sky, have won
Their pensive light from a departed sun!
"WEAK is the will of man, his judgment blind :
Remembrance persecutes, and hope betrays;
Heavy is woe ;-and joy, for human kind,
A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!"
Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days
Who wants the glorious faculty, assigned
To elevate the more than reasoning mind,
And colour life's dark cloud with orient rays.
Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined:
'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.
WINGS have we,-and as far as we can go
We may find pleasure; wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,
To which I listen with a ready ear;
Two shall be named, preeminently dear,—
The gentle lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.
THE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
"WHY art thou silent? is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre, that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant
(As would my deeds have been) with hourly care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak, though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow, 'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine;
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know."
SURPRISED by joy-impatient as the wind
I turned to share the transport-Oh! with whom
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind.
But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?—That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.
OXFORD, MAY 30TH, 1820.
YE sacred nurseries of blooming youth!
In whose collegiate shelter England's flowers
Expand enjoying through their vernal hours
The air of liberty, the light of truth;
Much have ye suffered from Time's gnawing tooth.
Yet, O, ye spires of Oxford! Domes and Towers!
Gardens and Groves! your presence overpowers
The soberness of Reason; till, in sooth,
Transformed, and rushing on a bold exchange,
I slight my own beloved Cam, to range
Where silver Isis leads my stripling feet;
Pace the long avenue, or glide adown
The streamlike windings of that glorious street,
An eager novice robed in fluttering gown!
ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC.
ONCE did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And, when she took unto herself a mate,
She must espouse the everlasting sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid
When her long life hath reached its final day :
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade,
Of that which once was great, is passed away.
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