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Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings

Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight-Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey - dropping
flowers,

Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!

O! the one life, within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its

soul,

A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought and joyance everywhere

Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so fill'd, Where the breeze warbles and the mute still air

Is music slumbering on its instrument.

And thus, my love! as on the midway

slope

Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst thro' my half-closed eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the
main,

And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps diversly fram'd,
That tremble into thought, as o'er them
sweeps

Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of All?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O beloved woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd These shapings of the unregenerate mind, Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, Th' Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healed me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honor'd Maid!

REFLECTIONS

ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE OF RETIREMENT.

Low was our pretty cot: our tallest rose Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear

At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape
round

Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The VALLEY of SECLUSION! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and
look'd

With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round

again,

And sigh'd, and said, it was a blessed place. And we were blessed. Oft with patient ear Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen Gleaming on sunny wing) in whisper'd tones I've said to my beloved: Such, sweet girl! The inobtrusive song of Happiness, Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,

And the heart listens! But the time, when first From that low dell, steep up the stony mount I climb'd with perilous toil and reach'd the top,

Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount, The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep; Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;

And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;

And seats, and lawns, the abbey, and the wood, And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire: The channel there, the islands and white sails, Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless ocean

It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought, Had built him there a Temple: the whole world

Seem'd imag'd in its vast circumference. No wish profan'd my overwhelmed heart. Blest hour! It was a luxury, to be!

Ah! quiet dell! dear cot! and mount sublime! I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled,

That I should dream away th' entrusted hours | Me from the spot where first I sprung to

On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward
heart

With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's
eye
Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from
earth:

And He, that works me good with unmov'd
face,

Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother-man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence
Praise, praise it, oh my soul! oft as thou
scann'st

The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe,
Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the
wretched,

Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.

light

Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd Its first domestic loves; and hence through life

Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while

Some have preserv'd me from life's pelting
ills;

But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropt the collected shower; and some most
false,

False and fair foliag'd as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest
damps,

Mixt their own venom with the rain from
heaven,

That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend,
Beneath th' impervious covert of one Oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of Husband and of Father; nor unhearing

Yet oft when after honorable toil Rests the tir'd mind, and waking loves to Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,

dream,

My spirit shall revisit thee, dear cot!
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet abode !
Ah! had none greater! And that all had

such!
It might be so-but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy kingdom come!

Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours! Yet at times
My soul is sad, that Ĩ have roam'd through
life

Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly
then,

When I remember thee, my earliest Friend! Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;

Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye;

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE And boding evil, yet still hoping good,

WITH SOME POEMS.

Notus in fratres animi paterni.

A BLESSED lot hath he, who having past
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father
dwelt;

And haply views his tott'ring little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own Infancy
Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, oh my earliest
Friend!

Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb Life's upland-road,
Yet cheer'd and cheering: now fraternal Love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

Rebuk'd each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,
That Being knows, how I have lov'd thee

ever,

Lov'd as a brother, as a son rever'd thee!
Oh! 'tis to me an ever new delight
To talk of thee and thine; or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when, as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequester'd orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crook'd earth-ward; whose
old boughs,

That hang above us in an arborous roof.
Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May.
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our
heads!

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,

When with the joy of hope thou gav'st thine

ear

To me th' Eternal Wisdom hath dispens'd A different fortune and more different mind-To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my soug

Time,

Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem | Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and
Or that sad wisdom, folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tun'd to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest's swell! These
various strains,

Which I have fram'd in many a various mood,

Accept, my Brother! and (for some per-
chance

Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that
riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love for-
give it!

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with Bees,-
Such tents the Patriarchs lov'd! O long
unharm'd

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy
The small round basin, which this jutting

stone

Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may
the spring,
Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller
With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,

(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war
Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him
close,

Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintained
The Citadel unconquer'd, and in joy
Was strong to follow the delightful Muse.
For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Of the belov'd Parnassian forest leads,
Lurk'd undiscover'd by him; not a rill
There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,
But he had trac'd it upward to its source;
Thro' open glade, dark glen, and secret dell,
Knew the gay wild flowers on its banks, and
cull'd

Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,
Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,
The haunt obscure of old Philosophy,
He bade with lifted torch its starry walls
Sparkle, as erst they sparkled to the flame
Of od'rous lamps tended by Saint and Sage.
O fram'd for calmer times and nobler hearts!
O studious Poet, eloquent for truth!
Philosopher! contemning wealth and death,
Yet docile, childlike, full of Life and Love!
Here, rather than on monumental stone,
This record of thy worth thy Friend inscribes,
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek.

Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's Page, THIS LIME-TREE-BOWER MY
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the
fount.

Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou mayst toil far and find no second tree;
Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy

heart

Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, list'ning to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale, or hum of murmuring bees!

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with
praise

And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest
friends,

Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths
And honoring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow puppets of an hollow age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever

PRISON.

In the June of 1797 some long-expected Friends
paid a visit to the Author's Cottage; and on the
morning of their arrival he met with an acci-
dent, which disabled him from walking during
One evening,
the whole time of their stay.
when they had left him for a few hours, he
composed the following lines in the garden-
bower.

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Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They,
meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top-edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, per-
chance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day Sun;
Where its slim trunk the Ash from rock to
rock
Flings arching like a bridge;-that branch-
less Ash,

leaves

Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow | That we may lift the soul, and contemplate With lively joy the joys we cannot share. My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds, That all at once (a most fantastic sight!) Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge Of the blue clay-stone. Now, my friends

emerge Beneath the wide wide heaven-and view again

The many-steepled track magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails
light up

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou,methinks,most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast
pined

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,
In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and
pain

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun! Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my Friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have
stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily and of such hues
As veil the almighty Spirit, when he makes
Spirits perceive his presence. A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree-bower, have I not mark'd
Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath
the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd
Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see
The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest

mass

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall
know

That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure,
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to love and beauty! and sometimes
"Tis well to be bereft of promised good,

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The world's low cares and lying vanities,
Stedfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,
And wash'd and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes-thou wert plunged, but with forgetful
hand

Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior Son:
And with those recreant unbaptized Heels
Thou'rt flying from thy bounden Minis-
teries--

So sore it seems and burthensome a task To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:

For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed Boy,
And I have arrows mystically dipt,
Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns
dead?

And shall he die unwept, and sink to Earth
Without the meed of one melodious tear?
Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved Bard,
Who to the Illustrious of his native Land
So properly did look for Patronage.
Ghost of Maecenas! hide thy blushing face!
They snatch'd him from the sickle and the
plough-

To gauge Ale-Firkins.-Oh! for shame return!
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose aged branches to the midnight-blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be ex-
haled,

And weeping wreath it round thy Poet's tomb. Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow, Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers

Of night - shade, or its red and tempting | From the dread watch-tower of man's abfruit. solute Self,

These with stopped nostril and glove- With light unwaning on her eyes, to look guarded hand

Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility.

TO A GENTLEMAN.

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN IN

DIVIDUAL MIND.

FRIEND of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!

Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung
aright)

Of the foundations and the building up
Of the Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to th' understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital breathings, like the secret soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words!-Theme
hard as high!

Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twinbirth)

Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power stream'd from thee, and thy
soul received

Far on herself a glory to behold,
The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)
Of duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy!-An Orphic song indeed,
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chaunted! O great Bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With stedfast eye I view'd thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great
Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame,
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of truth,
Of truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural
notes!

Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drown'd,
Life's joy rekindling rous'd a throng of
pains-

Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye
of Hope;
And Hope that scarce would know itself
from Fear;

Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,

And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;

And all which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild,

And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all, Commune with thee had open'd out-but flowers

The light reflected, as a light bestow'd-
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
The guides and the companions of thy way!

Of more than fancy, of the social sense Distending wide, and man belov'd as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Even as a bark becalm'd beneath the burst Of heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud

Is visible, or shadow on the main.

Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my

bier,

That way no more! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,
Singing of glory, and futurity,
To wander back on such unhealthful road,
Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strew'd before thy advancing! Nor do thou,
Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour

For thou wert there, thine own brows gar- Of thy communion with my nobler mind

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