With steadfast eye I viewed 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 listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew:
And even as life returns upon the drowned, Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains- Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;
And fears self-willed, that shunned 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 culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with thee had opened out-but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!
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 Strewed before thy advancing!
Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
By pity or grief, already felt too long!
Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased: for peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours Already on the wing.
Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest moments for their own sake hailed And more desired, more precious for thy song, In silence listening, like a devout child, My soul lay passive, by thy various strain Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, With momentary stars of my own birth, Fair constellated foam,* still darting off Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.
And when-O Friend! my comforter and guide! Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!— Thy long sustained Song finally closed,
And thy deep voice had ceased-yet thou thyself Wert still before my eyes, and round us both That happy vision of beloved faces- Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close I sate, my being blended in one thought (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?) Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound- And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.
"A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness."-The Friend.
A CONVERSATION POEM. APRIL, 1798.
No cloud, no relique of the sunken day Distinguishes the West, no long thin slip Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge! You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, But hear no murmuring: it flows silently, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers That gladden the green earth, and we shall find A pleasure in the dimness of the stars. And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, "Most musical, most melancholy" bird !* A melancholy bird! Oh! idle thought! In nature there is nothing melancholy.
But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper, or neglected love,
(And so, poor wretch! filled all things with himself,
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he,
First named these notes a melancholy strain. And many a poet echoes the conceit;
Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have stretched his limbs Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell,
By sun or moon-light, to the influxes Of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in Nature's immortality,
* "Most musical, most melancholy."] This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superior to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton.
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself Be loved like Nature! But 'twill not be so; And youths and maidens most poetical, Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still Full of meek sympathy must heave their sighs O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.
My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt A different lore: we may not thus profane Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge, Which the great lord inhabits not; and so This grove is wild with tangling underwood, And the trim walks are broken up, and grass, Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths.
But never elsewhere in one place I knew
So many nightingales; and far and near,
In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all- Stirring the air with such a harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost Forget it was not day! On moon-lit bushes, Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,
You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full, Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade Lights up her love-torch.
A most gentle Maid,
Who dwelleth in her hospitable home Hard by the castle, and at latest eve (Even like a Lady vowed and dedicate
To something more than Nature in the grove) Glides through the pathways; she knows all their notes, That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space, What time the moon was lost behind a cloud, Hath heard a pause of silence; till the moon Emerging, hath awakened earth and sky With one sensation, and these wakeful birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps! And she hath watched Many a nightingale perched giddily
On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song Like tipsy joy that reels with tossing head.
Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! We have been loitering long and pleasantly, And now for our dear homes.-That strain again! Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp, How he would place his hand beside his ear, His little hand, the small forefinger up,
And bid us listen! And I deem it wise
To make him Nature's playmate. He knows well The evening-star; and once, when he awoke
In most distressful mood (some inward pain
Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream.-)
I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,
And he beheld the moon, and, hushed at once,
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently,
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropped tears, Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well!-
It is a father's tale: But if that Heaven
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