SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY

NATURAL.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

IF I had but two little wings,
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!

But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly :

I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.

But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:

For though my sleep be gone,
Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on.

1798-9.

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE,

AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE.

God be with thee, gladsome Ocean!
How gladly greet I thee once more!
Ships and waves and ceaseless motion,
And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild physician, "Those briny waves for thee are death!'

But my soul fulfilled her mission,

And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!

Fashion's pining sons and daughters,
That seek the crowd they seem to fly,
Trembling they approach thy waters;
And what cares Nature if they die?

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime, and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand:

Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking,)
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth;
Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this Earth!

O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!

I cannot die, if Life be Love.

1801.

THE KEEPSAKE.

THE tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove

tall

Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing

lark,

Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose

(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk

By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,

That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,

Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow white silk

Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I loved,)

And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,

Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning

breeze,

Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,

Making a quiet image of disquiet

In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool.

There, in that bower where first she owned her

love,

And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and

stretched

The silk upon the frame, and worked her name Between the Moss-Rose and Forget me-not— Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair! That forced to wander till sweet spring return,

* One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (Ver gissmeinnicht) and, I believe, in Denmark and Sweden.

I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep,) Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss With which she promised, that when spring returned,

She would resign one half of that dear name, And own thenceforth no other name but mine!

1801

THE VISIONARY HOPE.

SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly

kneeling

He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of

healing,

That his sick body might have ease and rest;
He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,
Though Nature forced; though like some captive

guest,

Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling: