A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? *
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,
Some few, to nobler being wrought,
Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought. †

Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurell'd War and plumy State;
Or in verse and music dress

Tales of rustic happiness-
Pernicious tales ! insidious strains !

That steel the rich man's breast,

And mock the lot unblest,
The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be

The doom of ignorance and penury! I
But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child,
You hail'd the Chapel § and the Platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learnt you that heroic measure ?

IV.

You were a mother ! That most holy name,

Which Heaven and Nature bless, I may not vilely prostitute to those

Whose infants owe them less

* But many of thy many fair compeers

Have frames as sensible of joys and fears :-1799. + The plastic powers of thought.-16. | Poverty-ib. & Hail'd the low Chapel, &c.-ib.

*

:

Than the poor caterpillar owes

Its gaudy parent fly. You were a mother ! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing

eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, Which you yourself created. Oh ! delight ! A second time to be a mother, Without the mother's bitter

groans :
Another thought, and yet another,

By touch, or taste, by looks or tones,
O'er the growing sense to roll,
The mother of

your

infant's soul !
The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides

His chariot-planet round the goal of day,
All trembling gazes on the eye of God,
A moment turn'd his awful face

away ; And as he view'd you, from his aspect sweet

New influences in your being rose,
Blest intuitions and communions fleet
With living Nature, in her joys and woes !

Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to seet
The shrine of social Liberty !
O beautiful ! O Nature's child !
'Twas thence you hail'd the Platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Thence learnt you that heroic measure.

* Than the poor reptile owes- -1799.
+ O Lady! thence you joy'd to see -ib.

TRANQUILLITY:* AN ODE.

Vix ea nostra voco.
WHAT statesmen scheme and soldiers

work,
Whether the Pontiff or the Turk
Will e'er renew th'expiring lease
Of empire ; whether war or peace
Will best play off the Consul's game;

What fancy-figures, and what name
Half-thinking sensual France, a natural slave,
On those ne'er broken chains, her self-forged chains,

will grave;

Disturb not me! Some tears I shed
When bow'd the Swiss his noble head;
Since then, with quiet heart have view'd
Both distant fights and treaties crude,
Whose heap'd-up terms, which fear compels,

(Live Discord's green combustibles, And future fuel of the funeral pyre) Now hide, and soon, alas ! will feed the low-burnt

fire.]

Tranquillity! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame !
Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age
To low intrigue, or factious rage ;
For oh ! dear child of thoughtful Truth,

To thee I gave my early youth, And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest * rose and scared me with its

roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,
On him but seldom, Power divine,
Thy spirit rests ! Satiety
And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle Hope

And dire Remembrance interlope,
To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind :
The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead †
At morning through the accustom'd mead;
And in the sultry summer's heat
Will build me up a mossy seat ;
And when the gust of Autumn crowds,

And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,
Thou best the thought canst raise, I the heart attune,
Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,
To thee I dedicate the whole !
And while within myself I trace
The greatness of some future race,
Aloof with hermit-eye I scan

The present works of present man-
A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,
Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile !
* The storm-wind-1801. of The Power divine will lead-il.

She best the thought will lift-il.

a

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.

BALLAD OF SIR PATRICK SPENCE.

1.

WELL! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made

! The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes

Upon the strings of this Eolian lute,

Which better far were mute.
For lo ! the New-moon winter-bright !
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread

But rimm'd and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling

The coming-on of rain and squally blast. And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast !

* Printed in The Morning Post, Oct. 4, 1802. The poem in its original form is addressed to “Edmund,” not, as in the later version, to a “lady."