A HYMN.*

My Maker! of thy power the trace
In every creature's form and face
The wond'ring soul surveys:
Thy wisdom, infinite above
Seraphic thought, a Father's love
As infinite displays!

From all that meets or eye or ear,

There falls a genial holy fear

Which, like the heavy dew of morn,

Refreshes while it bows the heart forlorn!

Great God! thy works how wondrous fair!
Yet sinful man didst thou declare

The whole Earth's voice and mind!
Lord, ev'n as Thou all-present art,
O may we still with heedful heart
Thy presence know and find!
Then, come, what will, of weal or woe,
Joy's bosom-spring shall steady flow;
For though 'tis Heaven THYSELF to see,
Where but thy Shadow falls, Grief cannot be !—

1814.

See Note.

HUMAN LIFE,

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY.

IF dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up
life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes !
Surplus of nature's dread activity,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,

She formed with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,

That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold?
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou canʼst have none;
Thy being's being is a contradiction.

SEPARATION.*

A SWORDED man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,

Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form,

The power of gold, the pride of birth,
Have taken Woman's heart by storm—
Usurp'd the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price
Than outward Form, tho' fair to see,
Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry ?—

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see
Into the bottom of my heart,

There's such a mine of Love for thee,
As almost might supply desert!

(This separation is, alas!

Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass

That life, that happy life, with her!)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter'd, now I shrink to see-
Oh! I have heart enough to die—
Not half enough to part from Thee!

* See Note.

1816.

ON TAKING LEAVE OF

1817.*

To know, to esteem, to love-and then to part,
Makes up
life's tale to many a feeling heart!
O for some dear abiding-place of Love,

O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,

Might brood with warming wings !-O fair as kind,
Were but one sisterhood with you combined,
(Your very image they in shape and mind)
Far rather would I sit in solitude,

The forms of memory all my mental food,
And dream of you, sweet sisters, (ah, not mine!)
And only dream of you (ah dream and pine!)
Than have the presence, and partake the pride,
And shine in the eye of all the world beside!

* See Note

POEMS WRITTEN IN LATER LIFE.

Ερως ἄει λάληδρος έταιρος.

In many ways doth the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal;
But in far more th' estranged heart lets know

The absence of the love, which yet it fain would show.