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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 seemed like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a temple: the whole World
Seemed imaged in its vast circumference,
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury,—to be!

Ah! quiet dell! dear Cot, and mount sublime! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away the entrusted hours 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 unmoved 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, O 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.

Yet oft when after honourable toil

Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to 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!

1796.

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY, 1796.

SWEET Flower! that peeping from thy russet

stem

Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Month

Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon

thee

With blue voluptuous eye,) alas, poor Flower! These are but flatteries of the faithless year.

Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,

E'en now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth
Nipped by consumption 'mid untimely charms?
Or to Bristowa's bard,* the wondrous boy!
An amaranth, which Earth scarce seemed to own,
Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong
Beat it to Earth? or with indignant grief
Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's hope,
Bright flower of Hope killed in the opening bud?
Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine
And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
From anxious self, Life's cruel task-master!
And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Tremble along my frame, and harmonize
The attempered organ, that even saddest thoughts
Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
Played deftly on a soft-toned instrument.

* Chatterton.

THE EOLIAN HARP.

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE.

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown
With white-flowered jasmin, and the broad-leaved
myrtle,

(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with

light,

Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant, (such should wisdom be,) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!

The stilly murmur of the distant sea

Tells us of silence.

And that simplest lute

Placed lengthways in the clasping casement,

hark!

How by the desultory breeze caressed,

Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs

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 filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;

Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
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

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