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!
ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY, 1796.
SWEET Flower! that peeping from thy russet
Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Month
Hath borrowed Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon
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.
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
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.
Placed lengthways in the clasping casement,
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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