When power streamed from thee, and thy soul

received

The light reflected, as a light bestowed-
Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth,
Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought
Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens
Native or outland, lakes and famous hills!
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars
Were rising; or by secret mountain-streams,
The guides and the companions of thy way!

Of more than Fancy, of the Social Sense Distending wide, and man beloved as man, Where France in all her towns lay vibrating Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Of Heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud Is visible, or shadow on the main.

For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,

Amid a mighty nation jubilant,

When from the general heart of human kind
Hope sprang forth like a full-born Deity!

-Of that dear Hope afflicted and struck down, So summoned homeward, thenceforth calm and

sure

From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute

self,

With light unwaning on her eyes, to look

Far on-herself a glory to behold,

The Angel of the vision! Then (last strain)

Of Duty, chosen laws controlling choice,
Action and joy!—An Orphic song indeed,

A song divine of high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted!

O great Bard!

Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With steadfast eye I viewed thee in the choir
Of ever-enduring men. The truly great

Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and Time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.
Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old,
And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame
Among the archives of mankind, thy work
Makes audible a linked lay of Truth,
Of Truth profound a sweet continuous lay,
Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes !
Ah! as I listened with a heart forlorn,

The pulses of my being beat anew:

And even as life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains-
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;

And fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of
hope;

And hope that scarce would know itself from fear;
Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain,
And genius given, and knowledge won in vain ;

اشهر

And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild, And all which patient toil had reared, and all, Commune with thee had opened out—but flowers Strewed on my corse, and borne upon my bier, In the same coffin, for the self-same grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me,
Who came a welcomer in herald's guise,
Singing of glory, and futurity,

To wander back on such unhealthful road,
Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill
Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Strewed before thy advancing!

Nor do thou,

Sage Bard! impair the memory of that hour
Of thy communion with my nobler mind
By pity or grief, already felt too long!

Nor let my words import more blame than needs.
The tumult rose and ceased: for peace is nigh
Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart.
Amid the howl of more than wintry storms,
The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours
Already on the wing.

Eve following eve,

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home
Is sweetest! moments for their own sake hailed
And more desired, more precious for thy song,
In silence listening, like a devout child,
My soul lay passive, by thy various strain

Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
With momentary stars of my own birth,
Fair constellated foam,* still darting off

Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,
Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the moon.

And when-O Friend! my comforter and
guide!

Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength!-
Thy long sustained Song finally closed, de
prende
And thy deep voice had ceased-yet thou' thyself
Wert still before my eyes, and round us both
That happy vision of beloved faces--
Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close
I sate, my being blended in one thought
(Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?)
Absorbed, yet hanging still upon the sound-
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

* "A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's side, each with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness."-The Friend, p. 220.

power & greate

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with bees,Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stone Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring,

Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,

Send up cold waters to the traveller

With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,

Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount.
Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, Pilgrim, here; Here rest! and if thy heart
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy Spirit, listening to some gentle sound,
Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees!