XXIV. TO DORA. [THE Complaint in my eyes which gave occasion to this address to my daughter first showed itself as a consequence of inflammation, caught at the top of Kirkstone, when I was over-heated by having carried up the ascent my eldest son, a lusty infant. Frequently has the disease recurred since, leaving my eyes in a state which has often prevented iny reading for months, and makes me at this day incapable of bearing without injury any strong light by day or night. My acquaintance with books has therefore been far short of my wishes; and on this account, to acknowledge the services daily and hourly done me by my family and friends, this note is written.] 'A LITTLE onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little further on!' -What trick of memory to my voice hath brought This mournful iteration? For though Time, The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow Planting his favourite silver diadem, Nor he, nor minister of his—intent To run before him-hath enrolled me yet, -O my own Dora, my beloved child! Should that day come-but hark! the birds salute Along the loose rocks, or the slippery verge Of some smooth ridge, whose brink precipitous 6 Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease! Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and erects Though waves, to every breeze, its high-arched roof, In the still summer noon, while beams of light, Again unfolded, passage clear shall yield 1816. XXV. ODE TO LYCORIS. May, 1817. Those [THE discerning reader-who is aware that in the poem of Ellen Irwin I was desirous of throwing the reader at once out of the old ballad, so as if possible, to preclude a comparison between that mode of dealing with the subject and the mode I meant to adopt-may here perhaps perceive that this poem originated in the four last lines of the first stanza. specks of snow, reflected in the lake and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus. Hence the tenor of the whole first stanza, and the name of Lycoris, which-with some readers who think my theology and classical allusion too far-fetched and therefore more or less unnatural and affected-will tend to unrealise the sentiment that pervades these verses. But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps in the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood, when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman Poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose Metamorphoses I read at school, that I was quite in a passion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me. Classical literature affected me by its own beauty. But the truths of scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having been recently laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanctity were at that period attached to classical literature that extended, as is obvious in Milton's Lycidas for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived. No doubt the hacknied and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th century, and which continued through the 18th, disgusted the general reader with all allusion to it in modern verse; and though, in deference to this disgust, and also in a measure participating in it, I abstained in my earlier writings from all introduction of pagan fable, surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment, as I can truly affirm it did in the present case.] AN age I. hath been when Earth was proud Of lustre too intense To be sustained; and Mortals bowed Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed, II. In youth we love the darksome lawn To our own prodigal excess Thee, thee my life's celestial sign!) Pleased with the harvest hope that runs Before the path of milder suns; Pleased while the sylvan world displays Its ripeness to the feeding gaze; Pleased when the sullen winds resound the knell Of the resplendent miracle. III. But something whispers to my heart That, as we downward tend, Lycoris! life requires an art To which our souls must bend ; Then welcome, above all, the Guest Whose smiles, diffused o'er land and sea, Seem to recal the Deity Of youth into the breast: May pensive Autumn ne'er present A claim to her disparagement! While blossoms and the budding spray Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal, Be hopeful Spring the favourite of the Soul! |