For that from turbulence and heat This, this is holy;-while I hear 15 20 But list!-though winter storms be nigh, 25 Unchecked is that soft harmony: There lives Who can provide For all His creatures; and in Him, IV. XXVIII. UPON THE SAME OCCASION. DEPARTING summer hath assumed No faint and hesitating trill, Ꭱ From social warblers gathering in Nor doth the example fail to cheer Fall, rosy garlands, from my head! Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed Around a younger brow! Yet will I temperately rejoice; Wide is the range, and free the choice Which, haply, kindred souls may prize For deathless powers to verse belong, But some their function have disclaimed, Not such the initiatory strains Committed to the silent plains In Britain's earliest dawn, Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale, Nor such the spirit-stirring note Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre 15 20 25 30 35 And not unhallowed was the page Love listening while the Lesbian Maid O ye, who patiently explore 45 50 That were, indeed, a genuine birth 55 Of genius from the dust: A PEN to register; a key- By allegoric Bards. As aptly, also, might be given That, softening objects, sometimes even Outstrips the heart's demand; That smoothes foregone distress, the lines 10 Long-vanished happiness refines, Yet, like a tool of Fancy, works That startle Conscience, as she lurks O! that our lives, which flee so fast, That not an image of the past Retirement then might hourly look Age steal to his allotted nook With heart as calm as lakes that sleep, 15 20 25 XXX. 1823. THIS Lawn, a carpet all alive With shadows flung from leaves-to strive Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields Of strenuous idleness; Less quick the stir when tide and breeze Forbid a moment's rest; 5 The medley less when boreal Lights Yet, spite of all this eager strife, 1829. ΙΟ 15 XXXI. HUMANITY. The Rocking-stones, alluded to in the beginning of the following verses, are supposed to have been used, by our British ancestors, both for judicial and religious purposes. Such stones are not uncommonly found, at this day, both in Great Britain and in Ireland. WHAT though the Accused, upon his own appeal To righteous Gods when man has ceased to feel, Or at a doubting Judge's stern command, Before the STONE OF POWER no longer stand— To take his sentence from the balanced Block, As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock; 6 Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore; ΙΟ And functions dwell in beast and bird that sway The reasoning mind, or with the fancy play, To watch for undelusive auguries : |