Yet of their number no one dares to die?'-
In soul I swept the indignity away:
Old frailties then recurred:-but lofty thought,
In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.
"And thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow;
I counsel thee by fortitude to seek
Our bless'd reunion in the shades below.
Th' invisible world with thee hath sympathized;
Be thy affections raised and solemnized.
"Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend
Towards a higher object :-Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for this end:
For this the passion to excess was driven-
That self might be annulled; her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."
Aloud she shrieked-for Hermes reappears!
Round the dear shade she would have clung-'tis vain,
The hours are past,-too brief had they been years;
And him no mortal effort can detain:
Swift toward the realms that know not earthly day
He through the portal takes his silent way—
And on the palace floor a lifeless corse she lay.
Ah, judge her gently who so deeply loved!
Her, who, in reason's spite, yet without crime,
Was in a trance of passion thus removed;
Delivered from the galling yoke of time,
And these frail elements-to gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.
Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes.--Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew
From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight!
"Her divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man."
IN youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill, in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased when most uneasy;
But now my own delights I make,-
My thirst at every rill can slake,
And gladly Nature's love partake
Of thee, sweet Daisy!
When soothed a while by milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;
Whole summer fields are thine by right;
And Autumn, melancholy wight!
Doth in thy crimson head delight
When rains are on thee.
In shoals and bands, a morrice train,
Thou greet'st the traveller in the lane;
If welcomed once, thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,
Nor car'st if thou be set at naught;
And oft alone in nooks remote
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
Be violets in their secret mews
The flowers the wanton zephyrs choose;
Proud be the rose, with rains and dews
Her head impearling;
Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim,
Yet hast not gone without thy fame;
Thou art indeed, by many a claim,
The poet's darling.
If to a rock from rains he fly,
Or, some bright day of April sky,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,
And wearily at length should fare;
He need but look about, and there
Thou art!-a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.
A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour,
Have I derived from thy sweet power
Some apprehension;
Some steady love; some brief delight;
Some memory that had taken flight;
Some chime of fancy, wrong or right,
Or stray invention.
If stately passions in me burn,
And one chance look to thee should turn
I drink, out of an humbler urn,
A lowlier pleasure;
The homely sympathy that heeds
The common life, our nature breeds;
A wisdom fitted to the needs.
Of hearts at leisure.
When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews oppressed
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.
And all day long I number yet,
All seasons through, another debt,
Which I, wherever thou art met,
To thee am owing;
An instinct call it, a blind sense;
A happy, genial influence,
Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going:
Child of the year! that round dost run
Thy course, bold lover of the sun,
And cheerful when the day's begun
As morning leveret,
Thy long-lost praise* thou shalt regain;
Dear thou shalt be to future men,
As in old time;-thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.
A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound:
Then, all at once, the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above,
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
You could not lay a hair between:
And all the year the bower is green.
But see where'er the hailstones drop,
The withered leaves all skip and hop,
There's not a breeze-no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and everywhere
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if, with pipes and music rare,
Some Robin Goodfellow were there,
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.
WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky!
How silently, and with how wan a face!+
Where art thou? Thou whom I have seen on high
Running among the clouds a wood-nymph's race!
Unhappy nuns, whose common breath's a sigh
Which they would stifle, move at such a pace!
The northern wind, to call thee to the chase,
Must blow to-night his bugle-horn. Had I
The power of Merlin, goddess! this should be:
And all the stars now shrouded up in heaven,
Should sally forth, to keep thee company.
*See, in Chaucer and the elder poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.
From a sonnet of Sir Philip Sydney.
What strife would then be yours, fair creatures, driven,
Now up, now down, and sparkling in your glee!
But, Cynthia, should to thee the palm be given,
Queen, both for beauty and for majesty.
BENEATH these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And flowers and birds once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.
One have I marked, the happiest guest
In all this covert of the blest:
Hail to thee, far above the rest
In joy of voice and pinion.
Thou, Linnet! in thy green array,
Presiding spirit here to-day,
Dost lead the revels of the May,
And this is thy dominion.
While birds, and butterflies, and flowers
Make all one band of paramours,
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers,
Árt sole in thy employment;
A life, a presence like the air,
Scattering thy gladness without care,
Too blest with any one to pair,
Thyself thy own enjoyment.
Upon yon tuft of hazel trees
That twinkle to the gusty breeze,
Behold him perched in ecstasies,
Yet seeming still to hover;
There! where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings,
That cover him all over.
While thus before my eyes he gleams,
A brother of the leaves he seems;
When in a moment forth he teems
His little song in gushes:
As if it pleased him to disdain
And mock the form which he did feign,
While he was dancing with the train
Of leaves among the bushes.
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