To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread Faint colour over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air The ancient spirit is not dead; Old times, thought I, are breathing there; ΙΟ Proud was I that my country bred In open fields; and when the glare of I looked at her again, nor did my pride Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite Of pious faith the vanities of grief; Sailed on the seas, but he is dead; For such, by pitying Angels and by If aught which he had owned might still Spirits remain for me. THE CHILDLESS FATHER. [Composed 1800.-Published 1800.] "UP, Timothy, up with your staff and away! Not a soul in the village this morning will 61 stay; The hare has just started from Hamilton's This Lady, dwelling upon British ground, Where she was childless, daily would repair grounds, And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past; One Child did it bear, and that Child was his last. Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, 6 To a poor neighbouring cottage; as I found, For sake of a young Child whose home was there. "Dear Babe, thou daughter of another, 15 The horse, and the horn, and the hark! One moment let me be thy mother! An infant's face and looks are thine To my poor heart, if thou wouldst be One little hour a child to me! II. "Across the waters I am come, III. "Here, little Darling, dost thou lie; 20 25 30 35 VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA. [Composed probably 1804.-Published 1820] The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed. O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus My story may begin) O balmy time, In which a love-knot on a lady's brow Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven! To such inheritance of blessed fancy 5 (Fancy that sports more desperately with minds Than ever fortune hath been known to do) The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years 70 Whose progress had a little overstepped His stripling prime. A town of small re Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a Maid 75 Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock, Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock, 15 From which her graces and her honours Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world To its dull round of ordinary cares; sprung: And hence the father of the enamoured A man too happy for mortality! 52 About the pendent nest, did thus espy If there be justice in the court of France," Muttered the Father.-From these words the Youth I pass the raptures of the pair;-such Conceived a terror; and, by night or day theme Stirred nowhere without weapons, that And of the lark's note heard before its Under a private signet of the State. time, One the rash Youth's ungovernable hand And of the streaks that laced the severing Slew, and as quickly to a second gave 131 clouds A perilous wound-he shuddered to behold In the unrelenting east.-Through all her The breathless corse; then peacefully re signed His person to the law, was lodged in prison, And wore the fetters of a criminal. 135 Have you observed a tuft of winged seed That, from the dandelion's naked stalk, Mounted aloft, is suffered not to use Its natural gifts for purposes of rest, Driven by the autumnal whirlwind to and fro 140 Through the wide element? or have you The heavier substance of a leaf-clad bough, 146 Unmatchable on earth is their disquiet! Yet as the troubled seed and tortured bough Is man, subjected to despotic sway. |