Dreams (the soul herself forsaking),

On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth ;

The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Silent adorations, making

Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form! A blessed shadow of this Earth!

Risest from forth thy silent Sea of Pines,

How silently! Around thee and above
O ye hopes, that stir within me,

Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
Health comes with you from above!

An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it,
God is with me, God is in me!

As with a wedge! But when I look again,
I cannot die, if Life be Love.

It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
o dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,

Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS.

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer CUPID, if storying legends* tell aright,

I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.
Once framed a rich elixir of delight.
A chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd,

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
And in it nectar and ambrosia mix'd :

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, With these the magic dews, which evening brings, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought, Brush'd from the Idalian star by faery wings :

Yea with my Life and Life's own secret Joy : Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join'd,

Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused, Each gentler pleasure of the unspotted mind

Into the mighty vision passing—there Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness glow. As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven! And Hope, the blameless parasite of woe. The eyeless Chemist heard the process rise, The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs ;

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Sweet sounds transpired, as when th'enamour'd dove Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Pours the soft murm’ring of responsive love.

Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
The finish'd work might Envy vainly blame, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
And “ Kisses” was the precious compound's name.

Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.
With half the god his Cyprian mother blest,
And breathed on Sara's lovelier lips the rest.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovereign of the Vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,

And visited all night by troops of stars,
III. MEDITATIVE POEMS, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink :

Companion of the Morning-Star at dawn,
IN BLANK VERSE.

Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn

Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived,

Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who secks a heart in the unthinking Man.

Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light ?
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life

Who made thee Parent of perpetual streams?
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead:
Naught sinks into the Bogom's wilent depth.
Quick sensibility of Pain and Pleasure

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Moves the light fluids lightly; but no soul

Who call’d you forth from night and utter death, Warmeth the inner frame.

Schiller.

From dark and icy caverns call’d you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,

For ever shatter'd and the same for ever?
HYMN BEFORE SUN-RISE, IN THE VALE Who gave you your invulnerable life,
OF CHAMOUNY.

Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Besides the Rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents And who commanded (and the silence came), rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers. Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest ? the Gentiana Major grows in immense numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amainHast thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice, In his steep course ? So long he seems to pause

And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven * Effinxit quondam blandum meditata laborem

Beneath the keen full Moon? Who bade the Sun
Basia lascivå Cypria Diva manâ.
Ambrosiæ succos occultâ temperat arte,

Clothe you with rainbows ? Who, with living flowers
Fragransque infuso nectare tingit opus.

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? Sufficit et partem mellis, quod subdolus olim

God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Non impune favis surripuisset Amor.
Decussos violæ foliis ad miscet odores

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
Et spolia æstivis plurima rapta rosis.

God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Addit et illecebras et mille et mille lepores,

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! Et quot Acidalius gaudia Cestus habet.

And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
Ex his composuit Dea basia ; et omnia libans
lovenias nitidæ sparsa per ora Cloog

And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Carm. Quod. Vol. II.

46

a

HARTZ FOREST.

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!

My native land! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! Fill'd with the thought of thee this heart was proud, Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Yea, mine eye swam with tears : that all the view Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills, Ye signs and wonders of the element !

Floated away, like a departing dream,
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! Feeble and dim! Stranger, these impulses

Blame thou not lightly ; nor will I profane,
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard,

That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene

That God is everywhere! the God who framed Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast

Mankind to be one mighty Family, Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou

Himself our Father, and the World our Home. That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST OF Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,

FEBRUARY, 1796. To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise, Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth! SWEET Flower! that peeping from thy russet stem Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort Thou dread Ambassador from Earth to Heaven,

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,

month And tell the Stars, and tell yon rising sun

Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

With blue voluptuous eye), alas, poor Flower!
These are but tlatteries of the faithless year.
Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave,
E'en now the keen North-East is on its way.
Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee

To some sweet girl of too too rapid growth,
LINES

Nipp'd by Consumption 'mid untimely charms ? WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN THE An Amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own,

Or to Bristowa's Bard,* the wondrous boy !

Till Disappointment came, and pelting wrong I STOOD on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw

Beat it to earth? or with indignant grief

Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's Hope, Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,

Bright flower of Hope kill'd in the opening bud ? A surging scene, and only limited

Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine, By the blue distance. Heavily my way Downward I draggd through fir-groves evermore,

And mock my boding! Dim similitudes Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral forms Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour

From anxious SELF, Life's cruel Task-Master! Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard,

And the warm wooings of this sunny day
The sweet bird's song became a hollow sound;
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,

Tremble along my frame, and harmonize
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct

| The attemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts

Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tunes
From many a note of many a waterfall,
And the brook's chatter; 'mid whose islet stones

Play'd deftly on a soft-toned instrument.
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell
Leap'd frolicsome, or old romantic goat
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on

THE EOLIAN HARP.
In low and languid mood :t for I had found
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE. Their finer influence from the Life within :

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Fair ciphers else : fair, but of import vague Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is Or unconcerning, where the Heart not finds

To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown History or prophecy of Friend, or Child,

With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Or gentle Maid, our first and early love,

Myrtle, Or Father, or the venerable name

(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) of our adored Country! O thou Queen,

And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Thou delegated Deity of Earth,

Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve dear, dear England! how my longing eye

Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be) Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents * Thy sands and high white cliffs !

Snatch'd from you bean-field! and the world so

hush'd!

The stilly murmur of the distant Sea • The highest mountain in the Hartz, and indeed in North Tells us of Silence. Germany. t When I have gazed

And that simplest Lute, From some high eminence on goodly vales,

Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark ! And cots and villages embower'd below, The thought would rise that all to me was strange

How by the desultory breeze caress'd, Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot

Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home. Southey's Hymn to the Penales.

# Chatterton.

It

pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings It was a spot which you might aptly call Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes

The Valley of Seclusion! once I saw Over delicious surges sink and rise,

(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) Such a soft floating witchery of sound

A wealthy son of commerce saunter by, As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,

His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers, With wiser feelings; for he paused, and look'd Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,

With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again, O the one life within us and abroad,

And sigh’d, and said, it was a blessed place. Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark's note Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere (Viewless or haply for a moment seen Methinks, it should have been impossible

Gleaming on sunny wings), in whisper'd tones
Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;

I've said to my beloved, “ Such, sweet girl!
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd, And thus, my love! as on the midway slope And the Heart listens!” of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-closed eye-lids I behold

But the time, when first The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, From that low dell, steep up the stony Mount And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;

I climb’d with perilous toil, and reach'd the top, Full many a thought uncallid and undetain'd,

Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak Mount, And many idle flitting phantasies,

The bare bleak Mountain speckled thin with sheep; Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields; As wild and various as the random gales

And River, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, That swell and flutter on this subject lute!

Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;

And Seats, and Lawns, the Abbey and the Wood, And what if all of animated nature

And Cots, and Hamlets, and faint City-spire ; Be but organic harps diversely framed,

The Channel there, the Islands and white Sails, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Dim Coasts, and cloud-like Hills, and shoreless Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

OceanAt once the Soul of each, and God of All ? It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought,

Had built him there a Temple: the whole World
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference,
Darts, 0 beloved woman! nor such thoughts No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,

Blest hour! It was a luxury,—to be!
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised

Ah! quiet dell; dear cot, and Mount sublime !

I was constrain'd to quit you. Was it right,
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break

While my unnumber'd brethren toild and bled,

That I should dream away the intrusted hours On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.

On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart For never guiltless may I speak of him,

With feelings all too delicate for use ? The Incomprehensible! save when with awe

Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels ; Who with his saving mercies healed me,

Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth : A sinful and most miserable Man,

And He that works me good with unmoved face, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess

Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,

My Benefactor, not my Brother Man! Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honor'd Maid !

Yet even this, this cold beneficence,

Praise, praise it, O my Soul ! oft as thou scann'st The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe !

Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies !
OF RETIREMENT.

I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,

Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Sermoni propriora.-Hor.

Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear,
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd; and across the Porch
Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round

Yet oft, when after honorable toil
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,

My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrules fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet Abode!

Ah-had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so-but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come!

Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
Oh! 'l is to me an ever-new delight,

To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We, in our sweet sequesler'd orchard-plot,
Sit on the tree crooked earthward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads !

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF

OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.

WITH SOME POEMS.

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours, Notus in fratres animi paterni.

When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear Hlor. Carm. lib. i. 9.

To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song

Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
A BLESSED lot hath he, who having pass'd Or that sad wiselom folly leaves behind,
His youth and early manhood in the stir

Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Ani turmoil of the world, retreats at length, Copo with the tempest's swell!
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;

These various strains, And haply views his tottering little ones

Which I have framed in many a various mood, Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,

Accept, my Brother! and (for some perchance On which first knceling his own infancy

Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) Lip'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend! If anght of Error or intemperate Truth Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.

Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age At distance did ye climb Lite's upland road,

Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it! Yet cheer'd and cheering: now fraternal love Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH. To me th’Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed A ditlerent fortune and more different mind- This Sycamore, oft musical with bees, Me from the spot where first I sprang 10 light Such tents the Patriarchs loved ! O long unharm'd To soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy Its first domestic loves; and hence through life The small round busin, which this jutting stone Chasing chance-starled Friendships. A brief while Keeps pure from falling leaves! Long may the Spring, Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills ; Quietly as a sleeping iniant's breath, But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, Send up cold waters to the traveller If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breezo

With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease Rnifled the boughs, they on my head at once Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false, Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page, False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,

As merry and no taller, dances still, llave tempted me to slumber in their shade Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount. E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps, Here twilight is and coolness : here is moss, Mix'd their own venom with the rain from Heaven, A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. That I woke poisond! But, all praise to llim Thou mayst loil far and find no second tree. Who gives us all things, more have yielded me Drink, Pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart Permanent shelter; and beside one Friend, Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh Beneath th' impervions covert of one Oak, Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, l've raised a lowly shed, and know the names Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees! Of Husband and of Father; por unhearing Of that divine and nightly-whispering Voice, Which from my childhood to maturer years Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, Bright with no fading colors !

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.

"T is true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!

Yet at times (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise, My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends, Soll most a stranger, most with naked heart Masking his birth-name, wont to character At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then, Ilis wild-wood faney and impetuous zeal) When I remember thee, my earliest Friend ! "T is true that, passionate for ancient truths, Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth ; And honoring with religious love the Great Didst trace my wanderings with a Father's eye; Of elder times, he hated to excess, And boding evil, yet still hoping good,

With an unquiet and intolerant scorn, Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes

The hollow puppets of a hollow age, Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone

Ever idolatrous, and changing ever The heatings of the solitary heart,

119 worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time. That Being knows, how I have loved theo ever, |(Too much of ail) thus wasting in vain war