ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round, O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through th' accustom'd mead; Will build me up a mossy seat; And when the gust of autumn crowds And breaks the busy moonlight clouds, The feeling heart, the searching soul, The present works of present man- TO A YOUNG FRIEND, ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds be- Calm pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; That rustling on the bushy clift above, Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb. Save if the one, his muse's witching charm And from the forehead of the topmost crag Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore, To glad and fertilize the subject plains; Where inspiration, his diviner strains O meek retiring spirit! we will climb, And from the stirring world uplifted high, Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole: Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth, climb, E'en while the bosom ached with lonelinessHow more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless Th' adventurous toil, and up the path sublime We'll discipline the heart to pure delight, Now may Heaven realize this vision bright! LINES TO W. L., ESQ., WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC. WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues, And I have many friends who hold me dear; L! methinks, I would not often hear Such melodies as thine, lest I should lose All memory of the wrongs and sore distress, For which my miserable brethren weep! But should uncomforted misfortunes steep My daily bread in tears and bitterness; And if at death's dread moment I should lie SONNET. COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPTEMBER 20, 1796. OFT o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll Which makes the present (while the flash doth last) Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past, Mix'd with such feelings, as perplex the soul Self-question'd in her sleep; and some have said* We lived ere yet this robe of flesh we wore. O my sweet baby! when I reach my door, If heavy looks shall tell me thou art dead, With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel- (As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear,) guide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died! ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FOR TUNE, WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY. HENCE that fantastic wantonness of wo, O youth to partial fortune vainly dear! To plunder'd want's half-shelter'd hovel go, Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank churchyard with sere elm leaves strew'd, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd, All effortless thou leave life's commonweal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind. I think that I should struggle to believe Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve; Didst scream, then spring to meet Heaven's quick reprieve, While we wept idly o'er thy little bier! SONNET. TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME. CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first I scann'd that face of feeble infancy: And hanging at her bosom (she the while So for the mother's sake the child was dear, SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the west! But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows gray, And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way, Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs : Ah! that once more I were a careless child! ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD. THIS day among the faithful placed, O with maternal title graced While others wish thee wise and fair, A maid of spotless fame, I'll breathe this more compendious prayerMayst thou deserve thy name! Thy mother's name, a potent spell, Meek quietness, without offence; Associates of thy name, sweet child! With face as eloquently mild So when, her tale of days all flown, Some hoary-headed friend, perchance, May gaze with stifled breath, And oft, in momentary trance, Forget the waste of death. E'en thus a lovely rose I view'd In summer-swelling pride; Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude Peep'd at the rose's side, It chanced, I pass'd again that way In autumn's latest hour, And wondering saw the selfsame spray Rich with the selfsame flower, Ah fond deceit! the rude green bud Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud, ΕΡΙΤΑΡΗ ON AN INFANT. Its balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant's latest sigh! O tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with lullaby. MELANCHOLY. A FRAGMENT. STRETCH'D on a moulder'd abbey's broadest wall, And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak, That pallid cheek was flush'd: her eager look And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought. Strange was the dream A CHRISTMAS CAROL. THE shepherds went their hasty way, And now they check'd their eager tread, For to the babe, that at her bosom clung, They told her how a glorious light, She listen'd to the tale divine, And closer still the babe she press'd; Joy rose within her, like a summer morn; Thou mother of the Prince of peace, And is not war a youthful king, Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye "Tell this in some more courtly scene, * A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet here describes is called the hart's tongue, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She form'd with restless hands unconsciously! Blank accident! nothing's anomaly! "A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the sire and starves the son; The husband kills, and from her board Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, All safety from the night, all comfort from the day. Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, "Then wisely is my soul elate, That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate, The mother of the Prince of peace. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: TELL'S BIRTHPLACE. IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. MARK this holy chapel well! Here first, an infant to her breast, "Vouchsafe him health, O God, and give Through him, than through an armed power. The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein! To nature and to holy writ The straining oar and chamois chase He knew not that his chosen hand, HUMAN LIFE. ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. Ir dead, we cease to be; if total gloom The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears ELEGY, IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK VERSE INSCRIPTIONS. NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, Where "sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bed O humbly press that consecrated ground! For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain! And there his spirit most delights to rove: Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain, And the sore wounds of ill-requited love. Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue! With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms, Go, traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught: THE VISIT OF THE GODS. IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. NEVER, believe me, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler; return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter. Then all the charm Is broken-all that phantom-world so fair Yet, from the still surviving recollections in his As a contrast to this vision, I have annexed a fragment of a very different character, describing with equal fidelity the dream of pain and disease. -Note to the first edition, 1816.] IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan So twice five miles of fertile ground the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; and, as far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits. And here were forests ancient as the hills, But O that deep romantic chasm which slanted Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, In the summer of the year 1797, the author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's "Pilgrimage:" - "Here the Khan A mighty fountain momently was forced: Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst garden thereunto; and thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall." The author Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation, or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, It was a miracle of rare device, and detained by him above an hour, and on his A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever The shadow of the dome of pleasure |