II

PATRIOTIC SYMPATHIES

1821 1822

LAST night, without a voice, that Vision spake
Fear to my Soul, and sadness which might seem
Wholly dissevered from our present theme;
Yet, my beloved Country! I partake
Of kindred agitations for thy sake;

Thou, too, dost visit oft my midnight dream;
Thy glory meets me with the earliest beam
Of light, which tells that Morning is awake.
If aught impair thy beauty or destroy,
Or but forebode destruction, I deplore
With filial love the sad vicissitude;

If thou hast fallen, and righteous Heaven restore
The prostrate, then my spring-time is renewed,
And sorrow bartered for exceeding joy.

III

CHARLES THE SECOND

WHO Comes

With frantic love

1821 1822

with rapture greeted, and caressed his kingdom to regain? Him Virtue's Nurse, Adversity, in vain Received, and fostered in her iron breast: For all she taught of hardiest and of best, Or would have taught, by discipline of pain And long privation, now dissolves amain, Or is remembered only to give zest

But for what gain? if England soon must sink

Into a gulf which all distinction levels

That bigotry may swallow the good name,

And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery,

shame,

By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!

IV

LATITUDINARIANISM

1821 1822

YET Truth is keenly sought for, and the wind

Charged with rich words poured out in thought's

defence;

Whether the Church inspire that eloquence,

Or a Platonic Piety confined

To the sole temple of the inward mind;
And One there is who builds immortal lays,
Though doomed to tread in solitary ways,
Darkness before and danger's voice behind;
Yet not alone, nor helpless to repel

Sad thoughts; for from above the starry sphere
Come secrets, whispered nightly to his ear;
And the pure spirit of celestial light

Shines through his soul - "that he may see and

tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight."

V

WALTON'S BOOK OF LIVES

1821 1822

THERE are no colours in the fairest sky
So fair as these. The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good

men,

Dropped from an Angel's wing. With moistened

eye

We read of faith and purest charity

In Statesman, Priest, and humble Citizen:
Oh could we copy their mild virtues, then
What joy to live, what blessedness to die!
Methinks their very names shine still and bright;
Apart like glow-worms on a summer night;
Or lonely tapers when from far they fling
A guiding ray; or seen like stars on high,
Satellites burning in a lucid ring

Around meek Walton's heavenly memory.

VI

CLERICAL INTEGRITY

1821 1822

NOR shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect.

And some to want as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast how destitute! did They

Feel not that Conscience never can betray,

That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,
And cast the future upon Providence;

As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.