66

O steep my senses in oblivion's balm,

And soothe my throbbing pulse with lenient hand; This tempest of my boiling blood becalm!

Despair grows mild at thy supreme command.

FROM EURIPIDES.

MUSIC! why thy power employ

Only for the sons of joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour;
And with some softly whisper'd air
Smooth the brow of dumb despair.

SELECTION FROM THE FIRST OF APRIL.

WITH dalliance rude young Zephyr woos
Coy May. Full oft with kind excuse
The boisterous boy the fair denies,
Or with a scornful smile complies.
Mindful of disaster past,

And shrinking at the northern blast,
The sleety storm returning still,
The morning hoar, and evening chill;
Reluctant comes the timid Spring.

The fresh turn'd soil with tender blades,
Thinly the sprouting barley shades;
Fringing the forest's devious edge,
Half rob'd appears the hawthorn hedge;
Or to the distant eye displays
Weakly green its budding sprays.

The swallow, for a moment seen,
Skims in haste the village green;
From the gray moor, on feeble wing,
The screaming plovers idly spring;
The butterfly, gay-painted soon,
Explores awhile the tepid noon;
And fondly trusts its tender dyes
To fickle suns, and flattering skies.

Fraught with a transient, frozen shower,
If a cloud should haply lower,
Sailing o'er the landscape dark,
Mute on a sudden is the lark;
But when gleams the sun again
O'er the pearl-besprinkled plain,
And from behind his watery veil
Looks through the thin descending hail;
She mounts, and, lessening to the sight,
Salutes the blithe return of light,
And high her tuneful track pursues
Mid the dim rainbow's scatter'd hues.

Where in venerable rows

Widely waving oaks enclose

The moat of yonder antique hall,

Swarm the rooks with clamorous call :

And to the toils of nature true,
Wreath their capacious nests anew.

SLEEP.

COME, gentle Sleep! attend thy votary's prayer, And though Death's image, to my couch repair; How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, And without dying, oh, how sweet to die!

MONODY.

WRITTEN NEAR STRATFORD-UPON-AVON.

AVON, thy rural views, thy pastures wild,
The willows that o'erhang thy twilight edge,
Their boughs entangling with th' embattled sedge ¦
Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fring'd,
Thy surface with reflected verdure ting'd;
Soothe me with many a pensive pleasure mild.
But while I muse, that here the bard divine
Whose sacred dust yon high-arch'd aisles enclose,
Where the tall windows rise in stately rows
Above th' embowering shade.

Here first, at fancy's fairy-circled shrine,
Of daisies pied his infant offering made;
Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe,
Fram'd of thy reeds a shrill and artless pipe;

Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled,
As at the waving of some magic wand;
An holy trance my charmed spirit wings,
And awful shapes of warriors and of kings
People thy busy mead,

Like spectres swarming to the wizard's hall;
And slowly pace, and point with trembling hand
The wounds ill-covered by the purple pall.
Before me Pity seems to stand

A weeping mourner, smote with anguish sore,
To see Misfortune rend in frantic mood

His robe, with regal woes embroider'd o'er.
Pale Terror leads the visionary band,

And sternly shakes his sceptre, dropping blood.

SELECTIONS FROM THE SONNETS.

I.

ON REVISITING THE RIVER LODON.

AH! what a weary race my feet have run
Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath the azure sky and golden sun,

When first my Muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive Memory traces back the round
Which fills the varied interval between ;

Much pleasure, more of sorrow marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and sun so pure,
No more return to cheer my evening road!

Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure
Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,

From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature;
Nor with the muse's laurel unbestowed.

II.

WRITTEN AT WINSLADE, HAMPSHIRE.

WINSLADE, thy beech-capt hills, with waving grain
Mantled, thy chequer'd views of wood and lawn,
Whilom could charm, or when the gradual dawn
Gan the gray mist with orient purple stain,
Or evening glimmer'd o'er the folded train;