Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

VII.

Young as I am, my course is run,
I shall not see another sun;

I cannot lift my limbs to know

If they have any life or no.
My poor forsaken child, if I

For once could have thee close to me,
With happy heart I then would die,
And my last thought would happy be;
But thou, dear babe, art far away,
Nor shall I see another day

MATERNAL GRIEF.

DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once
Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain
Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul
Is present and perpetually abides

A shadow, never, never to be displaced
By the returning substance, seen or touched,
Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace.
Absence and death how differ they! and how
Shall I admit that nothing can restore
What one short sigh so easily removed?
Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought,
Assist me, God, their boundaries to know,
O teach me calm submission to thy Will!

The child she mourned had overstepped the pale
Of infancy, but still did breathe the air
That sanctifies its confines, and partook
Reflected beams of that celestial light
To all the little-ones on sinful earth

Not unvouchsafed -a light that warmed and cheered
Those several qualities of heart and mind
Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep,

Daily before the mother's watchful eye,
And not hers only, their peculiar charms

| Unfolded, beauty, for its present self,
And for its promises to future years,
With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed.

Have you espied upon a dewy lawn
A pair of Leverets each provoking each
To a continuance of their fearless sport,
Two separate creatures in their several gifts
Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all

That nature prompts them to display, their looks,
Their starts of motion and their fits of rest,
An undistinguishable style appears

And character of gladness, as if spring

Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit Of the rejoicing morning were their own.

Such union, in the lovely girl maintained And her twin brother, had the parent seen, Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey, Death in a moment parted them, and left

The mother, in her turns of anguish, worse
Than desolate; for ofttimes from the sound
Of the survivor's sweetest voice (dear child,
He knew it not) and from his happiest looks,
Did she extract the food of self-reproach,
As one that lived ungrateful for the stay
By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed
And tottering spirit. And full oft the boy,
Now first acquainted with distress and grief,

So clear, so bright, our fathers said
He wears a jewel in his head!
And when, upon some showery day,
Into a path or public way

A frog leaps out from bordering grass,
Startling the timid as they pass,
Do you observe him, and endeavour
To take the intruder into favour;
Learning from him to find a reason

Shrunk from his mother's presence, shunned with fear For a light heart in a dull season.
Her sad approach, and stole away to find,

In his known haunts of joy where'er he might,
A more congenial object. But, as time
Softened her pangs and reconciled the child
To what he saw, he gradually returned,
Like a scared bird encouraged to renew
A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes
Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe
Turned upon her who bore him, she would stoop
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
In open fields; and when the glare of day
Is gone, and twilight to the mother's wish
Befriends the observance, readily they join

In walks whose boundary is the lost one's grave,
Which he with flowers hath planted, finding there
Amusement, where the mother does not miss
Dear consolation, kneeling on the turf
In prayer, yet blending with that solemn rite
Of pious faith the vanities of grief;
For such, by pitying Angels and by Spirits
Transferred to regions upon which the clouds
Of our weak nature rest not, must be deemed
Those willing tears, and unforbidden sighs,
And all those tokens of a cherished sorrow,

And you may love him in the pool,
That is for him a happy school,

In which he swims as taught by nature,
Fit pattern for a human creature,
Glancing amid the water bright,
And sending upward sparkling light.

Nor blush if o'er your heart be stealing
A love for things that have no feeling:
The Spring's first rose by you espied,
May fill your breast with joyful pride;
And you may love the strawberry-flower,
And love the strawberry in its bower;
But when the fruit, so often praised
For beauty, to your lip is raised,
Say not you love the delicate treat,
But like it, enjoy it, and thankfully eat.

Long may you love your pensioner mouse,
Though one of a tribe that torment the house:
Nor dislike for her cruel sport the cat,
Deadly foe both of mouse and rat;
Remember she follows the law of her kind,
And instinct is neither wayward nor blind.
Then think of her beautiful gliding form,
Her tread that would scarcely crush a worm,
And her soothing song by the winter fire,

Which, soothed and sweetened by the grace of Heaven Soft as the dying throb of the lyre.

[blocks in formation]

THE REDBREAST.

STOGENTED IN A WESTMORELAND COTTAGE.

DRIVEN in by Autumn's sharpening air
From half-stripped woods and pastures bare,
Bask robin seeks a kindlier home:
Not like a beggar is he come,
Bit enters as a looked-for guest,
Confiding in his ruddy breast,
As if it were a natural shield
Charged with a blazon on the field,
Due to that good and pious deed
Of which we in the ballad read.
But pensive fancies putting by,
And wild-wood sorrows, speedily
He plays the expert ventriloquist;

And, caught by glimpses now-now missed,
Puzzles the listener with a doubt

If the soft voice he throws about

Comes from within doors or without!
Was ever such a sweet confusion,
Sustained by delicate illusion?

He's at your elbow-to your feeling
The notes are from the floor or ceiling;
And there's a riddle to be guessed,
Til you have marked his heaving chest,
And busy throat whose sink and swell
Betray the elf that loves to dwell
In Rutin's bosom, as a chosen cell.

Heart-pleased we smile upon the bird l' seen, and with like pleasure stirred Commend him, when he's only heard. But small and fugitive our gain Compared with hers who long hath lain, With languid limbs and patient head Reposing on a lone sick-bed; Were now, she daily hears a strain That cheats her of too busy cares, Eses her pain, and helps her prayers. And who but this dear bird beguiled The fever of that pale-faced child; Now cooling with his passing wing, Her forehead, like a breeze of Spring: Recalling now, with descant soft Sed round her pillow from aloft, Sweet thoughts of angels hovering nigh, And the invisible sympathy (Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, Blessing the bed she lies upon?'* And sometimes, just as listening ends Is slumber, with the cadence blends A dream of that low-warbled hymn

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

Which old folk, fondly pleased to trim
Lamps of faith, now burning dim,
Say that the cherubs carved in stone,
When clouds gave way at dead of night
And the ancient church was filled with light,
Used to sing in heavenly tone,

Above and round the sacred places
They guard, with winged baby-faces.

Thrice happy creature! in all lands
Nurtured by hospitable hands:
Free entrance to this cot has he,
Entrance and exit both yet free;
And, when the keen unruffled weather
That thus brings man and bird together,
Shall with its pleasantness be past,
And casement closed and door made fast,
To keep at bay the howling blast,
He needs not fear the season's rage,
For the whole house is Robin's cage.
Whether the bird flit here or there,
O'er table lilt, or perch on chair,
Though some may frown and make a stir,
To scare him as a trespasser,

And he belike will flinch or start,
Good friends he has to take his part;
One chiefly, who with voice and look
Pleads for him from the chimney-nook,
Where sits the dame, and wears away
Her long and vacant holiday;
With images about her heart,
Reflected from the years gone by,
On human nature's second infancy.

HER EYES ARE WILD.

I.

HER eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:

And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

II.

"Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I pray thee have no fear of me;
But safe as in a cradle, here
My lovely baby! thou shalt be:
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.

[blocks in formation]

NOTES

ΤΟ

POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS.

Note, p. 87.

"The Brothers."

met from a letter addressed by Wordsworth to James Fox in 1802, and accompanying a copy .-Pens:

be two poems, The Brothers' and 'Michael,' ure attempted to draw a picture of the domestic I know they exist amongst a class of men now almost confined to the north of England. are small independent proprietors of land, here » 'statesmen,' men of respectable education, who abour on their own little properties. The domestic As will always be strong amongst men who live estry not crowded with population; if these men

a inred above poverty. But, if they are proprietors estates which have descended to them from

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

sors, the power which these affections will magst such men, is inconceivable by those ase stay had an opportunity of observing hired farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their

[ocr errors]

and serves as a kind of permanent rallyLieir domestic feelings, as a tablet upon *y are written, which makes them objects of in a thousand instances when they would se be forgotten. It is a fountain fitted to the of social man, from which supplies of affection ~as by beart was intended for, are daily drawn. lass of men is rapidly disappearing. You, Sir, lur aesse, exness, upon which every good man will ate you, that the whole of your public conduct he way or other been directed to the preservation rass of men, and those who hold similar situaYou have felt that the most sacred of all pro* tue property of the poor. The two poems I care mentioned were written with a view to at nen who do not wear fine cloaths can feel Pectus enim est quod disertos facit, et vis Itemque imperitis quoque, si modo sint aliquo accal, verba non desunt.' The poems are ́es from nature; and I hope whatever effect at have upon you, you will at least be able to

The letter from which this extract is made, was published in 1838, by Sir Henry Bunbury, among some miscellaneous letters in his "Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, etc.," p. 436.

It is this poem of which Coleridge said "THE BROTHERS, that model of English pastoral, which I never yet read with unclouded eye." Biographia Literaria, Vol. II., chap. v., p. 85, Note, Edit. of 1847. And Southey, writing to Coleridge, July 11, 1801, says: "God bless Wordsworth for that poem! (THE BROTHERS.")" Life and Correspondence of Southey, Vol. II., p. 150, chap. viii. — H. R.]

Page 96.

'I travelled among unknown men.' ["Amongst the Poems founded on the Affections is one called, from its first line, 'I travelled among unknown men,' which ends with these lines, wherein the poet addresses his native land :

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field

That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

A friend, a true poet himself, to whom I owe some new insight into the merits of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, and who showed me to my surprise, that there were nooks in that rich and varied region, some of the shy treasures of which I was not perfectly acquainted with, first made me feel the great beauty of this stanza; in which the poet, as it were, spreads day and night over the object of his affections, and seems, under the influence of passionate feeling, to think of England, whether in light or darkness, only as her play-place and verdant home.-S. C." (Sara Coleridge.) Biographia Literaria of S. T. Coleridge, Vol. II., chap. ix., p. 173, Note, Edit. of 1847.-H. R.]

Page 98.

'Let other bards of angels sing.' [In his editions of 1845 and 1850, the author has ex Saat they may excite profitable sympathies included the following stanza, which was the second in and and good hearts; and may in some small this piece in the earlier editions, to the readers of which large our feelings of reverence for our species, it had become familiar, and is therefore preserved in ge of human nature, by showing that this note:

ties are possessed by men whom we are

➡ to consider, not with reference to the points they resemble us, but to those in which they artly differ from us."

R

Such if thou wert in all men's view,

A universal show,

What would my fancy have to do?

My feelings to bestow? - H. R.]

« FöregåendeFortsätt »