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But to promote and fortify the weal

Of our own being, is her paramount end;
A truth which they alone shall comprehend
Who shun the mischief which they cannot heal.
Peace in these feverish times is sovereign bliss;
Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,
And startled only by the rustling brake,

Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered mind,
By some weak aims at services assigned
To gentle natures, thanks not heaven amiss.

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.
CALVERT! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.

This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem:
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the muse's diadem.

Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth,
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse: or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate-
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

THE SONNET.

SCORN not the sonnet; critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours;-with this key
Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
Camöens soothed with it an exile's grief;

The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glowworm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from fairyland
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

THE PEACEFUL MUSE.

Not love, nor war, nor the tumultuous swell
Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change,
Nor duty struggling with afflictions strange,
Not these alone inspire the tuneful shell;
But where untroubled peace and concord dwell,
There also is the muse not loth to range,
Watching the blue smoke of the elmy grange,
Skyward ascending from the twilight dell.
Meek aspirations please her, lone endeavour,
And sage content, and placid melancholy;
She loves to gaze upon a crystal river,
Diaphanous, because it travels slowly;
Soft is the music that would charm for ever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.

SEPTEMBER, 1815.

WHILE not a leaf seems faded,-while the fields, With ripening harvest prodigally fair,

In brightest sunshine bask,-this nipping air,
Sent from some distant clime where winter wields
His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields

Of bitter change-and bids the flowers beware;
And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare

Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields."

For me, who under kindlier laws belong

To nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry

Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky,
Announce a season potent to renew,

Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song,
And nobler cares than listless summer knew.

NOVEMBER.

How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright
The effluence from yon distant mountain's head,
Which, strewn with snow as smooth as heaven can shed,
Shines like another sun-on mortal sight

Uprisen, as if to check approaching night,
And all her twinkling stars. Who now would tread,
If so he might, yon mountain's glittering head-
Terrestrial-but a surface, by the flight

Of sad mortality's earth-sullying wing,
Unswept, unstained! Nor shall the aërial powers
Dissolve that beauty-destined to endure,
White, radiant, spotless, exquisitely pure,
Through all vicissitudes-till genial spring
Have filled the laughing vales with welcome flowers.

COMPOSED DURING A STORM.

ONE who was suffering tumult in his soul
Yet failed to seek the sure relief of prayer,
Went forth-his course surrendering to the care
Of the fierce wind, while midday lightnings prowl
Insidiously, untimely thunders growl;

While trees, dim seen, in frenzied numbers tear
The lingering remnant of their yellow hair,
And shivering wolves, surprised with darkness, howl
As if the sun were not. He raised his eye

Soul-smitten-for, that instant, did appear

Large space, mid dreadful clouds, of purest sky,
An azure orb-shield of tranquillity,
Invisible, unlooked-for minister

Of providential goodness ever nigh!

TO A SNOWDROP.

LONE flower, hemmed in with snows, and white as they,
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,

Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west wind, and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste snowdrop, venturous harbinger of spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

COMPOSED A FEW DAYS AFTER THE
FOREGOING.

WHEN haughty expectations prostrate lie,
And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing,
Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring
Mature release, in fair society

Survive, and fortune's utmost anger try;
Like these frail snowdrops that together cling,
And nod their helmets smitten by the wing
Of many a furious whirl-blast sweeping by.
Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great

May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to stand

The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate;
And so the bright immortal Theban band,
Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove's command,
Might overwhelm, but could not separate!

"THE STARS ARE MANSIONS."

THE stars are mansions built by Nature's hand;
The sun is peopled; and with spirits blest,
Say, can the gentle moon be unpossessed?
Huge ocean shows, within his yellow strand,
A habitation marvellously planned,

For life to occupy in love and rest;

All that we see-is dome, or vault, or nest,
Or fort, erected at her sage command.

Is this a vernal thought? Even so, the spring
Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,
Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring;
And while the youthful year's prolific art-
Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning
Abodes, where self-disturbance hath no part.

THE PLEASURE OF POETIC PAINS.
There is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only poets know;-'twas rightly said,
Whom could the muses else allure to tread

Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains?
When happiest fancy has inspired the strains,
How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear
At last of hindrance and obscurity,

Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless as a softly-moulded tear

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