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The homely beauty of the good old cause | In thee a bulwark of the cause of men;
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And I by my affection was beguiled.
And pure religion breathing household-laws. What wonder, if a Poet, now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a Lover or a Child.

XIV.

1802.

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a Star and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like
the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

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Sound, healthy Children of the God of In brightest sunshine bask,-this nipping air,

Heaven,

Are cheerful as the rising Sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin

Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, and that riches are akin

To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death!

XX.

ENGLAND! the time is come when thou shouldst wean

Sent from some distant clime where Winter
wields

His icy scymetar, 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 the green leaves, and yon crystal-
line sky,

Announce a season potent to renew,
'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of
song,-

Thy heart from its emasculating food;
The truth should now be better understood; And nobler cares than listless summer knew.
Old things have been unsettled; we have seen
Fair seed-time, better harvest might have

been

But for thy trespasses; and, at this day,
If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa,
Aught good were destined, Thou wouldst
step between.
England! all nations in this charge agree:
But worse, more ignorant in love and hate,
Far, far more abject is thine Enemy:
Therefore the wise pray for thee, though
the freight

with Thee!

XXIII.

November 1, 1815.

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,

Of thy offences be a heavy weight:
Oh grief! that Earth's best hopes rest all 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 aerial

XXI.

November, 1806.

ANOTHER year!—another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
"Tis well! from this day forward we shall

know

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And ye mild seasons-in a sunny clime,
YE storms, resound the praises of your King!
Midway on some high hill, while Father Time
Looks on delighted-meet in festal ring.
And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing!
Sing ye, with blossoms crowned, and fruits,

and flowers,
Of Winter's breath surcharged with sleety
showers,

And the dire flapping of his hoary wing! Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green grass;

With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain; Whisper it to the billows of the main,

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Want, through neglect of hoar Antiquity.
Rise, then, ye votive Towers, and catch a
gleam
Of golden sun-set-ere it fade and die!

XXVIII.

THE WILD-DUCK'S NEST.

THE Imperial Consort of the Fairy-King
Owns not a sylvan bower, or gorgeous cell
With emerald floor'd, and with purpureal
shell

Ceiling'd and roof'd; that is so fair a thing
As this low structure-for the tasks of Spring
Prepared by one who loves the buoyant swell
Of the brisk waves, yet here consents to
dwell;

And spreads in steadfast peace her brooding
wing.

Words cannot paint the o'ershadowing yew-
tree-bough,

And dimly-gleaming Nest,-a hollow crown
Of golden leaves inlaid with silver down,
Fine as the Mother's softest plumes allow:
I gaze-and almost wish to lay aside
Humanity, weak slave of cumbrous pride!

XXIX.

CAPTIVITY..

Strikes through the Traveller's frame with
As the cold aspect of a sunless way
deadlier chill,
Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill,
Or shining slope where he must never stray;
Glistening with unparticipated ray,
Sharpen the keenest edge of present ill,—
So joys, remembered without wish or will
On the crush'd heart a heavier burthen lay,
Just Heaven, contract the compass of my
mind

Quench those felicities whose light I find
To fit proportion with my altered state!
Burning within my bosom all too late!—
O be my spirit, like my thraldom, strait;
And like mine eyes, that stream with sorrow,
blind!

XXVII.

XXX.

THE SEASON,

AERIAL Rock-whose solitary brow
From this low threshold daily meets my sight; TO A SNOW-DROP, APPEARING VERY EARLY IN
When I look forth to hail the morning-light,
Or quit the stars with lingering farewell-
how

Shall I discharge to thee a grateful vow?—
By planting on thy head (in verse at least,
As I have often done in thought) the crest
Of an imperial Castle, which the plough
Of ruin shall not touch. Innocent scheme!
That doth presume no more than to supply
A grace the sinuous vale and roaring stream

LONE Flower, hemmed in with snows and
white as they

But hardier far, though modestly thou bend
Thy front-as if such presence could offend!
Who guards thy slender stalk, while, day
by day,

Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops,
way-lay

The rising sun, and on the plains descend? | What are fears burt voices airy?
Accept the greeting that befits 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;
Yet will I not thy gentle grace forget
Chaste Snow-drop, vent'rous harbinger of
Spring,

And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

XXXI.

TO THE RIVER DERWENT.

AMONG the mountains were we nurs'd, lov'd
Stream!

Thou, near the eagle's nest-within brief sail,
I, of his bold wing floating on the gale,
Where thy deep voice could lull me!-Faint
the beam

Of human life when first allowed to gleam
On mortal notice.-Glory of the Vale,
Such thy meek outset, with a crown though
frail

Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam
Of thy soft breath!-Less vivid wreaths en-
twined

Nemæan Victor's brow; less bright was worn
Meed of some Roman Chief—in triumph borne
With captives chain'd, and shedding from
his car

The sunset-splendors of a finish'd war
Upon the proud enslavers of mankind!

XXXII.

Whispering harm where harm is not,
And deluding the unwary
Till the fatal bolt is shot!

What is glory?-in the socket
See how dying tapers fare!
What is pride?—a whizzing rocket
That would emulate a star.

What is friendship?-do not trust her,
Nor the vows which she has made;
Diamonds dart their brightest lustre
From a palsy-shaken head.

What is truth?-a staff rejected;
Duty ?—an unwelcome clog;
Joy?-a dazzling moon reflected
In a swamp or watery bog;

Bright, as if through ether steering,
To the Traveller's eye it shone:
He hath hailed it re-appearing-
And as quickly it is gone;

Gone, as if for ever hidden,
Or misshapen to the sight;
And by sullen weeds forbidden
To resume its native light.
What is youth?-a dancing billow,
Winds behind, and rocks before!
Age-a drooping, tottering willow
On a flat and lazy shore.

What is peace?—when pain is over,
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sigh discover

GRIEF, thou hast lost an ever ready Friend | That precedes the passing knell!

Now that the cottage-spinning-wheel is mute;
And Care-a Comforter that best could suit
Her forward mood, and softliest reprehénd;
And Love-a Charmer's voice, that used to
lend,

More efficaciously than aught that flows
From harp or lute, kind influence to compose
The throbbing pulse,―else troubled without
end:

Ev'n Joy could tell, Joy craving truce and rest
From her own overflow, what power sedate
On those revolving motions did await
Assiduously, to sooth her aching breast;
And to a point of just relief-abate
The mantling triumphs of a day too blest.

INSCRIPTION,

SUPPOSED TO BE FOUND IN A HERMIT'S CELL.

HOPES what are they?- Beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass;
Or a spider's web adorning
In a strait and treacherous pass.

EPITAPHS

TRANSLATED FROM CHIABRERA.

I.

PERHAPS some needful service of the State
Drew Titus from the depth of studious
bowers
And doomed him to contend in faithless
courts,

Where gold determines between right and
wrong.

Yet did at length his loyalty of heart
And his pure native genius lead him back
To wait upon the bright and gracious Muses
Whom he had early loved. And not in vain
Such course he held! Bologna's learned
schools

Were gladdened by the Sage's voice, and
hung

With fondness on those sweet Nestorian | And the broad gulfs I traversed oft-andoft:

strains.

There pleasure crowned his days; and all Of every cloud which in the heavens might his thoughts

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stir

I knew the force; and hence the rough sea's pride

Availed not to my Vessel's overthrow.
What noble pomp and frequent have not I
On regal decks beheld! yet in the end
I learn that one poor moment can suffice
To equalize the lofty and the low.
We sail the sea of life—a Calm One finds,
And One a Tempest-and, the voyage o'er,
Death is the quiet haven of us all.

If more of my condition you would know,
Savona was my birth-place, and I sprang
Of noble Parents: sixty years and three
Lived I-then yielded to a slow disease.

IV.

Destined to war from very infancy
Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took
In Malta the white symbol of the Cross.
Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun
Hazard or toil; among the Sands was seen
Of Lybia, and not seldom on the Banks
Of wide Hungarian Danube 'twas my lot
To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded.
So lived I, and repined not at such fate;
That stripped of arms I to my end am brought
This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong,
On the soft down of my paternal home.
Yet haply Arno shall be spared all cause
Thou, loiter not nor halt
In thy appointed way, and bear in mind
How fleeting and how frail is human life.

Now, Reader, learn from this my fate-To blush for me.
how false,

How treacherous to her promise is the World,
And trust in God-to whose eternal doom
Must bend the sceptred Potentates of Earth.

III.

There never breathed a man who when his life

Was closing might not
Toils long and hard.

of that life relate The Warrior will report Of wounds, and bright swords flashing in the field, And blast of trumpets. He who hath been doomed

To bow his forehead in the courts of kings,
Will tell of fraud and never-ceasing hate,
Envy, and heart-inquietude, derived
From intricate cabals of treacherous friends.
I, who on ship-board lived from earliest
youth,

Could represent the countenance horrible
Of the vexed waters, and the indignant rage
Of Auster and Bootes. Forty years
Over the well-steered Gallies did I rule :-
From huge Pelorus to the Atlantic pillars
Rises no mountain to mine eyes unknown;

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V.

Pause, courteous Spirit!-Balbi supplicates
That Thou, with no reluctant voice, for him
Here laid in mortal darkness, wouldst prefer
A prayer to the Redeemer of the World.
This to the Dead by sacred rights belongs;
All else is nothing.-Did occasion suit
To tell his worth, the marble of this tomb
Would ill suffice, for Plato's love sublime
And all the wisdom of the Stagyrite
Enriched and beautified this studious mind:
With Archimedes also he conversed
As with a chosen Friend, nor did he leave
Those laureat wreaths ungathered which the
Nymphs

Twine on the top of Pindus.-Finally,
Himself above each lower thought uplifting,
His ears he closed to listen to the song
Which Sion's Kings did consecrate of old;
And fixed his Pindus upon Lebanon

A blessed Man! who of protracted days Made not, as thousands do, a vulgar sleep; But truly did He live his life.-Urbino Take pride in him;—O Passenger farewell!

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