ADDRESS TO A VIRGINIAN CREEPER ; OR THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY FROM ASSOCIATIONS WITH VISIBLE OBJECTS. Paradise, and groves Elysian. Fortunate fields-like those of old Sought in the Atlantic main, why should they be A history only of departed things, Or a mere fiction of what never was?- Wordsworth's Excursion. 1. FAIR plant, I see thee with a yearning spirit, One feature, whence the curious mind may trace * See the description of the Author's residence in the North of England, in the third book of "Desultory Thoughts in London ;" particu larly that part of it where the parasitical plants are mentioned with which it was embowered. B 2. As mind of plastic mould we often view, (Fine as the film, whose being the dropped dew 3. In such mind, absent friends, and absent things, A sound, may touch upon those finer strings Which call these objects from their banishment; So thou, fair plant, when towards thee mine eye flings Its sudden glance (thought all things else prevent Feelings, whence this scene might the past restore) Canst call up visions dear to me of yore. 4. Oh, never say to him who has a heart ;- From unseen source, beneath thy influence; Oh, never say to him who has the art 5. Oh, never say to these, that there can be, Endowed, may not with richest treasures grace!Say not to him, who has of poesy The lofty gift, that he's bereft of space For soaring thought, since his allotted home, Monotonous, forbids his eyes to roam. 6. No! In the eye that sees, the heart that feels, All forms, that is there which profusion steals A source of inspiration, and unrolls Oft through the sense which a drear blank surrounds, Glories which pass reality's scant bounds. * See motto (from Rosseau's Confessions) to "Desultory Thoughts in London," and stanza 39, p. 62, of the Poem on the Language and Subjects most fit for Poetry. 7. This is a sensuous age! We scarce can tell When wood, rocks, lakes, and mountains weave a spell The heart to melt, the fancy to allure, With blank indifference on the whole to dwell: Or not to know, that, when high thoughts obscure Man's lower impulses, he well may scorn The circumscribing sway of forms earth-born. 8. As there no time is, so there is no place, He soars o'er all the little bounds of space : And his own world is of his own creation! 'Tis poor to think, the noble mind to raise, That need should be of objects of sensation :'Tis poor to think, that, e'en the prison's gloom, Must be his mind's, since 'tis his body's tomb. 9. I thank thee, beauteous plant, because that thou • A residence which the Author possessed near the Lake of Winandermere: for a description of which see "Desultory Thoughts in Lon |