Dear to my breast, beyond conception dear,
Would the long solitude of night appear:
Sweet would it be to hear the winds complain-
To mark the heavings of the moonlight main;
Sweet to behold the silent hamlet lie,
With
Rose not unshared, nor fell unmark'd by thee.
THE harp is still! Weak though the spirit were
That whisper'd in its rising harmonies;
Yet Mem'ry, with her sister, fond Regret,
Loves to recall the wild and wandering airs
That cheer'd the long-fled hours, when o'er the strings
That spirit hover'd. Weak and though it were
To pour the torrent of impetuous song,
It was not weak to touch the sacred chords
Of pity, or to summon with dark spell
Of witching rhymes, the spirits of the deep
Form'd to do Fancy's bidding; and to fetch
Her perfumes from the morning star, or dye
Her volant robes with the bright rainbow's hues.
OR should the day be overcast,
We'll linger till the shower be past;
Where the hawthorn's branches spread
A fragrant covert o'er the head.
And list the rain-drops beat the leaves,
Or smoke upon the cottage caves;
Or, silent dimpling on the stream,
Convert to lead its silver gleam;
And we will muse on human life,
And think, from all the storms of strife,
How sweet to find a snug retreat
Where we may hear the tempests beat,
Secure and fearless,-and provide
Repose for life's calm eventide.
MILD Vesper! favorite of the Paphian Queen,
Whose lucid lamp on evening's twilight zone,
Sheds a soft lustre o'er the gloom serene,
Only by Cynthia's silver beam outshone:
Thee I invoke to point my lonely way
O'er these wild wastes, to where my lover bides,
For thou alone canst lend thy friendly ray,
Now the bright moon toward the ocean glides-
No midnight murderer asks thy guilty aid,
No nightly robber
I am alone, by silly love betray'd.
To woo the star of Venus *
In every clime, from Lapland to Japan,
This truth's confess'd,-that man's worst foe is man.
The rav'ning tribes, that crowd the sultry zone,
Prey on all kinds and colors but their own.
Lion with lion herds, and pard with pard,
Instinct's first law, their covenant and guard.
But man alone, the lord of ev'ry clime,
Whose post is godlike, and whose pow'rs sublime,
Man, at whose birth the Almighty hand stood still,
Pleased with the last great effort of his will,
Man, man alone, no tenant of the wood,
Preys on his kind, and laps his brother's blood:
His fellow leads where hidden pit-falls lie,
And drinks with ecstacy his dying sigh.
HENCE to thy darkest shades, dire Slavery, hence! Thine icy touch can freeze,
Swift as the Polar breeze,
The proud defying port of human sense.
Hence to thine Indian cave,
To where the tall canes whisper o'er thy rest,
Like the murmuring wave
Swept by the dank wing of the rapid west:
And at the night's still noon,
The lash'd Angolan, in his grated cell,
Mix'd with the tiger's yell,
Howls to the dull ear of the silent moon.
But come, thou goddess, blithe and free,
Thou mountain-maid, sweet Liberty!
With buskin'd knee, and bosom bare,
Thy tresses floating in the air;
Come, and treading on thy feet,
Independence let me meet,
Thy giant mate, whose awful form
Has often braved the bellowing storm,
And heard its angry spirit shriek,
Rear'd on some promontory's peak,
Seen by the lonely fisher far,
By the glimpse of flitting star.
His awful bulk, in dusky shroud,
Commixing with the pitchy cloud;
While at his feet the lightnings play,
And the deep thunders die away.
Goddess! come, and let us sail
On the fresh reviving gale;
O'er dewy lawns, and forests lone,
Till lighting on some mountain stone,
That scales the circumambient sky,
We see a thousand nations lie,
From Zembla's snows to Afric's heat,
Prostrate beneath our frolic feet.
From Italy's luxurious plains,
Where everlasting summer reigns,
Why, goddess, dost thou turn away?
Didst thou never sojourn there?
Oh, yes, thou didst-but fallen is Rome;
The pilgrim weeps her silent doom,
As at midnight, murmuring low,
Along the mouldering portico,
He hears the desolate wind career,
While the rank ivy whispers near.
Ill-fated Gaul! ambitious grasp
Bids thee again in slavery gasp.
Again the dungeon-walls resound
The hopeless shriek, the groan profound.
But, lo, in yonder happy skies,
Helvetia's airy mountains rise,
And, oh! on her tall cliffs reclined,
Gay Fancy, whispering to the mind:
As the wild herdsman's call is heard,
Tells me, that she, o'er all preferr'd,
In every clime, in every zone,
Is Liberty's divinest throne.
Yet, whence that sigh? O goddess! say,
Has the tyrant's thirsty sway
Dared profane the sacred seat,
Thy long high-favor'd, best retreat?
It has! it has! away, away
To where the green isles woo the day!
Where thou art still supreme, and where
Thy Pacans fill the floating air.
WHO is it leads the planets on their danceThe mighty sisterhood? who is it strikes The harp of universal harmony?
Hark! 't is the voice of planets on their dance,
Led by the arch-contriver. Beautiful
The harmony of order! How they sing,
The regulated orbs, upon their path
Through the wide trackless ether! sing as though
A syren sat upon each glitt'ring gem,
And made fair music-such as mortal hand
Ne'er raised on the responding chords; more like
The mystic melody that oft the bard
Hears in the strings of the suspended harp,
Touch'd by some unknown beings that reside
In evening breezes, or, at dead of night,
Wake in the long, shrill pauses of the wind.
This is the music which, in ages hush'd,
Ere the Assyrian quaff'd his cups of blood,
Kept the lone Chald awake, when through the night
He watch'd his herds. The solitary man,
By frequent meditation, learnt to spell
Yon sacred volume of high mystery.
He could arrange the wandering passengers,
From the pale star, first on the silent brow
Of the meek-tressed Eve, to him who shines,
Son of the morning, orient Lucifer;
Sweet were to him, in that unletter'd age,
The openings of wonder.-He could gaze
Till his whole soul was fill'd with mystery,
And every night-wind was a spirit's voice,
And every far-off mist, a spirit's form:
So with fables, and wild romantic dreams,
He mix'd his truth, and couch'd in symbols dark.
Hence, blind idolatry arose, and men
Knelt to the sun, or at the dead of night
Pour'd their orisons to the cloud-wrapt moon.
Hence, also, after ages into stars
Transform'd their heroes; and the warlike chief,
With fond eye fix'd on some resplendent gem,
Held converse with the spirits of his sires :-
With other eyes than these did Plato view
The heavens, and, fill'd with reasonings sublime,
Half-pierced, at intervals, the mystery,
Which with the gospel vanish'd, and made way
For noon-day brightness.
How beautiful upon the element
The Egyptian moonlight sleeps!
The Arab on the bank hath pitch'd his tent;
The light wave dances, sparkling, o'er the deeps;
The tall reeds whisper in the gale,
And o'er the distant tide moves slow the silent sail.
Thou mighty Nile! and thou receding main,
How peacefully ye rest upon your shores,
Tainted no more, as when from Cairo's towers,
Roll'd the swoln corse, by plague! the monster! slain
Far as the eye can see around,
Upon the solitude of waters wide,
There is no sight, save of the restless tideSave of the winds, and waves, there is no sound Egyptia sleeps, her sons in silence sleep! Ill-fated land, upon thy rest they comeTh' invader, and his host. Behold the deep Bears on her farthest verge a dusky gloomAnd now they rise, the masted foresta rise, And gallants, through the foam, their way they make Stern Genius of the Memphian shores, awake!-The foeman in thy inmost harbor lies,
And ruin o'er thy land with brooding pennut Aljon
GHOSTS of the dead, in grim array,
Surround the tyrant's nightly bed!
And in the still, distinctly say,
I by thy treachery bled.
And I, and I, ten thousands cry;
From Jaffa's plains, from Egypt's sand.
They come, they raise the chorus high,
And whirl around in shrieking bands.
Loud, and more loud, the clamors rise,
"Lo! there the traitor! murderer! lies.
He murder'd me, he murder'd thee,
And now his bed his rack shall be.
As when a thousand torrents roar,
Around his head their yells they pour.
The sweat-drops start, convulsion's hand
Binds every nerve in iron band.
"T is done! they fly, the clamors die,
The moon is up, the night is calm,
Man's busy broods in slumbers lie;
But horrors still the tyrant's soul alarm,
And ever and anon, serenely clear,
Have mercy, mercy, heaven! strikes on dull d night's ear.
ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE D'ENGHIEN.
What means yon trampling! what that light
That glimmers in the inmost wood;
As though beneath the felon night,
It mark'd some deed of blood;
Behold yon figures, dim descried
In dark array; they speechless glide.
The forest moans; the raven's scream
Swells slowly o'er the moated stream,
As from the castle's topmost tower,
It chants its boding song alone:
A song, that at this awful hour
Bears dismal tidings in its funeral tone;
Tidings, that in some grey domestic's ear Will on his wakeful bed strike deep mysterious fear.
And, hark, that loud report! 't is done;
There's murder couch'd in yonder gloom;
'Tis done, 't is done! the prize is won,
Another rival meets his doom.
The tyrant smiles,-with fell delight
He dwells upon the *
The tyrant smiles; from terror freed,
Exulting in the foul misdeed,
And sternly in his secret breast
Marks out the victims next to fall.
His purpose fix'd; their moments fly no more,
He points, the poniard knows its own;
Unseen it strikes,-unseen they die,
Foul midnight only hears, and shudders at the groan.
But justice yet shall lift her arm on high,
And Bourbon's blood no more ask vengeance from
the sky.
TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
LOFFT, unto thee one tributary song
The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring; She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng,
And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring. Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,
Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild; Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth, And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child: Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal, Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire,
Oh! 't is not long since, George, with thee I woo'd
The maid of musings by yon moaning wave,
And hail'd the moon's mild beam, which now renew'd
Seems sweetly sleeping on thy silent grave!
The busy world pursues its boisterous way,
The noise of revelry still echoes round,
Yet I am sad while all beside is gay;
Yet still I weep o'er thy deserted mound
Oh! that, like thee, I might bid sorrow cease,
And 'neath the green-sward sleep the sleep of peace
SWEET to the gay of heart is summer's smile,
But ah! my soul far other scenes beguile,
Sweet the wild music of the laughing Spring;
Where gloomy storms their sullen shadows fling. Is it for me to strike the Idalian string
Raise the soft music of the warbling wire, While in my ears the howls of fairies ring, And melancholy wastes the vital fire?
Away with thoughts like these! to some lone cave, Where howls the shrill blast, and where sweeps the wave,
Direct my steps; there, in the lonely drear,
I'll sit remote from worldly noise, and muse Till through my soul shall Peace her balm infuse And whisper sounds of comfort in mine ear.
Poor little one! most bitterly did pam,
Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the lyre, And life's worst ills, assail thine early age; And show thy labors for the public weal.
Ten thousand virtues tell with joy supreme,
But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.
TO THE MOON.-WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.
SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge
Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
As, sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale
Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge.
Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight,
And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way, Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night!
With double joy my homage do I pay. When clouds disguise the glories of the day, And stern November sheds her boisterous blight, How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray, Shoot through the mist from the etherial height, And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.
WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.
FAST from the West the fading day-streaks fly, And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway, Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,
And o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay.
And, quickly tired with this rough pilgrimage,
Thy wearied spirit did its heaven regain.
Moaning, and sickly, on the lap of life
Thou laid'st thine aching head, and thou didst sigh
A little while, ere to its kindred sky
Thy soul return'd, to taste no more of strife!
Thy lot was happy, little sojourner!
Thou hadst no mother to direct thy ways;
And fortune frown'd most darkly on thy days,
Short as they were. Now, far from the low stir
Of this dim spot, in heaven thou dost repose,
And look'st and smilest on this world's transient woes
DARK-visaged visitor! who comest here
Clad in thy mournful tunic, to repeat
(While glooms and chilling rains enwrap thy feet)
The solemn requiem of the dying year;
Not undelightful to my list'ning ear
Sound thy dull showers, as o'er my woodland seat,
Dismal, and drear, the leafless trecs they beat:
Not undelightful, in their wild career,
Is the wild music of thy howling blasts,
Sweeping the groves' long aisle, while sullen Time
Thy stormy mantle o'er his shoulder casts,
And, rock'd upon his throne, with chant sublime,
Joins the full-pealing dirge, and winter weaves
Her dark sepulchral wreath of faded leaves.
MISFORTUNE! I am young, my chin is bare;
And I have wonder'd much when men have told
How youth was free from sorrow and from care,
That thou shouldst dwell with me, and leave the old.
Sure dost not like me!-Shrivell'd hag of hate,
My phiz, and thanks to thee, is sadly long;
I am not either, Beldame, over strong;
Nor do I wish at all to be thy mate,
For thou, sweet fury, art my utter hate!
Nay, shake not thus thy miserable pate,
I am yet young, and do not like thy face;
And, lest thou shouldst resume the wild-goose chase,
I'll tell thee something all thy heat to assuage,
-Thou wilt not hit my fancy in my age.
As thus oppress'd with many a heavy care
(Though young yet sorrowful), I turn my feet
To the dark woodland, longing much to greet
The form of Peace, if chance she sojourn there;
Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair,
Fills my sad breast; and, tired with this vain coil,
I shrink dismay'd before life's upland toil.
And as amid the leaves the evening air
Whispers still melody,-I think ere long,
When I no more can hear, these woods will speak;
And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek,
And mournful phantasies upon me throng,
And I do ponder with most strange delight
On the calm slumbers of the dead man's night.
EMBLEM of life! see changeful April sail
In varying vest along the shadowy skies,
Now bidding summer's softest zephyrs rise,
Anon, recalling Winter's stormy gale,
And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail!
Then smiling through the tear that dims her eyes,
While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes,
Promise of sunshine, not so prone to fail.
So to us, sojourners in Life's low vale,
The smiles of Fortune flatter to deceive,
While still the Fates the web of Mystery weave;
So Hope exultant spreads her aëry sail,
And from the present gloom the soul conveys
To distant summers and far happier days.
YE unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,
At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,
Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies,
When he who now invokes you low is laid,
His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed,
Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head,
And chant a dirge to his reposing shade!
"Tis midnight.-On the globe dead slumber sits,
And all is silence-in the hour of sleep;
Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits,
I wake alone to listen and to weep,
In the dark wood roars fearfully and deep.
To watch, my taper, thy pale beacon burn;
And, as still Memory does her vigils keep,
To think of days that never can return.
By thy pale ray I raise my languid head,
My eye surveys the solitary gloom;
And the sad meaning tear, unmixt with dread,
Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb.
Like thee I wane; like thine, my life's last ray
Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away.
AND canst thou, Mother, for a moment think,
That we, thy children, when old age shall shed
Its blanching honors on thy weary head,
Could from our best of duties ever shrink?
Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink
Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day,
To pine in solitude thy life away.
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.
Banish the thought!—where'er our steps may roam,
O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree,
Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee,
And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home;
While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,
And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.
YES, 't will be over soon.-This sickly dream
Of life will vanish from my feverish brain;
And death my wearied spirit will redeem
From this wild region of unvaried pain.
Yon brook will glide as softly as before,-
Yon landscape smile,-yon golden harvest grow,
Yon sprightly lark on mounting wing will soar,
When Henry's name is heard no more below.
I sigh when all my youthful friends caress,
They laugh in health, and future evils brave;
Them shall a wife and smiling children bless,
While I am mouldering in my silent grave.
God of the just!-Thou gavest the bitter cup;
I bow to thy behest, and drink it up.
GENTLY, most gently, on thy victim's head,
Consumption, lay thine hand!-let me decay,
Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away,
And softly go to slumber with the dead.
And if 't is true, what holy men have said,
That strains angelic oft foretell the day
Of death to those good men who fall thy prey,
O let the aërial music round my bed,
Dissolving sad in dying symphony,
Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear!
That I may bid my weeping friends good bye
Ere I depart upon my journey drear:
And, smiling faintly on the painful past,
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.
Yes, thou didst wrong me, *; I fondly though
In thee I'd found the friend my heart had sought!
I fondly thought, that thou couldst pierce the guise,
And read the truth that in my bosom lies;
I fondly thought, ere Time's last days were gone,
Thy heart and mine had mingled into one!
Yes, and they yet will mingle. Days and years
Will fly, and leave us partners in our tears:
We then shall feel that friendship has a power
To soothe affliction in her darkest hour;
Time's trial o'er, shall clasp each other's hand,
And wait the passport to a better land.
Thine,
Half-past Eleven o'Clock at Night.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. DESBARREAUX.
THY judgments, Lord, are just thou lovest to wear
The face of pity and of love divine;
But mine is guilt-thou must not, canst not, spare,
While heaven is true and equity is thine.
Yes, oh my God!-such crimes as mine, so dread,
Leave but the choice of punishment to thee;
Thy interest calls for judgment on my head,
And even thy mercy dares not plead for me!
Thy will be done-since 't is thy glory's due,
Did from mine eyes the endless torrents flow;
Smite-it is time--though endless death ensue,
I bless the avenging hand that lays me low.
But on what spot shall fall thine anger's flood,
That has not first been drench'd in Christ's atoning
TO A FRIEND IN DISTRESS,
Who, when the Author reasoned with him calmly, asked
"if he did not feel for him?"
'Do I not feel?' The doubt is keen as steel.
Yea, I do feel-most exquisitely feel;
My heart can weep, when from my downcast eye
I chase the tear, and stem the rising sigh:
Deep-buried there I close the rankling dart,
And smile the most when heaviest is my heart.
On this I act, whatever pangs surround,
'Tis magnanimity to hide the wound!
When all was new, and life was in its spring,
I lived an unloved solitary thing;
Even then I learnt to bury deep from day,
The piercing cares that wore my youth away:
Even then I learnt for others' cares to feel:
Even then I wept I had not power to heal:
Even then, deep-sounding through the mightly gloom,
I heard the wretched's groan, and mourn'd the
wretched's doom.
CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1804.
YET once more, and once more, awake, my Harp!
From silence and neglect-one lofty strain,
Lofty, yet wilder than the winds of Heaven,
And speaking mysteries more than words can tell
I ask of thee; for I, with hymnings high.
Would join the dirge of the departing year.
Yet with no wintry garland from the woods,
Wrought of the leafless branch of ivy sear,
Wreathe I thy tresses, dark December! now;
Me higher quarrel calls, with loudest song,
And fearful joy, to celebrate the day
Of the Redeemer.-Near two thousand suns
Have set their seals upon the rolling lapse
Of generations, since the day-spring first
Beam'd from on high!-Now to the mighty mass
Of that increasing aggregate, we add
One unit more. Space, in comparison
How small, yet mark'd with how much misery!
Wars, famines, and the fury, Pestilence,
Over the nations hanging her dread scourge;
The oppressed too, in silent bitterness,
Weeping their sufferance; and the arm of wrong,
Forcing the scanty portion from the weak,
And steeping the lone widow's couch with tears.
So has the year been character'd with woe
In Christian land, and mark'd with wrongs and crimes
Yet 't was not thus He taught—not thus He lived,
Whose birth we this day celebrate with prayer
And much thanksgiving.—He, a man of woes,
Went on the way appointed,-path, though rude,
Yet borne with patience still:-He came to cheer
The broken-hearted, to raise up the sick,
And on the wandering and benighted mind
To pour the light of truth.-O task divine!
O more than angel teacher! He had words
Who were my friends in youth ?—The midnight fire To soothe the barking waves, and hush the winds,
The silent moonbeam, or the starry choir;
To these I 'plain'd, or turn'd from outer sight,
To bless my lonely taper's friendly light;
I never yet could ask, howe'er forlorn,
For vulgar pity mixt with vulgar scorn;
The sacred source of woe I never ope,
My breast's my coffer, and my God's my hope.
But that I do feel, Time, my friend, will show,
Though the cold crowd the secret never know;
With them I laugh-yet when no eye can see,
I
weep for nature, and I weep for thee.
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