Miscellaneous Poems. PROSE IN RHYME: OR EPIGRAMS, MORALITIES, AND THINGS WITHOUT A NAME Ερως ἄει λάληδρος ἔταιρος. In many ways does the full heart reveal The presence of the love it would conceal; The absence of the love, which yet it fain would show. LOVE.* ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay Beside the ruin'd tower. The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve! She leant against the armed man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listen'd to my lay, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, I play'd a soft and doleful air, She listen'd with a flitting blush, I told her of the Knight that wore I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own. tis piece may be found, as originally published, under another title, at page 28. She listen'd with a flitting blush, Too fondly on her face. But when I told the cruel scorn That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade. And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and look'd him in the face And that, unknowing what he did, And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees; The scorn that crazed his brain. A dying man he lay. His dying words-but when I reach'd That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity! All impulses of soul and sense And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, UNCHANGED within to see all changed without, Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, PHANTOM OR FACT? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE. AUTHOR. A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet- FRIEND. This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song? Or rather say at once, within what space AUTHOR. Call it a moment's work (and such it seems), WORK WITHOUT HOPE. LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827. ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair-- Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, YOUTH AND AGE. VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather, When Youth and I lived in't together Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like, Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, But springtide blossoms on thy lips, What outward form and feature are He guesseth but in part; A DAY DREAM. My eyes make pictures, when they are shut- A willow and a ruin'd hut, And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow! A wild-rose roofs the ruin'd shed, And that and summer well agree: Two dear names carved upon the tree! "Twas day! But now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night, The balmiest of the month of June! A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain. O ever-ever be thou blest! For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together. The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they melt to one deep shade! Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play- Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women! LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS. OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope, REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE. Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said. And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, And myriads had reach'd Heaven, who never knew Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own, The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye TO A LADY, THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN FROM his brimstone bed at break of day HAVE NO SOULS. NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave? For what you are you cannot have: "Tis I, that have one since I first had you! I HAVE heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I holdHis eyes are in his mind A-walking the DEVIL is gone, To visit his little snug farm of the earth, And see how his stock went on. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backwards and forwards he swish'd his long tail As a gentleman swishes his cane. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper On a dung-heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel. A POTHECARY on a white horse Rode by on his vocations, And the Devil thought of his old Friend DEATH in the Revelations. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college; For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.* Down the river there plied with wind and tide, And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, As he went through Cold-Bath Fields, he saw And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT. SINCE all, that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish, why shouldst thou remain The only constant in a world of changeO yearning THOUGHT, that livest but in the brain? Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play, The fairy people of the future day Fond THOUGHT! not one of all that shining swarm Still, still as though some dear embodied good, I mourn to thee and say "Ah! loveliest friend! Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside. Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "Life" Cod. quid habent," Trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called, Kar' εóxnv, may be regarded as Life sansu eminentiori: a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call Life now!"--This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes. Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted as grounded on subjects that have lost their interest-and for better reasons. If any one should ask, who General meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT. ERE the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no NATURE'S ANSWER. Is't return'd as 't was sent? Is 't no worse for the wear? I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel. †This phenomenon, which the Author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively in the following passage of the Aids to Reflection: on different characters, holds equally true of Genius: as many "Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 220. THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY A LAMENT. I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew Writers, an Apologue or Rabbinical Tradition to the following purpose: While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, The mother with anticipated glee exclaimed: "Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so: for the Man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once Smiles o'er the child, that standing by her chair, to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee, the word of the Most High answered Satan: "The tender Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself." [The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnæus, of a Date-tree in a nobleman's garden, which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from a Date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting: and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integ. rity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite Metre.S. T.C. 1. BENEATH the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. "What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own." The presence of a ONE, The best beloved, who loveth me the best, is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen, and crushes it into flatness. 2. The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportu nities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them? 3. Imagination; honorable Aims; Free Commune with the choir that cannot die; To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight 6. Then is she tenfold gladder than before! FANCY IN NUBIBUS, OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS. O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould "Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through CLOUDLAND, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. THE TWO FOUNTS. STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY "Twas my last waking thought, how it could be Methought he fronted me, with peering look |