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"HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD'S CALM EXPANSE!" 247

That sigh of thine, not meant for human ear,
Tells that these words thy humbleness offend;
Yet bear me up-else faltering in the rear
Of a steep march: support me to the end.

Peace settles where the intellect is meek,
And Love is dutiful in thought and deed ;
Through Thee communion with that Love I seek :

The faith Heaven strengthens where he moulds the
Creed.

"HOW RICH THAT FOREHEAD'S CALM

Composed 1824.

EXPANSE!"

Published 1827.

How rich that forehead's calm expanse! (72)
How bright that heaven-directed glance!
-Waft her to glory, wingèd Powers,

Ere sorrow be renewed,

And intercourse with mortal hours
Bring back a humbler mood!
So looked Cecilia when she drew
An Angel from his station;
So looked; not ceasing to pursue
Her tuneful adoration !

But hand and voice alike are still;
No sound here sweeps away the will
That gave it birth: in service meek
One upright arm sustains the cheek,
And one across the bosom lies-
That rose, and now forgets to rise,
Subdued by breathless harmonies
Of meditative feeling;

Mute strains from worlds beyond the skies,
Through the pure light of female eyes,
Their sanctity revealing !

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S

Composed 1824.

OSSIAN.

Published 1827.

OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,
Fragments of far-off melodies,
With ear not coveting the whole,
A part so charmed the pensive soul :
While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains?
Away with counterfeit Remains!

An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling

The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian! if imbound

In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,
In concert with memorial claim

Of old grey stone, and high-born name
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern arbitress of all,

Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone ;-
Authentic words be given, or none !

Time is not blind ;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the stars,

Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.

No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The music, and extinct the lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed; (73)
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice!

Hail, Bards of mightier grasp ! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in soul! though distant times Produced you nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained : Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met,

Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!
Such to the tender-hearted maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged chief
By fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of glory by Urania led !

1825.

TO A SKY-LARK. (74)

Composed 1825.

Published 1827

ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still !

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine;
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home !

1826.

"ERE WITH COLD BEADS OF MIDNIGHT DEW."

Composed 1826.

Published 1827.

ERE with cold beads of midnight dew
Had mingled tears of thine,

I grieved, fond Youth! that thou shouldst sue
To haughty Geraldine.

Immoveable by generous sighs,
She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,
An oriental chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid air.

The humblest rivulet will take

Its own wild liberties;

And, every day, the imprisoned lake
Is flowing in the breeze.

Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,

But scorn with scorn outbrave;
A Briton, even in love, should be
A subject, not a slave !

Composed 1826-34.

TO MAY.

Published 1833.

THOUGH many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,

And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gifts, thy beauty scorn;

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