XII. ON LEAVING SOME FRIENDS AT AN EARLY G HOUR. IVE me a golden pen, and let me lean On heap'd-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Let me write down a line of glorious tone, K XIII. EEN fitful gusts are whispering here and there And I have many miles on foot to fare; Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily, That in a little cottage I have found; XIV. T 10 one who has been long in city pent, to breathe a prayer Full in the smile of the blue firmament. an eye XV. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. HE poetry of earth is never dead: TH When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the grasshopper's he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. G XVI. TO KOSCIUSKO. OOD Kosciusko! thy great name alone Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; It comes upon us like the glorious pealing Of the wide spheres an everlasting tone. And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown, The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing, Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne. It tells me too, that on a happy day, When some good spirit walks upon the earth, H XVII. APPY is England! I could be content Through its tall woods with high romances blent; For skies Italian, and an inward groan And half forget what world or worldling meant. Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing, XVIII. THE HUMAN SEASONS. OUR Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. XIX. ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. YOME hither, all sweet maidens soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light, Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be, As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright, Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile. O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath! H XX. TO AILSA ROCK. EARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams! When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ? How long is't since the mighty power bid Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams? Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams, Or when gray clouds are thy cold cover-lid? Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep! Thy life is but two dead eternities The last in air, the former in the deep; First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep, Another cannot wake thy giant size. XXI. ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES. MWeighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep, Y spirit is too weak; mortality And each imagined pinnacle and steep That I have not the cloudy winds to keep |