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O teach me to elude each latent snare,
And whisper to my sliding heart,-Beware!
With caution let me hear the syren's voice,
And doubtful, with a trembling heart, rejoice.
If friendless, in a vale of tears I stray,
Where briars wound, and thorns perplex my way,
Still let my steady soul thy goodness see,
And with strong confidence lay hold on thee;
With equal eye my various lot receive,
Resign'd to die, or resolute to live;
Prepared to kiss the sceptre or the rod,
While God is seen in all, and all in God.

I read his awful name, emblazon'd high
With golden letters on th' illumined sky;
Nor less the mystic characters I see
Wrought in each flower, inscribed in every tree;
In every leaf that trembles to the breeze
I hear the voice of God among the trees;
With thee in shady solitudes I walk,
With thee in busy crowded cities talk;
In every creature own thy forming power,
In each event thy providence adore.
Thy hopes shall animate my drooping soul,
Thy precepts guide me, and thy fears control :
Thus shall I rest, unmoved by all alarms,
Secure within the temple of thine arms;
From anxious cares, from gloomy terrors free,
And feel myself omnipotent in thee.

Then when the last, the closing hour, draws nigh, And earth recedes before my swimming eye; When trembling on the doubtful edge of fate I stand, and stretch my view to either state : Teach me to quit this transitory scene With decent triumph, and a look serene; Teach me to fix my ardent hopes on high, And having lived to Thee, in Thee to die.

A SUMMER EVENING'S MEDITATION. "Tis past! the sultry tyrant of the south Has spent his short-lived rage; more grateful hours Move silent on; the skies no more repel The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams Of temper'd lustre court the cherish'd eye To wander o'er their sphere; where hung aloft Dian's bright crescent, like a silver bow New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns Impatient for the night, and seems to push Her brother down the sky. Fair Venus shines E'en in the eye of day; with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of soften'd radiance from her dewy locks. The shadows spread apace'; while meeken'd Eve, Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires Through the Hesperian gardens of the west, And shuts the gates of day. "Tis now the hour When Contemplation from her sunless haunts, The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth Of unpierced woods, where wrapt in solid shade She mused away the gaudy hours of noon, And fed on thoughts unripen'd by the sun, Moves forward; and with radiant finger points To yon blue concave swell'd by breath divine, Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven Awake, quick kindling o'er the face of ether One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,

And dancing lustres, where the unsteady eye,
Restless and dazzled, wanders unconfined
O'er all this field of glories; spacious field,
And worthy of the Master: he, whose hand
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile
Inscribed the mystic tablet, hung on high
To public gaze, and said, " Adore, O man!
The finger of thy God." From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o'erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill'd? these friendly lamps
For ever streaming o'er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!
And silent as the foot of Time, fulfil
Their destined courses: Nature's self is hush'd,
And, but a scatter'd leaf, which rustles through
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; though the raised ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise!
But are they silent all? or is there not

A tongue in every star, that talks with man,
And woos him to be wise? nor woos in vain :
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo god; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,-
Fair transitory creature of a day!-

Has closed his golden eye, and wrapped in shades
Forgets his wonted journey through the east.

Ye citadels of light, and seats of gods!
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul,
Revolving periods past, may oft look back
With recollected tenderness on all

The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep-laid projects, and its strange events,
As on some fond and doating tale that sooth'd
Her infant hours-O be it lawful now
To tread the hallow'd circle of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines. Seized in

thought,

On Fancy's wild and roving wing I sail,
From the green borders of the peopled Earth,
And the pale Moon, her duteous fair attendant;
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where cheerless Saturn midst his watery moons
Girt with a lucid zone, in gloomy pomp,
Sits like an exiled monarch: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beam, which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day;
Sons of the morning, first-born of creation,
And only less than Him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
Or is there aught beyond? What hand unsee
Impels me onward through the glowing orbs
Of habitable nature, far remote,
To the dread confines of eternal night,
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,

The deserts of creation, wide and wild;
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
Sleep in the womb of chaos? fancy droops,
And thought astonish'd stops her bold career.
But O thou mighty Mind! whose powerful word
Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were,
Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblamed
Invoke thy dread perfection?

Have the broad eyelids of the morn beheld thee?
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
Support thy throne? O look with pity down
On erring, guilty man! not in thy names
Of terror clad: not with those thunders arm'd
That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall'd
The scatter'd tribes ;-thou hast a gentler voice,
That whispers comfort to the swelling heart
Abash'd, yet longing to behold her Maker.
But now my soul, unused to stretch her powers
In flight so daring, drops her weary wing,
And seeks again the known accustom'd spot,
Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns and

streams,

A mansion fair, and spacious for its guest,

And full replete with wonders. Let me here, Content and grateful, wait th' appointed time, And ripen for the skies: the hour will come When all these splendours bursting on my sight Shall stand unveiled, and to my ravished sense Unlock the glories of the world unknown.

TO-MORROW.

SEE where the falling day
In silence steals away

Behind the western hills withdrawn:
Her fires are quench'd, her beauty fled,
While blushes all her face o'erspread,
As conscious she had ill fulfill'd

The promise of the dawn.
Another morning soon shall rise,
Another day salute our eyes,
As smiling and as fair as she,
And make as many promises:
But do not thou

The tale believe,
They're sisters all,
And all deceive.

A SCHOOL ECLOGUE.

EDWARD.

HIST, William! hist! what means that air so gay?
Thy looks, thy dress, bespeak some holyday:
Thy hat is brush'd; thy hands, with wondrous
pains,

Are cleansed from garden mould and inky stains;
Thy glossy shoes confess the lackey's care;
And recent from the comb shines thy sleek hair.
What god, what saint, this prodigy has wrought?*
Declare the cause, and ease my labouring thought?

⚫Sed tamen, ille Deus qui sit, da Tityre nobis.

WILLIAM.

John, faithful John, is with the horses come; Mamma prevails, and I am sent for home.

HARRY.

Thrice happy whom such welcome tidings greet 1*
Thrice happy who reviews his native seat!
For him the matron spreads her candied hoard,
And early strawberries crown the smiling board;
For him crush'd gooseberries with rich cream
combine,

And bending boughs their fragrant fruit resign:
Custards and sillabubs his taste invite;
Sports fill the day, and feasts prolong the night.
Think not I envy, I admire thy fate :†
Yet, ah! what different tasks thy comrades wait!
Some in the grammar's thorny maze to toil,
Some with rude strokes the snowy paper soil,
Some o'er barbaric climes in maps to roam,
Far from their mother-tongue, and dear loved

home.t

Harsh names, of uncouth sound, their memories load, And oft their shoulders feel th' unpleasant goad.

EDWARD.

Doubt not our turn will come some future time.
Now, William, hear us twain contend in rhyme;
For yet thy horses have not eat their hay,
And unconsumed as yet th' allotted hour of play.

WILLIAM.

Then spout alternate, I consent to hear,
Let no false rhyme offend my critic ear;-
But say,
what prizes shall the victor hold?

I guess your pockets are not lined with gold!

HARRY.

A ship these hands have built, in every part
Carved, rigg'd, and painted, with the nicest art;
The ridgy sides are black with pitchy store,
From stem to stern 'tis twice ten inches o'er.
The lofty mast, a straight smooth hazel framed,
The tackling silk, the Charming Sally named;
And,-but take heed lest thou divulge the tale,-
The lappet of my shirt supplied the sail,
An azure riband for a pendant flies :-
Now, if thy verse excel, be this the prize.

EDWARD.

For me at home the careful housewives make,
With plums and almonds rich, an ample cake.
Smooth is the top, a plain of shining ice,
The West its sweetness gives, the East its spice:
From soft Ionian isles, well known to fame,
Ulysses once, the luscious currant came.
The green transparent citron Spain bestows,
And from her golden groves the orange glows.
So vast the heaving mass, it scarce has room
Within the oven's dark capacious womb;
"Twill be consign'd to the next carrier's care,
I cannot yield it all,-be half thy share.

• Fortunate senex, his inter flumina nota.

+ Non equidem invideo, miror magis. At nos hinc alii sitientes ibimus Afros, Pars Scythiam, et rapidum Cretæ veniemus Oaxem. § Alternis dicetis.

Well does the gift thy liquorish palate suit;
I know who robb'd the orchard of its fruit.*
When all were wrapt in sleep, one early morn,
While yet the dew-drop trembled on the thorn,
I mark'd when o'er the quickset hedge you leapt,
And, sly, beneath the gooseberry bushes crept ;+
Then shook the trees; a shower of apples fell,—
And where the hoard you kept, I know full well;
The mellow gooseberries did themselves produce,
For through thy pocket oozed the viscous juice.
HARRY

I scorn a telltale, or I could declare

How, leave unask'd, you sought the neighbouring fair;

Then home by moonlight spurr'd your jaded steed, And scarce return'd before the hour of bed. Think how thy trembling heart had felt affright, Had not our master supp'd abroad that night.

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WILLIAM.

Cease! cease your carols, both! for lo the bell,
With jarring notes, has rung out Pleasure's knell.
Your startled comrades, ere the game be done,
Quit their unfinish'd sports, and trembling run.
Haste to your forms before the master call!
With thoughtful step he paces o'er the hall,
Does with stern looks each playful loiterer greet,
Counts with his eye, and marks each vacant seat:
Intense the buzzing murmur grows around,
Loud through the dome the usher's strokes resound:
Sneak off, and to your places slyly steal,
Before the prowess of his arm you feel.

WHAT DO THE FUTURES SPEAK OF?

IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION IN THE GREEK GRAMMAR.

THEY speak of never-withering shades,
And bowers of opening joy;
They promise mines of fairy gold,
And bliss without alloy

They whisper strange enchanting things
Within Hope's greedy ears;
And sure this tuneful voice exceeds
The music of the spheres

They speak of pleasure to the gay,
And wisdom to the wise;
And soothe the poet's beating heart
With fame that never dies.

To virgins languishing in love,
They speak the minute nigh;
And warm consenting hearts they join,
And paint the rapture high.

In every language, every tongue, The same kind things they say; In gentle slumbers speak by night, In waking dreams by day.

Cassandra's fate reversed is theirs;

She, true, no faith could gain,— They, every passing hour deceive, Yet are believed again.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.

YES, injured woman! rise, assert thy right!
Woman! too long degraded, scorn'd, opprest;
O born to rule in partial Law's despite,
Resume thy native empire o'er the breast!

Go forth array'd in panoply divine;

That angel pureness which admits no stain, Go, bid proud man his boasted rule resign,

And kiss the golden sceptre of thy reign

Go, gird thyself with grace; collect thy store
Of bright artillery glancing from afar;
Soft melting tones thy thundering cannon's roar
Blushes and fears thy magazine of war.

Thy rights are empire: urge no meaner claim,—
Felt, not defined, and if debated, lost;
Like sacred mysteries, which withheld from fame,
Shunning discussion, are revered the most.

Try all that wit and art suggest to bend

Of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee;
Make treacherous man thy subject, not thy friend;
Thou mayst command, but never canst be free.

Awe the licentious, and restrain the rude;

Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow:
Be, more than princes' gifts, thy favours sued;
She hazards all, who will the least allow.

But hope not, courted idol of mankind,

On this proud eminence secure to stay; Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find Thy coldness soften, and thy pride give way. Then, then, abandon each ambitious thought, Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move, In Nature's school, by her soft maxims taught, That separate rights are lost in mutual love.

WASHING-DAY.

...And their voice,

Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in its sound.-

THE muses are turn'd gossips; they have lost
The buskin'd step, and clear high-sounding phrase,
Language of gods. Come then, domestic muse,
In slipshod measure loosely prattling on
Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream,
Or drowning flies, or shoe lost in the mire
By little whimpering boy, with rueful face;
Come, muse, and sing the dreaded washing-day.
Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,
With bow'd soul, full well ye ken the day

Or study swept, or nicely dusted coat,
Or usual 'tendance ;-ask not, indiscreet,
Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents
Gape wide as Erebus; nor hope to find
Some snug recess impervious: shouldst thou try
The 'custom'd garden walks, thine eye shall rue
The budding fragrance of thy tender shrubs,
Myrtle or rose, all crush'd beneath the weight
Of coarse check'd apron,—with impatient hand
Twitch'd off when showers impend: or crossing
lines

Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet
Flaps in thy face abrupt. Wo to the friend
Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim
On such a day the hospitable rites!
Looks blank at best, and stinted courtesy,
Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes
With dinner of roast chickens, savoury pie,
Or tart or pudding:-pudding he nor tart
That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try,
Mending what can't be help'd, to kindle mirth
From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow
Clear up propitious :-the unlucky guest
In silence dines, and early slinks away.
I well remember, when a child, the awe

This day struck into me; for then the maids,

I scarce knew why, look'd cross, and drove me

from them:

Nor soft caress could I obtain, nor hope
Usual indulgencies; jelly or creams,
Relic of costly suppers, and set by
For me their petted one; or butter'd toast,
When butter was forbid; or thrilling tale
Of ghost or witch, or murder-so I went
And shelter'd me beside the parlour fire:
There my dear grandmother, eldest of forms,
Tended the little ones, and watch'd from harm,
Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles
With elfin cunning hid, and oft the pins
Drawn from her ravell'd stockings, might have
sour'd

One less indulgent.

Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on At intervals my mother's voice was heard,
Too soon ;-for to that day nor peace belongs
Nor comfort;-ere the first gray streak of dawn,
The red-arm'd washers come and chase repose.
Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth,
E'er visited that day: the very cat,

From the wet kitchen scared and reeking hearth,
Visits the parlour,—an unwonted guest.
The silent breakfast-meal is soon despatch'd;
Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks
Cast at the lowering sky, if sky should lower.
From that last evil, O preserve us, heavens!
For should the skies pour down, adieu to all
Remains of quiet: then expect to hear
Of sad disasters, dirt and gravel stains
Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once
Snapp'd short, and linen horse by dog thrown
down,

And all the petty miseries of life.

Saints have been calm while stretch'd upon the
rack,

And Guatimozin smiled on burning coals;
But never yet did housewife notable
Greet with a smile a rainy washing-day.
-But grant the welkin fair, require not thou
Who call'st thyself perchance the master there,

Urging despatch: briskly the work went on,
All hands employ'd to wash, to rinse, to wring,
To fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait.
Then would I sit me down, and ponder much
Why washings were. Sometimes through hollow
bowl

Of pipe amused we blew, and sent aloft
The floating bubbles; little dreaming then
To see, Montgolfier, thy silken ball
Ride buoyant through the clouds-so near approach
The sports of children and the toils of men.
Earth, air, and sky, and ocean, hath its bubbles,
And verse is one of them-this most of all.

TO MR. S. T. COLERIDGE.-1797.
MIDWAY the hill of science after steep
And rugged paths that tire the unpractised feet,
A grove extends in tangled mazes wrought,
And fill'd with strange enchantment:-dubious

shapes

Flit through dim glades, and lure the eager foot

Of youthful ardour to eternal chase.

Dreams hang on every leaf; unearthly forms
Glide through the gloom; and mystic visions swim
Before the cheated sense. Athwart the mists,
Far into vacant space, huge shadows stretch,
And seem realities; while things of life,
Obvious to sight and touch, all glowing round,
Fade to the hue of shadows.-Scruples here,
With filmy net, most like th' autumnal webs
Of floating gossamer, arrest the foot
Of generous enterprise; and palsy hope
And fair ambition with the chilling touch
Of sickly hesitation and blank fear.

Nor seldom Indolence these lawns among
Fixes her turf-built seat; and wears the garb
Of deep philosophy, and museful sits,

In dreamy twilight of the vacant mind,

Soothed by the whispering shade; for soothing soft
The shades; and vistas lengthening into air,
With moonbeam rainbows tinted.-Here each mind
Of finer mould acute and delicate,

In its high progress to eternal truth
Rests for a space, in fairy bowers entranced;
And loves the soften'd light and tender gloom;
And, pamper'd with most unsubstantial food,
Looks down indignant on the grosser world,
And matters cumbrous shaping. Youth beloved
Of Science of the Muse beloved,-not here,
Not in the maze of metaphysic lore,
Build thou thy place of resting! lightly tread
The dangerous ground, on noble aims intent;
And be this Circe of the studious cell

Enjoy'd but still subservient. Active scenes
Shall soon with healthful spirit brace thy mind;
And fair exertion for bright fame sustain'd,

For friends, for country chase each spleen-fed fog
That blots the wide creation.-

Now Heaven conduct thee with a parent's love!

THE UNKNOWN GOD.

To learned Athens, led by fame,
As once the man of Tarsus came,

With pity and surprise,

Midst idol altars as he stood,

O'er sculptured marble, brass; and wood,

He roll'd his awful eyes.

But one, apart, his notice caught,

That seem'd with higher meaning fraught, Graved on the wounded stone;

Nor form nor name was there express'd; Deep reverence fill'd the musing breast, Perusing, "To the God unknown."

Age after age has roll'd away,
Altars and thrones have felt decay,
Sages and saints have risen ;
And, like a giant roused from sleep,
Man has explored the pathless deep,
And lightnings snatch'd from heaven.

And many a shrine in dust is laid, Where kneeling nations homage paid, By rock, or fount, or grove;

Ephesian Dian sees no more
Her workmen fuse the silver ore,
Nor Capitolian Jove.

E'en Salem's hallow'd courts have ceased
With solemn pomps her tribes to feast,
No more the victim bleeds;
To censers fill'd with rare perfumes,
And vestments from Egyptian looms,
A purer rite succeeds.

Yet still, where'er presumptuous man
His Maker's essence strives to scan,
And lifts his feeble hands,
Though saint and sage their powers unite.
To fathom that abyss of light,
Ah! still that altar stands.

ODE TO REMORSE.

DREAD offspring of the holy light within,
Offspring of Conscience and of Sin,
Stern as thine awful sire, and fraught with wo,
From bitter springs thy mother taught to flow,-
Remorse! To man alone 'tis given

Of all on earth, or all in heaven,
To wretched man thy bitter cup to drain,
Feel thy awakening stings, and taste thy whole-
some pain.

Midst Eden's blissful bowers,

And amaranthine flowers,

Thy birth portentous dimm'd the orient day,
What time our hapless sire,
O'ercome by fond desire,

The high command presumed to disobey;

Then didst thou rear thy snaky crest,

And raise thy scorpion lash to tear the guilty breast:

And never, since that fatal hour,

May man, of woman born, expect t' escape thy

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