God! sing, ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice! Or father, or the venerable name
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! Of our adored country! O thou queen,
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, Thou delegated deity of earth,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God! O dear, dear England! how my longing eye

Ye living flowers that skirt th' eternal frost! Turn'd westward, shaping in the steady clouds
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest ! Thy sands and high white cliffs !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!

My native land!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Filld with the thought of thee this heart was
Ye signs and wonders of the element!

proud,
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! Yea, mine eye swam with tears: that all the view
Thou, too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing From sovran Brocken, woods and woody hills,
peaks,

Floated away, like a departing dream,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Feeble and dim! Stranger, these impulses
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Blame thou not lightly; nor will I profane,
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast With hasty judgment or injurious doubt,
Thou too again, stupendous mountain! thou That man's sublimer spirit, who can feel
That as I raised my head, a while bow'd low That God is everywhere! the God who framed
In adoration, upward from thy base

Mankind to be one mighty family,
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Himself our Father, and the world our home.
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, 0 ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the bills,

ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM ON THE FIRST
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,

OF FEBRUARY, 1796.
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

SWEET flower! that peeping from thy russet stem
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. Unfoldest timidly, (for in strange sort

This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering

month

Hath borrow'd Zephyr's voice, and gazed upon thee LINES

With blue voluptuous eye,) alas, poor flower!

These are but flatteries of the faithless year. WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM AT ELBINGERODE, IN

Perchance, escaped its unknown polar cave, THE HARTZ FOREST.

E'en now the keen north-east is on its way. I stood on Brocken's* sovran height, and saw Flower that must perish! shall I liken thee Woods crowding upon woods, hills over hills,

To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth, A surging scene, and only limited

Nipp'd by consumption ’mid untimely charms ?
By the blue distance. Heavily my way

Or to Bristowa's bard,* the wondrous boy!
Downward I dragg'd through fir-groves evermore,

An amaranth, which earth scarce seem'd to own, Where bright green moss heaves in sepulchral Till disappointment came, and pelting wrong forms

Beat it to earth ? or with indignant grief
Speckled with sunshine; and, but seldom heard, Shall I compare thee to poor Poland's hope,
The sweet bird's song became a hollow souud; Bright flower of hope kill'd in the opening bud ?
And the breeze, murmuring indivisibly,

Farewell, sweet blossom! better fate be thine,
Preserved its solemn murmur most distinct

And mock my boding! Dim similitudes
From many a note of many a waterfall,

Weaving in moral strains, I've stolen one hour
And the brook's chatter: 'mid whose islet stones From anxious SELF, life's cruel task-master!
The dingy kidling with its tinkling bell

And the warm wooings of this sunny day
Leap'd frolicsome, or old romantic goat

Tremble along my frame, and harmonize
Sat, his white beard slow waving. I moved on Th’attemper'd organ, that even saddest thoughts
In low and languid mood :f for I had found Mix with some sweet sensations, like harsh tones
That outward forms, the loftiest, still receive Play'd deftly on a soft-toned instrument.
Their finer influence from the life within :
Fair ciphers else: fair, but of iroport vague
Or unconcerning, where the heart not finds
History or prophecy of friend, or child,

THE EOLIAN HARP.
Or gentle maid, our first and early love,

COMPOSED AT CLEVEDON, SOMERSETSHIRE.
* The highest mountain in the Hartz, and, indeed, in
North Germany.

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
†
When I have gazed

Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
From some high eminence on goodly vales,

To sit beside our cot, our cot o'ergrown
And cots and villages embower'd below,

With white-flower'd jasmin, and the broad-leaved
The thought would rise that all to me was strange

myrtle,
Amid the scenes so fair, nor one small spot
Where my tired mind might rest, and call it home.
Southey's Hymn to the Penates.

* Chatterton.

(Meet emblems they of innocence and love !)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE

OF RETIREMENT.
light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should wisdom be)

Sermoni propriora.-Hor.
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatch'd from yon bean-field! and the world so Low was our pretty cot: our tallest rose
hush'd!

Peep'd at the chamber window. We could hear, The stilly murmur of the distant sea

At silent noon, and eve, and early morn, Tells us of silence.

The sea's faint murmur. In the open air And that simplest lute, Our myrtles blossomd ; and across the porch Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, Thick jasmins twined: the little landscape round bark !

Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye. How by the desultory breeze caress'd,

It was a spot which you might aptly call Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,

The Valley of Seclusion! once I saw It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs

(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness) Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its À wealthy son of coinmerce saunter by, strings,

Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm’d Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes

His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse Over delicious surges sink and rise,

With wiser feelings; for he paused, and look'd Such a soft floating witchery of sound

With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around, As twilight elfins make, when they at eve Then eyed our cottage, and gazed round again, Voyage on gentler gales from Fairy-land,

And sighd, and said, it was a blessed place.
Where melodies round honey-dropping flowers, And we were bless'd. Oft with patient ear
Footless and wild, like birds of paradise,

Long listening to the viewless sky-lark's note,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing! (Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
O the one life within us and abroad,

Gleaming on sunny wings,) in whisper'd tones
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, I've said to my beloved, “Such, sweet girl!
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, The inobtrusive song of happiness,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere. Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
Methinks, it should have been impossible

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd, Not to love all things in a world so fill'd;

And the heart listens !" Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air

But the time, when first Is music slumbering on her instrument.

From that low dell, steep up the stony mount And thus, my love! as on the midway slope I climb'd with perilous toil, and reach'd the top, Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,

0! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount, Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep, The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main, Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields ; And tranquil muse upon tranquillity;

And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, Full many a thought uncall’d and undetain'd, Now winding bright and full, with naked banks ; And many idle, fitting fantasies,

And seats, and lawns, the abbey and the wood, Traverse my indolent and passive brain,

And cots, and hamlets, and faint city spire; As wild and various as the random gales

The channel there, the islands, and white sails, That swell and flutter on this subject lute! Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless

And what if all of animated nature Be but organic harps diversely framed,

It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, Had built him there a temple : the whole world Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,

Seem'd imaged in its vast circumference, At once the soul of each, and God of all ?

No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart. But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Blest hour! It was a luxury,—to be! Darts, 0 beloved woman ! nor such thoughts Ah! quiet dell; dear cot, and mount sublime ! Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject,

I was constrain’d to quit you. Was it right, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. While my unnumber'd brethren toild and bled, Meek daughter in the family of Christ!

That I should dream away th' intrusted hours
Well hast thou said, and holily dispraised On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
These shapings of th' unregenerate mind! With feelings all too delicate for use?
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye
On vain philosophy's aye-babbling spring.

Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
For never guiltless may I speak of Him,

And he that works me good with unmoved face, The Incomprehensible ! save when with awe Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, I praise him, and with faith that inly feels; My benefactor, not my brother man ! Who with his saving mercies healed me,

Yet even this, this cold beneficence, A sinful and most miserable man,

Praise, praise it, O my soul ! oft as thou scann'st Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess The sluggard pity's vision-weaving tribe ! Peace, and this cot, and thee, heart-honoura | Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, maid!

Nursing in some delicious solitude

ocean

WITH SOME POEMS.

Their slothsul loves and dainty sympathies ! At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then,
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, When I remember thee, my earliest friend !
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth ;
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ. Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye;
Yet oft, when after honourable toil

And boding evil, yet still hoping good,
Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream, Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear cot!

Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose, The beatings of the solitary heart,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.

That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet abode ! Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
AhShad none greater! And that all had such ! 0! 'tis to me an ever-new delight,
It might be so—but the time is not yet.

To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Speed it, O Father! Let thy kingdom come! Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,

Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,

We, in our sweet sequester'd orchard plot,
TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF

Sit on the tree crook'd earthward; whose old
OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.

boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,

Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May,
Nolus in fratres animi paterni.

Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads !
Hor. Carm. lib. i. 2. Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,

When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear A BLESSED lot hath he, who having pass’d

To my wild firstling-lays ? Since then my son His youth and early manhood in the stir

Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,

Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind, With cares that move, not agitate the heart,

Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;

Cope with the tempest's swell!

These various strains, And haply views his tottering little ones Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,

Which I have framed in many a various mood, On which first kneeling his own infancy

Accept, my brother! and (for some perchance Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest friend! Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.

If aught of error or intemperate truth At distance did ye climb life's upland road,

Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age Yet cheer'd and cheering; now fraternal love

Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it! Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days Holy, and blest, and blessing may ye live! To me th’ Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed

A TOMBLESS EPITAPH.
A different fortune and more different mind-
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light "Trs true, Idoloclastes Satyrane !
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd (So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life And smiles with anxious looks, bis earliest friends,
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while Masking his birth-name, wont to character
Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills; His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, 'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze

And honouring with religious love the great
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once Of elder times, he hated to excess,
Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most false, With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
False and fair-foliaged as the manchineel,

The hollow puppets of a hollow age,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
E’en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest Its worthless idols! Learning, power, and time,
damps,

(Too much of all,) thus wasting in vain war Mix'd their own venom with the rain from heaven, of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true, That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him Whole years of weary days, besieged him close, Who gives us all things, more have yielded me E’en to the gates and inlets of his life! Permanent shelter ; and beside one friend,

But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
Beneath th' impervious covert of one oak,

And with a natural gladness, he maintained
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names The citadel unconquer'd, and in joy
Of husband and of father; nor unhearing

Was strong to follow the delightful muse.
Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, For not a hidden path, that to the shades
Which from my childhood to maturer years Of the beloved Parnassian forest leads,
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths

Lurk'd undiscover'd by him; not a rill Bright with no fading colours !

There issues from the fount of Hippocrene,

Yet at times But he had traced it upward to its source, My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life Through open glade, dark glen, and secret dell. Sull most a stranger, most with naked heart

Knew the gay wild-Nowers on its banks, and cull'a

Its med'cinable herbs. Yea, oft alone,

Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves Piercing the long-neglected holy cave,

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still, The haunt obscure of old philosophy,

Fann'd by the waterfall! and there my friends He bade with lifted torch its starry walls

Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,* Sparkle as erst they sparkled to the flame

That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Of odorous lamps tended by saint and sage. Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts ! of the blue clay-stone.
O studious poet, eloquent for truth !

Now, my friends emerge Philosopher! contemning wealth and death, Beneath the wide, wide heaven-and view again Yet docile, childlike, full of life and love!

The many-steepled tract magnificent Here, rather than on monumental stone,

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
This record of thy worth thy friend inscribes, With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
Thoughtful, with quiet tears upon his cheek. The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles

Of purple shadow! Yes, they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,

My gentle-hearted Charles ; for thou hast pined INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A

And hunger'd after nature, many a year,
HEATH.

In the great city pent, winning thy way

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain This sycamore, oft musical with bees,Such tents the patriarchs loved ! O long unharm'd And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun! May all its aged boughs o’er-canopy

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb, The small round basin, which this jutting stone Keeps pure from falling leaves ! Long may the Ye purple heath-flowers ! richlier burn, ye clouds !

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves ! spring,

And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my friend, Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,

Struck with deep joy, may stand, as I have stood, Send up cold waters to the traveller With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page,

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues

As veil th' Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes As merry and no taller, dances still, Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the fount.

Spirits perceive his presence. Here twilight is and coolness : here is moss,

A delight

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.

As I myself was there! Nor in this bower,
Thou mayst toil far and find no second tree.
Drink, pilgrim, here! Here rest! and if thy heart This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd

Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh
Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound,

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd

Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
Or passing gale, or hum of murmuring bees !

The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut tree

Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay
THIS LIME-TREE BOWER MY PRISON.

Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass,

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue In the June of 1797, some long-expected friends Through the late twilight: and though now the bat paid a visit to the author's cottage ; and on the Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters, morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, Yet still the solitary humble bee which disabled him from walking during the whole sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall time of their stay. One evening, when they had

know left him for a few hours, he composed the following That nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure: lines in the garden bower.

No plot so narrow, be but nature there,

No waste so vacant, but may well employ
WELL, they are gone, and here must I remain, Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost Awake to love and beauty! and sometimes
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been "Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
Most sweet to my remembrace, e’en when age That we may lift the soul, and contemplate
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, mean- With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
while,

My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Friends, whom I never more may meet again, Beat its straight path along the dusky air
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,

Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, (Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
To that still roaring dell, of which I told:

Had cross'd the mighty orb's dilated glory,
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;

* The asplenium scolopendrium, called in some coun Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock

tries the adder's tongue, in others the hart's tongue; but

Withering gives the aduer's longue as the trivial name of Flings arching like a bridge ;--that branchless ash, the ophioglossum only.

COMPOSED ON THE NIGHT AFTER HIS RECITATION
OF A POEM ON THE GROWTH OF AN INDIVIDUAL

MIND.

While thou stood'st gazing; or when all was still, | Action and joy !-An orphic song, indeed,
Flew creaking* o'er thy head, and had a charm A song divine, of high and passionate thoughts,
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom To their own music chanted !
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.

O great bard!
Ere yet that last strain dying awed the air,
With steadfast eye I view'd thee in the choir

Of e'er-enduring men. The truly great
TO A GENTLEMAN.

Have all one age, and from one visible space
Shed influence! They, both in power and act,
Are permanent, and time is not with them,
Save as it worketh for them, they in it.

Nor less a sacred roll, than those of old, FRIEND of the wise! and teacher of the good! And to be placed, as they, with gradual fame Into my heart have I received that lay

Among the archives of mankind, thy work More than historic, that prophetic lay,

Makes audible a linked lay of truth, Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright) Of truth profound a sweet continuous lay, Of the foundations and the building up

Not learnt, but native, her own natural notes ! Of a human spirit, thou hast dared to tell

Ah! as I listen'd with a heart forlorn, What may be told, to the understanding mind The pulses of my being beat anew : Revealable; and what within the mind,

And e’en as life returns upon the drown'd, By vital breathings secret as the soul

Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of painsOf vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart Keen pangs of love, awakening as a babe Thoughts all too deep for words

Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart;

Theme hard as high! And fears self-will’d, that shunnid the eye of hope ; Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears, And hope that scarce would know itself from fear, (The first-born they of reason and twin birth,) Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, Of tides obedient to external force,

And genius given, and knowledge won in vain; And currents self-determined, as might seem, And all which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild, Or by some inner power; of moments awful, And all which patient toil had rear'd, and all, Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,

Commune with thee had open'd out-but flowers When power stream'd from thee, and thy soul re- Strew'd on my corse, and borne upon my bier, ceived

In the same coffin, for the selfsame grave! The light reflected, as a light bestow'd

That way no more! and ill beseems it me, Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, Who came a welcomer in herald's guise, Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought

Singing of glory, and futurity, Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens

To wander back on such unhealthful road, Native or outland, lakes and famous hills !

Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill
Or on the lonely high-road, when the stars

Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths
Were rising; or by secret mountain streams, Strew'd before thy advancing!
The guides and the companions of thy way!

Nor do thou,
Of more than fancy, of the social sense

Sage bard ! impair the memory of that hour Distending wide, and man beloved as man, Of my communion with thy nobler mind Where France in all her towns lay vibrating By pity or grief, already felt too long! Like some becalmed bark beneath the burst Nor let my words import more blame than needs. Of heaven's immediate thunder, when no cloud The tumult rose and ceased; for peace is nigh Is visible, or shadow on the main.

Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. For thou wert there, thine own brows garlanded, Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, Amid the tremor of a realm aglow,

The halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours Amid a mighty nation jubilant,

Already on the wing. When from the general heart of human kind

Eve following eve, Hope sprang forth like a full-born deity;

Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of home -Of that dear hope afflicted and struck down, Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hail'd So summond homeward, thenceforth calm and sure And more desired, more precious for thy song, From the dread watch-tower of man's absolute self, In silence listening, like a devout child, With light unwaning on her eyes, to look

My soul lay passive, by the various strain
Far on-herself a glory to behold,

Driven as in surges now beneath the stars,
The angel of the vision! Then (last strain) With momentary stars of my own birth,
Of duty, chosen laws controlling choice,

Fair constellated foam,* still darting off

* Some months after I had written this line, it gave me * " A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary inter. pleasure to observe that Bartram had observed the same vals coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and litcircumstance of the Savanna crane. “ When these birds lle stars of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: move their wings in flight, their strokes are slow, mode- and every now and then light detachments of this white rale, and regular; and even when at a considerable dis- cloud-like foam darted off from the vessel's side, each lance, or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers; with its own small constellation, over the sea, and scoured their shafts and webs upon one another creak as the joints out of sight like a Tartar troop over a wilderness.”—The or working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea."

Friend, p. 220.