Poor Stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe,
Tutor'd by Pain each source of Pain to know!
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire;
Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy sight,
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright!
Untaught, yet wise! 'mid all thy brief alarms
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest!
Man's breathing Miniature! thou makest me sigh-
A Babe art thou-and such a thing am I!
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship's Mirror with a techy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow!
Poor Stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe,
Tutor'd by Pain each source of Pain to know!
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire;
Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy sight,
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright!
Untaught, yet wise! 'mid all thy brief alarms
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest!
Man's breathing Miniature! thou makest me sigh-
A Babe art thou-and such a thing am I!
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship's Mirror with a techy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow!
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Nor now with curious sight
I mark the glow-worm, as I pass,
Move with "green radiance" through the grass,
An emerald of light.
O ever present to my view!
My wafted spirit is with you,
And soothes your boding fears:
I see you all oppress'd with gloom
Sit lonely in that cheerless room—
Ah me! You are in tears!
Beloved Woman! did you fly
Chill'd Friendships dark disliking eye,
Or Mirth's untimely din?
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,
When aches the void within.
But why with sable wand unbless'd
Should Fancy rouse within my breast
Dim-visaged shapes of Dread?
Untenanting its beauteous clay
My Sara's soul has wing'd its way,
And hovers round my head!
I felt it prompt the tender Dream,
When slowly sunk the day's last gleam;
You roused each gentler sense As, sighing o'er the Blossom's bloom, Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume With viewless influence.
And hark, my Love! The sea-breeze moans
Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones
In bold ambitious sweep,
The onward-surging tides supply
The silence of the cloudless sky
With mimic thunders deep.
Dark reddening from the channell❜d Isle* (Where stands one solitary pile
Unslated by the blast)
The Watch-fire, like a sullen star
Twinkles to many a dozing Tar
Rude cradled on the mast.
Even there-beneath that light-house towerIn the tumultuous evil hour
Ere Peace with Sara came,
Time was, I should have thought it sweet
To count the echoings of my feet,
And watch the storm-vex'd flame.
And there in black soul-jaundiced fit
A sad gloom-pamper'd Man to sit,
And listen to the roar :
When Mountain Surges bellowing deep
With an uncouth monster leap
Plunged foaming on the shore.
Then by the Lightning's blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shatter'd bark;
Her vain distress-guns hear;
And when a second sheet of light
Flash'd o'er the blackness of the night-
To see no Vessel there!
But Fancy now more gaily sings:
Or if awhile she droop her wings,
As sky-larks 'mid the corn,
On summer fields she grounds her breast:
The oblivious Poppy o'er her nest
Nods, till returning morn.
O mark those smiling tears, that swell
The open'd Rose! From heaven they fell,
And with the sun-beam blend.
Bless'd visitations from above,
Such are the tender woes of Love
Fostering the heart, they bend!
When stormy Midnight howling round
Beats on our roof with clattering sound,
To me your arms you'll stretch:
Great God! you'll say-To us so kind,
O shelter from this loud bleak wind
The houseless, friendless wretch!
The tears that tremble down your cheek, Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek
The Holmes, in the Bristol Channe
And from your heart the sighs that steal
Shall make your rising bosom feel
The answering swell of mine!
How oft, my Love! with shapings sweet
I paint the moment we shall meet!
With eager speed I dart-
I seize you in the vacant air,
And fancy, with a Husband's care
I press you to my heart!
T is said, on Summer's evening hour
Flashes the golden-color'd flower
A fair electric flame:
And so shall flash my love-charged eye
When all the heart's big ecstasy
Shoots rapid through the frame!
TO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY
LETTER.
AWAY, those cloudy looks, that laboring sigh,
The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!
Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power,
When the blind Gamester throws a luckless die.
Yon setting Sun flashes a mournful gleam
Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train:
To-morrow shall the many-color'd main
in brightness roll beneath his orient beam!
Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time
Flies o'er his mystic lyre: in shadowy dance
The alternate groups of Joy and Grief advance,
Responsive to his varying strains sublime!
Bears on its wing each hour a load of Fate;
Despised Galilæan! For the Great
Invisible (by symbols only seen)
With a peculiar and surpassing light
Shines from the visage of the oppress'd good Man
When heedless of himself the scourged Saint
Mourns for the Oppressor. Fair the vernal Mead
Fair the high Grove, the Sea, the Sun, the Stars,
True impress each of their creating Sire!
Yet nor high Grove, nor many-color'd Mead,
Nor the green Ocean with his thousand Isles,
Nor the starr'd Azure, nor the sovran Sun,
E'er with such majesty of portraiture
Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate,
As thou, meek Savior! at the fearful hour
When thy insulted Anguish wing'd the prayer
Harp'd by Archangels, when they sing of Mercy!
Which when the Almighty heard from forth his
Throne,
Diviner light fill'd Heaven with ecstasy!
Heaven's hymnings paused and Hell her yawning
Lovely was the death
Of Him whose life was love! Holy with power
He on the thought-benighted sceptic beam'd
Manifest Godhead, melting into day
What floating mists of dark Idolatry
Broke and misshaped the Omnipresent Sire:
And first by Fear uncharm'd the drowsed Soul.*
Till of its nobler nature it 'gan feel
Dim recollections: and thence soar'd to Hope,
Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good
The Eternal dooms for his immortal Sons.
From Hope and firmer Faith to perfect Love
Attracted and absorb'd: and centred there
God only to behold, and know, and feel,
Till by exclusive Consciousness of God
All self-annihilated it shall make
God its Identity: God all in all!
The swain, who, lull'd by Seine's mild murmurs, led We and our Father one!
His weary oxen to their nightly shed,
To-day may rule a tempest-troubled State.
Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile
Survey the sanguinary Despot's might,
And haply hurl the Pageant from his height,
Inwept to wander in some savage isle.
There, shiv'ring sad beneath the tempest's frown,
Round his tir'd limbs to wrap the purple vest;
And mix'd with nails and beads, an equal jest!
Barter, for food, the jewels of his crown.
RELIGIOUS MUSINGS;
A DESULTORY POEM,
WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1794.
THIS is the time, when most divine to hear,
The voice of Adoration rouses me,
As with a Cherub's trump: and high upborne,
Yea, mingling with the Choir, I seem to view
The vision of the heavenly multitude,
Who hymn'd the song of Peace o'er Bethlehem's
fields!
Yet thou more bright than all the Angel blaze,
That harbinger'd thy birth, Thou, Man of Woes!
Who in this fleshly World, the elect of Heaven,
Their strong eye darting through the deeds of Men,
Adore with sted fast unpresuming gaze
Him Nature's Essence, Mind, and Energy!
And gazing, trembling, patiently ascend
Treading beneath their feet all visible things
As steps, that upward to their Father's Throne
Lead gradual-else nor glorified nor loved.
They nor Contempt embosom nor Revenge.
For they dare know of what may seem deform
The Supreme Fair sole Operant: in whose sight
All things are pure, his strong controlling Love
Alike from all educing perfect good.
Theirs too celestial courage, inly arm'd-
Dwarfing Earth's giant brood, what time they muse
On their great Father, great beyond compare!
And marching onwards view high o'er their heads
His waving Banners of Omnipotence.
For they are holy things before the Lord,
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole!
Aye unprofaned, though Earth should league with This fraternizes Man, this constitutes
God's Altar grasping with an eager hand,
Fear, the wild-visaged, pale, eye-starting wretch,
Sure-refuged hears his hot pursuing fiends
Yell at vain distance. Soon refresh'd from Heaven,
He calms the throb and tempest of his heart.
His countenance settles; a soft solemn bliss
Swims in his eye-his swimming eye upraised:
And Faith's whole armor glitters on his limbs!
And thus transfigured with a dreadless awe,
A solemn hush of soul, meek he beholds
All things of terrible seeming: yea, unmoved
Views e'en the immitigable ministers
Our charities and bearings. But 't is God
Diffused through all, that doth make all one whole
This the worst superstition, him except
Aught to desire, Supreme Reality!
The plenitude and permanence of bliss!
O Fiends of Superstition! not that oft
The erring Priest hath stain'd with brother's blood
Your grisly idols, not for this may wrath
Thunder against you from the Holy One!
But o'er some plain that steameth to the sun,
Peopled with Death; or where more hideous Trade
Loud-laughing packs his bales of human anguish :
I will raise up a mourning, O ye Fiends!
That shower down vengeance on these latter days. And curse your spells, that film the eye of Faith,
For kindling with intenser Deity
From the celestial Mercy-seat they come,
And at the renovating Wells of Love
Have fill'd their Vials with salutary Wrath,
To sickly Nature more medicinal
Than what soft balm the weeping good man pours
Into the lone despoiled traveller's wounds!
Thus from the Elect, regenerate through faith,
Pass the dark Passions and what thirsty Cares
Drink up the spirit and the dim regards
Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire
New names, new features-by supernal grace
Enrobed with light, and naturalized in Heaven.
As when a shepherd on a vernal morn
Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow
foot,
Darkling he fixes on the immediate road
His downward eye: all else of fairest kind
Hid or deform'd. But lo! the bursting Sun!
Touch'd by the enchantment of that sudden beam,
Straight the black vapor melteth, and in globes
Of dewy glitter gems each plant and tree;
On every leaf, on every blade it hangs!
Dance glad the new-born intermingling rays,
And wide around the landscape streams with glory!
There is one Mind, one omnipresent Mind, Omnific. His most holy naine is Love. Truth of subliming import! with the which Who feeds and saturates his constant soul, He from his small particular orbit flies With bless'd outstarting! From Himself he flies, Stands in the Sun, and with no partial gaze Views all creation; and he loves it all, And blesses it, and calls it very good! This is indeed to dwell with the Most High! Cherubs and rapture-trembling Seraphim Can press no nearer to the Almighty's Throne. But that we roam unconscious, or with hearts Unfeeling of our universal Sire, And that in his vast family no Cain Injures uninjured (in her best-aim'd blow Victorious Murder a blind Suicide), Haply for this some younger Angel now Looks down on Human Nature: and, behold! A sea of blood bestrew'd with wrecks, where mad Embattling Interests on each other rush
"T is the sublime of man, Our noontide Majesty, to know ourselves
Hiding the present God; whose presence lost,
The moral world's cohesion, we become
An anarchy of Spirits! Toy-bewitch'd,
Made blind by lusts, disherited of soul,
No common centre Man, no common sire
Knoweth! A sordid solitary thing,
'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart
Through courts and cities the smooth Savage roams,
Feeling himself, his own low Self the whole;
When he by sacred sympathy might make
The whole one Self! Self that no alien knows!
Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel!
Self, spreading still! Oblivious of its own,
Yet all of all possessing! This is Faith!
This the Messiah's destin'd victory!
But first offences needs must come! Even now
(Black Hell laughs horrible-to hear the scoff!)
Thee to defend, meek Galilæan! Thee
And thy mild laws of love unutterable,
Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands
Of social Peace; and listening Treachery lurks
With pious Fraud to snare a brother's life;
And childless widows o'er the groaning land
Wail numberless; and orphans weep for bread;
Thee to defend, dear Savior of Mankind!
Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of
Peace!
From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War!
Austria, and that foul Woman of the North,
The lustful Murderess of her wedded Lord!
And he, connatural Mind! whom (in their songs
So bards of elder time had haply feign'd)
Some Fury fondled in her hate to man,
Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge
Lick his young face, and at his mouth inbreathe
Horrible sympathy! And leagued with these
Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore!
Soul-harden'd barterers of human blood!
January 21st, 1794, in the debate on the Address to his Majesty, on the speech from the Throne, the Earl of Guildford moved an Amendment to the following effect:-"That the House hoped his Majesty would seize the earliest oppor tunity to conclude a peace with France," etc. This motion was opposed by the Duke of Portland, who "considered the war to be merely grounded on one principle-the preservatio of the Christian Religion." May 30th, 1794, the Duke o. Bedford moved a number of Resolutions, with a view to the Establishment of a Peace with France. He was opposed (among others) by Lord Abingdon in these remarkable words: "The best road to Peace, my Lords, is War! and War carried on in the same manner in which we are taught to worship our Creator, namely, with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our hearts, and with all our strength."
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