Those silent Inmates now no longer share,
Nor do they need, our hospitable care,
Removed in kindness from their glassy Cell
To the fresh waters of a living Well;
That spreads into an elfin pool opaque

Of which close boughs a glimmering mirror make,
On whose smooth breast with dimples light and small
The fly may settle, leaf or blossom fall.

There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower
Fearless (but how obscured!) the golden Power,
That from his bauble prison used to cast
Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast;
And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome,
The silver Tenant of the crystal dome;
Dissevered both from all the mysteries

Of hue and altering shape that charmed all eyes.
They pined, perhaps, they languished while they shone;
And, if not so, what matters beauty gone
And admiration lost, by change of place
That brings to the inward Creature no disgrace?
But if the change restore his birthright, then,
Whate'er the difference, boundless is the gain.
Who can divine what impulses from God
Reach the caged Lark, within a town-abode,
From his poor inch or two of daisied sod?
O yield him back his privilege! No sea
Swells like the bosom of a man set free;
A wilderness is rich with liberty.
Roll on, ye spouting Whales, who die or keep
Your independence in the fathomless Deep!
Spread, tiny Nautilus, the living sail;

Dive, at thy choice, or brave the freshening gale!
If unreproved the ambitious Eagle mount
Sunward to seek the daylight in its fount,
Bays, gulfs, and Ocean's Indian width, shall be,
Till the world perishes, a field for thee!

I ask what warrant fixed them (like a spell
Of witchcraft fixed them) in the crystal Cell;
To wheel with languid motion round and round,
Beautiful, yet in a mournful durance bound.
Their peace, perhaps, our lightest footfall marred;
On their quick sense our sweetest music jarred;
And whither could they dart, if seized with fear?
No sheltering stone, no tangled root was near.
When fire or taper ceased to cheer the room
They wore away the night in starless gloom
And, when the sun first dawned upon the streams,
How faint their portion of his vital beams!
Thus, and unable to complain, they fared,
While not one joy of ours by them was shared.

Is there a cherished Bird (I venture now To snatch a sprig from Chaucer's reverend brow)Is there a brilliant Fondling of the cage, Though sure of plaudits on his costly stage, Though fed with dainties from the snow-white han Of a kind Mistress, fairest of the land, But gladly would escape; and, if need were, Scatter the colours from the plumes that bear The emancipated captive through blithe air Into strange woods, where he at large may live On best or worst which they and Nature give! The Beetle loves his unpretending track, The Snail the house he carries on his back: The far-fetched Worm with pleasure would disown The bed we give him, though of softest down; A noble instinct; in all Kinds the same, All Ranks! What Sovereign, worthy of the name If doomed to breathe against his lawful will An element that flatters him to kill, But would rejoice to barter outward show For the least boon that freedom can bestow?

But most the Bard is true to inborn right,
Lark of the dawn, and Philomel of night,
Exults in freedom, can with rapture vouch
For the dear blessings of a lowly couch,
A natural meal-days, months, from Nature's han
Time, place, and business, all at his command
Who bends to happier duties, who more wise
Than the industrious Poet, taught to prize,
Above all grandeur, a pure life uncrossed
By cares in which simplicity is lost?

That life-the flowery path which winds by stealt
Which Horace needed for his spirit's health;
Sighed for, in heart and genius, overcome
By noise, and strife, and questions wearisome,
And the vain splendours of Imperial Rome!
Let easy mirth his social hours inspire,
And fiction animate his sportive lyre,
Attuned to verse that crowning light Distress
With garlands cheats her into happiness;
Give me the humblest note of those sad strains
Drawn forth by pressure of his gilded chains,
As a chance sunbeam from his memory fell
Upon the Sabine Farm he loved so well;
Or when the prattle of Bandusia's spring
Haunted his ear-he only listening-
He proud to please, above all rivals, fit
To win the palm of gaiety and wit;
He, doubt not, with involuntary dread,
Shrinking from each new favour to be shed,
By the World's Ruler, on his honoured head!

In a deep vision's intellectual scene, Such earnest longings and regrets as keen Depressed the melancholy Cowley, laid Under a fancied yew-tree's luckless shade;

4 deful bower for penitential song, Where Man and Muse complained of mutual wrong; We Cam's ideal current glided by,

antique towers nodded their foreheads high, ('face's dear to studious privacy.

B: Fortune, who had long been used to sport
With this tried servant of a thankless Court,
Bertag met his wishes; and to You

The remnant of his days at least was true;

ìs, whom, though long deserted, he loved best;
I Mises, Books, Fields, Liberty, and Rest!
Et tappier they who, fixing hope and aim
the humanities of peaceful fame

Later betimes with more than martial fire

The generous course, aspire, and still aspire;
Iveld by warnings heeded not too late

*fe the contradictions of their fate,

And to one purpose cleave, their Being's godlike mate!

marted by all who knew her. Her enthrinasto was ardent, her piety steadfast; and her great would have enabled her to be eminently useful in the 't path of life to which she had been called. The een ont abe entertaised of her own performances, given to the ander her maiden name, Jewsbury, was modest and “de, and, ndeed, far below their merits; as is often the with three who are making trial of their powers with a w to Emaver what they are best fitted for. In one quality, rests in the motions of her mind, she was in the sucher • extration unequalled.

By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice ;)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;

Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be raised;
On which four thousand years have gazed!

2.

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-white lambs that trip
Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!

Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall

To feed the insatiate Prodigal!

Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime, -
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time;

O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,

A Genius dwells, that can subdue

At once all memory of You,

Most potent when mists veil the sky,

Mists that distort and magnify;

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,

Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

3.

List to those shriller notes! - that march
Perchance was on the blast,

When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!
-They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,
This block-and yon, whose Church-like frame
Gives to the savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my Guide⚫
And I (as often we find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And we have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of Constraint.
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That Choice lacked courage to bestow!

4.

My soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;
A veil is lifted -
-can she slight
The scene that opens now?
Though habitation none appear,

The greenness tells, man must be there;
The shelter that the perspective
Is of the clime in which we live;
Where Toil pursues his daily round;
Where Pity sheds sweet tears, and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below;
Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain !
Hope, pointing to the cultured Plain,
Carols like a shepherd boy;

And who is she? - Can that be Joy!
Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide;
While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,
To hill and vale proclaims aloud,
"Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked dare,
Thy lot, O Man, is good, thy portion fair!"

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD
OF PARADISE.

THE gentlest poet, with free thoughts endowed,
And a true master of the glowing strain,
Might scan the narrow province with disdain
That to the painter's skill is here allowed.
This, this the Bird of Paradise! disclaim
The daring thought, forget the name;

This the sun's bird, whom Glendoveers might own
As no unworthy partner in their flight
Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway
Of nether air's rude billows is unknown;
Whom sylphs, if e'er for casual pastime they
Through India's spicy regions wing their way,
Might bow to as their Lord. What character,
O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,
Of all thy feathered progeny

Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?
So richly decked in variegated down,
Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,
Hues doubtfully begun and ended;
Or intershooting, and to sight

Lost and recovered, as the rays of light.

Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there?
Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life
Began the pencil's strife,

O'erweening art was caught as in a snare.

A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong Gave the first impulse to the poet's song;

AIREY-FORCE VALLEY. Nor a breath of air Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen. From the brook's margin, wide around, the trees Are stedfast as the rocks; the brook itself, Old as the hills that feed it from afar, Doth rather deepen than disturb the calm Where all things else are still and motionless. And yet, even now, a little breeze, perchance Escaped from boisterous winds that rage without, Has entered, by the sturdy oaks unfelt, But to its gentle touch how sensitive Is the light ash! that, pendent from the brow Of yon dim cave, in seeming silence makes A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs, Powerful almost as vocal harmony

To stay the wanderer's steps and soothe his though

THE CUCKOO-CLOCK. WOULDST thou be taught, when sleep has taken flig By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell, How far-off yet a glimpse of morning light, And if to lure the truant back be well, Forbear to covet a repeater's stroke, That, answering to thy touch will sound the hour; Better provide thee with a Cuckoo-clock For service hung behind thy chamber-door; And in due time the soft spontaneous shock, The double-note, as if with living power, Will to composure lead or make thee blithe as b

in bower.

--

List, Cuckoo-Cuckoo! — oft tho' tempests how!,
Or nipping frost remind thee trees are bare,
How cattle pine, and droop the shivering fowl,
Thy spirits will seem to feed on balmy air:
I speak with knowledge, by that voice beguiled,
Thou wilt salute old memories as they throng
Into thy heart; and fancies, running wild
Through fresh green fields, and budding groves amon
Will make thee happy, happy as a child;

Of sunshine wilt thou think, and flowers, and song
And breathe as in a world where nothing can go wron

And know that, even for him who shuns the day
And nightly tosses on a bed of pain;
Whose joys, from all but memory swept away,
Must come unhoped for, if they come again;

Kow-that, for him whose waking thoughts, severe
As he distress is sharp, would scorn my theme,

The mimic notes striking upon his ear
In sleep, and intermingling with his dream,
Could from sad regions send him to a dear
Deughtful land of verdure, shower and gleam,

To mock the wandering voice beside some haunted

stream.

O bounty without measure! while the grace

Of Heaven doth in such wise, from humblest springs,
Four pleasure forth, and solaces that trace
A mazy course along familiar things,

Well may our hearts have faith that blessings come,
Streaming from founts above the starry sky,
With angels when their own untroubled home
They leave, and speed on nightly embassy
Test earthly chambers, and for whom?
Yen, both for souls who God's forbearance try,

And those that seek his help, and for his mercy sigh.

LINES,

("REPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING
THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR.
JULY 13, 1798.

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
Wr a sweet inland murmur.* - Once again
De I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
bent up, in silence, from among the trees
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant Dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous Forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me

As a landscape to a blind man's eye: Bet oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

1: hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:- feelings too'
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, —
Until the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create*,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay :

For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 't is her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,

This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young, the exact expression of which I do not recollect.

When these wild ecstacies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance
If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

PETER BELL

A TALE.

What's in a Name?

Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Casar!

ΤΟ

ROBERT SOUTHEY Esq. P. L &c. &c.

MY DEAR FRIEND.

THE Tale of Peter Bell, which I now introduce to your notice, and to that of the Public, has, in its Manuscript state, nearly survived its minority;—for it first saw the light in the summer of 1798. During this long interval, pains have been taken at different times to make the production less unworthy of a favourable reception; or, rather, to fit it for filling permanently a station, however humble, in the Literature of my Country. This has, indeed, been the aim of all my endeavours in Poetry, which, you know, have been sufficiently laborious to prove that I deem the Art not lightly to be approached; and that the attainment of excellence in it, may laudably be made the principal object of intellectual pursuit by any man, who, with reasonable consideration of circumstances, has faith in his own impulses.

The Poem of Peter Bell, as the Prologue will show, was composed under a belief that the Imagination not