Hg as the imperial front of man,
The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curved beak

The white plumes of the floating swan;
Od as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane
Er shaken by that mood of stern disdain

A which the desert trembles. -Humining Bee!
Thy sting was needless then, perchance unknown;
The seeds of malice were not sown;

All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free,
And no pride blended with their dignity.
-Tears had not broken from their source;
Nr anguish strayed from her Tartarian den;
The golden years maintained a course
Ne undiversified, though smooth and even;

We were not mocked with glimpse and shadow, then
Bright Seraphs mixed familiarly with men;

And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!

ODE TO LYCORIS.

MAY, 1817. 1.

Avage hath been when Earth was proud

Of lustre too intense

To be sustained; and Mortals bowed
The front in self-defence.

Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed,
Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed
While on the wing the Urchin played,
Could fearlessly approach the shade?
-Enough for one soft vernal day,
If I, a Bard of ebbing time,
And nurtured in a fickle clime,
May haunt this horned bay;
Whose amorous water multiplies
The fitting halcyon's vivid dyes;
And smooths her liquid breast-to show
These swan-like specks of mountain snow,
White as the pair that slid along the plains
Of Heaven, when Venus held the reins!

2.

In youth we love the darksome lawn
Brushed by the owlet's wing;
Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn,
And Autumn to the Spring.
Sad fancies do we then affect,

In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
Lycoris (if such name befit

Thee, thee my life's celestial sign!)
When Nature marks the year's decline,
Be ours to welcome it;

Pleased with the harvest hope that runs Before the path of milder suns;

Pleased while the sylvan world displays

Its ripeness to the feeding gaze;

Pleased when the sullen winds resound the knell Of the resplendent miracle.

3.

But something whispers to my heart
That, as we downward tend,
Lycoris! life requires an art
To which our souls must bend;
A skill-to balance and supply;
And, ere the flowing fount be dry,
As soon it must, a sense to sip,
Or drink, with no fastidious lip.

Frank greeting, then, to that blithe Guest
Diffusing smiles o'er land and sea
To aid the vernal Deity

Whose home is in the breast!

May pensive Autumn ne'er present
A claim to her disparagement!
While blossoms and the budding spray
Inspire us in our own decay;

Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark gaol,
Be hopeful Spring the favourite of the Soul!

TO THE SAME.

ENOUGH of climbing toil!- Ambition treads
Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril! and each step,
As we for most uncertain recompense
Mount tow'rd the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its own familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,

With wonder mixed — that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
-Oh! 't is the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own;
And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,

And gurgling rills, assist her in the work More efficaciously than realms outspread, As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze Ocean and Earth contending for regard.

The umbrageous woods are left-how far beneath!
But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth
Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
Yet cool the space within, and not uncheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive)
By stealthy influx of the timid day
Mingling with night, such twilight to compose
As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian Grot,
From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish,
He gained whate'er a regal mind might ask,
Or need, of council breathed through lips divine.

Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim cave
Protect us, there deciphering as we may
Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth
Interpreting; or counting for old Time
His minutes, by reiterated drops,

Audible tears, from some invisible source
That deepens upon fancy-more and more

Drawn tow'rd the centre whence those sighs creep forth
To awe the lightness of humanity.
Or, shutting up thyself within thyself,
There let me see thee sink into a mood

Of gentler thought, protracted till thine eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone,
And no one can tell whither. Dearest Friend!
We two have known such happy hours together,
That, were power granted to replace them (fetched
From out the pensive shadows where they lie)
In the first warmth of their original sunshine,
Loth should I be to use it: passing sweet
Are the domains of tender memory!

ODE

COMPOSED ON MAY MORNING.

WHILE from the purpling east departs
The Star that led the dawn,
Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,
For May is on the lawn.

A quickening hope, a freshening glee,

Foreran the expected Power,

Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree,

Shakes off that pearly shower.

All Nature welcomes Her whose sway Tempers the year's extremes;

Who scattereth lustres o'er noon-day, Like morning's dewy gleams;

While mellow warble, sprightly trill,

The tremulous heart excite; And hums the balmy air to still The balance of delight.

Time was, blest Power! when Youths and Maids
At peep of dawn would rise,
And wander forth, in forest glades

Thy birth to solemnize.

Though mute the song -to grace the rite
Untouched the hawthorn bough,

Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight;

Man changes, but not Thou!

Thy feathered Lieges bill and wings
In love's disport employ;

Warmed by thy influence, creeping Things
Awake to silent joy:

Queen art thou still for each gay Plant Where the slim wild Deer roves; And served in depths where Fishes haunt Their own mysterious groves.

Cloud-piercing Peak, and trackless Heath, Instinctive homage pay;

Nor wants the dim-lit Cave a wreath To honour Thee, sweet May! Where Cities fanned by thy brisk airs

Behold a smokeless sky, Their puniest Flower-pot nursling dares To open a bright eye.

And if, on this thy natal morn,

The Pole, from which thy name Hath not departed, stands forlorn

Of song and dance and game, Still from the village-green a vow Aspires to thee addrest Wherever peace is on the brow,

Or love within the breast.

Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach
The soul to love the more;
Hearts also shall thy lessons reach

That never loved before.
Stript is the haughty One of pride,
The bashful freed from fear,
While rising, like the ocean-tide,
In flows the joyous year.

Hush, feeble lyre! weak words refuse
The service to prolong!

To yon exulting Thrush the Muse

Intrusts the imperfect song;

His voice shall chant, in accents clear,

Throughout the live-long day,

Till the first silver Star appear,

The sovereignty of May.

TO MAY.

Taotoa many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gifts, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odours! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire-a lay

That, when a thousand years are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, Sea, thy presence feel- -nor less, If yon ethereal blue

With its soft smile the truth express,

The Heavens have felt it too. The inmost heart of man if glad

Partakes a livelier cheer;

And eyes that cannot but be sad
Let fall a brightened tear.

Since thy return, through days and weeks
Of hope that grew by stealth,
How many wan and faded cheeks
Have kindled into health

The Old, by thee revived, have said,
"Another year is ours;"

And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.

Who tripping lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?

The tender Infant who was long

A prisoner of fond fears;

But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,

His Mother leaves him free to taste
Earth's sweetness in thy breath.

Thy help is with the Weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;

No Cliff so bare but on its steeps
Thy favours may be found;
But most on some peculiar nook
That our own hands have drest,
Thon and thy train are proud to look,
And seem to love it best.

And yet how pleased we wander forth,
When May is whispering, "Come!
Choose from the bowers of virgin earth
The happiest for your home;

Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread

From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves, Drops on the mouldering turret's head,

And on your turf-clad graves!"

Such greeting heard, away with sighs
For lilies that must fade,
Or "the rathe primrose as it dies
Forsaken" in the shade!
Vernal fruitions and desires

Are linked in endless chase;
While, as one kindly growth retires,
Another takes its place.

And what if thou, sweet May, hast known
Mishap by worm and blight;

If expectations newly blown

Have perished in thy sight;
If loves and joys, while up they sprung,
Were caught as in a snare;
Such is the lot of all the young,
However bright and fair.

Lo! Streams that April could not check
Are patient of thy rule;
Gurgling in foamy water-break,
Loitering in glassy pool:

By thee, thee only, could be sent
Such gentle Mists as glide,
Curling with unconfirmed intent,
On that green mountain's side.
How delicate the leafy veil

Through which yon House of God
Gleams 'mid the peace of this deep dale,
By few but shepherds trod!

And lowly Huts, near beaten ways,

No sooner stand attired

In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise
Peep forth, and are admired.

Season of fancy and of hope,

Permit not for one hour

A blossom from thy crown to drop,
Nor add to it a flower!

Keep, lovely May, as if by touch

Of self-restraining art,

This modest charm of not too much,
Part seen, imagined part!

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

"Not to the earth confined,

"Ascend to heaven."

WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;

Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aërial harmonies;

From humble violet, modest thyme,
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky
Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride
If like ambition be their guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,
The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The Birds pour forth their souls in note
Of rapture from a thousand throats,
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal
And thirst for no inferior zeal,

Thou, who canst think, as well as feel.

Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral choir,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper lights, and curls in clouds
Around angelic Forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,
That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
- Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!
What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery?
The iterated summons loud,

Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?

Alas! the sanctities combined
By art to unsensualise the mind,
Decay and languish; or, as creeds

And humours change, are spurned like weeds:*
The solemn rites, the awful forms,
Founder amid fanatic storms;
The priests are from their altars thrust,
The temples levelled with the dust:
Vet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude

Of seasons balancing their flight

On the swift wings of day and night,

* See Note.

Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door
Wide open for the scattered Poor.

Where flower-breathed incense to the skies

Is wafted in mute harmonies;

And ground fresh cloven by the plough

Is fragrant with a humbler vow;
Where birds and brooks from leafy dells
Chime forth unwearied canticles,
And vapours magnify and spread
The glory of the sun's bright head;
Still constant in her worship, still
Conforming to the Almighty Will,
Whether men sow or reap the fields,
Her admonitions Nature yields;
That not by bread alone we live,
Or what a hand of flesh can give;
That every day should leave some part
Free for a sabbath of the heart;
So shall the seventh be truly blest,
From morn to eve, with hallowed rest.

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing Traveller slights;
Yet there the Glow-worms hang their larupe
Like stars, at various heights;

And one coy Primrose to that Rock

The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature's chain
From highest heaven let down!

The Flowers, still faithful to the stems, Their fellowship renew;

The stems are faithful to the root,

That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres,
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;

And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

Here closed the meditative Strain;
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the Primrose of the Rock

I gave this after-lay.

I sang, Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied, — mightier far
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope
In God's redeeming love:

That love which changed, for wan disease, For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age,

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse
To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,
From one oblivious winter called
Shall rise, and breathe again;
And in eternal summer lose

Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends
This prescience from on high,
The faith that elevates the Just,

Before and when they die;

And makes each soul a separate heaven, A court for Deity.

THOUGHT ON THE SEASONS.

FLATTERED with promise of escape
From every hurtful blast,

Spring takes, O sprightly May! thy shape,
Her loveliest and her last.

Less fair is summer riding high
In fierce solstitial power,

Less fair than when a lenient sky
Brings on her parting hour.

When earth repays with golden sheaves
The labours of the plough,

And ripening fruits and forest leaves
All brighten on the bough,

What pensive beauty autumn shows,
Before she hears the sound
Of winter rushing in, to close
The emblematic round!

Such be our Spring, our Summer such; So may our Autumn blend

With boary Winter, and life touch, Through heaven-born hope, her end!

|THE unremitting voice of nightly streams

That wastes so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,

If neither soothing to the worm that gleams

Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers, Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,

That voice of unpretending harmony

(For who what is shall measure by what seems
To be, or not to be,

Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Wants not a healing influence that can creep
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues-as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time,
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.

Among the scattered rocks:

And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The dog is not of mountain breed ;

Its motions, too, are wild and shy;

With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height;

Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the Creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,

That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,

A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;

* Tarn is a small Mere or Lake, mostly high up in the mountains.