Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans,
In feverous slumbers-destined then to wake,
When fiery whirlwinds thunder his dread name
And Angels shout, Destruction! How his arm
The last great Spirit* lifting high in air
Shall swear by Him, the ever-living One,
Time is no more!
Believe thou, O my soul,
Life is a vision shadowy of Truth;
And vice, and anguish, and the wormy grave,
Shapes of a dream! The veiling clouds retire,
And lo! the Throne of the redeeming God
Forth flashing unimaginable day
Wraps in one blaze earth, heaven, and deepest hell.†
Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o'er
With untired gaze the immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!
And ye of plastic power, that interfused
Roll through the grosser and material mass
In organizing surge! Holies of God!
(And what if Monads of the infinite mind?)
I haply journeying my immortal course
Shall sometime join your mystic choir ! Till then
I discipline my young and novice thought
In ministeries of heart-stirring song,
* The mighty Spirit.—1796.
†This paragraph is intelligible to those, who, like the Author, believe and feel the sublime system of Berkeley; and the doctrine of the final happiness of all men.
My young noviciate thought.-1796.
And aye on Meditation's heavenward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe the empyreal air
Of Love, omnific, omnipresent Love,
Whose day-spring rises glorious in my soul
As the great Sun, when he his influence
Sheds on the frost-bound waters-The glad stream
Flows to the ray and warbles as it flows.
WHILE TEACHING A YOUNG LADY SOME SONG
HUSH! ye clamorous Cares! be mute!
Again, dear Harmonist! again
Thro' the hollow of thy flute
Breathe that passion-warbled strain : Till Memory each form shall bring
The loveliest of her shadowy throng;
And Hope, that soars on sky-lark wing,
Carol wild her gladdest song!
O skill'd with magic spell to roll
The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul !
*The Rev. W. J. Hort, a Unitarian clergyman, and in 1794 second master in Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Estlin's school, St. Michael's Hill. Bristol.-ED.
Breathe thro' thy flute those tender notes again,
While near thee sits the chaste-eyed Maiden mild ;
And bid her raise the Poet's kindred strain
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.
In Freedom's undivided dell,
Where Toil and Health with mellow'd Love shall dwell,
Far from folly, far from men,
In the rude romantic glen,
Up the cliff, and thro' the glade,
Wandering with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,
And ponder on thee far away
Still, as she bids those thrilling notes aspire
("Making my fond attuned heart her lyre "),
Thy honour'd form, my Friend! shall re-appear,
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear.
TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM.
THUS far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling: yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wandering far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister—
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her!
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows,
(As sick Patient in his Nurse's arms)
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That even from Friendship's eye will shrink
ashamed.
O! I have woke at midnight, and have wept,
Because she was not !-Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year:
Such warm presagings feel I of high Hope.
For not uninterested the dear Maid
I've view'd-her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to* implore were impotence of mind)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
* I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines "Of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind,"
it being written in Scripture, Ask, and it shall be given you," and my human reason being moreover convinced of the propriety of offering petitions as well as thanksgivings to Deity. (Note of 1797.)
Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes, To pour forth thanksgiving with lifted heart, And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's Joy! December, 1794.
SISTER of love-lorn Poets, Philomel!
How many Bards in city garret pent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen,
(Those hoarse unfeather'd Nightingales of Time !)
How many wretched Bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd Queen that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moon-mellow'd foliage hid
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O! I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd hath ceased to listen! Therefore oft,
I hymn thy name: and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, Minstrel of the Moon!
"Most musical, most melancholy" Bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd Lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
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