Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,
Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy !
And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.
LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.*
THOU wild Fancy, check thy wing! No more
Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds
explore!
Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight
Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light;
Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day,
With western peasants hail the morning ray!
Ah! rather bid the perish'd pleasures move,
A shadowy train, across the soul of Love!
O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling
Each flower that wreathed the dewy locks of Spring,
When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower
She leapt, awaken'd by the pattering shower.
Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam,
Aid, lovely Sorceress! aid thy Poet's dream!
With faery wand O bid the Maid arise,
Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes;
* Original title, "Written in early youth, the time, an Autumnal Evening."
As erst when from the Muses' calm abode
I came, with Learning's meed not unbestow'd;
When as she twined a laurel round my brow,
And met my kiss, and half return'd my vow,
O'er all my frame shot rapid my thrill'd heart,
And every nerve confess'd the electric dart.
O dear Deceit! I see the Maiden rise,
Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes!
When first the lark high-soaring swells his throat,
Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the loud note,
I trace her footsteps on the accustom'd lawn,
I mark her glancing mid the gleams of dawn.
When the bent flower beneath the night-dew weeps
And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps,
Amid the paly radiance soft and sad
She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad.
With her along the streamlet's brink I rove;
With her I list the warblings of the grove;
And seems in each low wind her voice to float,
Lone-whispering Pity in each soothing note!
Spirits of Love! ye heard her name ! Obey
The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair.
Whether on clustering pinions ye are there,
Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle-trees,
Or with fond languishment around my fair
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair;
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way,
Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!
Spirits! to you the infant Maid was given
Form'd by the wondrous Alchemy of Heaven!
No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know,
No fairer Maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow.
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly;
A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye;
Love lights her smile-in Joy's red nectar dips
His myrtle flower,* and plants it on her lips.
[Tender, serene, and all devoid of guile,
Soft is her soul as sleeping infants' smile :]
She speaks! and hark that passion-warbled song-
Still, Fancy still that voice, those notes prolong.
As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls
Shall wake† the soften'd echoes of Heaven's Halls!
O (have I sigh'd) were mine the wizard's rod,
Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful God!
A flower-entangled Arbour I would seem
To shield my Love from Noontide's sultry beam :
Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose odorous boughs
My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows.
When Twilight stole across the fading vale,
To fan my Love I'd be the Evening Gale;
* In Joy's bright nectar dips
The flamy rose, &c. 1796.
+ Still, Fancy! still those mazy notes prolong,
Sweet as th' angelic harps whose rapturous falls
Awake the soften'd echoes, &c. 1796.
Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest,
And flutter my faint pinions on her breast!
On Seraph wing I'd float a Dream by night,
To soothe my Love with shadows of delight :—
Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies,
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes!
As when the savage, who his drowsy frame
Had bask'd beneath the Sun's unclouded flame,
Awakes amid the troubles of the air,
The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare-
Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep,
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep:-
So toss'd by storms along Life's wildering way,
Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day,
When by my native brook I wont to rove,
While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love.
Dear native brook! like Peace, so placidly
Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek!
Dear native brook! where first young Poesy
Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream!
Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek,
As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream !*
* In The Watchman, of April 2, 1796, the above sixteen lines, beginning
"As the tired savage who his drowsy frame"
appear under the title of "Recollection," and continue with ten
Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay,
Where Friendship's fix'd star sheds a mellow'd ray,
Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears,
Where soften'd Sorrow smiles within her tears;
And Memory, with a Vestal's chaste employ,
Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy!
No more your sky-larks melting from the sight
Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight-
No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet
With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat.
Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene
Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between !
Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song,
That soars on Morning's wing your vales among.
Scenes of my Hope! the aching eye ye leave
Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve!
Tearful and saddening with the sadden'd blaze
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze :—
Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend,
Till chill and damp the moonless night descend.
lines afterwards inserted in the Sonnet to the River Otter, closing thus:
"Ah! fair though faint those forms of memory seem,
Like Heaven's bright bow on thy smooth evening stream."
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