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Contemplant Spirits! ye that hover o’er
With untir'd gaze th' immeasurable fount
Ebullient with creative Deity!

And ye of plastic power that interfus'd
Roll thro' 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 noviciate thought
In ministeries of heart-stirring song

And aye on Meditation's heaven-ward wing
Soaring aloft I breathe th' 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 and warbles as it flows.

Flows to the ray,

SONNET.

THE piteous sobs that choak the Virgin's breath
For him, the fair betrothed Youth, who lies
Cold in the narrow dwelling, or the cries
With which a Mother wails her Darling's death,
These from our Nature's common impulse spring

Unblam'd, unprais'd; but o'er the piled earth,
Which hides the sheeted corse of gray-hair'd Worth,
If droops the soaring Youth with slacken'd wing;
If he recall in saddest minstrelsy

Each tenderness bestow'd, each truth impress'd; Such Grief is Reason, Virtue, Piety!

And from the Almighty Father shall descend

Comforts on his late Evening, whose young breast Mourns with no transient love the aged friend.

LINES

TO JOSEPH COTTLE.

My honor'd Friend! whose verse concise yet clear
Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense,

May your fame fadeless live, as “never-sere”
The Ivy wreathes yon Oak, whose broad defence
Embow'rs me from Noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless Riv❜let stealing by,
Your modest verse to musing Quiet dear

Is rich with tints heav'n-borrow'd: the charm'd eye
Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky.
Circling the base of the Poetic mount

A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount:
The vapor-poison'd Bird's, that fly too low,
Fall with deep swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escap'd that heavy stream on pinion fleet
Beneath the mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,

A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlab'ring feet.

Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That like some giant king, o'er glooms the hill;
Nor there the Pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! But th' unceasing rill
To the soft Wren or Lark's descending trill
Murmurs sweet undersong 'mid jasmin bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd-there collecting flow'rs
Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers!
There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb
You wove th' unfinish'd* wreathe of saddest hues ;

* War a Fragment.

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And to that holier* chaplet added bloom
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your+ Henderson awakes the Muse-
His Spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain and soar'd 'mid richer views!
So nature mourn'd when sank the first Day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of night!

Still soar my Friend those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent, flashing Fancy's beam!
Virtue and Truth shall love your gentler song;
But Poesy demands th' impassion'd theme:
Wak'd by Heaven's silent dews at Eve's mild gleam
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around!
But if the vex'd air rush a stormy stream,

Or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound, With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest honour'd ground.

AN EFFUSION

ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.

WRITTEN IN EARLY

YOUTH.

O THOU Wild Fancy, check thy wing! No more
Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore!
Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight
Bath'd 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 did the perish'd pleasures move,
A shadowy train, across the soul of Love!
O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling

Each flower, that wreath'd the dewy locks of Spring, • John the Baptist, a Poem.

† Monody on John Henderson.

When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower
She leap'd, awaken'd by the pattering shower.

Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam,
Aid, lovely Sorceress! aid thy Poet's dream!
With fairy wand O bid the Maid arise,

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes;
As erst when from the Muse's calm abode

I came, with Learning's meed not unbestow'd:
When as she twin'd 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 tir'd eye, and scatters the loud note,
I trace her footsteps on th' 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 clust'ring pinions ye are there,
Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle trees,
Or with fond languishment around fair
my
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair;
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way,
o o 2

Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!
Spirits! to you the infant Maid was given
Form'd by the wond'rous Alchemy of Heaven!
No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know,
No fairer Maid e'er heav'd the blossom's snow,
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly;
A thousand Loves sit melting her

eye;
Love lights her smile-in Joy's red nectar dips
His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips,
She speaks! and hark that passion warbled song-
Still Fancy still that voice, those notes prolong,
As sweet as when that voice with rapt'rous 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 od❜rous 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;
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 sooth 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 skyey deluge, and white lightning's glare-
Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep,
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep :-
So tost by storms along Life's wild'ring way,

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