A transient gloom upon my soul imprest,
Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast.
Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon,
Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon:
Ah! now it works rude brakes and thorns among,
Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along!
LINES ON AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.*
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
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 perished 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, awakened 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:
As erst when from the Muses' calm abode
I came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed;
When as she twined a laurel round my brow,
And met my kiss, and half returned my vow,
O'er all my fame shot rapid my thrilled heart,
And every nerve confessed 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 accustomed 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
Formed 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.
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 softened echoes of Heaven's Halls!
O (have I sighed) 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,
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 basked 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 tossed 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!
Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay,
Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellowed ray
Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears,
Where softened 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 saddened 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.
WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
MUCH on my early youth I love to dwell,
Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell,
Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wondered at the tale!
Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing,
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing.
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom
Mourned with the breeze, O Lee Boo!* o'er thy tomb.
Where'er I wandered, Pity still was near,
Breathed from the heart and glistened in the tear:
No knell that tolled, but filled my anxious eye,
And suffering Nature wept that one should die! t
Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast,
Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping West:
When slumbering Freedom roused by high Disdain
With giant fury burst her triple chain !
Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glowed;
Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flowed;
Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies
She came, and scattered battles from her eyes!
Lee Boo, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelow Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died of the small-pox, and is buried in Rotherhithe church-yard. See Keate's Account.
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