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 the impassion'd theme:
Waked 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 tempesthonour'd ground.

THE SILVER THIMBLE.*

THE PRODUCTION OF A YOUNG LADY, ADDRESSED TO

THE AUTHOR OF THE POEMS ALLUDED TO IN

THE PRECEDING EPISTLE.

She had lost her Thimble, and her complaint being accidentally overheard by him, her Friend, he immediately sent her four others to take her choice of.

S oft mine eye with careless glance
Has gallop'd o'er some old romance,
Of speaking birds and steeds with
wings,

Giants and dwarfs, and fiends and kings;

* Sara Coleridge is of opinion that her mother did not write many lines of this poem. Coleridge never meant it to be thought that she did.

Beyond the rest with more attentive cart
I've loved to read of elfin-favour'd Fair;
How if she long'd for aught beneath the sky
And suffer'd to escape one votive sigh,
Wafted along on viewless pinions aery
It laid itself obsequious at her feet:

Such things, I thought, one might not hope to

meet

Save in the dear delicious land of Faery!
But now (by proof I know it well)
There's still some peril in free wishing;
Politeness is a licensed spell,

And you, dear Sir! the arch-magician.

You much perplex'd me by the various set:
They were indeed an elegant quartette!
My mind went to and fro, and waver'd long;
At length I've chosen (Samuel thinks me
wrong)

That, around whose azure rim

Silver figures seem to swim,

Like fleece-white clouds, that on the skiey blue, Waked by no breeze, the self-same shapes re

tain;

Or ocean-Nymphs with limbs of snowy hue
Slow-floating o'er the calm cerulean plain.

Just such a one, mon cher ami, (The finger-shield of industry)

The inventive Gods, I deem, to Pallas gave, What time the vain Arachne, madly brave, Challenged the blue-eyed Virgin of the sky A duel in embroider'd work to try.

And hence the thimbled finger of grave Pallas

To the erring needle's point was more than

callous.

But ah, the poor Arachne! She, unarm'd,
Blundering thro' hasty eagerness, alarm'd
With all a rival's hopes, a mortal's fears,
Still miss'd the stitch, and stain'd the web with
tears.

Unnumber'd punctures, small yet sore,
Full fretfully the maiden bore,
Till she her lily finger found

Crimson'd with many a tiny wound;
And to her eyes, suffused with watery woe,
Her flower-embroider'd web danced dim, I
wist,

Like blossom'd shrubs in a quick-moving mist:
Till vanquish'd the despairing maid sank low.

O Bard! whom sure no common Muse inspires,

I heard your verse that glows with vestal fires! And I from unwatch'd needle's erring point Had surely suffer'd on each finger joint

Those wounds, which erst did poor Arachne meet;

While he, the much-loved object of my choice, (My bosom thrilling with enthusiast heat,) Pour'd on mine ear with deep impressive voice, How the great Prophet of the Desert stood And preach'd of penitence by Jordan's Flood; On war; or else the legendary lays

In simplest measures hymn'd to Alla's praise; Or what the Bard from his heart's inmost stores O'er his friend's grave in loftier numbers

pours:

G

Yes, Bard polite! you but obey'd the laws
Of Justice, when the thimble you had sent;
What wounds your thought-bewildering Muse
might cause

'Tis well your finger-shielding gifts prevent.

SARA.

WRITTEN AFTER A WALK BEFORE SUPPER.*

HO' much averse, dear Jack, to
flicker,

To find a likeness for friend
V-ker,

I've made, thro' earth, and air, and sea,

A voyage of discovery!

And let me add (to ward off strife)

For V-ker, and for V

-ker's wife

She large and round beyond belief,

A superfluity of beef!

Her mind and body of a piece,

And both composed of kitchen-grease.

In short, dame Truth might safely dub her
Vulgarity enshrined in blubber!

He, meagre bit of littleness,

All snuff, and musk, and politesse;

* Coleridge, writing to Cottle about the second edition, says, "I am not solicitous to have anything omitted, except the sonnet to Lord Stanhope and the ludicrous poem." We also should have liked to omit "the ludicrous roem."

So thin, that strip him of his clothing,
He'd totter on the edge of nothing!
In case of foe, he well might hide
Snug in the collops of her side.

Ah then, what simile will suit ?
Spindle-leg in great jack-boot?
Pismire crawling in a rut?
Or a spigot in a butt ?

Thus I humm'd and ha'd awhile,

When Madam Memory, with a smile,
Thus twitch'd my ear-"Why sure, I ween,
In London streets thou oft hast seen
The very image of this pair:

A little ape with huge she-bear
Link'd by hapless chain together:
An unlick'd mass the one-the other
An antic huge with nimble crupper
But stop, my Muse! for here comes supper.

THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET

AGAIN.

COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE.*

IM Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar,

O rise, and yoke the turtles to thy car!

* Derwent Coleridge states this poem to have been written "in half mockery of Darwin's style." H. N. Coleridge heads it "Darwiniana,” in the Remains, vol. i.