The boughs from the trunk the woodman did sever; And they floated it down on the course of the river. They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did. strip, And with this tree and others they made a good ship. The ship, it was launch'd; but in sight of the land Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand. It bulged on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast: Round and round flew the Raven, and caw'd to the blast. He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls See! See! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls! Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet, And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet, And he thank'd him again and again for this treat: They had taken his all, and Revenge it was sweet! MUTUAL PASSION. ALTERED AND MODERNIZED FROM AN OLD POET.* LOVE, and he loves me again, Yet dare I not tell who: For if the nymphs should know my swain, I fear they'd love him too. Yet while my joy's unknown, Its rosy buds are but half-blown: What no one with me shares, seems scarce my own. I'll tell, that if they be not glad, They yet may envy me: But then if I grow jealous mad, And of them pitied be, 'Twould vex me worse than scorn! And yet it cannot be forborne, Unless my heart would like my thoughts be torn. He is, if they can find him, fair, And fresh, and fragrant too, As after rain the summer air; And looks as lilies do, * Printed in 1811. See note to Time, Real and Ima ginary. That are this morning blown! Yet, yet I doubt, he is not known, Yet, yet I fear to have him fully shown. But he hath eyes so large, and bright, His voice-what maid soever hears Will be my rival, though she have but ears. I'll tell no more! yet I love him, And he loves me; yet so, That never one low wish did dim Our love's pure light, I know In each so free from blame, That both of us would gain new fame, If love's strong fears would let me tell his name! SONNET S.* "TO BOWLES." "Content, as random fancies might inspire, BOWLES. Y heart has thank'd thee, Bowles ! for those soft strains,2 M Whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring * For Coleridge's remarks on the Sonnet, see " Introduc tion," § 3. When the heading of a poem is placed between commas, we have supplied it. 1 Content, &c.] This motto is found in Bowles's Monody written at Matlock. For "harp," "lonely," and "struck," read "reed," " plaintive," and "touched." 2 Soft strains.] There must have been a freshness about Bowles's sonnets, when they first appeared, which time has tarnished for us. "It is peculiar to original genius" says Coleridge, Biog. Lit., p. 11-" to become less and less striking, in proportion to its success in improving the taste and judgment of its contemporaries." Coleridge was Bowles's greatest, but he was not his only admirer. The earliest edition of Bowles is dated 1789, and a ninth was published in 1805. See note to Introduction," § 3. 1 Of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring; For hence not callous to the mourner's pains Through youth's gay prime and thornless paths I went: And when the mightier throes of life began, A mingled charm, such as the pang consign'd "BURKE." Slate2 I lay in slumber's shadowy vale, guise, I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise: 1 Whose... spring.] For these two lines, the original version, in The Morning Chronicle (Dec., 1794), has— "That on the still air floating, tremblingly, The third line of this sonnet is found in the sonnet to "As made the soul enamour'd of her woe: No common praise, dear Bard, to thee I owe." а 2 As late, &c.] Nearly all the ideas of this sonnet are to be found in a poem by Bowles addressed to Burke. |