Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the Stars,
Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight
Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.

No tongue is able to rehearse
One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a Lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though passed away
The Music, and extinct the Lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb
Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice.

Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty Genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears
Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in Soul! though distant times, Produced you, nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained; Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met, Ye lingered among human kind, Sweet voices for the passing wind; Departing sunbeams, loth to stop, Though smiling on the last hill top!

Such to the tender-hearted Maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged Chief
By Fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of Glory by Urania led!

VERNAL ODE.

Rerum Natura tota est nusquam magis quam in minimis. PLIN. Nat. His,

BENEATH the concave of an April sky,
When all the fields with freshest green were dight,
Appeared, in presence of that spiritual eye
That aids or supersedes our grosser sight,

The form and rich habiliments of One

Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun.
When it reveals, in evening majesty,
Features half lost amid their own pure light.
Poised, like a weary cloud, in middle air
He hung, then floated with angelic ease
(Softening that bright effulgence by degrees)

he had reached a summit sharp and bare, Where oft the vent'rous heifer drinks the noontide breeze.

Upon the apex of that lofty cone

Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone;
Fair as a gorgeous fabric of the East
Suddenly raised by some Enchanter's power,
Where nothing was; and firm as some old Tower
Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest
Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower!

Grows but to perish, and entrust
Its ruins to their kindred dust;
Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care,
Her procreant vigils Nature keeps
Amid the unfathomable deeps;
And saves the peopled fields of earth
From dread of emptiness or dearth.
Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd the sky
The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
The shadow-casting race of Trees survive:
Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive
Sweet Flowers;-what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads?-endlessly renewed,
Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray;
Where'er the subtle waters stray;
Wherever sportive zephyrs bend
Their course or genial showers descend!
Mortals, rejoice! the very Angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,

Amid your pleasant bowers to sit,

And through your sweet vicissitudes to range!»
O, nursed at happy distance from the cares
Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!
That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears,
And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath,
Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,”
Or blooming thicket moist with morning dew;
Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me?
And was it granted to the simple ear
Of thy contented Votary

Such melody to hear!

Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence,
While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn tree,

To lie and listen, till o'er-drowsed sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence,
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.
-A slender sound! yet hoary Time
Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years;-a company

Of ages coming, ages gone;

(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where She, a statist prudent to confer
Upon the public weal; a warrior bold,-
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal fight;
A cunning forager

That spreads no waste;-a social builder; one
In whom all busy offices unite
With all fine functions that afford delight,
Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!

And is She brought within the power
Of vision?-o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay
Her flight, and take its voice away!-
Observe each wing-a tiny van!-
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile!-yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high,
High as the imperial front of man,
The roscate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curved beak;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane
Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain
At which the desert trembles.-Humming Bee!
Thy sting was needless then, perchance unknown;
The seeds of malice were not sown;

All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free.
And no pride blended with their dignity.
-Tears had not broken from their source;
Nor anguish strayed from her Tartarian den;
The golden years maintained a course
Not undiversified, though smooth and even;
We were not mocked with glimpse and shadow,

then

Bright Seraphs mixed familiarly with men;
And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!

ODE TO LYCORIS.

MAY, 1817.

AN age hath been when Earth was proud
Of lustre too intense

To be sustained; and Mortals bowed

The front in self-defence.

Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed,
Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed
While on the wing the Urchin played,
Could fearlessly approach the shade?
-Enough for one soft vernal day,
If I, a Bard of ebbing time,
And nurtured in a fickle clime,
May haunt this horned bay;
Whose amorous water multiplies
The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes;
And smooths her liquid breast-to show
These swan-like specks of mountain snow,'
White as the pair that slid along the plains
Of Heaven, when Venus held the reins!

In youth we love the darksome lawn
Brushed by the owlet's wing;
Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn,
And Autumn to the Spring.

Sad fancies do we then affect,

In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
Lycoris (if such name befit

Thee, thee my life's celestial sign!)
When Nature marks the year's decline,
Be ours to welcome it;

Pleased with the harvest hope that runs
Before the path of milder suns,
Pleased while the sylvan world displays
Its ripeness to the feeding gaze;
Pleased when the sullen winds resound the knell
Of the resplendent miracle.

But something whispers to my heart

That, as we downward tend,
Lycoris! life requires an art
To which our souls must bend;
A skill-to balance and supply;
And, ere the flowing fount be dry,
As soon it must, a sense to sip,
Or drink, with no fastidious lip.
Frank greeting, then, to that blithe Guest
Diffusing smiles o'er land and sea
To aid the vernal Deity
Whose home is in the breast!
May pensive Autumn ne'er present
A claim to her disparagement!
While blossoms and the budding spray
Inspire us in our own decay;
Still, as we nearer draw to life's dark goal,
Be hopeful Spring the favourite of the Soul!

TO THE SAME.

ENOUGH of climbing toil!-Ambition treads
Here, as mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril! and each step,
As we for must uncertain recompeuse

Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed-that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
-Oh! 't is the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own:
And moss grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work
More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze-
Ocean and Earth contending for regard.

The umbrageous woods are left beneath!

But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth
Of yon wild cave, whose jagged brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
Yet cool the space within, and not uncheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive)
By stealthy influx of the timid day
Mingling with night, such twilight to compose
As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian Grot,
From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish,
He gained whate'er a regal mind might ask,
Or need, of council breathed through lips divine.

how far

Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim cave
Protect us, there deciphering as we may
Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth
Interpreting; or counting for old Time
Ilis minutes, by reiterated drops,
Audible tears, from some invisible source
That deepens upon faucy-more and more
Drawn tow'rd the centre whence those sighs creep
forth

To awe the lightness of humanity:

Or, shutting up thyself within thyself, There let me see thee sink into a mood Of gentler thought, protracted till thine eye Be calm as water when the winds are gone, And no one can tell whither. Dearest friend! We two have known such happy hours together, That, were power granted to replace them (fetched From out the pensive shadows where they lie Ju the first warmth of their original sunshine, Loth should I be to use it: passing sweet Are the domains of tender memory!

FIDELITY.

A BARKING Sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a Dog or Fox;

He halts and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.

The Dog is not of mountain breed ; Its motions, too, are wild and shy;