A PEN to register; a key— As aptly, also, might be given A Pencil to her hand; That, softening objects, sometimes even Outstrips the heart's demand; LIVES there a man whose sole delights Hardening a heart that loathes or slights That smoothes foregone distress, the lines From murmur of a running stream? Of lingering care subdues, Yet, like a tool of Fancy, works That startle Conscience, as she lurks O, that our lives, which flee so fast, That not an image of the past Retirement then might hourly look Age steal to his allotted nook With heart as calm as lakes that sleep, THIS lawn, a carpet all alive Could strip, for aught the prospect yie ds A soul so pitiably forlorn, If such do on this Earth abide, 5 Hundreds of times have I watched the dancing of shadows amid a press of sunshine, and other beautiful appearances of light and shade, flowers and shrubs. Some are of opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising is unfavourable to the perception of beadty. People are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that, such processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a limited intellect, we are apt to as cribe to them that insensibility of which they are in truth the effect, and not the cause. Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as their discoveries in natural Pailosophy are enlarged; and the beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less but With shadows flung from leaves, to strive more apparent as a whole, by more accu In dance amid a press Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields rate insight into its constituent properties and powers. A savant, who is not also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart, is a feeble and unhappy creature. Author's Notes. Or, shipwreck'd, kindles on the coast False fires, that others may be lost." TO THE REV. DR. WORDSWORTH. THE Minstrels play'd their Christmas tune Through hill and valley every breeze And who but listen'd?-till was paid O Brother! I revere the choice Yet, would that Thou, with me and mine, A true revival of the light Which Nature and these rustic Powers, For pleasure hath not ceased to wait How touching, when, at midnight, sweep 6 These two stanzas are from a poem of considerable length addressed "To the Lady Fleming." The piece, as a whole, is rather of a sermonising character; but I could not well resist the temptation to insert so much of it. Or, at an earlier call, to mark, The mutual nod, -the grave disguise Ah! not for emerald fields alone, Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence, AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS. 1803. SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH. SHIVER, Spirit fierce and bold, thought of what I now behold: By Skiddaw seen;- True friends though diversely inclined; Hs vapours breathed from dungeons cold Where the main fibres are entwined, Strike pleasure dead, So sadness comes from out the mould Where Burns is laid. Through Nature's skill The tear will start, and let it flow: Have sate and talk'd where gowans blow, What treasures would have then been Within my reach! of knowledge graced But why go on? O, spare to sweep, thou mournful blast, There, too, a Son, his joy and pride, Yet one to which is not denied For he is safe, a quiet bed Hath early found among the dead, And surely here it may be said That such are blest. And, O, for Thee, by pitying grace May He who halloweth the place Where Man is laid Receive thy Spirit in th' embrace standing in sight of each other, are the most conspicuous objects in their several places, they are well taken to represent the geographical nearness of the two poets. 9 Gowan is a Scotch word for daisy. The poet had in mind Burns' beautiful stanzas To a Mountain Daisy. TO THE SONS OF BURNS, AFTER VISITING THE GRAVE OF THEIR FATHER. 1 This piece, as also several of those that follow, grew out of the tour that the poet and his sister made through Scotland in 1803. In a note-on the piece, the author has the following: "We talked of Burns, 'MID crowded obelisks and urns and of the prospect he must have had, perhaps from his own door, of Skiddaw I sought th' untimely grave of Burns: and his companions; indulging ourselves .n the fancy that we might have been personally known to each other, and he have looked upon those objects with more pleasure for our sakes." Sons of the Bard, my heart still mourns With sorrow true; And more would grieve, but that it turns |