ODE ΤΟ TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age To low intrigue, or factious rage: For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth, To thee I gave my early youth, And left the bark, and blest the stedfast shore, Ere yet the Tempest rose and scar'd me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, power divine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, And dire Remembrance interlope, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind. But me thy gentle hand will lead At morning through the accustom'd mead; Will build me up a mossy seat ! And when the gust of Autumn crowds And breaks the busy moonlight-clouds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding Moon. The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole ! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future race, Aloof with hermit-eye I scan The present works of present man A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, TO A YOUNG FRIEND, On his proposing to Domesticate with the Author. Composed in 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, Where cypress and the darker yew start wild; Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguil'd, Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, That rustling on the bushy clift above, With melancholy bleat of anxious love, Made meek enquiry for her wandering lamb: Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosom ach'd with loneliness How more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless Th' advent'rous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round, Wide and more wide, increasing without bound! O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,— Shouts eagerly for haply there uprears Stretch'd on the crag, and shadow'd by the pine, To cheat our noons in moralizing mood, While west-winds fann'd our temples toil-bedew'd: Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Where smiling with blue eye, DOMEStic bliss Thus rudely vers'd in allegoric lore, The Hill of Knowledge I essay'd to trace; Where INSPIRATION, his diviner strains Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks O meek retiring spirit! we will climb, Cheering and cheer'd, this lovely hill sublime; |