ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER 66 PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD." "And hail the Chapel! hail the Platform wild! With well strung arm, that first preserved his Child, SPLENDOUR'S fondly fostered child! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! Light as a dream your days their circlets ran, Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear! Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart: With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detained your eye from nature: stately vests, And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! There crowd your finely-fibred frame, And Genius to your cradle came, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, But boasts not many a fair compeer. A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, Some few, to nobler being wrought, Pernicious Tales! insidious Strains! The sordid vices and the abject pains, The doom of Ignorance and Penury! But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the chapel and the Platform wild, Where once the Austrian fell Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! You were a Mother! That most holy name, Whose Infants owe them less Than the poor Caterpillar owes Its gaudy Parent Fly. You were a Mother! at your bosom fed The Babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, Which you yourself created. Oh! delight! A second time to be a Mother, Without the Mother's bitter groans: Another thought, and yet another, By touch, or taste, by looks or tones O'er the growing Sense to roll, The Mother of your infant's Soul! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides All trembling gazes on the Eye of God, Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet With living Nature, in her joys and woes! O beautiful! O Nature's child! 'Twas thence you hailed the Platform wild, Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name 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 steadfast shore, Ere yet the Tempest rose and scared me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, And SLOTH, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind. |