There are who to a birthday strain Delicious odours! music sweet, That, when a thousand years are told, Earth, Sea, thy presence feel-nor less With its soft smile the truth express, Partakes a livelier cheer; Since thy return, through days and weeks Of hope that grew by stealth, How many wan and faded cheeks Have kindled into health! The Old, by thee revived, have said, Another year is ours ;" And wayworn Wanderers, poorly fed, Who tripping lisps a merry song The tender Infant who was long But now, when every sharp-edged blast Is quiet in its sheath, His Mother leaves him free to taste Earth's sweetness in thy breath. Thy help is with the weed that creeps That our own hands have drest, And yet how pleased we wander forth Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread Such greeting heard, away with sighs Vernal fruitions and desires Are linked in endless chase; While, as one kindly growth retires, And what if thou, sweet May, hast known Mishap by worm and blight; If expectations newly blown Have perished in thy sight; If loves and joys, while up they sprung, Such is the lot of all the young, However bright and fair. Lo! Streams that April could not check Are patient of thy rule; Gurgling in foamy water-break, Loitering in glassy pool: By thee, thee only, could be sent How delicate the leafy veil Through which yon House of God In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise Season of fancy and of hope, This modest charm of not too much, 1827. (7) Composed 1827. Published 1827. SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, “IF THOU DERIVE THY LIGHT FROM HEAVEN.” 255 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew SUCH age how beautiful! O Lady bright, (77) Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight, "IF THOU indeed DERIVE THY LIGHT FROM Composed 1827. HEAVEN." Published 1827. IF thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven, (78) The stars pre-eminent in magnitude, And they that from the zenith dart their beams, (Visible though they be to half the earth, Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness) Are yet of no diviner origin, No purer essence, than the one that burns, Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem 1828. A JEWISH FAMILY. (IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSite st. goar, UPON THE RHINE.) Composed 1828. Published 1835. GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings Might bear thee to this glen, With memory left of shapes and things To pencil dear and pen, Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine, A studious forehead to incline O'er this poor family. The Mother-her thou must have seen, In spirit, ere she came To dwell these rifted rocks between, Or found on earth a name ; An image, too, of that sweet Boy, Of playfulness, and love, and joy, |