With whirlwind arm, fierce Minister of Love!
Wherefore, ere Virtue o'er thy tomb hath wept,
Angels shall lead thee to the Throne above:

And thou from forth its clouds shalt hear the voice.
Champion of Freedom and her God! rejoice!

SONNET X.

THOU gentle Look, that didst my soul beguile,
Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile!
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam :
What time, in sickly moed, at parting day
I lay me down and think of happier years;
Of Joys, that glimmered in Hope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of Hope-for ever gone!
Could I recall you !-But that thought is vain.
Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone

To lure the fleet-winged Travellers back again :
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam
Like the bright Rainbow on a willowy stream.

SONNET XI.

PALE Roamer through the Night! thou poor Forlorn! Remorse that man on his deathbed possess,

Who in the credulous hour of tenderness

Betrayed, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn!

The world is pitiless: the Chaste one's pride

Mimic of Virtue scowls on thy distress:

Thy Loves and they, that envied thee, deride :

And Vice alone will shelter wretchedness!

O! I am sad to think, that there should be
Cold-bosomed Lewd ones, who endure to place
Foul offerings on the shrine of Misery,
And force from Famine the caress of Love;
May He shed healing on the sore disgrace,
He, the great Comforter that rules above!

SONNET XII.

SWEET Mercy! how my very heart has bled

To see thee, poor Old Man! and thy grey hairs
Hoar with the snowy blast: while no one cares
To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head.
My Father! throw away this tattered vest
That mocks thy shivering! take my garment-use
A young man's arm! I'll melt these frozen dews

That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast.
My Sara too shall tend thee, like a child:

And thou shalt talk, in our fireside's recess,

Of purple Pride, that scowls on Wretchedness.

He did not so, the Galilæan mild,

Who met the Lazars turned from rich man's doors,

And called them Friends, and healed their noisome sores!

SONNET XIII.

TO THE AUTUMNAL MOON.

MILD Splendour of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gathered blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky.
Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair :
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

SONNET XIV.

THOU bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress

Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile

And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while

Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.

Why didst thou listen to Hope's whisper bland?
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale
Jarred thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?

Faint was that Hope, and rayless !-Yet 'twas fair,
And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest :
Thou shouldst have loved it most, when most opprest,
And nursed it with an agony of care,

Even as a Mother her sweet infant heir

That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!

SONNET XV.

66

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ROBBERS."

SCHILLER! that hour I would have wished to die,
If through the shuddering midnight I had sent
From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent
That fearful voice, a famished Father's cry—-
Lest in some after moment aught more mean
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
Black Horror screamed, and all her goblin rout
Diminished shrunk from the more withering scene!
Ah Bard tremendous in sublimity!

Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood
Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye

Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!

Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood:
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy!

SIBYLLINE LEAVES.

I. POEMS OCCASIONED BY POLITICAL EVENTS OR FEELINGS CONNECTED WITH THEM.

When I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student's bower for gold, some fears unnamed
I had, my country! Am I to be blamed!
But, when I think of Thee, and what Thou art,

Verily, in the bottom of my heart,

Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.

But dearly must we prize thee; we who find

In thee a bulwark of the cause of men;

And I by my affection was beguiled.
What wonder if a poet, now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a Lover or a Child.

WORDSWORTH.

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.

Ιοὺ, ἰοὺ, ὢ κακά.

Υπ ̓ αὖ με δεινὸς ὀρθομαντείας ωόνος
Στροβεί, ταράσσων φρο μίοις ἐφημίοις·

*

*

*

*

*

Τὸ μέλλον ἥξει· Καὶ σὺ μην τάχει παρών

Α'γαν γ' ἀληθόμαντιν μ' ἐρεῖς.

ESCHYL., Agam. 1225.

ARGUMENT.

The Ode commences with an Address to the Divine Providence that regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote

them for a while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November, 1796, having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of the Departing Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies, in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.

ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.*

I.

SPIRIT who sweepest the wild Harp of Time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fixed on Heaven's unchanging clime
Long when I listened, free from mortal fear,
With inward stillness, and submitted mind;
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the Departing Year!
Starting from my silent sadness

Then with no unholy madness

Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,

I raised the impetuous song, and solemnised his flight.

II.

Hither, from the recent Tomb,

From the Prison's direr gloom,

From Distemper's midnight anguish ;

And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish ;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,

Love illumines Manhood's maze;

Or where, o'er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze,

Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
By time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep,

I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band!

From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour;

This Ode was composed on the 24th, 25th, and 26th days of December, 1796, and

was first published on the last day of that year.