And stretch'd thee in some mossy dell,
And heard the browsing wether's bell,
Blithe echoes rousing from their cell

To swell the tinkling choir:

"Or heard from branch of flowering thorn
The song of friendly cuckoo warn

The tardy-moving swain;
Hast bid the purple swallow hail;
And seen him now through ether sail,
Now sweeping downward o'er the vale,
And skimming now the plain;

"Then, catching with a sudden glance
The bright and silver-clear panse
Of some broad river's stream,
Beheld the boats adown it glide,
And motion wind again the tide,
Where, chain'd in ice by winter's pride,

Late roll'd the heavy team:

"Or, lured by some fresh-scented gale
That woo'd the moored fisher's sail
To tempt the mighty main,
Hast watch'd the dim, receding shore,
Now faintly seen the ocean o'er,
Like hanging cloud, and now no more
To bound the sapphire plain;

"Then, wrapt in night, the scudding bark,
(That seem'd, self-poised amid the dark,
Through upper air to leap,)

Beheld, from thy most fearful height,
The rapid dolphin's azure light
Cleave, like a living meteor bright,

The darkness of the deep:

""T was mine the warm, awakening hand
That made thy grateful heart expand,
And feel the high control

Of Him, the mighty Power that moves
Amid the waters and the groves,
And through his vast creation proves
His omnipresent soul.

"Or, brooding o'er some forest rill,
Fringed with the early daffodil,

And quivering maiden-hair,

When thou hast mark'd the dusky bed,
With leaves and water-rust o'erspread,
That seem'd an amber light to shed

On all was shadow'd there;

"And thence, as by its murmur call'd,
The current traced to where it brawl'a
Beneath the noontide ray;

And there beheld the checker'd shade
Of waves, in many a sinuous braid,
That o'er the sunny channel play'd,
With motion ever gay:

"'T was I to these the magic gave,
That made thy heart, a willing slave,

To gentle Nature bend;

And taught thee how with tree and flower, And whispering gale, and dropping shower, Ip converse sweet to pass the hour,

As with an early friend:

"That mid the noontide, sunny haze Did in thy languid bosom raise

The raptures of the boy; When, waked as if to second birth, Thy soul through every pore look'd forth, And gazed upon the beauteous earth With myriad eyes of joy :

"That made thy heart, like HIS above,
To flow with universal love

For every living thing.
And, O! if I, with ray divine,
Thus tempering, did thy soul refine,
Then let thy gentle heart be mine,

And bless the Sylph of Spring."

And next the Sylph of Summer fair;
The while her crisped, golden hair
Half-veil'd her sunny eyes:
"Nor less may I thy homage claim,
At touch of whose exhaling flame
The fog of Spring, that chill'd thy frame,
In genial vapour flies.

"Oft, by the heat of noon oppress'd
With flowing hair and open vest,

Thy footsteps have I won

To mossy couch of welling grot, Where thou hast bless'd thy happy lot, That thou in that delicious spot

Mayst see, not feel, the sun:

"Thence tracing from the body's change, In curious philosophic range,

The motion of the mind;

And how from thought to thought it flew

Still hoping in each vision new
The fairy land of bliss to view,

But ne'er that land to find.

"And then, as grew thy languid mood, To some embowering, silent wood

I led thy careless way; Where high from tree to tree in air Thou saw'st the spider swing her snare, So bright!-as if, entangled there, The sun had left a ray:

"Or lured thee to some beetling steep,
To mark the deep and quiet sleep

That wrapt the tarn below;
And mountain blue and forest green
Inverted on its plane serene,
Dim gleaming through the filmy sheen
That glazed the painted show;
«Perchance, to mark the fisher's skiff
Swift from beneath some shadowy cliff
Dart, like a gust of wind;
And, as she skimm'd the sunny lake,
In many a playful wreath her wake
Far-trailing, like a silvery snake,

With sinuous length behind.

"Not less, when bill, and dale, and heath Still Evening wrapt in mimic death.

Thy spirit true I proved:

Around thee as the darkness stole,
Before thy wild, creative soul
I bade each fairy vision roll

Thine infancy had loved.

"Then o'er the silent, sleeping land, Thy fancy, like a magic wand,

Forth call'd the elfin race:

And now around the fountain's brim
In circling dance they gayly skim;
And now upon its surface swim,

And water-spiders chase;

"Each circumstance of sight or sound
Peopling the vacant air around
With visionary life:
For if amid a thicket stir'd,
Or flitting bat, or wakeful bird,
Then straight thy eager fancy heard
The din of fairy strife;

"Now, in the passing beetle's hum
The elfin army's goblin drum

To pigmy battle sound;

And now, where dripping dew-drops plash
On waving grass, their bucklers clash,
And now their quivering lances flash,
Wide-dealing death around:

"Or if the moon's effulgent form
The passing clouds of sudden storm
In quick succession veil;

Vast serpents now, their shadows glide,
And, coursing now the mountain's side,
A band of giants huge, they stride

O'er hill, and wood, and dale.

"And still on many a service rare Could I descant, if need there were,

My firmer claim to bind.

But rest I most my high pretence
On that, my genial influence,
Which made the body's indolence
The vigour of the mind."

And now,
in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherish'd wo,
The Sylph of Autumn sad:
"Though I may not of raptures sing,
That graced the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer, playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad;
"Yet still may I in hope aspire
Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,
And purifying love:

For I with vision high and holy,
And spell of quickening melancholy,
Thy soul from sublunary folly

First raised to worlds above.

"What though be mine the treasures fair Of purple grape and yellow pear,

And fruits of various hue,
And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain
To merry song of reaping swain,

Beneath the welkin blue;

"With these I may not urge my suit,
Of Summer's patient toil the fruit,
For mortal purpose given;
Nor may it fit my sober mood
To sing of sweetly murmuring flood,
Or dyes of many-colour'd wood,

That mock the bow of heaven.

"But, know, 't was mine the secret power That wak'd thee at the midnight hour In bleak November's reign:

"T was I the spell around thee cast, When thou didst hear the hollow blast In murmurs tell of pleasures past,

That ne'er would come again :

"And led thee, when the storm was o'er, To hear the sullen ocean roar,

By dreadful calm oppress'd; Which still, though not a breeze was there, Its mountain-billows heav'd in air, As if a living thing it were,

That strove in vain for rest.

""T was I, when thou, subdued by wo,
Didst watch the leaves descending slow,
To each a moral gave;

And as they moved in mournful train,
With rustling sound, along the plain,
Taught them to sing a seraph's strain
Of peace within the grave.

"And then, upraised thy streaming eyc, I met thee in the western sky

In pomp of evening cloud;

That, while with varying form it roll'd,
Some wizard's castle seem'd of gold,
And now a crimson'd knight of old,
Or king in purple proud.

"And last, as sunk the setting sun,
And Evening with her shadows dun
The gorgeous pageant past,
"T was then of life a mimic show,
Of human grandeur here below,
Which thus beneath the fatal blow

Of Death must fall at last.

"O, then with what aspiring gaze Didst thou thy tranced vision raise

To yonder orbs on high, And think how wondrous, how sublime "T were upwards to their spheres to climb, And live, beyond the reach of Time,

Child of Eternity!"

And last the Sylph of Winter spake;
The while her piercing voice did shake
The castle-vaults below.

"O, youth, if thou, with soul refin'd,
Hast felt the triumph pure of mind,
And learn'd a secret joy to find
In deepest scenes of wo;

"If e'er with fearful ear at eve
Hast heard the wailing tempests grieve
Through chink of shatter'd wall.

The while it conjured o'er thy brain
Of wandering ghosts a mournful train,
That low in fitful sobs complain
Of Death's untimely call:

"Or feeling, as the storm increased,
The love of terror nerve thy breast,

Didst venture to the coast; To see the mighty war-ship leap From wave to wave upon the deep, Like chamois goat from steep to steep, Till low in valley lost;

"Then, glancing to the angry sky,
Behold the clouds with fury fly

The lurid moon athwart;
Like armies huge in battle, throng,
And pour in volleying ranks along,
While piping winds in martial song
To rushing war exhort:

"O, then to me thy heart be given,
To me, ordain'd by Him in heaven

Thy nobler powers to wake.
And O! if thou, with poet's soul,
High brooding o'er the frozen pole,
Hast felt beneath my stern control
The desert region quake;

"Or from old Hecla's cloudy height,
When o'er the dismal, half-year's night
He pours his sulphurous breath,
Hast known my petrifying wind
Wild ocean's curling billows bind,
Like bending sheaves by harvest hind,

Erect in icy death;

"Or heard adown the mountain's steep
The northern blast with furious sweep
Some cliff dissever'd dash;
And seen it spring with dreadful bound
From rock to rock, to gulf profound,
While echoes fierce from caves resound
The never-ending crash:

"If thus, with terror's mighty spell
Thy soul inspired, was wont to swell,
Thy heaving frame expand;

O, then to me thy heart incline;

For know, the wondrous charm was mine,
That fear and joy did thus combine
In magic union bland.

"Nor think confined my native sphere
To horrors gaunt, or ghastly fear,
Or desolation wild:
For I of pleasures fair could sing,
That steal from life its sharpest sting,
And man have made around it cling,

Like mother to her child.

"When thou, beneath the clear blue sky, So calm, no cloud was seen to fly,

Hast gazed on snowy plain, Where Nature slept so pure and sweet, She seem'd a corse in winding-sheet, Whose happy soul had gone to meet The blest, angelic train;

"Or mark'd the sun's declining ray
In thousand varying colours play
O'er ice-incrusted heath,

In gleams of orange now, and green,
And now in red and azure sheen,
Like hues on dying dolphin seen,

Most lovely when in death;

"Or seen, at dawn of eastern light
The frosty toil of fays by night

On pane of casement clear,
Where bright the mimic glaciers shine,
And Alps, with many a mountain pine,
And armed knights from Palestine
In winding march appear:

""T was I on each enchanting scene
The charm bestow'd that banished spleen
Thy bosom pure and light.
But still a nobler power I claim;
That power allied to poets' fame,
Which language vain has dared to name-
The soul's creative might.

44

That o'er thy teeming brain did raise The spirits of departed days

Through all the varying year;

And images of things remote,

And sounds that long had ceased to float, With every hue, and every note,

As living now they were:

"And taught thee from the motley mass Each harmonizing part to class,

(Like Nature's self employ❜d;) And then, as work'd thy wayward will, From these, with rare combining skill, With new-created worlds to fill

Of space the mighty void.

"O then to me thy heart incline;
To me, whose plastic powers combine
The harvest of the mind;
To me, whose magic coffers bear
The spoils of all the toiling year,
That still in mental vision wear
A lustre more refined."

She ceased-And now, in doubtful mood,
All motionless and mute I stood,

Like one by charm oppress'd:

By turns from each to each I roved,
And each by turns again I loved;
For ages ne'er could one have proved
More lovely than the rest.

"O blessed band, of birth divine,
What mortal task is like to mine!"-

And further had I spoke,

When, lo! there pour'd a flood of light
So fiercely on my aching sight,
I fell beneath the vision bright,

And with the pain awoke.

AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN.*

ALL hail! thou noble land,

Our fathers' native soil! O stretch thy mighty hand,

Gigantic grown by toil,

O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore;
For thou, with magic might,
Canst reach to where the light
Of Phoebus travels bright
The world o'er!

The genius of our clime,

From his pine-embattled steep,

Shall hail the great sublime;

While the Tritons of the deep

With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim

Then let the world combine

O'er the main our naval line,
Like the milky-way, shall shine
Bright in fame!

Though ages long have pass'd

Since our fathers left their home.

Their pilot in the blast,

O'er untravell'd seas to roam,—

Yet lives the blood of England in our veins!
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame,
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?

While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung.
In which our MILTON told

How the vault of heaven rung

When Satan, blasted, fell with his host;
While this, with reverence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,
From rock to rock repeat

Round our coast;

While the manners, while the arts,

That mould a nation's soul, Still cling around our hearts,

Between let ocean roll,

Our joint communion breaking with the sun: Yet, still, from either beach,

The voice of blood shall reach,

More audible than speech,

"We are one!"

* This poem was first published in COLERIDGI'S “Sy. Milline Leaves," in 1810.

THE SPANISH MAID.

FIVE weary months sweet Inez number'd
From that unfading bitter day
When last she heard the trumpet bray
That call'd her Isidor away-

That never to her heart has slumber'd;

She hears it now, and sees, far bending
Along the mountain's misty side,
His plumed troop, that, waving wide,
Seems like a rippling, feathery tide,
Now bright, now with the dim shore blending;
She hears the cannon's deadly rattle-
And fancy hurries on to strife,

And hears the drum and screaming fife
Mix with the last sad cry of life.

O, should he should he fall in battle!
Yet still his name would live in story,
And every gallant bard in Spain
Would fight his battles o'er again.
And would not she for such a strain
Resign him to his country's glory?

Thus Inez thought, and pluck'd the flower
That grew upon the very bank
Where first her ear bewilder'd drank
The plighted vow-where last she sank
In that too bitter parting hour.

But now the sun is westward sinking;
And soon amid the purple haze,
That showers from his slanting rays,
A thousand loves there meet her gaze,
To change her high heroic thinking.

Then hope, with all its crowd of fancies,
Before her flits and fills the air;

And, deck'd in victory's glorious gear,
In vision Isidor is there.

Then how her heart mid sadness dances!

Yet little thought she, thus forestalling
The coming joy, that in that hour
The future, like the colour'd shower
That seems to arch the ocean o'er,
Was in the living present falling.

The foe is slain. His sable charger

All fleck'd with foam comes bounding on.
The wild Morena rings anon,

And on its brow the gallant Don,
And gallant steed grow larger, la.ger;

And now he nears the mountain-hollow;
The flowery bank and little lake
Now on his startled vision break-
And Inez there.-He's not awake--
Ah, what a day this dream will follow!

But no he surely is not dreaming.
Another minute makes it clear.
A scream, a rush, a burning tear
From Inez' cheek, dispel the fear
That bliss like his is only seeming

ON GREENOUGH'S GROUP OF THE ANGEL AND CHILD.

I STOOD alone; nor word, nor other sound,
Broke the mute solitude that closed me round;
As when the air doth take her midnight sleep,
Leaving the wintry stars her watch to keep,
So slept she now at noon. But not alone
My spirit then: a light within me shone

That was not mine; and feelings undefined,
And thoughts flow'd in upon me not my own.
"T was that deep mystery-for aye unknown-
The living presence of another's mind.
Another mind was there-the gift of few-
That by its own strong will can all that's true
In its own nature unto others give,

And mingling life with life, seem there, to live.
I felt it now in mine; and oh! how fair,
How beautiful the thoughts that met me there-
Visions of Love, and Purity, and Truth!
Though form distinct had each,they seem'd,as'twere,
Imbodied all of one celestial air-

To beam for ever in coequal youth.

And thus I learn'd-as in the mind they moved-
These stranger Thoughts the one the other loved;
That Purity loved Truth, because 't was true,
And Truth, because 't was pure, the first did woo;
While Love, as pure and true, did love the twain;
Then Love was loved of them, for that sweet chain
That bound them all. Thus sure, as passionless,
Their love did grow, till one harmonious strain
Of melting sounds they seem'd; then, changed again,
One angel form they took-Self-Happiness.
This angel form the gifted Artist saw,
That held me in his spell. "T was his to draw
The veil of sense, and see the immortal race,
The Forms spiritual, that know not place.
He saw it in the quarry, deep in earth,
And stay'd it by his will, and gave it birth

E'en to the world of sense; bidding its cell,
The cold, hard marble, thu in plastic girth
The shape ethereal fix, and body forth

A being of the skies-with man to dwell.
And then another form beside it stood;

'T was one of this our earth-though the warm blood
Had from it pass'd-exhaled as in a breath
Drawn from its lips by the cold kiss of Death.
Its little dream of human life" had fled;
And yet it seem'd not number'd with the dead,
But one emerging to a life so bright
That, as the wondrous nature o'er it spread,
Its very consciousness did seem to shed

Rays from within, and clothe it all in light.
Now touch'd the Angel Form its little hand,
Turning upon it with a look so bland,
And yet so full of majesty, as less
Than holy natures never may impress-
And more than proudest guilt unmoved may brook.
The Creature of the Earth now felt that look,
And stood in blissful awe--as one above
Who saw his name in the Eternal Book,
And Him that open'd it; e'en Him that took
The Little Child, and bless'd it in his love.

SONNETS.

ON A FALLING GROUP IN THE LAST JUDGMENT OF MICHAEL ANGELO.

How vast, how dread, o'erwhelming is the thought
Of space interminable! to the soul

A circling weight that crushes into naught
Her mighty faculties! a wond'rous whole,
Without or parts, beginning, or an end!
How fearful then on desp'rate wings to send
The fancy e'en amid the waste profound!
Yet, born as if all daring to astound,
Thy giant hand, O ANGELO, hath hurl'd
E'en human forms, with all their mortal weight,
Down the dread void-fall endless as their fate!
Already now they seem from world to world
For ages thrown; yet doom'd, another past,
Another still to reach, nor e'er to reach the last!

ON REMBRANT: OCCASIONED BY HIS PICTURE
OF JACOB'S DREAM.

As in that twilight, superstitious age,
When all beyond the narrow grasp of mind
Seem'd fraught with meanings of supernal kind,
When e'en the learned philosophic sage,

Wont with the stars thro' boundless space to range,
Listen'd with reverence to the changeling's tale.
E'en so, thou strangest of all beings strange!
E'en so thy visionary scenes I hail;
That like the rambling of an idiot's speech,
No image giving of a thing on earth,
Nor thought significant in reason's reach,
Yet in their random shadowings give birth
To thoughts and things from other worlds that come,
And fill the soul, and strike the reason dumb.

ON THE PICTURES BY RUBENS, IN THE LUX-
EMBOURG GALLERY,

THERE is a charm no vulgar mind can reach,
No critic thwart, no mighty master teach;
A charm how mingled of the good and ill!
Yet still so mingled that the mystic whole
Shall captive hold the struggling gazer's wi'
Till vanquish'd reason own its full control
And such, O RUBENS, thy mysterious art,
The charm that vexes, yet enslaves the heart!
Thy lawless style, from timid systems free,
Impetuous rolling like a troubled sea,
High o'er the rocks of reason's lofty verge
Impending hangs; yet, ere the foaming surge
Breaks o'er the bound, the refluent ebb of taste
Back from the shore impels the wat'ry waste.

TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND THE PRESIDENT
OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

FROM One unused in pomp of words to raise
A courtly monument of empty praise,
Where self, transpiring through the flimsy pile,
Betrays the builder's ostentatious guile,
Accept, O WEST, these unaffected lays,
Which genius claims and grateful justice pays
Still green in age, thy vig'rous powers impart
The youthful freshness of a blameless heart ·
For thine, unaided by another's pain,
The wiles of envy, or the sordid train