ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S
PICTURE

Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine - thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Bless'd be the art that can immortalise,
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,

II

O welcome guest, though unexpected here! Who bidst me honour with an artless song, Affectionate, a mother lost so long,

I will obey, not willingly alone,

But gladly, as the precept were her own: And, while that face renews my filial grief, Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

A momentary dream that thou art she.

Yes.

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My mother! when I learnt that thou wast dead Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss: Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! It answers I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such? It was. - Where thou art gone

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Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more!
Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.
What ardently I wished I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived.
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot;
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapped
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped,
'Tis now become a history little known,
That once we called the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair
That memory keeps, of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly
laid;

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Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes
That humour interposed too often makes;
All this still legible in memory's page,

And still to be so to my latest age,

Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,

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Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the

hours,

When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers, The violet, the pink, and jassamine,

I pricked them into paper with a pin

(And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile),

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Could those few pleasant days again appear, Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?

I would not trust my heart the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might. —
But no what here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

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Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed)
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,
There sits quiescent on the floods that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the
shore,

"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar."
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest, 100
Always from port withheld, always distressed
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest tost,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass
lost,

And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me:
My boast is not, that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise
The son of parents passed into the skies!
And now, farewell Time unrevoked has run
His wonted course, yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again;
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,

Without the sin of violating thine:
And, while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

YARDLEY OAK

Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all

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5

That once lived here, thy brethren! at my birth
(Since which I number threescore winters past)
A shattered veteran, hollow-trunked perhaps,
As now,
and with excoriate forks deform,
Relics of ages! — could a mind, imbued
With truth from Heaven, created thing adore,
I might with reverence kneel and worship thee.
It seems idolatry with some excuse,
When our forefather Druids in their oaks
Imagined sanctity. The conscience, yet
Unpurified by an authentic act

Of amnesty, the meed of blood divine,
Loved not the light, but, gloomy, into gloom
Of thickest shades, like Adam after taste
Of fruit proscribed, as to a refuge, fled.

ΙΟ

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Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay,

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Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs,
And all thine embryo vastness, at a gulp.
But fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains
Beneath thy parent tree mellowed the soil
Designed thy cradle; and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepared
The soft receptacle, in which, secure,
Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.
So fancy dreams. Disprove it, if ye can,
Ye reasoners broad awake, whose busy search
Of argument, employed too oft amiss,
Sifts half the pleasures of short life away!

Warped into tough knee-timber, many a load!
But the axe spared thee. In those thriftier days
Oaks fell not, hewn by thousands, to supply 101
The bottomless demands of contest waged
For senatorial honours. Thus to Time
The task was left to whittle thee away
With his sly scythe, whose ever-nibbling edge,
Noiseless, an atom, and an atom more,
Disjoining from the rest, has, unobserved,
Achieved a labour, which had, far and wide,
By man performed, made all the forest ring.
Embowelled now, and of thy ancient self 110
Possessing nought but the scooped rind, that

seems

гоб

A huge throat calling to the clouds for drink,
Which it would give in rivulets to thy root,
Thou temptest none, but rather much forbiddest
The feller's toil, which thou couldst ill requite.
Yet is thy root sincere, sound as the rock,
A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs,
Which, crook'd into a thousand whimsies, clasp
The stubborn soil, and hold thee still erect.

So stands a kingdom, whose foundation yet Fails not, in virtue and in wisdom laid, Though all the superstructure, by the tooth Pulverised of venality, a shell

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A splintered stump, bleached to a snowy white:
And some memorial none, where once they grew.
Yet life still lingers in thee, and puts forth
Proof not contemptible of what she can,
Even where death predominates. The Spring
Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force
Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood,
So much thy juniors, who their birth received
Half a millennium since the date of thine.
But since, although well qualified by age
To teach, no spirit dwells in thee, nor voice
May be expected from thee, seated here
On thy distorted root, with hearers none,
Or prompter, save the scene, I will perform
Myself the oracle, and will discourse
In my own ear such matter as I may.
One man alone, the father of us all,
Drew not his life from woman; never gazed, 145
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw,
On all around him; learned not by degrees,
Nor owed articulation to his ear;

But moulded by his Maker into man
At once, upstood intelligent, surveyed
All creatures, with precision understood

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