Poems 1817 | Page 8

with cowslip bells was wrestling.?There must be too a ruin dark, and gloomy,?To say "joy not too much in all that's bloomy."
Yet this is vain--O Mathew lend thy aid?To find a place where I may greet the maid--?Where we may soft humanity put on,?And sit, and rhyme and think on Chatterton;?And that warm-hearted Shakspeare sent to meet him?Four laurell'd spirits, heaven-ward to intreat him.?With reverence would we speak of all the sages?Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages:?And thou shouldst moralize on Milton's blindness,?And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness?To those who strove with the bright golden wing?Of genius, to flap away each sting?Thrown by the pitiless world. We next could tell?Of those who in the cause of freedom fell:?Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell;?Of him whose name to ev'ry heart's a solace,?High-minded and unbending William Wallace.?While to the rugged north our musing turns?We well might drop a tear for him, and Burns.
Felton! without incitements such as these,?How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease:?For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace,?And make "a sun-shine in a shady place:"?For thou wast once a flowret blooming wild,?Close to the source, bright, pure, and undefil'd,?Whence gush the streams of song: in happy hour?Came chaste Diana from her shady bower,?Just as the sun was from the east uprising;?And, as for him some gift she was devising,?Beheld thee, pluck'd thee, cast thee in the stream?To meet her glorious brother's greeting beam.?I marvel much that thou hast never told?How, from a flower, into a fish of gold?Apollo chang'd thee; how thou next didst seem?A black-eyed swan upon the widening stream;?And when thou first didst in that mirror trace?The placid features of a human face:?That thou hast never told thy travels strange.?And all the wonders of the mazy range?O'er pebbly crystal, and o'er golden sands;?Kissing thy daily food from Naiad's pearly hands.
November, 1815.
TO MY BROTHER GEORGE.
Full many a dreary hour have I past,?My brain bewilder'd, and my mind o'ercast?With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought?No spherey strains by me could e'er be caught?From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze?On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;?Or, on the wavy grass outstretch'd supinely,?Pry 'mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:?That I should never hear Apollo's song,?Though feathery clouds were floating all along?The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,?The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:?That the still murmur of the honey bee?Would never teach a rural song to me:?That the bright glance from beauty's eyelids slanting?Would never make a lay of mine enchanting,?Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold?Some tale of love and arms in time of old.
But there are times, when those that love the bay,?Fly from all sorrowing far, far away;?A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see?In water, earth, or air, but poesy.?It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it,?(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,)?That when a Poet is in such a trance,?In air he sees white coursers paw, and prance,?Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel,?Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel,?And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call,?Is the swift opening of their wide portal,?When the bright warder blows his trumpet clear,?Whose tones reach nought on earth but Poet's ear.?When these enchanted portals open wide,?And through the light the horsemen swiftly glide,?The Poet's eye can reach those golden halls,?And view the glory of their festivals:?Their ladies fair, that in the distance seem?Fit for the silv'ring of a seraph's dream;?Their rich brimm'd goblets, that incessant run?Like the bright spots that move about the sun;?And, when upheld, the wine from each bright jar?Pours with the lustre of a falling star.?Yet further off, are dimly seen their bowers,?Of which, no mortal eye can reach the flowers;?And 'tis right just, for well Apollo knows?'Twould make the Poet quarrel with the rose.?All that's reveal'd from that far seat of blisses,?Is, the clear fountains' interchanging kisses.?As gracefully descending, light and thin,?Like silver streaks across a dolphin's fin,?When he upswimmeth from the coral caves.?And sports with half his tail above the waves.
These wonders strange be sees, and many more,?Whose head is pregnant with poetic lore.?Should he upon an evening ramble fare?With forehead to the soothing breezes bare,?Would he naught see but the dark, silent blue?With all its diamonds trembling through and through:?Or the coy moon, when in the waviness?Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress,?And staidly paces higher up, and higher,?Like a sweet nun in holy-day attire??Ah, yes! much more would start into his sight--?The revelries, and mysteries of night:?And should I ever see them, I will tell you?Such tales as needs must with amazement spell you.
These are the living pleasures of the bard:?But richer far posterity's award.?What does he murmur with his latest breath,?While his proud eye looks through the film of death??"What though