I may not vilely prostitute to those You were a mother! at your bosom fed The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, Each twilight thought, each nascent feeling read, Which you yourself created. Oh! delight! A second time to be a mother, Without the mother's bitter groans: Another thought, and yet another, By touch or taste, by looks or tones O'er the growing sense to roll, The mother of your infant's soul! The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides A moment turned his awful face away; Blest intuitions and communions fleet, With living Nature, in her joys and woes! O beautiful! O Nature's child! Beneath the shaft of Tell! O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! ODE TO TRANQUILLITY. TRANQUILLITY! thou better name To low intrigue, or factious rage ; And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore, Ere yet the tempest rose, and scared me with its roar. Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine, On him but seldom, Power divine, Thy spirit rests! Satiety And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee, To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind: But me thy gentle hand will lead And when the gust of Autumn crowds, And breaks the busy moonlight clouds, Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, The feeling heart, the searching soul, To thee I dedicate the whole! And while within myself I trace The greatness of some future race, The present works of present man— A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile, TO A YOUNG FRIEND, ON HIS PROPOSING TO DOMESTICATE WITH THE AUTHOR. COMPOSED IN 1796. A MOUNT, not wearisome and bare and steep, Beneath whose boughs, by those still sounds beguiled, Calm Pensiveness might muse herself to sleep; Till haply startled by some fleecy dam, That rustling on the bushy cliff above, With melancholy bleat of anxious love, Made meek inquiry for her wandering lamb: Such a green mountain 'twere most sweet to climb, E'en while the bosom ached with lonelinessHow more than sweet, if some dear friend should bless The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow the glad landscape round Wide and more wide, increasing without bound! O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,- Shouts eagerly for haply there uprears To cheat our noons in moralizing mood, While west-winds fanned our temples toil-bedewed: Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the mount, To some lone mansion, in some woody dale, Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss! Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore, The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace; That verdurous hill with many a resting-place, And many a stream, whose warbling waters pour To glad and fertilize the subject plains; That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod, And many a fancy-blest and holy sod Where Inspiration, his diviner strains Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the rocks O meek retiring spirit! we will climb, There, while the prospect through the gazing eye As neighboring fountains image, each the whole : Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth We'll discipline the heart to pure delight, Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame. They whom I love shall love thee, honored youth! Now may Heaven realize this vision bright! LINES TO W. L. WHILE HE SANG A SONG TO PURCELL'S MUSIC. WHILE my young cheek retains its healthful hues, All memory of the wrongs and sore distress, With no beloved face at my bed-side, Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel-guide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died! ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe, O'er the rank church-yard with sere elm-leaves strewed, Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal! O abject if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's common-weal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind. SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West! What happy, and what mournful hours, since last |