TO THE NIGHTINGALE. SISTER of love-lorn Poets, Philomel! · How many Bards in city garret pent, While at their window they with downward eye Mark the faint Lamp-beam on the kennelled mud, And listen to the drowsy cry of Watchmen, (Those hoarse unfeathered Nightingales of Time!) How many wretched Bards address thy name, And Her's, the full-orbed Queen, that shines above. But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark, Within whose mild moon-mellowed foliage hid Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains. O! I have listened, till my working soul, Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies, Absorbed, hath ceased to listen! Therefore oft I hymn thy name; and with a proud delight Oft will I tell thee, Minstrel of the Moon! "Most musical, most melancholy" Bird! That all thy soft diversities of tone, Tho' sweeter far than the delicious airs That vibrate from a white-armed Lady's harp, What time the languishment of lonely love Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow, Are not so sweet, as is the voice of her, My Sara,-best beloved of human kind! When, breathing the pure soul of Tenderness, She thrills me with the Husband's promised name! LINES ON A FRIEND WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY CALUMNIOUS REPORTS. EDMUND! thy grave with aching eye I scan, A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear, But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower [ground, The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted And mingled forms of Misery rise around: Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast, That courts the future woe to hide the past; Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side; And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied; Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain, Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain. Rest, injured shade! Shall Slander squatting near Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear? 'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe; Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies, The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies. Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew, And in thy heart they withered! Such chill dew prayer, On heavenward wing thy wounded soul shall bear. And sit me down upon its recent grass, To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part, I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows, Is this piled earth our Being's passless mound? Tell me, cold grave! is death with poppies crowned? Tired Sentinel! 'Mid fitful starts I nod, And fain would sleep, though pillowed on a clod! November, 1794. MONODY ON THE DEATH OF CHATTERTON.* O WHAT a wonder seems the fear of death, Night following night for threescore years and ten! Away, Grim Phantom! Scorpion King, away! Thee, Chatterton ! these unblest stones protect From want, and the bleak freezings of neglect. Too long before the vexing Storm-blast driven * See Note. Here hast thou found repose! beneath this sod! Thou! O vain word! thou dwell'st not with the clod! Amid the shining Host of the Forgiven Thou at the throne of Mercy and thy God I The triumph of redeeming Love dost hymn Now indignation checks the feeble sigh, [eye! Or flashes through the tear that glistens in mine Is this the land of song-ennobled line? Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain Ah me! yet Spenser, gentlest bard divine, Pity hopeless hung her head, While "mid the pelting of that merciless storm," Sunk to the cold earth Otway's famished form! Sublime of thought, and confident of fame * Avon, a river near Bristol, the birthplace of Chatterton. |