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Gleaming on sunny wings) in whispered tones
I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!
The inobtrusive song of happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard.

When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hushed,
And the heart listens !"

But the time, when first

From that low dell, steep up the stony mount
I climbed with perilous toil and reached the top,
Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep:
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields,
And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire;
The Channel there, the Islands and white sails,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless
Ocean-

It seemed like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a temple; the whole World
Seemed imaged in its vast circumference,
No wish profaned my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury,-to be!

Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away the entrusted hours On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use? Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:

And he that works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half; he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!

Yet even this, this cold beneficence,

Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe!

Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!

I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honorable toil

Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!

Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet abode !
Ah-had none greater! And that all had such !
It might be so-but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy kingdom come!

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE,

OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.

WITH SOME POEMS.

Notus in fratres animi paterni.-HOR. Carm. lib. 1. 2.

A BLESSED lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;

And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest

Friend!

Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life's upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering; now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind-
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most
false,

False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade

E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
That I woke poisoned! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of husband and of father; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,

Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colors!

Yet at times

My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest friend!

Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye:
And boding evil yet still hoping good,
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrowed in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,

That being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
Oh! 'tis to me an ever new delight

To talk of thee and thine or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve;
We in our sweet sequestered orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward; whose old
boughs,

That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirred by the faint gale of departing May,

Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our heads!

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours, When with the joy of hope thou gav'st thine ear To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,

Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times.
Cope with the tempest's swell!

These various strains,

Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth

Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

THIS Sycamore, oft musical with bees,—

Such tents the Patriarchs loved! O long unharmed

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stone

Keeps pure from falling leaves!

Spring,

Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath,
Send up cold waters to the traveller

Long may the

With soft and even pulse! Nor ever cease
Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance,
Which at the bottom, like a Fairy's page,
As merry and no taller, dances still,
Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the Fount
Here twilight is and coolness: here is moss,
A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade.
Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree.

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