V. The mother with anticipated glee Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight VI. Then is she tenfold gladder than before! Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee: FROM THE GERMAN. KNOW'ST thou the land where the pale citrons grow, The golden fruits in darker foliage glow? Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue sky! Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high! Know'st thou it well that land, beloved Friend? Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend! FANCY IN NUBIBUS. OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS. O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. [light, THE TWO FOUNTS. STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN. "TWAS my last waking thought, how it could be, That thou, sweet friend, such anguish shouldst [and he endure; When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure. Methought he fronted me with peering look In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, As on the driving cloud the shiny bow, As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Fv'n so, Eliza ! on that face of thine, On that benignant face, whose look alone (The soul's translucence thro' her crystal shrine !) Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own, A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam Till audibly at length I cried, as though In every look a barbed arrow send, On those soft lips let scorn and anger live! 99 THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN. PREFATORY NOTE. A PROSE Composition, one not in metre at least, seems prima facie to require explanation or apology. It was written in the year 1798, near Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, at which place (sanctum et amabile nomen! rich by so many associations and recollections) the author had taken up his residence in order to enjoy the society and close neighbourhood of a dear and honoured friend, T. Poole, Esq. The work was to have been written in concert with another, whose name is too venerable within the precincts of genius to be unnecessarily brought into connection with such a trifle, and who was then residing at a small distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were suggested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the contents for each of the three books or cantos, of which the work was to consist, and which, the reader is to be informed, was to have been finished in one night! My partner undertook the first canto: I the second: and which ever had done first, was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of Abel? Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript that look of humorous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mockpiteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme-which |