SWEET to the morning traveller The song amid the sky, Where twinkling in the dewy light The skylark soars on high. And cheering to the traveller The gales that round him play, When faint and heavily he drags Along his noon-tide way. And when beneath the unclouded sun The flowing water makes to him And when the evening light decays, But oh! of all delightful sounds Of evening or of morn The sweetest is the voice of Love, That welcomes his return. 1798 THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS, AND HOW HE GAINED THEM. You are old, Father William, the young man cried, In the days of my youth, Father William replied, You are old, Father William, the young man cried, TRANSLATION OF A GREEK ODE ON ASTRONOMY, WRITTEN BY S. T. COLERIDGE, FOR THE PRIZE AT CAMBRIDGE, 1793. HALL, venerable NIGHT! O first-created, hail! Thou who art doom'd in thy dark breast to veil The eldest and the latest thou, A wreath of flowers of fire. The varying clouds with many a hue attire Thy many-tinted veil. Holy are the blue graces of thy zone! But who is he whose tongue can tell The dewy lustres which thine eyes adorn? Lovely to some the blushes of the Morn; To some the glory of the Day, When, blazing with meridian ray, The gorgeous Sun ascends his highest throne; But I with solemn and severe delight Still watch thy constant car, immortal NIGHT! For then to the celestial Palaces The Goddess who alone Stands by the blazing throne, Effulgent with the light of Deity. Whom Wisdom, the Creatrix, by her side Placed on the heights of yonder sky, And smiling with ambrosial love, unlock'd The depths of Nature to her piercing eye. Angelic myriads struck their harps around, And with triumphant song The host of Stars, a beauteous throng, Around the ever-living Mind In Jubilee their mystic dance begun ; When at thy leaping-forth, O Sun! The Morning started in affright, Astonish'd at thy birth, her Child of Light! Hail, O Urania, hail! Queen of the Muses! Mistress of the Song! For thou didst deign to leave the heavenly throng. As earthward thou thy steps wert bending, A ray went forth and harbinger'd thy way: All Ether laugh'd with thy descending. Thou hadst wreath'd thy hair with roses, The flower that in the immortal bower Its deathless bloom discloses. Before thine awful mien, compelled to shrink, Fled Ignorance abash'd with all her brood; Dragons, and Hags of baleful breath, Fierce Dreams, that wont to drink The Sepulchre's black blood; Or on the wings of storms Riding in fury forms, Shriek'd to the mariner the shriek of Death. I boast, O Goddess, to thy name That I have raised the pile of fame! Therefore to me be given To roam the starry path of Heaven, To charioteer with wings on high, And to rein in the Tempests of the sky. Chariots of happy Gods! Fountains of Light! May I unblamed your flamy thresholds tread? I leave the wide domains, Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling, Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns, The mighty circle of long-lingering years. Nor shalt thou escape my sight, Who at the threshold of the sun-trod domes Art trembling,-youngest Daughter of the Night! And you, ye fiery-tressed strangers! you, Comets who wander wide, Will I along your pathless way pursue, The Worlds whom elder Suns have vivified. For Hope with loveliest visions soothes my mind, The axle of some beauteous star on high; Or gazing in the spring Feels his pure breast with rapturous joy possest, Inebriate in the holy ecstasy! When Betty's busy eye runs round the room, Spider! of old thy flimsy webs were thought, To emblem laws in which the weak are caught, And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en, Like some poor client is that wretched fly; And is not thy weak work like human schemes Such are young hopes and Love's delightful dreams So easily destroyed! So does the Statesman, whilst the Avengers sleep, Self-deem'd secure, his wiles in secret lay, Soon shall Destruction sweep His work away. THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. THE rage of Babylon is roused, The King puts forth his strength; And Judah bends the bow And points her arrows for the coming war. Her walls are firm, her gates are strong, High are her chiefs in hope, For Egypt soon will send the promised aid. But who is he whose voice of woe Is heard amid the streets? Her strength and arms and promised succours vain! His meagre cheek is pale and sunk, Yet fearful its strong glance; And who could bear the anger of his frown? PROPHET OF GOD! in vain thy lips In vain thy warning voice Summon'd her rulers timely to repent! The Ethiop changes not his skin. The rulers spurn thy voice, And now the measure of their crimes is full. And now around Jerusalem The countless foes appear; Far as the eye can reach Spreads the wide horror of the circling siege. Till the smooth temper of my age should be Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree. And as when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display Less bright than they; But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree? So serious should my youth appear among So would I seem amid the young and gay That in my age as cheerful I might be THE EBB TIDE. SLOWLY thy flowing tide Came in, Old Avon! scarcely did mine eyes. As watchfully I roam'd thy green-wood side, Behold the gentle rise. 1798. With many a stroke and strong The labouring boatmen upward plied their ears, And yet the eye beheld them labouring long Between thy winding shores. |