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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
Full wearily toils he,

The flowing water makes to him
A soothing melody.

And when the evening light decays,
And all is calm around,
There is sweet music to his ear
In the distant sheep-bell's sound.

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,
The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,
I remember'd that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigour at first,
That I never might need them at last.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
And pleasures with youth pass away,
And yet you lament not the days that are gone,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.

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 dying beam of light.

The eldest and the latest thou,
Hail, venerable NIGHT!
Around thine ebon brow,
Glittering plays with lightning rays

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
Urania leads, Urania, she

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!
Ye Angel-Temples bright!

May I unblamed your flamy thresholds tread?
I leave Earth's lowly scene;
I leave the Moon serene,
The lovely Queen of Night;

I leave the wide domains,

Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling,
And Jupiter's vast plains,
(The many-belted King;)

Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns,
Like some stern tyrant to just exile driven;
Dim-seen the sullen power appears
In that cold solitude of Heaven,
And slow he drags along

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,
Whence bending I may view

The Worlds whom elder Suns have vivified.

For Hope with loveliest visions soothes my mind,
That even in Man, Life's winged power,
When comes again the natal hour,
Shall on heaven-wandering feet,
In undecaying youth,
Spring to the blessed seat;
Where round the fields of Truth
The fiery Essences for ever feed;
And o'er the ambrosial mead,
The breezes of serenity
Silent and soothing glide for ever by.
There, Priest of Nature! dost thou shine,
NEWTON! a King among the Kings divine.
Whether with harmony's mild force,
He guides along its course

The axle of some beauteous star on high;

Or gazing in the spring
Ebullient with creative energy,

Feels his pure breast with rapturous joy possest,

Inebriate in the holy ecstasy!

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When Betty's busy eye runs round the room,
Woe to that nice geometry if seen!
But where is he whose broom
The earth shall clean?

Spider! of old thy flimsy webs were thought,
And 't was a likeness true,

To emblem laws in which the weak are caught,
But which the strong break through.

And if a victim in thy toils is ta'en,

Like some poor client is that wretched fly;
I'll warrant thee thou 'It drain
His life-blood dry.

And is not thy weak work like human schemes
And care on earth employ'd?

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.

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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,
Her youth gird on the sword;

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?
Whose ominous voice proclaims

Her strength and arms and promised succours vain!

His meagre cheek is pale and sunk,
Wild is his hollow eye,

Yet fearful its strong glance;

And who could bear the anger of his frown?

PROPHET OF GOD! in vain thy lips
Proclaim the woe to come!

In vain thy warning voice

Summon'd her rulers timely to repent!

The Ethiop changes not his skin.
Impious and idiot still

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.

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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
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.

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.

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