By fortune thrown amid the actors' train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,
That vanish and return we know not how-
And please the better from a pensive face,
A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KENSINGTON GARDEN.
QUEEN-BIRD! that sittest on thy shining nest,
And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest,
And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest
Lest the white mother wandering feet molest:
Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle,
Brighter than Helen's, ere she yet had burst
Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first
Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like, able
To tread the land or waters with security.
Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin,
In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in,
Confessing weakness, error, and impurity.
Did heavenly creatures own succession's line,
The births of heaven like to yours would shine.
Was it some sweet device of Fairy
That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlighted up the semblance of a smile
In those fine eyes? Methought they spake the while
Soft soothing things, which might enforce Despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While I forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.
METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclined
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid;
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the green-wood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true-love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gente sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pitv though of woman born.
WHEN last I roved these winding wood-walks green
Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet,
Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade:
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandering, where in happier days
I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid.
I pass'd the little cottage which she loved,
The cottage which did once my all contain;
It spake of days which ne'er must come again
Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved.
"Now fair befall thee, gentle maid!" said I.
And from the cottage turn'd me with a sigh
A TIMID grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loth to meet the rudeness of men's sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light,
That steeps in kind oblivious ecstacy
The care-crazed mind, like some still melody:
Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess
Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,
And innocent loves, and maiden purity:
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind.
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him who hates his brethren of mankind.
Turn'd are those lights from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.
IF from my lips some angry accents fell,
T was but the error of a sickly mind
Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,
And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well,
And waters clear, of Reason; and for me
Let this my verse the poor atonement be—
My verse, which thou to praise wert e'er inclined
Too highly, and with a partial eye to see
No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show
Kindest affection; and would oft-times lend
An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.
WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire,
Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher,
And I, a childless man, may end the same.
Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received thee first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains.
Perchance from Salem's holier fields return'd,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd.
Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came,
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.
TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ. OF THE SOUTH-SEA-HOUSE.
JOHN, you were figuring in the gay career
Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy,
When I was yet a little peevish boy-
Though time has made the difference disappear
Betwixt our ages, which then seem'd so great-
And still by rightful custom you retain
Much of the old authoritative strain,
And keep the elder brother up in state.
O! you do well in this. "Tis man's worst deed
To let the things that have been" run to waste,
And in the unmeaning present sink the past:
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read
Old buried forms, and faces long ago,
Which you, and I, and one more, only know.
O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind,
That, rushing on its way with careless sweep,
Scatters the ocean waves. And I could weep
Like to a child. For now to my raised mind
On wings of winds comes wild-eyed Phantasy,
And her rude visions give severe delight.
O winged bark! how swift along the night
Pass'd thy proud keel! nor shall I let go by
Lightly of that drear hour the memory,
When wet and chilly on thy deck I stood,
Unbonneted, and gazed upon the flood,
Even till it seem'd a pleasant thing to die,-
To be resolved into th' elemental wave,
Or take my portion with the winds that rave.
We were two pretty babes, the youngest she,
The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween,
And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been,
We two did love each other's company:
Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when, by show of seeming good beguiled,
I left the garb and manners of a child,
And my first love, for man's society,
Defiling with the world my virgin heart-
My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head
Beloved! who shall tell me where thou art-
In what delicious Eden to be found-
That I may seek thee the wide world around?
THEY talk of Time, and of Time's galling yoke,
That like a mill-stone on man's mind doth press,
Which only works and business can redress:
Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke,
Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke
But might I, fed with silent Meditation,
Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation-
Improbus labor, which my spirits hath broke-
I'd drink of time's rich cup and never surfeit,
Fling in more days than went to make the gem
That crown'd the white top of Methusalem;
Yea, on my weak neck take, and never forfeit
Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky,
The heaven-sweet burthen of Eternity.
THE CHRISTENING. ARRAY'D a half angelic sightIn vests of pure Baptismal whiteThe mother to the Font doth bring The little helpless, nameless thing, With hushes soft and mild caressing, At once to get a name and blessing.Close by the Babe the Priest doth standThe sacred water at his hand, Which must assoil the soul within From every stain of Adam's sin.The Infant eyes the mystic scenes, Nor knows what all this wonder means; And now he smiles, as if to say, "I am a Christian made this day;" Now, frighted, clings to Nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold, Whose virtues, rightly understood, Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.—
Strange words-the World, the Flesh, the DevilPoor babe, what can it know of evil?
But we must silently adore
Mysterious truths, and not explore.
Enough for him, in after-times,
When he shall read these artless rhymes,
If, looking back upon this day,
With easy conscience he can say,
"I have in part redeem'd the pledge
Of my baptismal privilege;
And more and more will strive to flee
All that my sponsers kind renounced for me.'
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