"Such were my poetic effusions," the author remarks, "at sixteen and seventeen, which I thought very clever at eighteen. I might say of each of these trifles, 'A poor thing 'twas, but it expressed my fancy!' The second is not unlike a song of Bellay. I cannot think that there is any promise in my juvenilia; for there is no ambition, except to express common-place sensations in bad metaphors."
More promise, perhaps, than if he had gone out of the way to hunt for originality.
The two following are apparently of somewhat later date :
How fair the bosom of our lake,
When each rude wind is hush'd asleep,
And summer's sighs, alone awake,
Over the passive waters creep!
How sweet, all silent and alone,
To lie upon some islet green,
Till I forget all I have known,
And nothing know but that calm scene!
Or let my spirit wander o'er
The world, from common sight conceal'd,—
The enlightening river's further shore,
Where all the wounds of grief are heal'd.
So let the haze of distance veil
Remembrance of all things below,
That guilt may seem a beldame's tale,
And no reality in woe.
Ah! once in such a dream I spent
My days so blessedly deceived,
Still wishing, never discontent,
All things I hoped, [and] all believed.
And will that hope, that faith intense,
Revisit my poor heart no more?
Oh yes! fair nature's influence
Can that unearthly state restore.
"Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming form."-Shakspeare.
A heart is mine all things intending,-
All beginning, nothing ending,-
Skilled to please, yet still offending,—
Wretched, yet exceeding bless'd,-
Wanting all, of all possess'd,-
Confident, yet still despairing,
Fearful, and yet all too daring,—
Still its own poor self belying,
Its dearest hope and faith denying,-
Happiest when it is weeping,—
Still awake, yet always sleeping,—
In love still changing, never dying,
Still for what earth holds not sighing.
The following exercise was written in the first year of his residence at Oxford :
For ever blest be that victorious hour
That yon fair wanderers freed from tyrant's power!
Once more untrammell'd their proud crests they rear,
In simple majesty and grace austere,
As in old time their god-like part they bore
On Adriatic or Byzantine shore;
Or, as in nobler age and brighter clime,
Beneath Lysippus' hand they rose sublime,
While with auspicious beam Apollo shone,
Smiled on the steeds, and claim'd them for his own.
Like four fair brethren, stately side by side,
They move with solemn manes and lordly pride;
Composed their gait, yet with immense disdain,
Heave their broad chests, and hard their nostrils strain.
Black lour their brows, and fiercely gleam their eyes,
As lightnings glisten from o'erclouded skies;
Superb their course from heaven's meridian height
To view the world beneath, through them made light,
To dive at eve below the purpled waves,
And hide themselves in occidental caves;
There sink to slumbers sweet on weedy beds,
Lull'd by the ocean rolling o'er their heads.
The attendant Seasons, with successive care,
Trim their loose manes, and comb their golden hair;
The laughing Hours with rosy fingers deck
Each forehead stern and proudly arching neck.
Great is the radiant monarch of the day,
Whose curbing arm those giant limbs obey,
Whose strength divine, and never-erring skill,
Can turn and wind those stubborn necks at will.
Thus hymning, Græcia's white-robed bands drew nigh,
And warriors hail'd the strangers from the sky.
Some loud adored, some speechless stood aghast,
As if they heard the fiery nostrils' blast,
And measured thunder of those high-raised hoofs,
That erewhile echo'd round the Olympian roofs.
E'en Ammon's offspring own'd their beauty rare,
And held his own Bucephalus less fair.—
Such honours waited on their youthful days,
The votary's worship and the monarch's praise ;
And still, though rooted from fair Græcia's soil,
The conqueror's guerdon and the plunderer's spoil,
Forced, like their lord, the glory-crowned sun,
From east to west an arduous race to run;
Twice to [endure] a tyrant's yoke their doom,
Late in proud France, and erst in lordly Rome;
Yet shall they, freed from thraldom and disgrace,
Find out at last a peaceful resting-place.
Triumphant songs shall shake Mark's hollow pile,
And faded Venice lift her head and smile.
I write, endite, I point, I raze, I quote,
I interline, I blot, correct, I note,
I make, allege, I imitate, I feign.
For I, that God of Lov'is Servantes serve,
Ne dare to love, for mine unlikelinesse,
Prayin for spede, al should I therefore sterve,
So ferre am I fro his help in darknesse;
But nathelesse, if this may doe gladnesse
To any lovir, and his cause aveile,
Have he the thanke, and mine be the traveile.
CHAUCER: Troilus and Creseide.
Father, and Bard revered! to whom I owe,
Whate'er it be, my little art of numbers,
Thou, in thy night-watch o'er my cradled slumbers,
Didst meditate the verse that lives to shew,
(And long shall live, when we alike are low)
Thy prayer how ardent, and thy hope how strong,
That I should learn of Nature's self the song,
The lore which none but Nature's pupils know.
The prayer was heard: I "wander'd like a breeze,"
By mountain brooks and solitary meres,
And gather'd there the shapes and phantasies
Which, mixt with passions of my sadder years,
Compose this book. If good therein there be,
That good, my sire, I dedicate to thee.
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