FAIR Prime of life! were it enough to gild
With ready sunbeams every straggling shower,
And, if an unexpected cloud should lower,
Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build
For Fancy's errands,-then, from fields half-tilled
Gathering green weeds to mix with poppy flower,
Thee might thy Minions crown, and chant thy power,
Unpitied by the wise, all censure stilled.
Ah! show that worthier honours are thy due ;
Fair Prime of life! arouse the deeper heart ;
Confirm the Spirit glorying to pursue
Some path of steep ascent and lofty aim;
And, if there be a joy that slights the claim
Of grateful memory, bid that joy depart.
I WATCH, and long have watched, with calm regret Yon slowly-sinking star-immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him—yet—and yet ;
But now the horizon's rocky parapet
Is reached, where forfeiting his bright attire,
He burns-transmuted to a dusky fire-
Then pays submissively the appointed debt
To the flying moments, and is seen no more.
Angels and gods! we struggle with our fate,
While health, power, glory, from their height decline,
Depressed; and then extinguished: and our state,
In this, how different, lost Star, from thine,
That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!
I HEARD (alas! 't was only in a dream)
Strains-which, as sage Antiquity believed,
By waking cars have sometimes been received
Wafted adown the wind from lake or stream;
A most melodious requiem, a supreme
And perfect harmony of notes, achieved
By a fair Swan on drowsy billows heaved,
O'er which her pinions shed a silver gleam.
For is she not the votary of Apollo?
And knows she not, singing as he inspires,
That bliss awaits her which the ungenial Hollow *
Of the dull earth partakes not, nor desires?
Mount, tuneful Bird, and join the immortal quires!
She soared-and I awoke, struggling in vain to follow.
* See the Phædon of Plato, by which this Sonnet was suggested.
Ir the whole weight of what we think and feel,
Save only far as thought and feeling blend
With action, were as nothing, patriot Friend!
From thy remonstrance would be no appeal ;
But to promote and fortify the weal
Of our own Being is her paramount end ;
A truth which they alone shall comprehend
Who shun the mischief which they cannot heal.
Peace in these foverish times is sovereign þliss :
Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,
And startled only by the rustling brake,
Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered Mind,
By some weak aims at services assigned
To gentle Natures, thanks not Heaven amiss.
TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT,
CALVERT! it must not be unheard by them
may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem—
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate ;-
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.
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