LINES WRITTEN BY H. C. IN THE FLY-LEAF OF A COPY OF LUCRETIUS PRESENTED BY HIM TO MR. WORDSWORTH. In the far north, for many a month unseen, The blessed sun scarce lifts his worshipp'd head; No hardy herb records where he hath been; But pale cold snows, with dim abortive sheen, Show like the winding-sheet of Nature dead. Yet ofttimes there the boreal morning gleams, If such delusion held thy earthly thought, Lucretius, still thou wast a lofty mind; For, spurning all that hopes and fears had taught, Thy venturous reason, hopeless, fearless, sought In its own pride its proper bliss to find. Oh! was it fear of what might be in realms Of blank privation made thee seek the peace That the dead faith affords ?-fear that dishelms The vessel of the soul, and quite o'erwhelms The spiritual life, that rather would surcease, Or be an atom, motion, air, or flame, Whose essence perishes by change of form, Than wander through the abyss without an aim, Duty, or joy to feel itself the same, Though naked, bodiless, weak, amid the storm? LINES SUGGESTED BY A CAST FROM AN ANCIENT STATUE OF THE INFANT HERCULES STRANGLING THE SERPENTS. BEHOLD Art's triumph! Yea, but what is Art? Is it the Iris sent from mind to heart? Or a bright exhalation, raised, refined, And organized with various hues of mind? Beholds the type in true proportions rise: His progress slow, and every touch as slight The vast prophetic impulse of the earth Nor the world's state, could so incarnalise The strong idea, but that men, set free Conceived the fancy of a boy divine. Some fables fashion'd a fierce God of wine, Abortive issue of intense desire, Begot by Thunder and brought forth by Fire. Some feign'd-and they came nearest to the truth— A destined husband of eternal youth, Born of a mortal mother, and, ere born, Doom'd to the pilgrim's houseless lot forlorn, Such thought possess'd the nameless artist's mind. |