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WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.

I've read, my friend, of Dioclesian,
And many other noble Grecian,
Who wealth and palaces resign'd
In cots the joys of peace to find;
Maximian's meal of turnip-tops
(Disgusting food to dainty chops),
I've also read of, without wonder;
But such a cursed egregious blunder,
As that a man of wit and sense,

Should leave his books to hoard up pence-
Forsake the loved Aonian maids,
For all the petty tricks of trades,
I never, either now, or long since,
Have heard of such a piece of nonsense;
That one who learning's joys hath felt,
And at the Muse's altar knelt,
Should leave a life of sacred leisure,
To taste the accumulating pleasure;
And, metamorphosed to an alley duck,
Grovel in loads of kindred muck.
Oh! 't is beyond my comprehension!
A courtier throwing up his pension,—
A lawyer working without a fee,-
A parson giving charity,-

A truly pious methodist preacher,-
Are not, egad, so out of nature.
Had nature made thee half a fool,
But given thee wit to keep a school,
I had not stared at thy backsliding;
But when thy wit I can confide in,
When well I know thy just pretence
To solid and exalted sense;
When well I know that on thy head
Philosophy her lights hath shed,

I stand aghast! thy virtues sum too,
And wonder what this world will come to!

Yet, whence this strain? shall I repine That thou alone dost singly shine? Shall I lament that thou alone,

Of men of parts, hath prudence known?

LINES ON READING THE POEMS OF WARTON.

AGE FOURTEEN.

OH, Warton! to thy soothing shell,
Stretch'd remote in hermit cell,
Where the brook runs babbling by,
For ever I could listening lie!
And, catching all the Muse's fire,
Hold converse with the tuneful quire,

What pleasing themes thy page adorn!
The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn,
The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime,
And Melancholy's mournful chime:
Each with unwonted graces shines
In thy ever-lovely lines.

Thy Muse deserves the lasting meed:
Attuning sweet the Dorian reed,
Now the lovelorn swain complains,
And sings his sorrows to the plains;
Now the Sylvan scenes appear

Through all the changes of the year;
Or the elegiac strain

Softly sings of mental pain,
And mournful diapasons sail
On the faintly-dying gale.

But ah! the soothing scene is o'er!
On middle flight we cease to soar,
For now the Muse assumes a bolder sweep,
Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep,
In strains unheard before.

Now, now the rising fire thrills high,
Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly,
And every throne explore;
The soul entranced, on mighty wings
With all the poet's heat up-springs,
And loses earthly woes;
Till, all alarmed at the giddy height,
The Muse descends on gentler flight,

And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose.

TO THE MUSE.

WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.

ILL-FATED maid, in whose unhappy train Chill poverty and misery are seen,

Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene. Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel So keenly all the scorns-the jeers of life? Why not endow them to endure the strife With apathy's invulnerable steel,

Of self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal?

Ah! who would taste your self-deluding joys,

That lure the unwary to a wretched doom,
That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise,
Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb?
What is the charm which leads thy victims on
To persevere in paths that lead to woe?
What can induce them in that route to go,
In which innumerous before have gone,
And died in misery, poor and woe-begone!

Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found;
I, who have drunk from thine ethereal rill,
And tasted all the pleasures that abound
Upon Parnassus' loved Aonian hill?

I, through whose soul the Muses' strains aye thrill!
Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied;
And though our annals fearful stories tell,
How Savage languish'd, and how Otway died,
Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide.

TO LOVE.

WHY should I blush to own I love?
"Tis love that rules the realms above.
Why should I blush to say to all,
That Virtue holds my heart in thrall?

Why should I seek the thickest shade,
Lest Love's dear secret be betray'd?
Why the stern brow deceitful move,
When I am languishing with love?

Is it weakness thus to dwell
On passion that I dare not tell?
Such weakness I would ever prove:
'Tis painful, though 't is sweet, to love.

THE WANDERING BOY.

A SONG,

WHEN the winter wind whistles along the wild moor, And the cottager shuts on the beggar his door; When the chilling tear stands in my comfortless eye, Oh, how hard is the lot of the Wandering Boy!

The winter is cold, and I have no vest,

And my heart it is cold as it beats in my breast;
No father, no mother, no kindred have I,
For I am a parentless Wandering Boy.

Yet I had a home, and I once had a sire,
A mother who granted each infant desire;
Our cottage it stood in a wood-embower'd vale,
Where the ring-dove would warble its sorrowful tale.

But my father and mother were summon'd away,
And they left me to hard-hearted strangers a prey;
I fled from their rigor with many a sigh,
And now I'm a poor little Wandering Boy.

The wind it is keen, and the snow loads the gale,
And no one will list to my innocent tale;
I'll go to the grave where my parents both lie,
And death shall befriend the poor Wandering Boy.

FRAGMENT

-THE Western gale,

Mild as the kisses of connubial love,
Plays round my languid limbs, as all dissolved,
Beneath the ancient elm's fantastic shade
I lie, exhausted with the noontide heat:
While rippling o'er his deep-worn pebble bed,
The rapid rivulet rushes at my feet,
Dispensing coolness.-On the fringed marge
Full many a flow'ret rears its head, or pink,
Or gaudy daffodil.-'Tis here, at noon,

The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire,
And lave them in the fountain: here, secure
From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport;
Or, stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf,
Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly,
Invoke the God of slumber.

*

And, hark! how merrily, from distant tower,
Ring round the village-bells! now on the gale
They rise with gradual swell, distinct and loud;
Anon they die upon the pensive ear,
Melting in faintest music.-They bespeak
A day of jubilee; and oft they bear,
Commixt along the unfrequented shore,
The sound of village dance and tabor loud,
Startling the musing ear of Solitude.

Such is the jocund wake of Whitsuntide,
When happy Superstition, gabbling eld!
Holds her unhurtful gambols.-All the day
The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance
On the smooth-shaven green, and then at eve
Commence the harmless rites and auguries:
And many a tale of ancient days goes round.
They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells
Could hold in dreadful thrall the laboring moon,
Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,
And still the midnight tempest.-Then anon
Tell of uncharnell'd spectres, seen to glide
Along the lone wood's unfrequented path,
Startling the 'nighted traveller; while the sound
Of undistinguish'd murmurs, heard to come
From the dark centre of the deep'ning glen,
Struck on his frozen ear.

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And, lo! the rural revels are begun,
And, gaily echoing to the laughing sky,
On the smooth-shaven green
Resounds the voice of Mirth.

Alas! regardless of the tongue of Fate,
That tells them 't is but as an hour since they,
Who now are in their graves,
Kept up the Whitsun dance;

And that another hour, and they must fall
Like those who went before, and sleep as still
Beneath the silent sod,

A cold and cheerless sleep.

Yet why should thoughts like these intrude to scare
The vagrant Happiness, when she will deign
To smile upon us here,

A transient visitor?

Mortals! be gladsome while ye have the power,
And laugh and seize the glittering lapse of joy;
In time the bell will toll

That warns ye to your graves.

I to the woodland solitude will bend

"Tis then that Hope with sanguine eye is seen
Roving through Fancy's gay futurity;
Her heart light dancing to the sounds of pleasure,
Pleasure of days to come.-Memory too, then
Comes with her sister, Melancholy sad,
Pensively musing on the scenes of youth,
Scenes never to return.'

Such subjects merit poets used to raise
The attic verse harmonious; but for me
A deadlier theme demands my backward hand,
And bids me strike the strings of dissonance
With frantic energy.

"Tis wan Despair I sing; if sing I can
Of him before whose blast the voice of Song,
And Mirth, and Hope, and Happiness, all fly,
Nor ever dare return. His notes are heard
At noon of night, where, on the coast of blood,
The lacerated son of Angola

Howls forth his sufferings to the moaning wind:
And, when the awful silence of the night
Strikes the chill death-dew to the murderer's heart,
He speaks in every conscience-prompted word
Half-utter'd, half suppress'd—

"Tis him I sing-Despair-terrific name,
Striking unsteadily the tremulous chord
Of timorous terror-discord in the sound:
For to a theme revolting as is this,
Dare not I woo the maids of harmony,
Who love to sit and catch the soothing sound

My lonesome way—where Mirth's obstreperous shout of lyre Æolian, or the martial bugle,

Shall not intrude to break

The meditative hour:

There will I ponder on the state of man,
Joyless and sad of heart, and consecrate
This day of jubilee

To sad Reflection's shrine;

And I will cast my fond eye far beyond
This world of care, to where the steeple loud
Shall rock above the sod,
Where I shall sleep in peace.

CANZONET.

MAIDEN! wrap thy mantle round thee,
Cold the rain beats on thy breast:
Why should Horror's voice astound thee,
Death can bid the wretched rest!

All under the tree

Thy bed may be,

And thou mayest slumber peacefully.
Maiden! once gay Pleasure knew thee;
Now thy cheeks are pale and deep:
Love has been a felon to thee,

Yet, poor maiden, do not weep:

There's rest for thee

All under the tree,

Where thou wilt sleep most peacefully.

Calling the hero to the field of glory,
And firing him with deeds of high emprise,
And warlike triumph: but from scenes like mine
Shrink they affrighted, and detest the bard
Who dares to sound the hollow tones of horror.

Hence, then, soft maids,
And woo the silken zephyr in the bowers
By Heliconia's sleep-inviting stream:
For aid like yours I seek not; 't is for powers
Of darker hue to inspire a verse like mine!
'Tis work for wizards, sorcerers, and fiends!

Hither, ye furious imps of Acheron,
Nurslings of hell, and beings shunning light,
And all the myriads of the burning concave;
Souls of the damned;-Hither, oh! come and join
Th' infernal chorus. "T is Despair I sing!
He, whose sole tooth inflicts a deadlier pang
Than all your tortures join'd. Sing, sing Despair!
Repeat the sound, and celebrate his power;
Unite shouts, screams, and agonizing shrieks,
Till the loud paan ring through hell's high vault,
And the remotest spirits of the deep
Leap from the lake, and join the dreadful song.

ON RURAL SOLITUDE.

WHEN wandering, thoughtful, my stray steps at eve
(Released from toil and careless of their way),
Have reach'd, unwittingly, some rural spot
Where Quiet dwells in cluster'd cottages,

COMMENCEMENT OF A POEM ON DESPAIR. Fast by a wood, or on the river's marge,

SOME to Aonian lyres of silver sound
With winning elegance attune their song,
Form'd to sink lightly on the soothed sense,
And charm the soul with softest harmony:

I have sat down upon the shady stile,

1 Alluding to the two pleasing poems, the Pleasures of Hope and of Memory.

450

Half wearied with the long and lonesome walk,
And felt strange sadness steal upon the heart,
And unaccountable.-The rural smells

And sounds speak all of peacefulness and home;
The lazy mastiff, who my coming eyed,
Half balancing 'twixt fondness and distrust,
Recall'd some images, now half forgot,

Of the warm hearth at eve, when flocks are penn'd
And cattle housed, and every labor done.
And as the twilight's peaceful hour closed in,
The spiral smoke ascending from the thatch,
And the eve sparrow's last retiring chirp,
Have brought a busy train of hov'ring thoughts
To recollection,-rural offices,

In younger days and happier times perform'd;
And rural friends, now with their grave-stones carved,
And tales which wore away the winter's night
Yet fresh in memory.-Then my thoughts assume
A different turn, and I am e'en at home.
That hut is mine; that cottage half-embower'd
With modest jessamine, and that sweet spot
Of garden-ground, where, ranged in meet array,
Grow countless sweets, the wall-flower and the pink
And the thick thyme-bush-even that is mine:
And that old mulberry that shades the court,
Has been my joy from very childhood up.

IN hollow music sighing through the glade,
The breeze of autumn strikes the startled ear,
And fancy, pacing through the woodland shade,
Hears in the gust the requiem of the year.
As with lone tread along the whisp'ring grove
I list the moan of the capricious wind,
I, too, o'er fancy's milky-way would rove,
But sadness chains to earth my pensive mind.
When by the huddling brooklet's secret brim
I pause, and woo the dreams of Helicon,
Sudden my saddest thoughts revert to him

Who taught that brook to wind, and now is gone. When by the poet's sacred urns I kneel,

And rapture springs exultant to my reed, The prean dies, and sadder measures steal, And grief and Montague demand the meed.

THOU mongrel, who dost show thy teeth, and yelp,
And bay the harmless stranger on his way,
Yet, when the wolf appears, dost roar for help,
And scamperest quickly from the bloody fray;
Dare but on my fair fame to cast a slur,

And I will make thee know, unto thy pain,
Thou vile old good-for-nothing cur!

I, a Laconian dog, can bite again:
Yes, I can make the Daunian tiger flee,

Much more a bragging, foul-mouth'd whelp like thee.
Beware Lycambes', or Bupalus' fate-
The wicked still shall meet my deadly hate;
And know, when once I seize upon my prey,
I do not languidly my wrongs bemoan;

I do not whine and cant the time away,

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Be mine to view, awake to nature's charms,
Thy paly flame evanish from the sky,
As gradual day usurps

The welkin's glowing bounds.

Mine, to snuff up the pure ambrosial breeze,
Which bears aloft the rose-bound car of morn,
And mark his early flight
The rustling skylark wing.

And thou, Hygeia, shalt my steps attend,
Thou, whom distracted, I so lately woo'd,
As on my restless bed

Slow past the tedious night;

And slowly, by the taper's sickly gleam,
Drew my dull curtain; and with anxious eye
Strove through the veil of night
To mark the tardy morn.

Thou, Health, shalt bless me in my early walk,
As o'er the upland slope I brush the dew,
And feel the genial thrill
Dance in my lighten'd veins.

And as I mark the Cotter from his shed
Peep out with jocund face-thou, too, Content,
Shalt steal into my breast,

Thy mild, thy placid sway.

Star of the morning! these, thy joys, I'll share,
As rove my pilgrim feet the sylvan haunts;
While to thy blushing shrine
Due orisons shall rise.

THE HERMIT OF THE PACIFIC; OR, THE HORRORS OF UTTER SOLITUDE. OH! who can paint the unspeakable dismay Of utter Solitude, shut out from all Of social intercourse.-Oh! who can say What haggard horrors hold in shuddering thrall Him, who by some Carvaggian waterfall

A shipwreck'd man hath scoop'd his desert cave, Where Desolation, in her giant pall,

Sits frowning on the ever-falling wave,

But, with revengeful gripe, I bite him to the bone. That wooes the wretch to dig, by her loud shore, his

grave.

Thou youthful pilgrim, whose untoward feet
Too early hath been torn in life's rough way,
Thou, who endow'd with Fancy's holiest heat,
Seest dark Misfortune cloud thy morning ray:
Though doom'd in penury to pine thy day,
O seek not, seek not in the glooms to shroud
Of waste, or wilderness-a cast-away-
Where noise intrudes not, save when in the cloud,
Riding sublime, the storm roars fearfully, and loud.

Though man to man be as the ocean shark,
Reckless, and unrelentingly severe;

Though friendship's cloak must veil the purpose
dark,

While the red poniard glimmers in the rear,
Yet, is society most passing dear.

Though mix'd with clouds, its sunshine gleams re-
fined

Will through the glooms most pleasantly appear, And soothe thee, when thy melancholy mind Must ask for comfort else of the loud pitiless wind.

Yet is it distant from the Muse's theme
To bid thee fly the rural covert still,
And plunge impetuous in the busy stream,
Of crowds to take of ** joys thy fill.
Ah! no, she wooes thee to attune thy quill
In some low village's remote recess,
Where thou may'st learn-O enviable skill,-
To heal the sick, and soothe the comfortless,
To give, and to receive-be blessed, and to bless.

God unto men hath different powers assign'dThere be, who love the city's dull turmoil; There be, who, proud of an ambitious mind, From lonely Quiet's hermit-walks recoil: Leave thou these insects to their grov'lling toilThou, whom retired leisure best can please; For thee, the hazle copse's verdant aisle, And summer bower, befitting studious ease, Prepare a keener bliss than they shall ever seize.

Lo, the grey morning climbs the eastern tower, The dew-drop glistening in her op'ning eye; Now on the upland lawn salute the hour That wakes the warbling woods to melody; There sauntering on the stile, embower'd high With fragrant hawthorn, and the gadding brier, Pore on thy book, or cast by fits thine eye Where far below, hill, dale, and village spire, And brook, and mead, and wood, far from the sight retire.

But what are these, forsaken and forlorn? "T is animation breathes the subtle spellHark! from the echoing wood the mellow horn

It is not his (by manlier virtues graced)
To pore upon the noontide brook, and sigh,
And weep for aye o'er sorrow uneffaced;
Him social duties call the tear to dry,
And wake the nobler powers of usefulness to ply

The savage broods that in the forest shroud,
The Pard and Lion mingle with their kind;
And, oh, shall man, with nobler powers endow'd
Shall he, to nature's strongest impulse blind,
Bury in shades his proud immortal mind?
Like the sweet flower, that on some steep nd
thrown,

Blossoms forlorn, rock'd by the mountain wind; A little while it decks the rugged stone, Then, withering, fades away, unnoticed and unknown!

For ye who, fill'd with fancy's wildest dreams, Run from the imperious voice of human pride, And shrinking quick from woe's unheeded screams, Long in some desert-cell your heads to hide, Where you may muse from morn to eventide, Free from the taunts of contumely and scorn, From sights of woe-the power to soothe denied, Attend the song which in life's early morn

TO THE WIND.

AT MIDNIGHT.

NOT unfamiliar to mine ear,
Blasts of the night!'ye howl, as now
My shudd'ring casement loud
With fitful force ye beat.
Mine ear has dwelt in silent awe,
The howling sweep, the sudden rush;
And when the passing gale
Pour'd deep the hollow dirge.

THE EVE OF DEATH.

IRREGULAR. I.

SILENCE of Death-portentous calm,
Denote that your void foreruns a storm,
Those airy forms that yonder fly,
That the hour of fate is nigh

I see, I see, on the dim mist borne,
The Spirit of battles rear his crest!
I see,
I see, that ere the morn,
His spear will forsake its hated rest.

Winds round from hill to hill, with distant swell; And the widow'd wife of Larrendill will beat ber

The peasant's matin rises from the dell;

The heavy wagon creaks upon its way, While tinkling soft the silver-tuning bell Floats on the gale, or dies by fits away

From the sweet straw-roof'd grange, deep buried

from the day.

Man was not made to pine in solitude, Ensepulchred, and far from converse placed, Not for himself alone, untamed and rude, To live the Bittern of the desert waste;

naked breast.

II.

O'er the smooth bosom of the sullen deep,
No softly ruffling zephyrs fly;

But nature sleeps a deathless sleep,

For the hour of battle is nigh.

Not a loose leaf waves on the dusky oak,

But a creeping stillness reigns around Except when the raven, with ominous croak, On the ear does unwelcomely sound.

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