A THOUSAND thoughts were stirring in my mind, That strove in vain to fashion utterance meet, And each the other cross'd-swift as a fleet Of April clouds, perplex'd by gusts of wind, That veer, and veer, around, before, behind. Now History pointed to the custom❜d beat, Now Fancy's clue unravelling, led their feet Through mazes manifold, and quaintly twined. So were they straying-so had ever stray'd; Had not the wiser poets of the past The vivid chart of human life display'd, And taught the laws that regulate the blast, Wedding wild impulse to calm forms of beauty, And making peace 'twixt liberty and duty.
THE nimble fancy of all-beauteous Greece, Fabled young Love an everlasting boy, That held of nature an eternal lease, Of childhood, beauty, innocence, and joy; A bow he had, a pretty childish toy,
That would not terrify his mother's sparrows, And 'twas his favourite play to sport his arrows, Light as the glances of a wood-nymph coy. O happy error! Musical conceit,
Of old idolatry, and youthful time!
Fit emanation of a happy clime,
Where but to live, to breathe, to be, was sweet, And Love, tho' even then a little cheat,
Dream'd not his craft would e'er be call'd a crime.
DEATH-BED REFLECTIONS OF MICHELANGELO.
Nor that my hand could make of stubborn stone Whate'er of Gods the shaping thought conceives; Not that my skill by pictured lines hath shown All terrors that the guilty soul believes ; Not that my art, by blended light and shade, Express'd the world as it was newly made; Not that my verse profoundest truth could teach, In the soft accents of the lover's speech; Not that I rear'd a temple for mankind, To meet and pray in, borne by every wind— Affords me peace:-I count my gain but loss, For that vast love, that hangs upon the Cross.
DEDICATORY SONNET, line 3.
Thou, in thy night-watch o'er my cradled slumbers, Alluding to the poem called "Frost at Midnight," by S. T. Coleridge. The reference is especially to the following lines:
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze, By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds Which image in their bulk both lakes, and shores, And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
As far as regards the habitats of my childhood, these lines, written at Nether Stowey, were almost prophetic.
This sonnet, and the two following, my earliest attempts at that form of versification, were addressed to R. S. Jameson, Esq., on occasion of meeting him in London after a separation of some years. He was the favourite companion of my boyhood, the active friend
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