V.

The mother with anticipated glee
Smiles o'er the child, that, standing by her chair
And flatt’ning its round cheek upon her knee,
Looks

up,

and doth its rosy lips prepare To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight She hears her own voice with a new delight; And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes

aright,

VI.

Then is she tenfold gladder than before !
But should disease or chance the darling take,
What then avail those songs, which sweet of yore
Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake?
Dear maid ! no prattler at a mother's knee
Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee :
Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?

FROM THE GERMAN.

know'st thou the land where the pale citrons grow, The golden fruits in darker foliage glow? Soft blows the wind that breathes from that blue

sky! Still stands the myrtle and the laurel high ! Know'st thou it well that land, beloved Friend? Thither with thee, O, thither would I wend !

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS.

O! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,

Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the shifting clouds be what you please,

Or let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould

Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low And cheek aslant see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous

land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

[light, Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

THE TWO FOUNTS.

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY

WITH UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A

SEVERE ATTACK OF PAIN.

'Twas my last waking thought, how it could be, That thou, sweet friend, such anguish shouldst endure;

[and he When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure.

Methought he fronted me with peering look
Fix'd on my heart; and read aloud in game
The loves and griefs therein, as from a book ;
And uttered praise like one who wished to blame.

In

every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin Two Founts there are, of suffering and of cheer! That to let forth, and this to keep within ! But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense,
That Fount alone unlock, by no distress
Choked or turned inward, but still issue thence
Unconquered cheer, persistent loveliness.

As on the driving cloud the shiny bow,
That gracious thing made up of tears and light,
Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below
Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright;-

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers,
Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown,
Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers,
Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.

Fv'n so, Eliza ! on that face of thine,
On that benignant face, whose look alone
(The soul's translucence thro’ her crystal shrine !)
Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own,

A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing,
But with a silent charm compels the stern
And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring,
To shrink aback, and cower upon

his urn.

Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found
In passion, spleen, or strife,) the fount of pain
O'erflowing beats against its lovely mound,
And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain ?

Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam
On his raised lip, that aped a critic smile,
Had passed: yet I, my sad thoughts to beguile,
Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream;

Till audibly at length I cried, as though
Thou had’st indeed been present to my eyes,
O sweet, sweet sufferer; if the case be so,
I pray thee, be less good, less sweet, less wise !

In every

look a barbed arrow send, On those soft lips let scorn and anger live! Do any thing, rather than thus, sweet friend !, Iloard for thyself the pain, thou wilt not give !

99

THE WANDERINGS OF CAIN.

PREFATORY NOTE.

A PROSE composition, one not in metre at least, seems prima facie to require explanation or apology. It was written in the year 1798, near Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire, at which place (sanctum et amabile nomen ! rich by so many associations and recollections) the author had taken up his residence in order to enjoy the society and close neighbourhood of a dear and honoured friend, T. Poole, Esq. The work was to have been written in concert with another, whose name is too venerable within the precincts of genius to be unnecessarily brought into connection with such a trifle, and who was then residing at a small distance from Nether Stowey. The title and subject were suggested by myself, who likewise drew out the scheme and the contents for each of the three books or cantos, of which the work was to consist, and which, the reader is to be informed, was to have been finished in one night! My partner undertook the first canto : I the second : and which ever had done first, was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of Abel? Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as at the moment when having despatched my own portion of the task at full finger-speed, I hastened to him with my manuscript—that look of humorous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mockpiteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme-which