WRITTEN AT NETLEY ABBEY.
Why should I fear the spirits of the dead?
What if they wander at the hour of night,
Amid these sacred walls, with silent tread,
And dimly visible to mortal sight!
What if they ride upon the wandering gale,
And with low sighs alarm the listening ear;
Or swell a deep, a sadly-sounding wail,
Like solemn dirge of death! why should I fear?
No! seated on some fragment of rude stone,
While through the Ash-trees waving o’er my head
The wild winds pour their melancholy moan,
My soul, by fond imagination led,
Shall muse on days and years for ever flown,
And hold mysterious converse with the dead!
As o’er the gloomy heath the Pilgrim strays,
When night’s dark shadows thicken all around,
While nought he hears, save the low moaning sound
Of sweeping winds--at length, far distant rays
Of light from some low cottage bless his gaze;
With joy he then pursues his lonely way,
No longer to despair and grief a prey,
But cheering hope once more his bosom sways.
Thus have I wander’d in Life’s dreary scene,
Forlorn and hopeless--while Affliction’s blast
My sky with threat’ning clouds has overcast;
But gentle Friendship’s hallow’d lamp serene,
With guiding ray has bid my fears depart,
And spread its soothing influence through my heart.
WRITTEN IN A RUINOUS ABBEY.
As ‘mid these mouldering walls I pensive stray,
With moss and ivy rudely overgrown,
I love to watch the last pale glimpse of day,
And hear the rising winds of evening moan.
How loud the gust comes sweeping o’er the vale!
Now faintly murmurs midst those distant trees;
The owl begins her melancholy wail,
Filling with shrieks the pauses of the breeze.
Fancy, thy wildest dreams engage my mind
I gaze on forms which not to earth belong;
I see them riding on the passing wind,
And hear their sadly-sweet, expressive song.
Wrap’d in the dear tho’ visionary sound,
In spells of rapture all my soul is bound!
TO DESPAIR.
Pale ruthless Demon! terrible Despair!
Whose step is horror, and whose voice is death!
Thou rid’st on blasts that rend the midnight air,
Mingling with wintry storms thy baleful breath.
Oft too thou sit’st upon a gloomy rock
That overhangs the wild and boist’rous deep;
Where foaming waves the ship-wreck’d seaman mock,
And o’er his head with raging fury sweep.
There dost thou view him struggling with the wave,
And panting, try to gain the welcome shore;
But ah thou doom’st him to a briny grave–
And soon he fainting sinks--to rise no more.
Unpitying Demon! sure thy pow’r accurst
Is of all human miseries the worst.
TO CONTENT.
O leave me not, Content! I cannot bear
The absence of thy sweet, thy heavenly smile;
‘Tis that alone can gild the form of care,
Can smooth the ruggedness of wearying toil.
Ah! I have shun’d wild passion’s stormy course,
Left her intoxicating cup of joy,
To drink from thy serene and hallow’d source
The sweets that know no mingled dark alloy.
Depart not then--but with those angel charms
That first endear’d thee to my youthful heart,
O Come, and hush these fluttering alarms,
And all thy peaceful purity impart.
Subdue each rising wish, each feeling rude,
And reign within my bosom’s solitude.
TO EVENING.
Sweet Evening, hail! thy melancholy hour
Soothes all my soul to calmness and repose.
How soft thy gentle gale, that sighing blows
Upon the wild heath’s solitary flow’r,
Shaking with fluttering wing its dewy head!
With what mild splendor shines the pensive star
Whose silvery lustre decks thy shadowy car!
To me it tells of blissful moments fled--
And musing fancy backward takes her flight,
To gaze on images to fancy dear,
And bathe them with the sad regretful tear.
Yet, ‘tis a sadness mingled with delight;
Just as a strain of music, mournful, low,
Melts the full heart with silent pleasing woe.
TO LOVE.
I know thy charms, sweet Love! enchanting boy,
On whose smooth cheek unfading roses glow:
Where softest smiles of innocence and joy
Tender yet gay, their dimpled graces show;--
Dark is the blue of thy bewitching eye,
Whose melting glances thrill the raptur’d sight:
And deep the magic of thy tuneful sigh;
While at thy voice, hope paints in colours bright
Her wild romantic scenes. O heavenly child,
I shun thee not--! love thy aspect mild:
Come then, and realize with touch divine
The airy forms which Fancy’s call obey,
And I will bow before thy pow’rful sway,
And heap sweet offerings on thy holy shrine.
WRITTEN ON RETURNING TO MY HOME.
With weeping tenderness once more I gaze
On these romantic scenes I love so well:
Where peace and pensive solitude still dwell,
As in my happy childhood’s smiling days;
When my unfolding mind did first behold
The charms of nature with a musing eye,
And caught sweet melancholy’s magic sigh;
When through the wood’s deep shadowy glen I stroll’d,
With transport listening, as the carol clear
Of some sweet linnet hail’d the opening day,
Or hymn’d to sleeping eve th’ enchanting lay.
Ah! lovely scenes--I meet you with a tear--
For strange vicissitudes have cross’d my way,
Since last I saw the glitering sun-beam here!
TO THE CLOUDS.
O ye who ride upon the wand’ring gale,
And silently, yet swiftly pass away--
I love to view you, when the glimmering ray
Of early morning tints your forms so pale,
Or when meek twilight gleams above the steep,
As in fantastic changeful shapes ye fly
Far in the west,--when smiles the summer sky,
Or when rough wintry winds with fury sweep
Along the hill your darkly-frowning forms,
All desolate and gloomy as my heart.
Ah! could I but from this sad earth depart
And wander careless as the roving storms
Amidst your shadowy scenes--borne by the wind,
Far I would fly, and leave my woes behind!
TO AUTUMN.
Mild pensive Autumn! how I love to stray
At thy sweet season through the woody vale;
And when the western orb’s declining ray
Tinges thy varied foliage, hear the gale
Of evening sigh among the lofty trees,
And watch thy mists obscure the mountain’s height;
While sportive swallows, tossing in the breeze,
Collect, preparing for their distant flight.
As, lovely Autumn! on thy charms I gaze,
Thy soften’d charms which I so dearly prize,
A thrilling tender melancholy sways
My raptur’d heart, and tears suffuse my eyes.
These feelings, which thy pensive hours employ,
Who would resign for all the world calls joy!
Repentance, bathe me in thy sea of tears!
Ah touch my heart with purifying sway;
And let these stains my darken’d conscience bears,
By thy pale waters all be wash’d away;
Yet how can these remove Guilt’s gloomy die!
Oh how atone for oft repeated sin
Regardless of each warning from on high,
The call without--the monitor within!--
Redeeming mercy--here alone the thought
Can rest in hope;--yet come Repentance, come,
With all thy tender melting sorrows fraught,
And guide this wand’ring heart. unto its home;
And while my own sad erring ways I grieve,
Ah may I others learn to pity and forgive.
TO A VIOLET.
Spring’s sweet attendant! modest simple flower,
Whose soft retiring charms the woods adorn,
How often have I wander’d at that hour,
When first appear the rosy tints of morn,
To the wild brook--there, upon mossy ground,
Thy velvet form all beautiful to view;
To catch thy breath that steals delicious round,
And mark thy pensive smile thro’ tears of dew:
But then I sigh that other Vi’lets bloom
Unseen, in wilds where foot-step never trod,
Find unadmir’d, unnotic’d, there a tomb,
And mingle silent with the grassy sod;
Ah, so the scatter’d flowers of genius rise;
These bloom to charm--that, hide--neglected dies.
TO HAPPINESS.
O happiness! thou fair enchanting form,
That, rob’d in brightness, swiftly steal’st along;
Oft mingling with the gay the glittering throng
Of blue-eyed laughing Hope--or glowing warm,
In fancy’s rainbow colours sweetly drest,
Flitt’st on light silken wings before my sight--
Ah! why so soon pursue thine airy flight!
Return--return--and bless this throbbing breast.
Alas! in vain I spread my eager arms:
In vain I court thy heavenly smile serene--
Thou’rt but a wanderer through this changeful scene,
And fleeting are thy transitory charms.
Yes angel form! thy dwelling is not here;
Thou reignest in some loftier purer sphere!
TO MELANCHOLY.
When wintry tempests agitate the deep,
On some lone rock I love to sit reclin’d;
And view the sea-birds on wild pinions sweep,
And hear the roaring of the stormy wind,
That, rushing thro’ the caves with hollow sound,
Seems like the voices of those viewless forms
Which hover wrapp’d in gloomy mist around,
Directing in their course the rolling storms.
Then, Melancholy! thy sweet power I feel,
For there thine influence reigns o’er all the scene;
Then o’er my heart thy “mystic transports” steal,
And from each trifling thought my bosom wean.
My raptur’d spirit soars on wing sublime
Beyond the narrow bounds of space or time!
TO A VILLAGE IN SUFFOLK, THE RESIDENCE OF A FRIEND.
Blakenham! although thy bounded scenes
Among no forests wave, no lofty hills arise,
Whence far-stretch’d prospects meet the raptur’d eyes--
No winding sea-dasht shores to thee belong,
Skirted by wild and rocky solitudes,
“Sublimities that most delight the mind”
Yet Blakenham, thy still meads where riv’lets wind,
Thy corn-fields waving ‘neath the rustling breeze,
And thy secluded copses--they are dear
To me; and when I go far, far away,
Full oft amid thy scenes will memory stray.
Ah! virtue, taste, refinement pure are here;
And these, when view’d by fond affection’s eye,
Give thee an interest--which shall never die!.
O take me from the hated haunts of man;
O hide me on some rock-encompass’d shore,
Where I may spend unseen life’s little span,
And never hear of guilt and misery more
There a Recluse, within some lonely cave,
I’ll read, and watch, and meditate, and pray;
I’ll list the murmurs of the rolling wave,
And mark the rising and the setting ray;
No helpless animals for me shall bleed;
The hand of nature shall my wants supply--
I’ll view them as at liberty they feed,
And their delight shall be my luxury.
O how I long for solitude like this!
For nature’s innocence, and nature’s bliss.
RECANTATORY TO THE PRECEDING.
Ah no--enthusiasm’s hour is fled;--
--Society,! though many a saddening ill
Abides within the circle of thy tread,
Yet fondly do I cling unto thee still.
How could I live estrang’d from all mankind:
How could I bear the desolate remove
From all the sweet communion of the mind--
The Sympathies of friendship, and of love!--
Rebellious Man in every changing scene
Must feel th’ effect of his primeval crime;--
Ah! let him sometimes seek the shade serene,
And sooth his weary soul with thought sublime;--
But ‘tis in social life that he must prove
Trials that fit him for the realms above.
Why do I muse on moments that are past
Like the fond visions of an airy dream,
With weeping tenderness, and thought o’ercast
With shades of deep regret? Alas! they seem
The smiling scenes where sunbeams of delight
Unclouded love to linger; strew’d with flowers,
Whose perfum’d buds appear more softly bright,
Than rainbow glittering on summer showers.
Ah! does not memory like Hope deceive?
Like Hope resign her realms to Fancy’s sway,
Who fondly loves a magic veil to weave
For every past as well as future day?
Ah, surely yes! for Sorrow’s tearful show’r
Falls on the beam that gilds our fairest hour.
WRITTEN NEAR THE SEA.
Now wild the blasts of Autumn sweep along
These rugged rocks, this solitary shore!
Mingled with Ocean’s deep tempestuous roar,
And many a sea-bird’s melancholy song.
But ah! more wild the tumult of my soul--
More turbulent the feelings tossing there;
For ev’ry hope is blasted by Despair,
And clouds of darkness o’er my prospects roll,
The winds that agitate the foaming deep
Ere long shall sink to quiet calm repose;
But still this aching heart will sigh its woes,
Still will these streaming eyes in anguish weep--
Till death shall bid the storms of passion cease,
And lay me in the silent home of peace.
WRITTEN IN ILL HEALTH AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING.
Where are the tearful smile of youthful Spring,
That nurs’d the budding leaves and infant flow’rs?
Ah! vanish’d--like those dear regretted hours
That fled away on Pleasure’s fairy wing,
When hope light scatter’d o’er my glowing way
Her rose-buds of delight.--The cooling breeze,
The wily sportive warblers of the trees,
And garlands sweet that made the woods so gay,
All, all are gone.--Spring will return again,
But never more for me its charms shall bloom,
For me then slumbering in the dreary tomb
The birds will sing and flow’rets blow in vain;
While gentle gales, the budding trees that wave,
Will breathe their lonely sighs across my grave.
TO A CONVOLVOLUS.
Did I not see thee ope thy lovely eye,
When Morning came with tresses bath’d in dew?
Were not thy artless charms display’d to view
When shone the brilliant sun-beam from on high?
Now that day’s crimson splendours fading slow,
Yield to soft shadowy eye the silent sway,
Thou tremblest as the breezes o’er thee stray,
And fold’st thy leaves, and lay’st thy bosom low.
Alas, poor flower, thy little life is o’er,
The yellow morning shall return again,
But all her chearing dews will fall in vain,
For thou must never wake to taste them more.
I grieve for thee, yet, wherefore should I grieve?
Man’s but a morning flow’r that like thee dies at eve.
WRITTEN ON AN EMINENCE OVER-HANGING THE SEA.
Ye rocks sublime, whose tops depending o’er
The restless main, form my rude lonely seat,
Where oft I listen to the solemn roar
Of foaming billows, breaking at my feet;
In your retreats can peace of mind be found,
Contented bliss, serenely sweet repose?
Ah, yes! the gales that whisper soft around,
Seem like meek Pity’s voice to heal my woes.
Now, while I watch the waves as on they roll,
And mark their white heads at a distance rise,
Peace once again returns unto my soul,
And pale despair far from my bosom flies.
Sweet, soothing Nature! on thy friendly breast
Reposing, all my griefs are lull’d to rest.
Yon oak has brav’d full many a wintry storm,
And frown’d defiance to the changeful year.
The summer lightnings flashed in fury near,
The gales of Autumn howI’d around its form,
But steadfast, undismay’d, it scorn’d their pow’r,
And now, see evening’s softest loveliest ray
Illumes its leaves, while zephyrs tired with play,
Sleep on the bosom of the silent hour.
Then, tho’ the gusts of sad misfortune blow
O’er this chill’d bosom, I will not despair;
Hope, gentle Hope, shall point to prospects fair,
Where flow’rets bloom, and lingering sun beams glow;
Where, when Adversity’s dark clouds are past,
The smile of peace shall sooth my soul at last.
WRITTEN ON LEAVING A BELOVED RESIDENCE.
Romantic shades, by nature wildly drest!
Scenes to my pensive bosom ever dear!
Where I have pass’d full many a happy year,
In health, in peace, and calm contentment blest;--
For you have witness’d life’s sweet dawn arise,
You have beheld gay childhood’s smiling hours,
And first among your silent shadowy bow’rs
I learn’d retirement’s tasteful joys to prize.
Dear hills! the sun will gild your turf--the air
Will catch your thymy perfume on its wing--
And sweet as ever still your birds will sing:
But not for me;--I go to cities--where,
With sickening eye false splendour I shall view,
And sigh in vain, sweet shades, for happiness--and you!
Contentment! ! I have left the lowly spot
Where Peace in still seclusion lov’d to dwell.
Within the shelter of thy simple cell,
There once was fix’d my humble happy lot;
Ah would that I had never known a change!
For ‘mong reposing scenes that smil’d around,
Serenest bliss my quiet bosom found.--
‘Twas Hope who taught my wand’ring feet to range
Cruel deluder! she in pilgrim vest
Came to our cot: and by her witching tale,
“While dwelling there an unsuspected guest,”
Seduc’d me from Contentment’s happy vale.
Ah! now, alone, amidst surrounding fears,
I’m left to disappointment and to tears!.
O that religion in that breast did dwell!--
See how he leans upon the vessel’s side,
And gloomily surveys the surgy tide.
Could you the meaning of that aspect tell,
Could you behold the heart that bosom hides,
Its passions tossing like the billows wild,
Its wishes by no soothing hope beguil’d,
But which impatience ever restless guides;
Ah did each thought perplex’d--each prospect dark--
Each feeling of despair now meet your sight,
You’d say that Man, “poor helpless driving bark!”
Needed a pilot to direct him right
On life’s tumultuous waves--and waft him o’er
To some more shelter’d and more peaceful shore.