SONNETS.

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SONNETS.

I.

HOME.

____

O HOME, however homely,—thoughts of thee

Can never fail to cheer the absent breast;

How oft wild raptures have been felt by me,

When back returning, weary and distrest;

How oft I’ve stood to see the chimney pour

Thick clouds of smoke in columns lightly blue,

And, close beneath, the house-leek’s yellow flower,

While fast approaching to a nearer view.

These, though they’re trifles, ever gave delight;

E’en now they prompt me with a fond desire, 10

Painting the evening group before my sight,

Of friends and kindred seated round the fire.

O Time! how rapid did thy moments flow,

That chang’d these scenes of joy to scenes of woe.

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II.

THE TOMB.

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ONCE musing o’er an old effaced stone,

Longing to know whose dust it did conceal,

I anxious ponder’d o’er what might reveal,

And sought the seeming date with weeds o’ergrown;

But that prov’d fruitless—both the date and name

Had been for ages in oblivion thrown.

The dim remains of sculptur’d ornament

Gave proof sufficient ’twas reward for fame:

This did my searching view so much torment,

That Time I question’d to expose the same; 10

But soon a check—“And what is it to thee

Whose dust lies here? —since thou wilt quickly be

Forgot like him:—then Time shall bid thee go

To heaven’s pure bliss, or hell’s tormenting woe.”

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III.

SORROWS FOR A FRIEND.

____

YE brown old oaks that spread the silent wood,

How soothing sweet your stillness used to be;

And still could bless, when wrapt in musing mood,

But now confusion suits the best to me.

“Is it for love,” the breezes seem to say,

“That you forsake our woodland silence here?

Is it for love, you roam so far away

From these still shades you valu’d once so dear?”

“No, breezes, no!”—I answer with a sigh,

“Love never could so much my bosom grieve; 10

Turnhill, my friend!—alas! so soon to die—

That is the grief which presses me to leave:

Though noise can’t heal, it may some balm bestow;

But Silence rankles in the wounds of woe.”

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IV.

TO MY COTTAGE.

____

THOU lowly cot, where first my breath I drew,

Past joys endear thee, childhood’s past delight;

Where each young summer’s pictur’d on my view;

And, dearer still, the happy winter-night,

When the storm pelted down with all his might,

And roar’d and bellow’d in the chimney-top,

And patter’d vehement ’gainst the window-light,

And on the threshold fell the quick eaves-drop.

How blest I’ve listen’d on my corner stool,

Heard the storm rage, and hugg’d my happy spot, 10

While the fond parent wound her whirring spool,

And spar’d a sigh for the poor wanderer’s lot.

In thee, sweet hut, this happiness was prov’d,

And these endear and make thee doubly lov’d.

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V.

POVERTY.

____

RANK Poverty! dost thou my joys assail,

And with thy threat’nings fright me from my rest?

I once had thoughts, that with a Bloomfield’s tale,

And leisure hours, I surely should be blest;

But now I find the sadly-alter’d scene,

From these few days I fondly thought my own,

Hoping to spend them private and alone,

But, lo! thy troop of spectres intervene:

Want shows his face, with Idleness between,

Next Shame’s approaching step, that hates the throng, 10

Comes sneaking on, with Sloth that fetters strong.

Are these the joys my leisure hours must glean?

Then I decline:—but know where’er we meet,

Ye ne’er shall drive me from the Muses’ seat.

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VI.

TO MY MOTHER.

____

WITH filial duty I address thee, Mother,

Thou dearest tie which this world’s wealth possesses;

Endearing name! no language owns another

That half the tenderness and love expresses;

The very word itself breathes the affection,

Which heaves the bosom of a luckless child

To thank thee, for that care and that protection,

Which once, where fortune frowns, so sweetly smil’d.

Ah, oft fond memory leaves its pillow’d anguish,

To think when in thy arms my sleep was sound; 10

And now my startled tear oft views thee languish,

And fain would drop its honey in the wound:

But I am doom’d the sad reverse to see,

Where the worst pain I feel, is loss of helping thee.

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VII.

THE SNOWDROP.

____

SWEET type of innocence, snow-clothed blossom,

Seemly, though vainly, bowing down to shun

The storm hard-beating on thy wan white bosom,

Left in the swail, and little cheer’d by sun;

Resembling that frail jewel, just begun

To ope on vice’s eye its witcheries blooming,

Midst all its storms, with little room to shun—

Ah, thou art winter’s snowdrop, lovely Woman!

In this world dropt, where every evil’s glooming

With killing tempests o’er its tender prey, 10

Watching the opening of thy beauties coming,

Its every infant charm to snatch away:

Then come the sorrows thou’rt too weak to brave,

And then thy beauty-cheek digs ruin’s early grave.

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VIII.

LIFE.

____

LIFE, thou art misery, or as such to me;

One name serves both, or I no difference see;

Tho’ some there live would call thee heaven below,

But that’s a nickname I’ve not learn’d to know:

A wretch with poverty and pains replete,

Where even useless stones beneath his feet

Cannot be gather’d up to say “they’re mine,”

Sees little heaven in a life like thine.

Hope lends a sorry shelter from thy storms,

And largely promises, but small performs. 10

O irksome life! were but this hour my last!

This weary breath fain sighs for its decay;

O that my soul death’s dreary vale had past,

And met the sunshine of a better day!

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IX.

WRITTEN IN AUTUMN.

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CHECQ’D Autumn, doubly sweet is thy declining,

To meditate within this ’wilder’d shade;

To view the wood in its pied lustre shining,

And catch thy varied beauties as they fade;

Where o’er broad hazel-leaves thy pencil mellows,

Red as the glow that morning’s opening warms,

And ash or maple ’neath thy colour yellows,

Robbing some sunbeam of its setting charms:

I would say much of what now meets my eye,

But beauties lose me in variety. 10

O for the warmth of soul and ’witching measure,

Expressing semblance, Poesy, which is thine,

And Genius’ eye to view this transient treasure,

That Autumn here might lastingly decline.

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X.

ON DEATH.

____

O LIFE, thy name to me’s a galling sound,

A sound I fain would wish to breathe no more;

One only peace for me my hopes have found,

When thy existence and wild race is o’er;

When Death, with one, heals every other wound,

And lays my aching head in the cold ground.

O happy hour! I only wish to have

Another moment’s gasp, and then the grave.

I only wish for one departing sigh,

A welcome farewel take of all, and die. 10

Thou’st given me little, world, for thanks’ return,

Thou tempst me little with thee still to ’bide:

One only cause in leaving thee I mourn,—

That I had e’er been born, nor in the cradle died.

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XI.

NATIVE SCENES.

____

O NATIVE scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer

Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours;

Nought in this world warms my affections dearer

Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;

Ye hawthorn hedge-rows, and ye woodbine bowers,

Where youth has rov’d, and still where manhood roves

The pasture-pathway ’neath the willow groves.

Ah, as my eye looks o’er those lovely scenes,

All the delights of former life beholding;

Spite of the pain, the care that intervenes,— 10

When lov’d remembrance is her bliss unfolding,

Picking her childish posies on your greens,—

My soul can pause o’er its distress awhile,

And Sorrow’s cheek find leisure for a smile.

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XII.

PEACE.

____

I SEEK for Peace—I care not where ’tis found:

On this rude scene in briars and brambles drest,

If peace dwells here, ’tis consecrated ground,

And owns the power to give my bosom rest;

To soothe the rankling of each bitter wound,

Gall’d by rude Envy’s adder-biting jest,

And worldly strife;—ah, I am looking round

For Peace’s hermitage, can it be found?—

Surely that breeze that o’er the blue wave curl’d

Did whisper soft, “Thy wanderings here are blest.” 10

How different from the language of the world!

Nor jeers nor taunts in this still spot are given:

Its calm’s a balsam to a soul distrest;

And, where Peace smiles, a wilderness is heaven.

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XIII.

MORNING.

____

O NOW the crimson east, its fire-streak burning,

Tempts me to wander ’neath the blushing morn,

Winding the zig-zag lane, turning and turning,

As winds the crooked fence’s wilder’d thorn.

Where is the eye can gaze upon the blushes,

Unmov’d, with which yon cloudless heaven flushes?

I cannot pass the very bramble, weeping

’Neath dewy tear-drops that its spears surround,

Like harlot’s mockery on the wan cheek creeping,

Gilding the poison that is meant to wound;— 10

I cannot pass the bent, ere gales have shaken

Its transient crowning off, each point adorning,—

But all the feelings of my soul awaken,

To own the witcheries of most lovely Morning.

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XIV.

TO AN HOUR-GLASS.

____

OLD-FASHIONED uncouth measurer of the day,

I love to watch thy filtering burthen pass;

Though some there are that live would bid thee stay;

But these view reasons through a different glass

From him, Time’s meter, who addresses thee.

The world has joys which they may deem as such;

The world has wealth to season vanity,

And wealth is theirs to make their vainness much:

But small to do with joys and Fortune’s fee

Hath he, Time’s chronicler, who welcomes thee. 10

So jog thou on, through hours of doom’d distress;

So haste thou on the glimpse of hopes to come;

As every sand-grain counts a trouble less,

As every drain’d glass leaves me nearer home.

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XV.

TO AN ANGRY BEE.

____

MALICIOUS insect, little vengeful bee,

With venom-sting thou’rt whirling round and round

A harmless head that ne’er meant wrong to thee,

And friendship’s hand it is thou’dst wish to wound:

Cool thy revenge, and judge thy foes aright;

The harden’d neatherd and the sweet-tooth’d boy—

Thy moss-wrapp’d treasures, if but in their sight,

Soon would they all thy honey’d lives destroy:

But delve the cowslip-peep in labour free,

And dread no pilferer of thy hoards in me.— 10

Thus man to man oft takes a friend for foe,

And spurns a blessing when it’s in his power,

Mistakes real happiness for worldly woe,

Crops sorrow’s weed, and treads on pleasure’s flower.

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XVI.

DAY-BREAK.

____

THE red east glows, the dewy cheek of Day

Has not yet met the sun’s o’erpowering smile;

The dew-drops in their beauty still are gay,

Save those the shepherd’s early steps defile.

Pleas’d will I linger o’er the scene awhile;

The black clouds melt away, the larks awaken—

Sing, rising bird, and I will join with thee:

With day-break’s beauties I have much been taken,

As thy first anthem breath’d its melody.

I’ve stood and paus’d the varied cloud to see, 10

And warm’d in ecstacy, and look’d and warm’d,

When day’s first rays, the far hill top adorning,

Fring’d the blue clouds with gold: O doubly charm’d

I hung in raptures then on early Morning.

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XVII.

TO THE IVY.

____

DARK creeping Ivy, with thy berries brown,

That fondly twists on ruins all thine own,

Old spire-points studding with a leafy crown

Which every minute threatens to dethrone;

With fearful eye I view thy height sublime,

And oft with quicker step retreat from thence

Where thou, in weak defiance, striv’st with Time,

And holdst his weapons in a dread suspense.

But, bloom of ruins, thou art dear to me,

When, far from danger’s way, thy gloomy pride 10

Wreathes picturesque around some ancient tree

That bows his branches by some fountain-side:

Then sweet it is from summer suns to be,

With thy green darkness overshadowing me.

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XVIII.

HOPE.

____

THIS world has suns, but they are overcast;

This world has sweets, but they’re of ling’ring bloom;

Life still expects, and empty falls at last;

Warm Hope on tiptoe drops into the tomb.

Life’s journey’s rough—Hope seeks a smoother way,

And dwells on fancies which to-morrow see,—

To-morrow comes, true copy of to-day,

And empty shadow of what is to be;

Yet cheated Hope on future still depends,

And ends but only when our being ends. 10

I long have hoped, and still shall hope the best

Till heedless weeds are scrambling over me,

And hopes and ashes both together rest

At journey’s end, with them that cease to be.

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XIX.

THE ARBOUR.

____

THERE is a wilder’d spot delights me well,

Pent in a corner of my native vale,

Where tiny blossoms with a purple bell

Shiver their beauties to the autumn-gale.

’Tis one of those mean arbours that prevail

With manhood’s weakness, still to seek and love

For what is past:—Destruction’s axe did fail

To cut it down with its companion grove.

Though but a trifling thorn, oft shelt’ring warm

A brood of summer birds, by nature led 10

To seek for covert in a hasty storm;

I often think it lifts its lonely cares,

In piteous bloom where all the rest are fled,

Like a poor warrior the rude battle spares.

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XX.

NATURE.

____

O SIMPLE Nature, how I do delight

To pause upon thy trifles—foolish things,

As some would call them.—On the summer night,

Tracing the lane-path where the dog-rose hings

With dew-drops seeth’d, while chick’ring cricket sings;

My eye can’t help but glance upon its leaves,

Where love’s warm beauty steals her sweetest blush,

When, soft the while, the Even silent heaves

Her pausing breath just trembling thro’ the bush,

And then again dies calm, and all is hush. 10

O how I feel, just as I pluck the flower

And stick it to my breast—words can’t reveal;

But there are souls that in this lovely hour

Know all I mean, and feel whate’er I feel.

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XXI.

A WISH.

____

BE where I may when Death brings in his bill,

Demanding payment for life’s ling’ring debt,

Or in my native village nestling still,

Or tracing scenes I’ve never known as yet,

O let one wish, go where I will, be mine,—

To turn me back and wander home to die,

’Mong nearest friends my latest breath resign,

And in the church-yard with my kindred lie,

’Neath the thick-shaded sycamore’s decay,

Its broad leaves trembling to the breeze of day: 10

To see its shadow o’er my ashes wave,

How soothing will it be, while, hovering near,

My unseen spirit haunts its daisied grave,

Pausing on scenes in life once lov’d so dear.

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XXII.

THE LAST OF APRIL.

____

OLD April wanes, and her last dewy morn

Her death-bed steeps in tears:—to hail the May

New blooming blossoms ’neath the sun are born,

And all poor April’s charms are swept away.

The early primrose, peeping once so gay,

Is now chok’d up with many a mounting weed,

And the poor violet we once admir’d

Creeps in the grass unsought for—flowers succeed,

Gaudy and new, and more to be desired,

And of the old the school-boy seemeth tired. 10

So with us all, poor April, as with thee!

Each hath his day;—the future brings my fears:

Friends may grow weary, new flowers rising be,

And my last end, like thine, be steep’d in tears.

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XXIII.

HEREAFTER.

____

AH, when this world and I have shaken hands,

And all the frowns of this sad life got through,

When from pale Care and Sorrow’s dismal lands

I turn a welcome and a wish’d adieu;

How blest and happy, to eternal day,

To endless happiness without a pain,

Will my poor weary spirit sail away,

That long long look’d for “better place” to gain:

How sweet the scenes will open on her eye,

Where no more troubles, no more cares annoy; 10

All the sharp troubles of this life torn by,

And safely moor’d in heaven’s eternal joy:

Sweet will it seem to Fate’s oppressed worm,

As trembling Sunbeams creeping from the storm.

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XXIV.

EARLY SPRING.

____

WINTER is past—the little bee resumes

Her share of sun and shade, and o’er the lea

Hums her first hymnings to the flowers’ perfumes,

And wakes a sense of gratefulness in me:

The little daisy keeps its wonted pace,

Ere March by April gets disarm’d of snow;

A look of joy opes on its smiling face,

Turn’d to that Power that suffers it to blow.

Ah, pleasant time, as pleasing as you be,

One still more pleasing Hope reserves for me; 10

Where suns, unsetting, one long summer shine,

Flowers endless bloom, where winter ne’er destroys:

O may the good man’s righteous end be mine,

That I may witness these unfading joys.

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XXV.

SUMMER.

____

HOW sweet, when weary, dropping on a bank,

Turning a look around on things that be!

E’en feather-headed grasses, spindling rank,

A trembling to the breeze one loves to see;

And yellow buttercup, where many a bee

Comes buzzing to its head and bows it down;

And the great dragon-fly with gauzy wings,

In gilded coat of purple, green, or brown,

That on broad leaves of hazel basking clings,

Fond of the sunny day:—and other things 10

Past counting, please me while thus here I lie.

But still reflective pains are not forgot:

Summer sometime shall bless this spot, when I

Hapt in the cold dark grave, can heed it not.

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XXVI.

THE ANTS.

____

WHAT wonder strikes the curious, while he views

The black ant’s city, by a rotten tree,

Or woodland bank! In ignorance we muse:

Pausing, annoy’d,—we know not what we see,

Such government and thought there seem to be;

Some looking on, and urging some to toil,

Dragging their loads of bent-stalks slavishly:

And what’s more wonderful, when big loads foil

One ant or two to carry, quickly then

A swarm flock round to help their fellow-men. 10

Surely they speak a language whisperingly,

Too fine for us to hear; and sure their ways

Prove they have kings and laws, and that they be

Deformed remnants of the Fairy-days.

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XXVII.

MILTON ABBEY.

____

HERE grandeur triumphs at its topmost pitch

In gardens, groves, and all that life beguiles;

Here want, too, meets a blessing from the rich,

And hospitality for ever smiles:

Soldier or sailor, from his many toils,

Here finds no cause to rail at pomp and pride;

He shows his scars, and talks of battle’s broils,

And wails his poverty, and is supplied.

No dogs bark near, the fainting wretch to chide,

That bows to misery his aged head, 10

And tells how better luck did once betide,

And how he came to beg his crust of bread:

Here he but sighs his sorrows and is fed—

Mansion of wealth, by goodness dignified!

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XXVIII.

IN HILLY-WOOD.

____

HOW sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs,

Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me;

Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs,

But not an eye can find its way to see.

The sunbeams scarce molest me with a smile,

So thick the leafy armies gather round;

And where they do, the breeze blows cool the while,

Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground.

Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen,

Perks up its head the hiding grass between.— 10

In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;

Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,

Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,

Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

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XXIX.

A COPSE IN WINTER.

____

SHADES, though you’re leafless, save the bramble-spear,

Whose weather-beaten leaves, of purple stain,

In hardy stubbornness cling all the year

To their old thorns, till Spring buds new again;

Shades, still I love you better than the plain,

For here I find the earliest flowers that blow,

While on the bare blea bank do yet remain

Old winter’s traces, little heaps of snow.

Beneath your ashen roots, primroses grow

From dead grass tufts and matted moss, once more; 10

Sweet beds of violets dare again be seen

In their deep purple pride; and, gay display’d,

The crow-flowers, creeping from the naked green,

Add early beauties to your sheltering shade.

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XXX.

TO A RED CLOVER BLOSSOM.

____

SWEET bottle-shaped flower of lushy red,

Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze,

Among the meadow’s waving grasses spread,

Or ’neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees,

Bowing on slender stem thy heavy head;

In sweet delight I view thy summer bed,

And list the drone of heavy humble-bees

Along thy honey’d garden gaily led,

Down corn-field, striped balks, and pasture-leas.

Fond warmings of the soul, that long have fled, 10

Revive my bosom with their kindlings still,

As I bend musing o’er thy ruddy pride;

Recalling days when, dropt upon a hill,

I cut my oaten trumpets by thy side.

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XXXI.

NIGHT.

____

NIGHT spreads upon the plain her ebon pall,

Day seems unable to wash out the stain;

A pausing truce kind nature gives to all,

And fairy nations now have leave to reign:

So may conjecturing Fancy think, and feign.

Doubtless in tiny legions, now unseen,

They venture from their dwellings once again:

From keck-stalk cavity, or hollow bean,

Or perfum’d bosom of pea-flower between,

They to the dark green rings now haste, to meet, 10

To dance, or pay some homage to their queen;

Or journey on, some pilgrim-friend to greet.

With rushy switch they urge some beetle’s flight,

And ride to revel, ere ’tis morning-light.

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XXXII.

NOON.

____

THE mid-day hour of twelve the clock counts o’er,

A sultry stillness lulls the air asleep;

The very buzz of flies is heard no more,

Nor faintest wrinkles o’er the waters creep.

Like one large sheet of glass the waters shine,

Reflecting on their face the burnt sunbeam:

The very fish their sporting play decline,

Seeking the willow-shadows ’side the stream.

And, where the hawthorn branches o’er the pool,

The little bird, forsaking song and nest, 10

Flutters on dripping twigs his limbs to cool,

And splashes in the stream his burning breast.

O, free from thunder, for a sudden shower,

To cherish nature in this noon-day hour!

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XXXIII.

AUTUMN.

____

THE Spring is gone, the Summer-beauty wanes,

Like setting sunbeams, in their last decline;

As evening shadows, lingering on the plains,

Gleam dim and dimmer till they cease to shine:

The busy bee hath humm’d himself to rest;

Flowers dry to seed, that held the sweets of Spring;

Flown is the bird, and empty is the nest,

His broods are rear’d, no joys are left to sing.

There hangs a dreariness about the scene,

A present shadow of a bright has been. 10

Ah, sad to prove that Pleasure’s golden springs,

Like common fountains, should so quickly dry,

And be so near allied to vulgar things!—

The joys of this world are but born to die.

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XXXIV.

TO TIME.

____

IN Fancy’s eye, what an extended span,

Time, hoary herald, has been stretch’d by thee:

Vain to conceive where thy dark burst began,

Thou birthless, boundless, vast immensity!

Vain all conceptions of weak-minded man

Thee to unravel from thy mystery!—

In mortal wisdom, thou’st already ran

A circled travel of eternity;

Still, but a moment of thy mighty plan

Seems yet unwound, from what thy age shall see, 10

Consuming Tyrant of all mortal kind!—

And what thou art, and what thou art to be,

Is known to none, but that Immortal Mind

Who reigns alone superior to thee.

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XXXV.

WINTER.

____

THE small wind whispers through the leafless hedge

Most sharp and chill, where the light snowy flakes

Rest on each twig and spike of wither’d sedge,

Resembling scatter’d feathers;—vainly breaks

The pale split sunbeam through the frowning cloud,

On Winter’s frowns below—from day to day

Unmelted still he spreads his hoary shroud,

In dithering pride on the pale traveller’s way,

Who, croodling, hastens from the storm behind

Fast gathering deep and black, again to find 10

His cottage-fire and corner’s sheltering bounds;

Where, haply, such uncomfortable days

Make musical the wood-sap’s frizzling sounds,

And hoarse loud bellows puffing up the blaze.

₁₈₃

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XXXVI.

TWILIGHT.

____

THE setting Sun withdraws his yellow light,

A gloomy staining shadows over all,

While the brown beetle, trumpeter of Night,

Proclaims his entrance with a droning call.

How pleasant now, where slanting hazels fall

Thick, o’er the woodland stile, to muse and lean;

To pluck a woodbine from the shade withal,

And take short snatches o’er the moisten’d scene;

While deep and deeper shadows intervene,

And leave fond Fancy moulding to her will 10

The cots, and groves, and trees so dimly seen,

That die away more undiscerned still;

Bringing a sooty curtain o’er the sight,

And calmness in the bosom still as night.

₁₈₄

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XXXVII.

SPRING.

____

WHAT charms does Nature at the spring put on,

When hedges unperceived get stain’d in green;

When even moss, that gathers on the stone,

Crown’d with its little knobs of flowers is seen;

And every road and lane, through field and glen,

Triumphant boasts a garden of its own.

In spite of nipping sheep, and hungry cow,

The little daisy finds a place to blow:

And where old Winter leaves her splashy slough,

The lady-smocks will not disdain to grow; 10

And dandelions like to suns will bloom,

Aside some bank or hillock creeping low;—

Though each too often meets a hasty doom

From trampling clowns, who heed not where they go.

₁₈₅

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XXXVIII.

EARLY SORROWS.

____

FULL many a sharp, sad, unexpected thorn

Finds room to wound Life’s lacerated flower,

Which subtle fate, to every mortal born,

Guides unprevented in an early hour.

Ah, cruel thorns, too soon I felt your power;

Your throbbing shoots of never-ceasing pain

Hope’s blossoms in their bud did long devour,

And left continued my sad eyes to strain

On wilder’d spots chok’d up with Sorrow’s weeds,

Alas, that’s shaken but too many seeds 10

To leave me room for Hopes to bud again.

But Fate may torture, while it is decreed,

Where all my hope’s unblighted blooms remain,

That Heaven’s recompense shall this succeed.

₁₈₆

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XXXIX.

EVENING.

____

WHAT time the cricket unmolested sings,

And blundering beetles try their clumsy wings,

Leave me to meet the sweets of Even’s hour

By hawthorn hedges when the May’s in flower,

With light enough to guard my cautious tread,

As not to trample on the daisy’s head,

Down beaten pathways of a wish’d extent,

Ev’n unimpeded by the bending bent

That, night and morning, bowing down with dew,

Sullies the brightness of the maiden’s shoe: 10

There leave me musing ’neath the bow’ring ash,

Counting the knoll of bells, or spurting dash

Of muttering fountain-fall, with wild delight,

Till Even loses in the blank of Night.

₁₈₇

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XL.

EXPRESSION.

____

EXPRESSION, throbbing utterance of the soul,

Born in some bard, when with the muses’ fires

His feeling bursts unaw’d, above control,

And to the topmost height of heaven aspires,

Stealing the music of some angel’s song

To tell of all he sees and all admires,

Which fancy’s colours paint so sweet, so strong!—

And to far humbler scenes thou dost belong:

In Sorrow thou art warm, when speaking tears

Down some sad cheek in silence wail their wrong; 10

And, ah, most sweet, Expression, then appears

Thy smile of Gratitude, where bosoms bleed.

Though high the lofty poet’s frenzy steers,

In nature’s simplest garb thou’rt sweet indeed.

₁₈₈

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XLI.

CHILDHOOD.

____

WHAT trifles touch our feelings, when we view

The simple scenes of Childhood’s early day,

Pausing on spots where gather’d blossoms grew,

Or favour’d seats of many a childish play;

Bush, dyke, or wood, where painted pooties lay,

Where oft we’ve crept and crept the shades among,

Where ivy hung old roots bemoss’d with grey,

Where nettles oft our infant fingers stung,

And tears would weep the gentle wounds away:—

Ah, gentle wounds indeed, I well may say, 10

To those sad Manhood’s tortur’d passage found,

Where naked Fate each day new pangs doth feel,

Clearing away the brambles that surround,

Inflicting tortures death can only heal.

₁₈₉

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XLII.

A LAIR AT NOON.

____

THE hawthorn gently stopt the sun, beneath,

The ash above its quiv’ring shadows spread,

And downy bents, that to the air did wreathe,

Bow’d ’neath my pressure in an easy bed;

The water whirled round each stunted nook,

And sweet the splashings on the ear did swim

Of fly-bit cattle gulshing in the brook,

Nibbling the grasses on the fountain’s brim:

The little minnows, driv’n from their retreat,

Still sought the shelving bank to shun the heat. 10

I fain had slept, but flies would buzz around;

I fain had looked calmly on the scene,

But the sweet snug retreat my search had found

Waken’d the Muse to sing the woody screen.

₁₉₀

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XLIII.

WOMAN.

____

O WOMAN, lovely Woman, magic flower,

What loves, what pleasures in thy graces meet!

Thou blushing blossom, dropt from Eden’s bower;

Thou fair exotic, delicately sweet!—

Thy tender beauty Mercy wrung from heaven,

A drop of honey in a world of woe;

From Wisdom’s pitying hand thy sweets were given,

That man a glimpse of happiness might know.

—If destitute of Woman, what were life?

Could wealth and wine thy loveliness bestow, 10

And give the bliss that centres in a wife,

That makes one loth to leave this heaven below?

Pains they might soothe, and cares subdue awhile,

But soon the soul would sigh for ’witching Woman’s smile.

₁₉₁

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XLIV.

ON SEEING A PICTURE OF SACRED CONTEMPLATION.

____

SERENE she looks, she wears an angel’s form,

Her arching eyes are fix’d upon the sky,

Gloomy, yet glist’ning ’tween black curls wip’d by,

Like a bright rainbow painted on the storm;

Her blue-vein’d breasts religion’s comforts warm,

The bible open’d on her lap doth lie.

What mixing beauties in her face appear!

Charms more than mortal lighten up her smiles;

Strong Faith and Hope unite her soul to cheer,

And Resignation makes her smiles more dear. 10

No earthly thoughts her purity defile;

As vap’ring clouds by summer’s suns are driven,

Sin’s temptings from the scriptures’ charm recoil,

And all her soul transported seems in heaven.

₁₉₂

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XLV.

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.

____

AUTUMN, I love thy parting look to view

In cold November’s day, so bleak and bare,

When, thy life’s dwindled thread worn nearly thro’,

With ling’ring, pott’ring pace, and head bleach’d bare,

Thou, like an old man, bidd’st the world adieu.

I love thee well: and often, when a child,

Have roam’d the bare brown heath a flower to find;

And in the moss-clad vale, and wood-bank wild

Have cropt the little bell-flowers, pearly blue,

That trembling peep the shelt’ring bush behind. 10

When winnowing north-winds cold and bleaky blew,

How have I joy’d, with dithering hands, to find

Each fading flower; and still how sweet the blast,

Would bleak November’s hour restore the joy that’s past.

₁₉₃

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XLVI.

SUMMER TINTS.

____

HOW sweet I’ve wander’d bosom-deep in grain,

When Summer’s mellowing pencil sweeps his shade

Of ripening tinges o’er the checquer’d plain:

Light tawny oat-lands with a yellow blade;

And bearded corn, like armies on parade;

Beans lightly scorch’d, that still preserve their green;

And nodding lands of wheat in bleachy brown;

And streaking banks, where many a maid and clown

Contrast a sweetness to the rural scene,—

Forming the little haycocks up and down: 10

While o’er the face of nature softly swept

The ling’ring wind, mixing the brown and green

So sweet, that shepherds from their bowers have crept,

And stood delighted musing o’er the scene.

₁₉₄

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XLVII.

ON HEARING A LADY PLAY ON THE MUSICAL

GLASSES.

____

BEYOND expression, delicately fine,

Beneath her slender fingers swept the sound

Of ’witching tones, melodious, divine;

Soothing and soft upon the sense they wound,

Join’d with the syrens’ music, as it were,

As her sweet voice came mingling on the ear.

Ah, who but knows what woman’s voice can do!

To every soul such melody is dear;

Angelic harmony, and beauty too!

Our very hearts melt in the sounds we hear: 10

The breaks—the pauses—check our pulse’s beats.

Enraptur’d memory still each air retains,—

And, as the mind the syren’s songs repeats,

Creates sensations sweeter than her strains.

₁₉₅

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XLVIII.

SUMMER MORNING.

____

I LOVE to peep out on a summer’s morn,

Just as the scouting rabbit seeks her shed,

And the coy hare squats nestling in the corn,

Frit at the bow’d ear tott’ring o’er her head;

And blund’ring pheasant, that from covert springs,

His short sleep broke by early trampling feet,

Makes one to startle with his rustling wings,

As through the boughs he seeks more safe retreat.

The little flower, begemm’d around with drops

That shine at sunrise like to burnish’d gold, 10

’Tis sweet to view: the milk-maid often stops,

And wonders much such spangles to behold;

The hedger, too, admires them deck the thorn,—

And thinks he sees no beauties like the Morn.

₁₉₆

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XLIX.

JOYS OF YOUTH.

____

HOW pleasing simplest recollections seem!

Now summer comes, it warms me to look back

On the sweet happiness of youth’s wild track,

Varied and fleeting as a summer dream:

Here have I paus’d upon the sweeping rack

That specks like wool-flocks through the purple sky;

Here have I careless stooped down to catch

The meadow flower that entertain’d my eye;

And as the butterfly went whirring by,

How anxious for its settling did I watch; 10

And oft long purples on the water’s brink

Have tempted me to wade, in spite of fate,

To pluck the flowers.—Oh, to look back and think,

What pleasing pains such simple joys create!

₁₉₇

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L.

WILD NOSEGAY.

____

THE yellow lambtoe I have often got,

Sweet creeping o’er the banks in summer-time,

And totter-grass, in many a trembling knot;

And robb’d the molehill of its bed of thyme:

And oft with anxious feelings would I climb

The waving willow-row, a stick to trim,

To reach the water-lily’s tempting flower

That on the surface of the pool did swim:

I’ve stretch’d, and tried vain schemes for many an hour;

And scrambled up the hawthorn’s prickly bower, 10

For ramping woodbines and blue bitter-sweet.

Still Summer blooms, these flowers appear again;

But, ah, the question’s useless to repeat,

When will the feelings come I witness’d then?

₁₉₈

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LI.

SABBATH WALKS.

____

UPON the sabbath, sweet it is to walk

’Neath wood-side shelter of oak’s spreading tree,

Or by a hedge-row track, or padded balk;

Or stretch ’neath willows on the meadow lea,

List’ning, delighted, hum of passing bee,

And curious pausing on the blossom’s head;

And mark the spider at his labour free,

Spinning from bent to bent his silken thread;

And lab’ring ants, by careful nature led

To make the most of summer’s plenteous stay; 10

And lady-cow, beneath its leafy shed,

Call’d, when I mix’d with children, “clock-a-clay,”

Pruning its red wings on its pleasing bed,

Glad like myself to shun the heat of day.

₁₉₉

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LII.

ON TASTE.

____

————TASTE is from heaven,

An inspiration nature can’t bestow;

Though nature’s beauties, where a taste is given,

Warm the ideas of the soul to flow

With that intense, enthusiastic glow

That throbs the bosom, when the curious eye

Glances on beauteous things that give delight,

Objects of earth, or air, or sea, or sky,

That bring the very senses in the sight

To relish what we see:—but all is night 10

To the gross clown—nature’s unfolded book,

As on he blunders, never strikes his eye;

Pages of landscape, tree, and flower, and brook,

Like bare blank leaves, he turns unheeded by.

₂₀₀

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LIII.

MAY-NOON.

____

HOW sweet it is, when suns get warmly high,

In the mid-noon, as May’s first cowslip springs,

And the young cuckoo his soft ditty sings,

To wander out, and take a book; and lie

’Neath some low pasture-bush, by guggling springs

That shake the sprouting flag as crimpling by;

Or where the sunshine freckles on the eye

Through the half-clothed branches in the woods;

Where airy leaves of woodbines, scrambling nigh,

Are earliest venturers to unfold their buds; 10

And little rippling runnels curl their floods,

Bathing the primrose-peep, and strawberry wild,

And cuckoo-flowers just creeping from their hoods,

With the sweet season, like their bard, beguil’d.

₂₀₁

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LIV.

SUMMER EVENING.

____

HOW pleasant, when the heat of day is bye,

And seething dew empurples round the hill

Of the horizon, sweeping with the eye

In easy circles, wander where we will!

While o’er the meadow’s little fluttering rill

The twittering sunbeam weakens cool and dim,

And busy hum of flies is hush’d and still.

How sweet the walks by hedge-row bushes seem,

On this side wavy grass, on that the stream;

While dog-rose, woodbine, and the privet-spike, 10

On the young gales their rural sweetness teem,

With yellow flag-flowers rustling in the dyke;

Each mingling into each, a ceaseless charm

To every heart that nature’s sweets can warm.

₂₀₂

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LV.

TO ******.

____

THOU lovely bud, with many weeds surrounded,

I once again address thee with a song;

To cheer thee up ’gainst Envy’s adder-tongue

That deeply oft thy reputation wounded,

And did thy tender blossom mickle wrong.

But, look thou up!—’tis known in nature’s law

That serpents seek the honey-hoarding bee,

Rosemary’s sweets the loathsome toad will draw,

So beauty curdles envy’s look on thee.

Fain would the peacock’s tail the bow express 10

Which paints the clouds so sweet in April’s rain,

And just the same, that imp of ugliness

Mimics thy lovely blossom,—but in vain;

And fain would poison what she can’t possess.

₂₀₃

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LVI.

PLEASURES PAST.

____

SPRING’S sweets they are not fled, though Summer’s blossom

Has met its blight of sadness, drooping low;

Still flowers gone by find beds in memory’s bosom,

Life’s nursling buds among the weeds of woe.

Each pleasing token of Spring’s early morning

Warms with the pleasures which we once did know;

Each little stem the leafy bank adorning,

Reminds of joys from infancy that flow.

Spring’s early heralds on the winter smiling,

That often on their errands meet their doom, 10

Primrose and daisy, dreary hours beguiling,

Smile o’er my pleasures past whene’er they come;

And the speckt throstle never wakes his song,

But Life’s past Spring seems melting from his tongue.

₂₀₄

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LVII.

HELPSTONE CHURCH-YARD.

____

WHAT makes me love thee now, thou dreary scene,

And see in each swell’d heap a peaceful bed?

I well remember that the time has been,

To walk a church-yard when I us’d to dread;

And shudder’d, as I read upon the stone

Of well-known friends and next-door-neighbours gone.

But then I knew no cloudy cares of life,

Where ne’er a sunbeam comes to light me thorough;

A stranger then to this world’s storms and strife,

Where ne’er a charm is met to lull my sorrow: 10

I then was blest, and had not eyes to see

Life’s future change, and Fate’s severe to-morrow;

When all those ills and pains should compass me,

With no hope left but what I meet in thee.

₂₀₅

₂₀₆^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

LVIII.

TO AN EARLY BUTTERFLY.

____

THRICE welcome here again, thou flutt’ring thing,

That gaily seek’st about the opening flower,

And opest and shutt’st thy gaudy-spangled wing

Upon its bosom in the sunny hour;

Fond grateful thoughts from thy appearance spring:

To see thee, Fly, warms me once more to sing

His universal care who hapt thee down,

And did thy winter-dwelling please to give.

That Being’s smiles on me dampt winter’s frown,

And snatch’d me from the storm, and bade me live. 10

And now again the welcome season’s come,

’Tis thine and mine, in nature’s grateful pride,

To thank that God who snatch’d us from the tomb,

And stood our prop, when all gave way beside.

₂₀₆

₂₀₇^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

LIX.

TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN KEATS.

____

THE world, its hopes and fears, have pass’d away;

No more its trifling thou shalt feel or see;

Thy hopes are ripening in a brighter day,

While these left buds thy monument shall be.

When Rancour’s aims have past in nought away,

Enlarging specks discern’d in more than thee,

And beauties ’minishing which few display,—

When these are past, true child of Poesy,

Thou shalt survive—Ah, while a being dwells,

With soul, in Nature’s joys, to warm like thine, 10

With eye to view her fascinating spells,

And dream entranced o’er each form divine,

Thy worth, Enthusiast, shall be cherish’d here,—

Thy name with him shall linger, and be dear.

₂₀₇

₂₀₈^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

LX.

TO AUTUMN.

____

COME, pensive Autumn, with thy clouds, and storms,

And falling leaves, and pastures lost to flowers;

A luscious charm hangs on thy faded forms,

More sweet than Summer in her loveliest hours,

Who, in her blooming uniform of green,

Delights with samely and continued joy:

But give me, Autumn, where thy hand hath been,

For there is wildness that can never cloy,—

The russet hue of fields left bare, and all

The tints of leaves and blossoms ere they fall. 10

In thy dull days of clouds a pleasure comes,

Wild music softens in thy hollow winds;

And in thy fading woods a beauty blooms,

That’s more than dear to melancholy minds.

₂₀₈

^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

GLOSSARY.

____

BITTER-SWEET, a species of nightshade.

Bumptious, consequential, conceited.

Buried moons, covered with vapour.

Chittering, the diminutive of chattering.

Chumbled, gnawed to pieces.

Closes, fields.

Crizzle, to crystal or crystallize: to freeze.

Croodling, crouching, shrinking.

Dithering, shivering.

Dossity, life or spirit.

Dotterel tree, a pollard tree.—“Old stumping trees in hedge-rows,

that are headed every ten or twelve years for fire-wood.” J.C.

Drowk, drooping.

Dyke, ditch.

Elting moulds, the soft ridges of fresh ploughed land.

Fin-weed, rest-harrow.

Fit to freeze, ready to freeze.

Gathering cream.—“This alludes to the cream gathering round

the bucket as the milk-maid journeys home, which often betrays

the loitering with a sweetheart.” J.C. Vide Recollections

after a Ramble.

₂₁₀ ^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

Glegging, glancing.

Grains, the larger branches of trees.

Gulsh, to tear up with force.

High-lows, shoes covering the ankle.

Hirpling, limping.

Holm, a river island, or land which was formerly covered with

water.

Hurkles, crouches.

Jolls, rolls in walking.

Keck, hemlock.

Kid, a bundle of dry thorns.

Lady’s laces, ribbon-grass.

Lambtoe, the kidney vetch, or lady’s finger.

“Lawrence bids wages,” invites to idleness.

Leggings, gaiters.

Long purples, purple loose-strife

Morts, great numbers.

Noah’s ark, a form of the clouds resembling this figure.

Pooty, a snail shell.

Puddock, the kite, or fork-winged buzzard.

Quirking, quick-turning.

Sen, provincialism for self—himsen, hersen.

Shanny, shame-faced.

Shooled, skulked.

’Skewing, starting aside.

Slop frock, a labourer’s smock-frock.

Soodling, sauntering.

Stall’d, stuck fast.

Stoven, a stump.

Struttle, stickleback.

₂₁₀ Stulp, a stump of a tree.

₂₁₁ ^{………………………………………………………………………………..}

Sutherings, heavy sighings.

Swail, shade.

Swingle, a flail.

Swopping, pouncing.

Teem, pour out.

Toltering, hobbling.

Twilly-willy, woollen or stuff gown.

Water-blobs, the meadow-bught, or marsh-marigold.

Weals, stripes.

Whopstraws, a contemptuous appellation for countrymen.

Wood seers.—“Insects that lie in little white knots of spittle on

the backs of leaves and flowers. How they come I don’t know,

but they are always seen plentiful in moist weather, and are one

of the shepherd’s weather-glasses. When the head of the in-

sect is seen turned upward, it is said to betoken fine weather;

when downward, on the contrary, wet may be expected. I

think they turn to grasshoppers, and am almost certain, for I

have watched them minutely.” J.C.

THE END.

__________________

T. Miller, Printer, Noble Street,

Cheapside, London.

₂₁₁

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