As may attune his soul to meet the dower IV. Such hues from their celestial Urn Were wont to stream before mine eye, This glimpse of glory, why renewed? Survived, 't was only in my dreams. Dread Power! whom peace and calmness serve From THEE if I would swerve, O, let thy grace remind me of the light -T is past, the visionary splendor fades; 1819. Note. The multiplication of mountain ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode as a kind of Jacob's Ladder leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapors or sunny haze;-in the present instance, by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode entitled "Intimations of Immortality" pervade the last Stanza of the foregoing Poem. X. COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE. WHAT mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors; Which with the dear Betrothed was to come, A less imperious sympathy is due, Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play On the mute sea in this unruffled bay; Such as will promptly flow from every breast, Where good men, disappointed in the quest XI. THE Crescent-moon, the Star of Love, With but a span of sky between, - Speak one of you, my doubts remove, Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen? XII. TO THE MOON. (Composed by the Sea-side, on the Coast of Cumberland.) WANDERER! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near To human life's unsettled atmosphere; Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake, So might it seem, the cares of them that wake; I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR'S FRIEND; So call thee for Heaven's grace through thee made known, By confidence supplied and mercy shown, And for less obvious benefits, that find The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams, Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams; A look of thine the wilderness pervades, And penetrates the forest's jnmost shades; Thou, checkering peaceably the minster's gloom, Guid'st the pale Mourner to the lost one's tomb; Canst reach the Prisoner, to his grated cell Welcome, though silent and intangible! And lives there one, of all that come and go One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour, Enthroned aloft in undisputed power, Or crossed by vapory streaks and clouds that move Catching the lustre they in part reprove, Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day. And make the serious happier than the gay? Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite, To fiercer mood the frenzy-stricken brain, Let me a compensating faith maintain; That there's a sensitive, a tender part Which thou canst touch in every human heart, For healing and composure. But, as least And mightiest billows ever have confessed - |