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Now let us, as we float along,
For him suspend the dashing oar;
And pray
that never child of Song
May know that Poet's sorrows more.
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar suspended!

The evening darkness gathers round
By virtue's holiest Powers attended.

XX.

IF Thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,
Shine, Poet, in thy place, and be content!
The Star that from the zenith darts its beams,
Visible though it be to half the Earth,

Though half a sphere be conscious of its brightness,
Is yet of no diviner origin,

No purer essence, than the One that burns,

Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge

Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps, Among the branches of the leafless trees.

XXI.

WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN.

OFT have I caught, upon a fitful breeze,

Fragments of far-off melodies,

With ear not coveting the whole,

A part so charmed the pensive soul:

While a dark storm before my sight
Was yielding, on a mountain height
Loose vapours have I watched, that won
Prismatic colours from the sun;

Nor felt a wish that Heaven would show
The image of its perfect bow.

What need, then, of these finished Strains?
Away with counterfeit Remains!

An abbey in its lone recess,

A temple of the wilderness,

Wrecks though they be, announce with feeling The majesty of honest dealing.

Spirit of Ossian! if im bound

In language thou may'st yet be found,
If aught (intrusted to the pen

Or floating on the tongues of men,
Albeit shattered and impaired)
Subsist thy dignity to guard,

In concert with memorial claim

Of old grey stone, and high-born name,
That cleaves to rock or pillared cave,
Where moans the blast, or beats the wave,
Let Truth, stern Arbitress of all,
Interpret that Original,

And for presumptuous wrongs atone;
Authentic words be given, or none !

Time is not blind;-yet He, who spares
Pyramid pointing to the Stars,

Hath preyed with ruthless appetite
On all that marked the primal flight

Of the poetic ecstasy

Into the land of mystery.

No tongue is able to rehearse

One measure, Orpheus! of thy verse;
Musæus, stationed with his lyre
Supreme among the Elysian quire,
Is, for the dwellers upon earth,
Mute as a Lark ere morning's birth.
Why grieve for these, though past away
The Music, and extinct the Lay?
When thousands, by severer doom,
Full early to the silent tomb

Have sunk, at Nature's call; or strayed
From hope and promise, self-betrayed;
The garland withering on their brows;
Stung with remorse for broken vows;
Frantic-else how might they rejoice?
And friendless, by their own sad choice.

Hail, Bards of mightier grasp! on you
I chiefly call, the chosen Few,
Who cast not off the acknowledged guide,
Who faltered not, nor turned aside;
Whose lofty Genius could survive
Privation, under sorrow thrive;
In whom the fiery Muse revered
The symbol of a snow-white beard,
Bedewed with meditative tears

Dropped from the lenient cloud of years.

Brothers in Soul! though distant times Produced you, nursed in various climes, Ye, when the orb of life had waned, A plenitude of love retained; Hence, while in you each sad regret By corresponding hope was met,

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Ye lingered among human kind,
Sweet voices for the passing wind;
Departing sunbeams, loth to stop,
Though smiling on the last hill top!

Such to the tender-hearted Maid
Even ere her joys begin to fade;
Such, haply, to the rugged Chief
By Fortune crushed, or tamed by grief;
Appears, on Morven's lonely shore,
Dim-gleaming through imperfect lore,
The Son of Fingal; such was blind
Mæonides of ampler mind;
Such Milton, to the fountain head
Of Glory by Urania led!

XXII.

VERNAL ODE.

"Rerum Natura tota est nusquam magis quam in minimis."

1.

Plin. Nat. Hist.

BENEATH the concave of an April sky,

When all the fields with freshest green were dight, Appeared, in presence of that spiritual eye

That aids or supersedes our grosser sight,

The form and rich habiliments of One

Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun,

When it reveals, in evening majesty,

'Features half lost amid their own pure light.

Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air
He hung, then floated with angelic ease
(Softening that bright effulgence by degrees)

Till he had reached a summit sharp and bare,

Where oft the venturous heifer drinks the noon-tide breeze. Upon the apex of that lofty cone

Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone;

Fair as a gorgeous Fabric of the East

Suddenly raised by some Enchanter's power,

Where nothing was; and firm as some old Tower

Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest

Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower!

2.

Beneath the shadow of his purple wings
Rested a golden Harp; he touched the strings;
And, after prelude of unearthly sound

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Poured through the echoing hills around,

He sang

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"No wintry desolations,

Scorching blight or noxious dew,

"Affect my native habitations;

"Buried in glory, far beyond the scope

"Of man's inquiring gaze, but imaged to his hope

"(Alas, how faintly!) in the hue

"Profound of night's ethereal blue;

"And in the aspect of each radiant orb;

"Some fixed, some wandering with no timid curb;
"But wandering star and fixed, to mortal eye,
"Blended in absolute serenity,

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