Singing of Glory, and Futurity,

“ Most musical, most melancholy "t bird ! To wander back on such unhealthful road, A melancholy bird ? Oh! idle thought! Plucking the poisons of self-harm! And ill In nature there is nothing melancholy. Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths But some night-wandering man, whose heart was Strew'd before thy advancing !

pierced

With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,

Nor do thou, Or slow distemper, or neglected love Sage Bard ! impair the memory of that hour (And so, poor Wretch! filled all things with himself Of my communion with thy nobler mind

And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale By Pity or Grief, already felt too long!

of his own sorrow), he and such as he, Nor let my words import more blame than needs. First named these notes a melancholy strain. The tumult rose and ceased : for Peace is nigh And many a poet echoes the conceit; Where Wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Poet who hath been building up the rhyme Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, When he had better far have stretch'd his limbs The Halcyon hears the voice of vernal hours Beside a brook in mossy forest-dell, Already on the wing.

By Sun or Moon-light, to the influxes

of shapes and sounds and shifting elements Eve following eve,

Surrendering his whole spirit, of his song Dear tranquil time, when the sweet sense of Home And of his frame forgetful! so his fame Is sweetest ! moments for their own sake hail'd Should share in Nature's immortality, And more desired, more precious for thy song,

A venerable thing! and so his song In silenco listening, like a devout child,

Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
My soul lay passive, by the various strain

Be loved like Nature ! But 't will not be so;
Driven as in surges now beneath the stars, And youths and maidens most poetical,
With momentary Stars of my own birth,

Who lose the deepening twilights of the spring Fair constellated Foam,* still darting off

In ball-rooms and hot theatres, they still, Into the darkness; now a tranquil sea,

Full of meek sympathy, must heave their sighs Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon. O'er Philomela's pity-pleading strains.

And when–O Friend ! my comforter and guide! My friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength — A different lore : we may not thus profane Thy long sustained song finally closed,

Nature's sweet voices, always full of love And thy deep voice had ceased-yet thou thyself

And joyance! "T is the merry Nightingale Wert still before my eyes, and round us both

That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates That happy vision of beloved faces

With fast thick warble his delicious notes, Scarce conscious, and yet conscious of its close

As he were fearful that an April night
I sate, my being blended in one thought

Would be too short for him to utter forth
Thought was it? or Aspiration ? or Resolve ?) His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Absorb’d, yet hanging still upon the sound- Of all its music!
And when I rose, I found myself in prayer.

And I know a grove
Of large extent, hard by a castle huge,
Which the great lord inhabits not; and so
This grove is wild with tangling underwood,

And the trim walks are broken up, and grass,
THE NIGHTINGALE :

Thin grass and king-cups grow within the paths A CONVERSATION POEM;

But never elsewhere in one place I knew

So many Nightingales ; and far and near,
WRITTEN IN APRIL, 1798.

In wood and thicket, over the wide grove,

They answer and provoke each other's song, No cloud, no relic of the sunken day

With skirmish and capricious passagings, Distinguishes the West, 20 long thin slip

And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, Of sullen light, no obscure trembling hues. And one low piping sound more sweet than allCome, we will rest on this old mossy bridge ! Stirring the air with such a harmony, You see the glimmer of the stream beneath, That should you close your eyes, you might almost But hear no murmuring : it flows silently, Forget it was not day! On moonlight bushes, O'er its soft bed of verdure. All is still,

Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed, A balmy night! and though the stars be dim, You may perchance behold them on the twigs, Yet let us think upon the vernal showers Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright That gladden the green earth, and we shall find

and full, A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.

Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade And hark! the Nightingale begins its song, Lights up her love-torch.

• "A beautiful white cloud of foam at momentary intervals * This passage in Milton possesses an excellence far superio coursed by the side of the vessel with a roar, and little stars to that of mere description. It is spoken in the character of the of flame danced and sparkled and went out in it: and every melancholy man, and has therefore a dramatic propriety. The now and then light detachments of this white cloud-like foam author makes this remark, to rescue himself from the charge dartud off from the vessel's side, each with its own small con- of having alluded with levity to a line in Milton: a charge than stellation, over the sea, and scoured out of sight like a Tartar which none could be more painful to him, except perhaps tha. troop over a wilderness."- The Friend, p. 220.

of having ridiculed his Bible.

A most gentle Maid, By its own moods interprets, everywhere Who dwelleth in her hospitable home

Echo or mirror seeking of itself, Hard by the castle, and at latest eve

And makes a toy of Thought. (Even like a lady vow'd and dedicate To something more than Nature in the grove)

But O! how oft, Glides through the pathways ; she knows all their How oft, at school, with most believing mind notes,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, That gentle Maid! and oft a moment's space, To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft What time the Moon was lost behind a cloud, With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Hath heard a pause of silence ; till the Moon Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-to ser Emerging, hath awaken'd earth and sky

Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang With one sensation, and these wakeful Birds From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy,

So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me As if some sudden gale had swept at once With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear A hundred airy harps ! And she hath watch'd Most like articulate sounds of things to come! Many a Nightingale perch'd giddily

So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
On blossomy twig still swinging from the breeze, Lull’d me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreams
And to that motion tune his wanton song

And so I brooded all the following morn,
Like tipey joy that reels with tossing head. Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye

Fix'd with mock study on my swimming book :
Farewell, O Warbler! till to-morrow eve, Save if the door half-open'd, and I snatch'd
And you, my friends! farewell, a short farewell! A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up,
We have been loitering long and pleasantly, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
And now for our dear homes.--That strain again ? Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
Full fain it would delay me! My dear babe, My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!
Who, capable of no articulate sound,
Mars all things with his imitative lisp,

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, How he would place his hand beside his ear, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, His little hand, the small forefinger up,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies And bid us listen! And I deem it wise

And momentary pauses of the thought ! To make him Nature's Play-mate. He knows well My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart The evening-star; and once, when he awoke With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, In most distressful mood (some inward pain

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, Had made up that strange thing, an infant's dream), And in far other scenes ! For I was rear'd I hurried with him to our orchard-plot,

In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And he beheld the Moon, and, hush'd at once, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
Suspends his sobs, and laughs most silently, But thou, my babe! shali wander like a breeze
While his fair eyes, that swam with undropp'd tears By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Did glitter in the yellow moon-beam! Well ! Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
It is a father's tale : But if that Heaven Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
Should give me life, his childhood shall grow up And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear
Familiar with these songs, that with the night The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
He may associate joy! Once more, farewell, Of that eternal language, which thy God
Sweet Nightingale! Once more, my friends! farewell. Utters, who from eternity doth teach.

Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
FROST AT MIDNIGHT.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth fne Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelp'd by any wind. The owlet's cry

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops Have left me to that solitude, which suite

fall Abstruser musings : save that at my side

Heard only in the trances of the blast,
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
And veres meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low bunt fire, and quivers not ;

TO A FRIEND.
Only that film, which flutter'd on the grate,
Sull nutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Thos far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Making it a companionable form,

Elaborate and swelling: yet the heart Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers

[The Author has published the following humble fragment LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE.