While

my unnumber'd brethren toil'd and bled, That I should dream away the entrusted hours On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart With feelings all too delicate for use?

Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
And he that works me good with unmoved face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence,

Praise, praise it, O my soul! oft as thou

scann'st

The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe! Who sigh for wretchedness, yet shun the wretched,

Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honourable toil

Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream,

My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy jasmin and thy window-peeping rose,
And myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes-sweet abode !
Ah!-had none greater! And that all had
such!

It might be so-but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father; Let Thy kingdom come!

TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE,*

OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON.

WITH SOME POEMS.

"Notus in fratres animi paterni."

HOR. Carm. lib. i. 2.

BLESSED lot hath he, who having

pass'd

His youth and early manhood in the
stir

And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt ;'
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisp'd its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest
Friend!

Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life's upland road,
Yet cheer'd and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!

* Prefixed to the edition of 1797, and dated" NetherStowey, Somerset, May 26, 1797."

To the same, &c.] This brother of Coleridge succeeded, ultimately, the father, in his double office of vicar and school-master.

To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed A different fortune and more different mindMe from the spot where first I sprang to light Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fix'd Its first domestic loves; and hence through life Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief

while

Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropp'd the collected shower; and some most
false,

False and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest

damps,

Mix'd their own venom with the rain from

Heaven,

That I woke poison'd! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one friend,1
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I've raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of husband and of father; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!

Yet at times

My soul is sad, that I have roam'd through life

1 One friend. T. Poole. See Introduction, § 1.

Still most a stranger, most with naked heart At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,

When I remember thee, my earliest Friend! Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my

youth;

Didst trace my wanderings with a father's eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good,

Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrow'd in silence! He who counts alone
The beatings of the solitary heart,

That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
Oh! 'tis to me an ever new delight

To talk of thee and thine; or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequester'd orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crook'd earth-ward; whose old
boughs,

That hang above us in an arborous roof,
Stirr'd by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o'er our
heads!

Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those

hours,

When with the joy of hope thou gavest thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest's swell!

These various strains,

Which I have framed in many a various mood,
Accept, my brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!

INSCRIPTION

FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH.

HIS Sycamore, oft musical with bees,

1

Such tents the Patriarchs loved!
O long unharm'd

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy

The small round basin, which this jutting stone 2

* Printed in 1802. An exquisite imitation of the Greek epigrams. Compare the following one, literally rendered:

"Rest here, beneath the shelter of this rock,

Your tired limbs, stranger. Here the murmuring

breeze

Plays softly, mid green leaves, and you may drink
Cool water from the spring :-to wayfarers

A sweet relief, in sultry summer's heat."

1 Tents.] As in Wordsworth's Excursion, vii. 622-3:— "That sycamore which annually holds

Within its shade, as in a stately tent, . . ."

2 Stone.] The original title was "Inscription on a jutting stone over a spring."