TO A YOUNG LADY,

WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

UCH on my early youth I love to

dwell,

Ere yet I bade that friendly dome

farewell,

Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale!
Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing,
Full heavily of sorrow would I sing.
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom
Mourn'd with the breeze, O Lee Boo!1 o'er thy
tomb.

Where'er I wander'd, pity still was near,
Breathed from the heart and glisten'd in the

tear:

No knell that toll'd but fill'd my anxious eye, And suffering Nature wept that one should die!2

Lee Boo!] Lee Boo, the son of Abba Thule, Prince of the Pelew Islands, came over to England with Captain Wilson, died of the small-pox, and is buried in Greenwich churchyard. See Keate's Account.-C.

Among Bowles's poems will be found one, entitled Abba Thule's Lament for his son Prince Le Boo, with an interesting note.

In 1794 Coleridge writes,-" Abba Thule has marked beauties." See note to the sonnet To Bowles.

2 And suffering, &c.] Southey's Retrospect.-C.

Thus to sad sympathies I soothed my breast, Calm, as the rainbow in the weeping west: When slumbering Freedom, roused by high disdain,

With giant fury burst her triple chain!

Fierce on her front the blasting dog-star glow'd;

Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flow'd;
Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies
She came, and scatter'd battles from her eyes!
Then exultation waked the patriot fire

And swept with wild hand the Tyrtæan lyre:
Red from the tyrant's wound I shook the lance,
And strode in joy the reeking plains of France !

Fall'n is the oppressor,' friendless, ghastly, low, And my heart aches, though mercy struck the blow.

With wearied thought once more I seek the shade,

Where peaceful virtue weaves the myrtle braid.
And O! if eyes whose holy glances roll,
Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul;

If smiles more winning and a gentler mien
Than the love-wilder'd maniac's brain hath seen,
Shaping celestial forms in vacant air,

If these demand the impassion'd poet's careIf mirth and soften'd sense and wit refined, The blameless features of a lovely mind; Then haply shall my trembling hand assign No fading wreath to beauty's saintly shrine.

1

Oppressor.] The poem alluded to in the title is The Fall of Robespierre, of which the Dedication bears date, Sept. 22,

1794.

Nor, Sara! thou these early flowers refuseNe'er lurk'd the snake beneath their simple

hues;

No purple bloom the Child of Nature brings From flattery's nightshade: as he feels he sings.

Sept., 1794.

DOMESTIC PEACE.*

ELL me, on what holy ground
May Domestic Peace be found?
Halcyon daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wing she flies,
From the pomp of sceptred state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottaged vale she dwells
Listening to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless honour's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And, conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.'

First printed in The Fall of Robespierre, in 1794: possibly written earlier.

Still around joy.] Compare the concluding paragraphs of Lines on an Autumnal Evening.

IMITATED FROM OSSIAN.*

HE stream with languid murmur
creeps,

In Lumin's flowery vale:
Beneath1 the dew the lily weeps,
Slow-waving to the gale.

"Cease, restless gale!", it seems to say,
"Nor wake me with thy sighing!
The honours of my vernal day
On rapid wing are flying.

"To-morrow shall the traveller come
Who late beheld me blooming:
His searching eye shall vainly roam
The dreary vale of Lumin."

*Reprinted in the "Remains," vol. i.,-apparently by mistake, for it appeared in 1834,-with the title "To Sara," and dated 1794.

1 Beneath, &c.] The flower hangs its head waving at times to the gale. Why dost thou awake me, O gale! it seems to say, I am covered with the drops of heaven. The time of my fading is near, the blast that shall scatter my leaves. To-morrow shall the traveller come, he that saw me in my beauty shall come. His eyes will search the field, they will not find me. So shall they search in vain for the voice of Cona, after it has failed in the field. Berrathon: see Ossian's Poems.-C. This quotation was omitted in later editions.

With eager gaze and wetted cheek

My wonted haunts along,

Thus, faithful maiden! thou shalt seek
The youth of simplest song.

But I along the breeze shall roll

The voice of feeble power;

And dwell, the moonbeam of thy soul,
In slumber's nightly hour.

THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHOMA.

FROM THE SAME.

1

OW long will ye round me be swelling,

O ye blue-tumbling waves of the
sea ?

Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathloma
In the steps of my beauty I stray'd;
The warriors beheld Ninathoma,

And they blessed the white-bosom'd maid!

How long, &c.] How long will ye roll around me, bluetumbling waters of ocean? My dwelling was not always in caves, nor beneath the whistling tree. My feast was spread in Torthoma's hall. The youths beheld me in my loveliness. They blessed the dark-haired Nina-thomà.—Berrathon.-C. This quotation was omitted in later editions.