Where Virtue calm with careless step may

stray;

And, dancing to the moonlight roundelay,
The wizard passions weave a holy spell!

O Chatterton! that thou wert yet alive!
Sure thou would'st spread the canvass to the
gale,

And love with us the tinkling team to drive
O'er peaceful Freedom's undivided dale;
And we, at sober eve, would round thee throng,
Would hang, enraptured, on thy stately song,
And greet with smiles the young-eyed Poesy
All deftly mask'd as hoar Antiquity.

1

Alas, vain Phantasies! the fleeting brood
Of Woe self-solaced in her dreamy mood!
Yet will I love to follow the sweet dream,
Where Susquehana pours his untamed stream;
And on some hill, whose forest-frowning side
Waves o'er the murmurs of his calmer tide,
Will raise a solemn Cenotaph to thee,
Sweet Harper of time-shrouded Minstrelsy!
And there, soothed sadly by the dirgeful wind,
Muse on the sore ills I had left behind.
October, 1791.2

Where, &c.] See Introduction, § 1.

2 1794.] This date attaches to the version printed in 1796.

TO THE REV. W. J. H.*

WHILE TEACHING A YOUNG LADY SOME SONG-TUNES

ON HIS FLUTE.

USH! ye clamorous cares! be mute!
Again, dear harmonist! again,

Thro' the hollow of thy flute,

Breathe that
strain :

passion-warbled

Till Memory back each form shall bring,
The loveliest of her shadowy throng;
And Hope, that soars on sky-lark wing,
Shall carol forth her gladdest song!

O skill'd with magic spell to roll

The thrilling tones, that concentrate the soul ! Breathe thro' thy flute those tender notes again, While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden

mild;

And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain,
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.

In Freedom's undivided dell,1

Where Toil and Health with mellow'd Love shall dwell,

*The Rev. W. J. Hort was a Unitarian minister, resident in Bristol in 1794. We have printed the version of this poem to be found in the "Remains," vol. i.

1 Undivided dell.] So the last poem,—

Far from folly, far from men,
In the rude romantic glen,

Up the cliff, and thro' the glade,

Wandering with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,

And ponder on thee far away;

Still as she bids those thrilling notes aspire,
(Making my fond attuned heart her lyre),
Thy honour'd form, my Friend! shall reappear,
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear.

1794.

LINES ON A FRIEND

WHO DIED OF A FRENZY FEVER INDUCED BY

CALUMNIOUS REPORTS.

DMUND! thy grave with aching eye I scan,

And inly groan for Heaven's poor

outcast-Man!

'Tis tempest all or gloom: in early youth If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of truth,

"Peaceful Freedom's undivided dale."

1

"I dreamt," says Coleridge in The Friend, "that in the sober evening of my life I should behold colonies of independence in the undivided dale of industry."

1 In early youth if, &c] There should be a comma after "youth or after "if;" we incline to the latter, in which case there should be a comma after "ugliness."

We force to start amid her feign'd caress
Vice,' siren-hag! in native ugliness;
A Brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,
And on we go in heaviness and fear!

But if our fond hearts call to pleasure's bower
Some pigmy folly in a careless hour,

The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted ground,

And mingled forms of misery rise around:
Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;
Remorse, the poisoned arrow in his side,
And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied:
Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping Pain,
Darts her hot lightning-flash athwart the brain.

Rest, injured shade! Shall Slander squatting

near

Spit her cold venom in a dead man's ear?
"Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow
In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe;
Thine all, that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.
Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,
And in thy heart they wither'd! Such chill dew
Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed;
And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,

But as the position of the former comma considerably alters the sense, we leave the text as we find it in the edition of 1834.

1 Vice, &c.] Probably a recollection of Pope :

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien," &c.

With eye that roll'd around in asking gaze, And tongue that traffick'd in the trade of

praise.

Thy follies such! the hard world mark'd them well!

Were they more wise, the proud who never

fell?

Rest, injured shade! the poor man's grateful

prayer

On heavenward wing thy wounded soul shall

bear.

1

As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And sit me down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of-fate;

To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd

Energic reason and a shaping2 mind,

The daring ken of Truth, the patriot's part, And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart. Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand

Drop friendship's precious pearls, like hourglass sand.

I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows, A dreamy pang in morning's feverous doze.3

Recent.]

This is not so good English as recens

caspes is good Latin.

2 Shaping, &c.] Compare Dejection: an Ode:—

"What Nature gave me at my birth,

My shaping spirit of imagination."

3 Morning's feverous doze.] Compare The Pains of Sleep.