Feeble and dim! Stranger, these im- But what is all, to his delight, WRITTEN IN GERMANY IF I had but two little wings And were a little feathery bird, To you I'd fly, my dear! But thoughts like these are idle things, And I stay here. But in my sleep to you I fly: I'm always with you in my sleep! But then one wakes, and where am I? Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids: April 23, 1799 HOME-SICK WRITTEN IN GERMANY "TIS sweet to him who all the week Who having long been doomed to roam, Throws off the bundle from his back, Home-sickness is a wasting pang ; May 26, 1799. THE DAY-DREAM FROM AN EMIGRANT TO HIS ABSENT WIFE If thou wert here, these tears were tears of light! But from as sweet a vision did I start As ever made these eyes grow idly bright! And though I weep, yet still around my heart A sweet and playful tenderness doth linger, Touching my heart as with an infant's finger. My mouth half open, like a witless man, And o'er my lips a subtle feeling ran, feeling I know not what-but had the same been stealing Upon a sleeping mother's lips, I guess It would have made the loving mother dream Through city-crowds must push his That she was softly bending down to kiss And lo! I seem'd to see a woman's form- He saw a cottage with a double coachThine, Sara, thine? O joy, if thine it were ! house, A cottage of gentility! I gazed with stifled breath, and fear'd to And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for 'LIFE' Cod. quid. habent, 'TRADE.' Though indeed THE TRADE, i.e. the bibliopolic, so called κατ' ἐξόχην, may be regarded as LIFE sensu eminentiori; a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc., of the trade, exclaimed, 'Ay! that's what I call LIFE now!'-This 'Life, our Death,' is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes. Of this poem, which with the 'Fire, Famine, and Slaughter' first appeared in the Morning Post (6th Sept. 1799), the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. See Apologetic Preface [to 'Fire, Famine and Slaughter']. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted as grounded on subjects which have lost their interest-and for better reasons. If any one should ask who General - meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel. [S. T. C.'s note in 1829.] [Sce the original version of the poem in the "Notes."-ED.] |
