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SAD lot, to have no Hope! Though lowly Such strength that he would bless his

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pains and live.

HOMELESS

? 1807 ? 1810.

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172

PHANTOM-CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT

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A SUNSET

UPON the mountain's edge with light touch resting,

There a brief while the globe of splendour sits

And seems a creature of the earth, but soon,

More changeful than the Moon,
To wane fantastic his great orb submits,
Or cone or mow of fire: till sinking
slowly

Even to a star at length he lessens wholly.
Abrupt, as Spirits vanish, he is sunk!
A soul-like breeze possesses all the wood.
The boughs, the sprays have stood
As motionless as stands the ancient trunk!
But every leaf through all the forest
flutters,

And deep the cavern of the fountain. 1805.

MS.

mutters.

SONNET

[TRANSLATED FROM MARINI]

LADY, to Death we're doom'd, our crime the same!

Thou, that in me thou kindled'st such fierce heat;

I, that my heart did of a Sun so sweet
The
rays concentre to so hot a flame.
I, fascinated by an Adder's eye-
Deaf as an Adder thou to all my pain;
Thou obstinate in Scorn, in Passion I-
I lov'd too much, too much didst thou
disdain.

Hear then our doom in Hell as just as stern,
Our sentence equal as our crimes con-

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Some living Love before my eyes there While most were wooing wealth, or gaily

stood

With answering look a ready ear to lend,

I mourn to thee and say—' Ah! loveliest friend!

That this the meed of all my toils might be,

To have a home, an English home, and thee!'

Vain repetition! Home and Thou are

one.

swerving

To pleasure's secret haunts, and some

apart

Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving,

To you I gave my whole weak wishing heart.

And when I met the maid that realized Your fair creations, and had won her kindness,

The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine Say, but for her if aught on earth I

upon,

Lulled by the thrush and wakened by

the lark,

Without thee were but a becalmed bark, Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide

Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when

The woodman winding westward up the

glen

prized!

Your dreams alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness.

O grief!—but farewell, Love! I will go play me

With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me. ? 1805.

WHAT IS LIFE?

RESEMBLES life what once was deem'd of light,

At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep- Too ample in itself for human sight?

track's maze

The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,

Sees full before him, gliding without tread,

An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,

Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues! ? 1805.

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Than I your form: yours were my hopes or Rabbinical tradition to the following purpose:

of youth,

And as you shaped my thoughts

sighed or smiled.

I

While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the

174

THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE-TREE

guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed: 'Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so! for the man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise.' And the word of the Most High answered Satan: The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself.'

The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnæus, of a date-tree in a nobleman's garden which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from another date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hun

dred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from

which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the Author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite metre.

S. T. C.

2

The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them?

3

Imagination; honourable aims;

Free commune with the choir that cannot die;

Science and song; delight in little things,
The buoyant child surviving in the man;
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean,
sky,

With all their voices-O dare I accuse
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,
Or call my destiny niggard! O no! no!
It is her largeness, and her overflow,
Which being incomplete, disquieteth me
so!

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And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her (This separation is, alas!

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She hears her own voice with a new

Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass

That life, that happy life, with her!)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter'd, now I shrink to see-

delight; And if the babe perchance should lisp Oh! I have heart enough to die

the notes aright,

Not half enough to part from Thee! ? 1805.

6

Then is she tenfold gladder than before! A THOUGHT SUGGESTED BY A But should disease or chance the darling

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VIEW

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SEPARATION

A SWORDED man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,
Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form, The power of gold, the pride of birth,

Have taken Woman's heart by stormUsurp'd the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price
Than outward form, though fair to see,
Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry?—

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see

Into the bottom of my heart, There's such a mine of Love for thee, As almost might supply desert!

A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER ERE on my bed my limbs I lay, God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear In strength and health for many a year; And, O! preserve my father too, And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents' hope and joy; And O! preserve my brothers both From evil doings and from sloth, And may we always love each other Our friends, our father, and our mother: And still, O Lord, to me impart An innocent and grateful heart, That after my last sleep I may Awake to thy eternal day! Amen.

1806.

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