Its first domestic loves; and hence through Sorrowed in silence! He who counts life alone Chasing chance-started friendships. A The beatings of the solitary heart, That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever, brief while 20 Some have preserved me from life's pelt ing ills; But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, once Dropped the collected shower; and some most false, False and fair-foliaged as the Manchineel, Have tempted me to slumber in their shade 50 Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee! Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl; Or when as now, on some delicious eve, We in our sweet sequestered orchard-plot E'en mid the storm; then breathing Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward; whose subtlest damps, old boughs, Mixed their own venom with the rain That hang above us in an arborous roof, Stirred by the faint gale of departing May, from Heaven, That I woke poisoned! But, all praise 60 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 Of Husband and of Father; not unhearing To my wild firstling-lays. Since then Of that divine and nightly-whispering my song sounded deeper notes, such as Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind, 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 Will strike discordant on thy milder mind) If aught of error or intemperate truth Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and Should meet thine ear, think thou that Didst trace my wanderings with a father's Will calm it down, and let thy love for eye; And boding evil yet still hoping good, Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes give it! NETHER-STOWEY, SOMERSET, ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD THIS day among the faithful placed Dear Anna's dearest Anna! While others wish thee wise and fair, A maid of spotless fame, I'll breathe this more compendious prayer May'st thou deserve thy name! Associates of thy name, sweet Child! To say, they lodge within. So, when her tale of days all flown, Thy mother shall be miss'd here; When Heaven at length shall claim its own And Angels snatch their Sister; TRANSLATION OF A LATIN INSCRIPTION BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES IN NETHER-STOWEY CHURCH DEPART in joy from this world's noise and strife To the deep quiet of celestial life! Depart!-Affection's self reproves the tear Which falls, O honour'd Parent on thy bier ; Yet Nature will be heard, the heart will swell, And the voice tremble with a last Farewell! 1797. [The Tablet is erected to the Memory of Richard Camplin, who died Jan. 20, 1792. Lætus abi! mundi strepitu curisque .remotus ; Lætus abi! cæli quâ vocat alma Quies. Ipsa fides loquitur lacrymamque incusat inanem, Quæ cadit in vestros, care Pater, Cineres. Heu! tantum liceat meritos hos solvere Ritus, Naturæ et tremulâ dicere Voce, Vale!'] On each side of my chair, and make me learn With earth and water, on the stumps of trees. All you had learnt in the day; and how A Friar, who gathered simples in the to talk In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to ΙΟ wood, A grey-haired man-he loved this little boy, you'Tis more like heaven to come, than what The boy loved him- and, when the has been! Maria. O my dear Mother! this He soon could write with the pen; and strange man has left me Troubled with wilder fancies, than the With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel ? Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree, He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, A pretty boy, but most unteachableAnd never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, 30 Friar taught him, from that time, That the wall tottered, and had wellnigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened; A fever seized him; and he made confession Of all the heretical and lawless talk Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized And cast into that hole. My husband's father But knew the names of birds, and Sobbed like a child-it almost broke his And whistled, as he were a bird him. And once as he was working in the cellar, self: He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's, 60 And all the autumn 'twas his only play To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to Who sung a doleful song about green plant them fields, How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah To hunt for food, and be a naked man, now His love grew desperate; and defying death, He made that cunning entrance I described: And the young man escaped. Maria. 'Tis a sweet tale: Such as would lull a listening child to sleep, His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears. And what became of him? Foster-Mother. board 70 Each pore and natural outlet shrivell'd By ignorance and parching poverty They break out on him, like a loath- Then we call in our pamper'd mountebanks And this is their best cure! uncomforted And friendless solitude, groaning and tears, And savage faces, at the clanking hour, He went on ship- By the lamp's dismal twilight! So he lies formed With those bold voyagers, who made Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly de- Spain, He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth, Soon after they arrived in that new world, In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat, And all alone, set sail by silent moonlight, Up a great river, great as any sea, With other ministrations thou, O nature! Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, ing sweets, Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters, And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis Till he relent, and can no more endure against us To each poor brother who offends BENEATH this thorn when I was young, This thorn that blooms so sweet, Most innocent, perhaps-and what if We loved to stretch our lazy limbs guilty? In summer's noon-tide heat. |
