With ribs and skulls I will not sleep
In dark'ning beds of cold blue clay,
Through which the ringed earthworms creep,
And on the shrouded bosom prey;
I will not hear the bell proclaim
When those sad marriage rites begin,
And boys, without regard and shame,
Press the vile mouldering masses in.
Say not it is beneath my care;
I cannot those cold truths allow:
These thoughts may not afflict me there,
But, oh! they vex and tease me now.
Raise not a turf, nor set a stone,
That man a maiden's grave may trace,
But let my Lucy come alone,
And let affection find the place.
Oh! take me from a world I hate !
Men, cruel, selfish, sensual, cold;
And, in some pure and blessed state,
Let me my sister minds behold:
From gross and sordid views refined,
Our heaven of spotless love to share,
For only generous souls design'd,
And not a man to meet us there.
Received from a correspondent, who found it many years ago in the "Poets' Corner" of a provincial newspaper, we know nothing of the authorship of this very beautiful little poem, in which the train of thought is admirably preserved through a succession of most apt and beautiful similes. Every reader will admit its title to a place in this collection.
WEEP not over poet's wrong,
Mourn not his mischances;
Sorrow is the source of song
And of gentle fancies.
Rills o'er rocky beds are borne,
Ere they gush in whiteness;
Pebbles are wave-chafed and worn
Ere they show their brightness.
Sweetest gleam the morning flowers
When in tears they waken;
Earth enjoys refreshing showers
When the boughs are shaken.
Ceylon's glistening pearls are sought
In its deepest waters;
From the darkest mines are brought
Gems for Beauty's daughters.
Through the rent and shiver'd rock
Limpid water breaketh;
'Tis but when the chords are struck
That their music waketh.
Flowers by heedless footsteps press'd
All their sweets surrender;
Gold must brook the fiery test
Ere it show its splendour.
When the twilight, cold and damp,
Gloom and silence bringeth,
Then the glowworm lights its lamp,
And the night-bird singeth.
Stars come forth when Night her shroud
Draws as daylight fainteth;
Only on the tearful cloud
God his rainbow painteth.
Weep not then for poet's wrong,
Mourn not his mischances;
Sorrow is the source of song
And of gentle fancies.
Although a mystic and a dreamer in philosophy, and beyond measure difficult to be understood when writing or talking prose, COLERIDGE's poetry is remarkably clear and intelligible, and simple in language and thought. Hence his greater popularity as a poet, and his poetry will live when his philosophy is forgotten; the one is genius uttering its natural emotions, the other is genius playing the pedant and substituting ingenuity for impuise. How very beautiful is this picture of a frost!
THE frost performs its secret ministry
Unhelp'd by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud-and bark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude which suits
Abstruser musing: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! The thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire and quivers not;
Only that film, which flutters on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling spirit
By its own moods interprets, everywhere
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of thought.
But Oh! how oft,
How oft at school, with most believing mind
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars
To watch that fluttering STRANGER! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirr'd and haunted me
With a wild pleasure falling on mine ear,
Most like articulate sounds of things to come.
So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt
Lull'd me to sleep, and sleep prolong'd my dreams.
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fix'd with mock study on my swimming book,
Save if the door half open'd, and I snatch'd
A hasty glance, and still my heart leap'd up,
For still I hoped to see the STRANGER's face-
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike.
Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought,-
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness thus to look at thee
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore
And in far other scenes! for I was rear'd
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And nought—nought lovely but the sky and stars ;
But THOU, my babe, shalt wander like a breeze
Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee;
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the white thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall,
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.
TO A PICTURE.
This is a sonnet by FANNY KEMBLE.
O SERIOUS eyes! how is it that the light,
The burning rays that mine pour into ye,
Still find ye cold, and dead, and dark as night-
Oh, lifeless eyes! can ye not answer me?
Oh, lips whereon mine own so often dwell,
Hath love's warm, fearful, thrilling touch no spell
To waken sense in ye?-oh misery!-
Oh, breathless lips! can ye not speak to me?
Thou soulless mimicry of life! my tears
Fall scalding over thee; in vain, in vain,
I press thee to my heart, whose hopes and fears
Are all thine own, thou dost not feel the strain.
Oh thou dull image! wilt thou not reply
To my fond prayers and wild idolatry?
This delicious sonnet is from the pen of the Rev. J. EAGLES, well Known as the " Sketcher," of Blackwood's Magazine. We do not remember to have read among modern productions anything more simple, graceful and natural, than the following poem. It was the eye fa true poet that, seeing a little shady nook by the side of a mossy tank, straightway peopled it with fairy folk, and made it the centre of sach a scene as this.
THIS nook the tiny Theatre has been
Where elves have acted plays; such as they took
From the fond legends of old fairy book.
Their tiring room beneath these hollows green,
While clust'ring glow-worms lighted up the scene.
Their orchestra these hanging boughs, which shook
With music, such as lulls the nightly brook.
Their audience twinkling stars and moon serene.
Their strains inaudible to ear unblest.
But the sweet lark, listening the live-long night,
Against a reedy tuft hath lean'd her breast,
And borne them to heaven's gate at morning light,
And birds that elves most love, with emulous throats,
Do catch in leafy lens sweet fairy notes.
|