Spirit of Fire – away! away!
BREAMA Spirit of Fire – away! away!
Zephyr, blue-eyed Faery, turn,
And see my cool sedge-bury’d urn,
Where it rests its mossy brim
‘Mid water-mint and cresses dim;
And the flowers, in sweet troubles,
Lift their eyes above the bubbles,
Like our Queen, when she would please
To sleep, and Oberon will tease.
Love me, blue-eyed Faery, true!
Soothly I am sick for you.
ZEPHYR Gentle Breama! by the first
Violet young nature nurst,
I will bathe myself with thee,
So you sometimes follow me
To my home, far, far, in west,
Beyond the nimble-wheeled quest
Of the golden-browed sun:
Come with me, o’er tops of trees.
To my fragrant palaces,
Where they ever floating are
Beneath the cherish of a star
Call’d Vesper, who with silver veil
Ever hides his brilliance pale,
Ever gently-drows’d doth keep
Twilight for the Fayes to sleep.
Fear not that your watery hair
Will thirst in drouthy ringlets there;
Clouds of stored summer rains
Thou shalt taste, before the stains
Of the mountain soil they take,
And too unlucent for thee make.
I love thee, crystal Faery, true!
Sooth I am as sick for you!
SALAMANDER Out, ye aguish Faeries, out!
Chilly lovers, what a rout
Keep ye with your frozen breath.
Colder than the mortal death.
Adder-eyed Dusketha, speak,
Shall we leave these, and go seek
In the earth’s wide entrails old
Couches warm as their’s are cold?
O for a fiery gloom and thee,
Dusketha, so enchantingly
Freckle-wing’d and lizard-sided!
DUSKETHA By thee, Sprite, will I be guided!
I care not for cold or heat;
Frost and flame, or sparks, or sleet,
To my essence are the same; -
But I honour more the flame.
Sprite of Fire, I follow thee
Wheresoever it may be,
To the torrid spouts and fountains,
Underneath earthquaked mountains;
Or, at thy supreme desire,
Touch the very pulse of fire
With my bare unlidded eyes.
SALAMANDER Sweet Dusketha! paradise!
Off, ye icy Spirits, fly!
Frosty creatures of the sky!
DUSKETHA Breathe upon them, fiery sprite!
ZEPHYR AND DUSKETHA Away! away to our delight!
SALAMANDER Go, feed on icicles, while we
Bedded in tongue-flames will be.
DUSKETHA Lead me to those feverous glooms,
Sprite of Fire!
BREAMA Me to the blooms,
Blue-eyed Zephyr, of those flowers
Far in the west where the May-cloud lowers:
And the beams of still Vesper, when winds are all wist,
Are shed thro’ the rain and the milder mist,
And twilight your floating bowers.
Fragment of an Ode to Maia,
Written on May Day, 1818
Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O, give me their old vigour, and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose, and the span
Of heaven and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
Women, Wine, and Snuff
Give me women, wine and snuff
Until I cry out ‘hold, enough!’
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection;
For bless my beard they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.
On Oxford A Parody
The Gothic looks solemn,
The plain Doric column
Supports an old Bishop and Crosier;
The mouldering arch,
Shaded o’er by a larch
Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.
Vicè – that is, by turns, -
O’er pale faces mourns
The black tassell’d trencher and common hat
The Chantry boy sings,
The Steeple-bell rings,
And as for the Chancellor – dominat.
There are plenty of trees,
And plenty of ease,
And plenty of fat deer for parsons:
And when it is venison,
Short is the benison, -
Then each on a leg or thigh fastens.
How fever’d is the man, who cannot look
You cannot eat your cake and have it too. – Proverb
How fever’d is the man, who cannot look
Upon his mortal days with temperate blood,
Who vexes all the leaves of his life’s book,
And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;
It is as if the rose should pluck herself,
Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom,
As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,
Should darken her pure