Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublime;
And from the stirring world uplifted high
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
To quiet musings shall attune the mind, 65
And oft the melancholy theme supply),
There, while the prospect through the gazing eye
Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul,
We’ll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame,
Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, 70
As neighbouring fountains image each the whole:
Then when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth
We’ll discipline the heart to pure delight,
Rekindling sober joy’s domestic flame.
They whom I love shall love thee, honour’d youth! 75
Now may Heaven realise this vision bright!
ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE
C. LLOYD WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY
Hence that fantastic wantonness of woe,
O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder’d Want’s half-shelter’d hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother’s ear: 5
Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood
O’er the rank churchyard with sear elm-leaves strew’d,
Pace round some widow’s grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter’d, where o’er his uncoffin’d limbs
The flocking flesh-birds scream’d! Then, while thy heart 10
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,
Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign’d,
All effortless thou leave Life’s commonweal 15
A prey to Tyrants, Murderers of Mankind.
TO A FRIEND: [CHARLES LAMB] WHO HAD DECLARED HIS INTENTION OF WRITING NO MORE POETRY
Dear Charles! whilst yet thou wert a babe, I ween
That Genius plung’d thee in that wizard fount
Hight Castalie: and (sureties of thy faith)
That Pity and Simplicity stood by,
And promis’d for thee, that thou shouldst renounce 5
The world’s low cares and lying vanities,
Steadfast and rooted in the heavenly Muse,
And wash’d and sanctified to Poesy.
Yes — thou wert plung’d, but with forgetful hand
Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: 10
And with those recreant unbaptizéd heels
Thou’rt flying from thy bounden ministeries —
So sore it seems and burthensome a task
To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed:
For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy, 15
And I have arrows mystically dipped
Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead?
And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth
‘Without the meed of one melodious tear’?
Thy Burns, and Nature’s own beloved bard, 20
Who to the ‘Illustrious of his native Land
So properly did look for patronage.’
Ghost of Mæcenas! hide thy blushing face!
They snatch’d him from the sickle and the plough —
To gauge ale-firkins.
Oh! for shame return! 25
On a bleak rock, midway the Aonian mount,
There stands a lone and melancholy tree,
Whose agéd branches to the midnight blast
Make solemn music: pluck its darkest bough,
Ere yet the unwholesome night-dew be exhaled, 30
And weeping wreath it round thy Poet’s tomb.
Then in the outskirts, where pollutions grow,
Pick the rank henbane and the dusky flowers
Of nightshade, or its red and tempting fruit,
These with stopped nostril and glove-guarded hand 35
Knit in nice intertexture, so to twine,
The illustrious brow of Scotch Nobility!
ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR
ARGUMENT
The Ode commences with an address to the Divine Providence that
regulates into one vast harmony all the events of time, however
calamitous some of them may appear to mortals. The second Strophe calls
on men to suspend their private joys and sorrows, and devote them for a
while to the cause of human nature in general. The first Epode speaks of
the Empress of Russia, who died of an apoplexy on the 17th of November
1796; having just concluded a subsidiary treaty with the Kings combined
against France. The first and second Antistrophe describe the Image of
the Departing Year, etc., as in a vision. The second Epode prophesies,
in anguish of spirit, the downfall of this country.
I
Spirit who sweepest the wild Harp of Time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fix’d on Heaven’s unchanging clime
Long had I listen’d, free from mortal fear, 5
With inward stillness, and a bowéd mind;
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the Departing Year!
Starting from my silent sadness
Then with no unholy madness, 10
Ere yet the enter’d cloud foreclos’d my sight,
I rais’d the impetuous song, and solemnis’d his flight.
II
Hither, from the recent tomb,
From the prison’s direr gloom,
From Distemper’s midnight anguish; 15
And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines Manhood’s maze;
Or where o’er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fix’d her wishful gaze; 20
Hither, in perplexéd dance,
Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
By Time’s wild harp, and by the hand