Say'st thou that Fancy paints the future scene
In hues too sombrous? that the dark-stoled Maid
With frowning front severe
Appalls the shuddering soul?

And wouldst thou bid me court her fairy form, When, as she sports her in some happier mood, Her many-colored robes

Float varying in the sun?

Ah! vainly does the Pilgrim, whose long road
Leads o'er a barren mountain's storm-vex'd height,
With wistful eye behold
Some quiet vale, far off.

And there are those who love the pensive song, To whom all sounds of Mirth are dissonant; Them in accordant mood

This thoughtful strain will find.

For hopeless Sorrow hails the lapse of Time, Rejoicing when the fading orb of day

Is sunk again in night,

That one day more is gone.

And he who bears Affliction's heavy load
With patient piety, well pleased he knows
The World a pilgrimage,
The Grave his inn of rest.
Bath, 1794.

WRITTEN

ON SUNDAY MORNING.

Go thou and seek the House of Prayer! I to the woodlands wend, and there In lovely Nature see the God of Love. The swelling organ's peal

Wakes not my soul to zeal,

Like the sweet music of the vernal grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Excite not such devotion in my breast,
As where the noon-tide beam,
Flash'd from some broken stream,
Vibrates on the dazzled sight;

Or where the cloud-suspended rain
Sweeps in shadows o'er the plain;

Or when, reclining on the cliff's huge height,
I mark the billows burst in silver light.

Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!

1 to the Woodlands shall repair,
Feed with all Nature's charms mine eyes,
And hear all Nature's melodies.
The primrose bank will there dispense
Faint fragrance to the awaken'd sense;
The morning beams that life and joy impart,
Will with their influence warm my heart,
And the full tear that down my cheek will steal,
Will speak the prayer of praise I feel.

Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!

I to the Woodlands bend my way,

And meet Religion there!

She needs not haunt the high-arch'd dome to pray, Where storied windows dim the doubtful day; At liberty she loves to rove,

Wide o'er the healthy hill or cowslip'd dale; Or seek the shelter of the embowering grove, Or with the streamlet wind along the vale. Sweet are these scenes to her; and when the Night Pours in the North her silver streams of light, She wooes reflection in the silent gloom, And ponders on the world to come.

Bristol, 1795.

THE RACE OF BANQUO.

A FRAGMENT.

"FLY, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!
Leave thy guilty sire to die!"
O'er the heath the stripling fled,

The wild storm howling round his head :
Fear, mightier through the shades of night,
Urged his feet, and wing'd his flight;
And still he heard his father's cry,
"Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!"

"Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!
Leave thy guilty sire to die!"
On every blast was heard the moan,
The anguish'd shriek, the death-fraught groan;
Loathly night-hags join the yell,
And lo! - the midnight rites of Hell!

"Forms of magic! spare my life!
Shield me from the murderer's knife!
Before me, dim in lurid light,
Float the phantoms of the night-
Behind I hear my father cry,
Fly, son of Banquo- Fleance, fly!"

"Parent of the sceptred race,
Boldly tread the circled space,
Boldly, Fleance, venture near,
Sire of monarchs, spurn at fear.
Sisters, with prophetic breath,
Pour we now the dirge of Death!"
Oxford, 1793.

WRITTEN IN ALENTEJO,

JANUARY 23, 1796.

1.

WHEN at morn, the Muleteer
With early call announces day,
Sorrowing that early call I hear,
Which scares the visions of delight away:
For dear to me the silent hour

When sleep exerts its wizard power,

And busy fancy, then let free,

Borne on the wings of Hope, my Edith, flies to thee.

THE OAK OF OUR FATHERS.

ALAS for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

It grew and it flourish'd for many an age,
And many a tempest wreak'd on it its rage;

But when its strong branches were bent with the blast,

It struck its root deeper, and flourish'd more fast.

Its head tower'd on high, and its branches spread round; [sound; For its roots had struck deep, and its heart was The bees o'er its honey-dew'd foliage play'd, And the beasts of the forest fed under its shade.

The Oak of our Fathers to Freedom was dear;
Its leaves were her crown, and its wood was her spear.
Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

There crept up an ivy and clung round the trunk ;
It struck in its mouths and the juices it drunk;
The branches grew sickly, deprived of their food,
And the Oak was no longer the pride of the wood.

The foresters saw and they gather'd around;
The roots still were fast, and the heart still was sound;
They lopp'd off the boughs that so beautiful spread,
But the ivy they spared on its vitals that fed.

No longer the bees o'er its honey-dews play'd,
Nor the beasts of the forest fed under its shade;
Lopp'd and mangled the trunk in its ruin is seen,
A monument now what its beauty has been.

The Oak has received its incurable wound;
They have loosen'd the roots, though the heart
may be sound;
What the travellers at distance green-flourishing
Are the leaves of the ivy that poison'd the tree.

Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!
Westbury, 1798.

THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA.

ON Vorska's glittering waves The morning sunbeams play; Pultowa's walls are throng'd With eager multitudes; Athwart the dusty vale They strain their aching eyes, Where to the fight moves on

[see,

And when beneath the unclouded sun Full wearily toils he,

The flowing water makes to him

A soothing melody.

And when the evening light decays,
And all is calm around,
There is sweet music to his ear
In the distant sheep-bell's sound.

But oh! of all delightful sounds Of evening or of morn,

The sweetest is the voice of Love,

That welcomes his return.

Westbury, 1798.

THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS,

AND HOW HE GAINED THEM.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried ;
The few locks which are left you are gray;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man ;
Now tell me the reason, I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,
I remember'd that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigor at first,
That I never might need them at last.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried, And pleasures with youth pass away;

And yet you lament not the days that are gone ; Now tell me the reason, I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied, I remember'd that youth could not last;

I thought of the future, whatever I did,

That I never might grieve for the past.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried, And life must be hastening away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death; Now tell me the reason, I pray.

I am cheerful, young man, Father William replied;
Let the cause thy attention engage;

In the days of my youth I remember'd my God!
And He hath not forgotten my age.
Westbury, 1799.

TRANSLATION OF A GREEK ODE ON ASTRONOMY,

WRITTEN BY S. T. COLERIDGE, FOR THE PRIZE AT

CAMBRIDGE, 1793.

1.

HAIL, venerable NIGHT!

O first-created, hail!

Thou who art doom'd in thy dark breast to veil

The dying beam of light,
The eldest and the latest thou,
Hail, venerable NIGHT!
Around thine ebon brow,

Glittering plays with lightning rays

A wreath of flowers of fire.

The varying clouds with many a hue attire Thy many-tinted veil.

Holy are the blue graces of thy zone! But who is he whose tongue can tell The dewy lustres which thine eyes adorn? Lovely to some the blushes of the morn;

To some the glories of the Day,
When, blazing with meridian ray,

The gorgeous Sun ascends his highest throne;
But I with solemn and severe delight

Still watch thy constant car, immortal NIGHT!

2.

For then to the celestial Palaces
Urania leads, Urania, she

The Goddess who alone
Stands by the blazing throne,
Effulgent with the light of Deity.
Whom Wisdom, the Creatrix, by her side
Placed on the heights of yonder sky,

And smiling with ambrosial love, unlock'd
The depths of Nature to her piercing eye.
Angelic myriads struck their harps around,
And with triumphant song

The host of Stars, a beauteous throng, Around the ever-living Mind In jubilee their mystic dance begun ; When at thy leaping forth, O Sun! The Morning started in affright, Astonish'd at thy birth, her Child of Light!

3.

Hail, O Urania, hail!

Queen of the Muses! Mistress of the Song!
For thou didst deign to leave the heavenly throng.
As earthward thou thy steps wert bending,
A ray went forth and harbinger'd thy way:
All Ether laugh'd with thy descending.
Thou hadst wreath'd thy hair with roses,
The flower that in the immortal bower
Its deathless bloom discloses.
Before thine awful mien, compelled to shrink,
Fled Ignorance, abash'd, with all her brood,
Dragons, and Hags of baleful breath,
Fierce Dreams, that wont to drink
The Sepulchre's black blood;

Or on the wings of storms
Riding in fury forms,

Shriek to the mariner the shriek of Death.

4.

I boast, O Goddess, to thy name That I have raised the pile of fame; Therefore to me be given

To roam the starry path of Heaven, To charioteer with wings on high, And to rein-in the Tempests of the sky.

5.

Chariots of happy Gods! Fountains of Light! Ye Angel-Temples bright!

May I unblamed your flamy thresholds tread?
I leave Earth's lowly scene;

I leave the Moon serene,
The lovely Queen of Night;
I leave the wide domains,

Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling,
And Jupiter's vast plains,
(The many-belted king ;)
Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns,