It seemed like Omnipresence! God, methought, Ah! quiet dell! dear cot, and mount sublime! I was constrained to quit you. Was it right, While my unnumbered brethren toiled and bled, That I should dream away the entrusted hours On rose-leaf Beds, pampering the coward Heart With feelings all too delicate for use ? Sweet is the tear that from some Howard's eye Drops on the cheek of One he lifts from Earth: And He that works me good with unmoved face, Does it but half he chills me while he aids, My Benefactor, not my Brother Man! Yet even this, this cold Beneficence Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st The Sluggard Pity's vision-weaving Tribe! Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the wretched, Nursing in some delicious solitude Their slothful loves and dainty Sympathies! I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand, Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight Yet oft when after honourable toil Rests the tired mind, and waking loves to dream, TO THE REV. GEORGE COLERIDGE OF OTTERY ST. MARY, DEVON. WITH SOME POEMS. Notus in fratres animi paterni. HOR. Carm. lib. 1. 2. A BLESSED lot hath he, who having passed Embrace those aged knees and climb that lap, Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend! 'Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy. At distance did ye climb Life's upland road, Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal Love To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed A different fortune and more different mind— Me from the spot where first I sprang to light Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed Its first domestic loves; and hence through Life Chasing chance-started Friendships. A brief while Some have preserved me from Life's pelting ills; But, like a Tree with leaves of feeble stem, If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once Dropped the collected shower; and some most false, False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel, Have tempted me to slumber in their shade E'en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps, Which from my childhood to maturer years Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, Bright with no fading colours! Yet at times My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes That Being knows, how I have loved thee ever, To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast That hang above us in an arborous roof, |