To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

How heavenly sweet, if some dear friend should bless
The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime
Now lead, now follow; the glad landscape round,
Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!
O then, 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark
The berries of the half-uprooted ash
Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,
Beneath the cypress or the yew more dark,
Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock:
In social silence now, and now to unlock
The treasured heart; arm linked in friendly arm,
Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag;
Till, high o'er head, his beckoning friend appears,
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly; for haply there uprears
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,
Which latest shall detain the enamoured sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;

And haply, basined in some unsunned cleft,

A beauteous spring, the rocks' collected tears,

Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the gale! Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,

Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,

And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,

Ah, dearest Charles! it were a lot divine

To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,

While west winds fanned our temples, toil bedewed;
Then downward slope, oft pausing, from the mount,
To some low mansion in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, Domestic Bliss
Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss!

COLERIDGE.

SONNET.

SWEET Mercy! how my very soul has bled
To see thee, poor old man! and thy gray hairs
Hoar with the snowy blast; while no one cares
To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head.
My father! throw away this tattered vest
That mocks thy shivering! Take my garment, use
A young man's arm. I'll melt these frozen dews
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast.
My Sara, too, shall tend thee like a child:

And thou shalt talk, in our fire-side's recess,

Of purple pride, that scowls on wretchedness ;

He did not scowl, the Galilean mild,

Who met the lazar turned from rich man's doors,
And called him friend, and wept upon his sores!

COLERIDGE.

THE SKY-LARK.

BIRD of the wilderness,

Blythsome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud

Far in the downy cloud,

Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,

Where art thou journeying?

Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,

Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place,

O to abide in the desert with thee!

HOGG.