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Elegiac Musings in the Grounds of Coleorton Hall

Once I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)

To a good Man of most dear Memory

When first, descending from the moorlands

Ir thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven,
Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light,
Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content :-
The stars pre-eminent in magnitude,

And they that from the zenith dart their beams,

(Visible though they be to half the earth,

Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness)

Are yet of no diviner origin,

No purer essence, than the one that burns,

Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge

Of some dark mountain; or than those which seem

Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps,
Among the branches of the leafless trees;
All are the undying offspring of one Sire:
Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed,
Shine, Poet! in thy place, and be content i

EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.

"WHY, William, on that old grey stone, Thus for the length of half a day,

Why, William, sit you thus alone,

And dream your time away?

Where are your books?—that light bequeathed

To Beings else forlorn and blind!

Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed

From dead men to their kind.

You look round on your mother Earth,

As if she for no purpose

bore you; As if you were her first-born birth,

And none had lived before you!”