Immovable by generous sighs,
She glories in a train

Who drag, beneath our native skies,
An Oriental chain.

Pine not like them with arms across,
Forgetting in thy care

How the fast-rooted trees can toss
Their branches in mid-air.

The humblest rivulet will take

Its own wild liberties;

And, every day, the imprisoned lake
Is flowing in the breeze.

Then, crouch no more on suppliant knee,

But scorn with scorn outbrave;

A Briton, even in love, should be
A subject, not a slave!

Look at the fate of summer flowers,

Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song;
And, grieved for their brief date, confess that ours,
Measured by what we are and ought to be,
Measured by all that, trembling, we foresee,
Is not so long!

If human Life do pass away,

Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower,
If we are creatures of a winter's day;

What space hath Virgin's beauty to disclose
Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breathing rose?
Not even an hour!

The deepest grove whose foliage hid
The happiest lovers Arcady might boast,
Could not the entrance of this thought forbid :
O be thou wise as they, soul-gifted Maid!
Nor rate too high what must so quickly fade,
So soon be lost.

Then shall love teach some virtuous Youth
"To draw, out of the object of his eyes,"
The while on thee they gaze in simple truth,
Hues more exalted, "a refinèd Form,"

That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm,
And never dies.

1824.

XII.

THE FORSAKEN.

THE peace which others seek they find;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
An amnesty for what is past;

When will my sentence be reversed?
I only pray to know the worst ;
And wish as if my heart would burst.

O weary struggle ! silent years
Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
And yet they leave it short, and fears
And hopes are strong and will prevail.
My calmest faith escapes not pain;
And, feeling that the hope is vain,
I think that he will come again.

XIII.

'T IS said, that some have died for love:
And here and there a churchyard grave is found
In the cold north's unhallowed ground,
Because the wretched man himself had slain,

His love was such a grievous pain.

And there is one whom I five years have known:

He dwells alone

Upon Helvellyn's side:

He loved,

the pretty Barbara died;

And thus he makes his moan:

Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid

When thus his moan he made :

"O move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,

That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky!

The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart:
I look,
the sky is empty space;

I know not what I trace;

But when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.

“O, what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves, That murmur once so dear, when will it cease ? Your sound my heart of rest bereaves,

It robs my heart of peace.

Thou Thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free, Into yon row of willows flit,

Upon that alder sit;

Or sing another song, or choose another tree.

"Roll back, sweet Rill! back to thy mountain

bounds,

And there for ever be thy waters chained!

For thou dost haunt the air with sounds

That cannot be sustained;

If still beneath that pine-tree's ragged bough
Headlong yon waterfall must come,

O let it then be dumb!

Beanything, sweet Rill, but that which thou art now.

Thou Eglantine, so bright with sunny showers,
Proud as a rainbow spanning half the vale,

Thou one fair shrub, O, shed thy flowers,
And stir not in the gale!

For thus to see thee nodding in the air,

To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,
Thus rise and thus descend,

Disturbs me till the sight is more than I can bear."

The Man who makes this feverish complaint
Is one of giant stature, who could dance
Equipped from head to foot in iron mail.
Ah gentle Love! if ever thought was thine
To store up kindred hours for me, thy face
Turn from me, gentle Love! nor let me walk
Within the sound of Emma's voice, nor know
Such happiness as I have known to day.

1800.

XIV.

A COMPLAINT.

THERE is a change, - and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart's door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.

What happy moments did I count !
Blest was I then all bliss above!