FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

77

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS.

O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low

And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

S. T. Coleridge.

78

WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD.

WITH A COPY OF THE ILIAD.

BAYARD, awaken not this music strong
While round thy home the indolent sweet breeze
Floats lightly as the summer breath of seas
O'er which Ulysses heard the Siren's song!
Dreams of low-lying isles to June belong,
And Circe holds us in her haunts of ease;
But later, when these high ancestral trees
Are sear, and such Odyssean languors wrong
The reddening strength of the autumnal year,
Yield to heroic words thine ear and eye:
Intent on these broad pages thou shalt hear
The trumpet's blare, the Argive battle-cry,
And see Achilles hurl his hurtling spear,
And mark the Trojan arrows make reply.

Edmund Clarence Stedman.

TO MILTON.

79

TO MILTON.

MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men:
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free;
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on itself did lay.

W. Wordsworth.

80

THE MEMORY OF GREAT POETS.

THE MEMORY OF GREAT POETS.

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKESPEARE.

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!
Hues of all flow'rs, that in their ashes lie,
Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed,—
Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,—
Like exhalations from the leafy mould,
Look here how honour glorifies the dead,

And warms their scutcheons with a glance of gold!-
Such is the memory of poets old,

Who on Parnassus-hill have bloom'd elate;
Now they are laid under their marbles cold,
And turn'd to clay, whereof they were create;
But god Apollo hath them all enroll'd,
And blazon'd on the very clouds of Fate!

Thomas Hood.

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

81

THE WORLD OF BOOKS.

WINGS have we-and as far as we can go,
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood

Which, with the lofty, sanctifies the low;

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There do I find a never-failing store

Of personal themes, and such as I love best;
Matter wherein right voluble I am;

Two will I mention, dearer than the rest:
The gentle lady married to the Moor;

And heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb.

W. Wordsworth.

6

Modern Poets.