HE dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye!
-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh!
The difference to me!
ILTON! 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 herself did lay.
HE world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers : For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
'HE imperial Consort of the Fairy-king Owns not a sylvan bower, or gorgeous cell With emerald floored, and with purpureal shell Ceiling'd and roofed, that is so fair a thing As this low structure, for the tasks of Spring, Prepared by one who loves the buoyant swell Of the brisk waves, yet here consents to dwell; And spreads in steadfast peace her brooding wing. Words cannot paint the o'ershadowing yew-tree bough, And dimly-gleaming nest-a hollow crown
Of golden leaves inlaid with silver down, Fine as the mother's softest plumes allow :
I gazed-and, self-accused while gazing, sighed For human-kind, weak slaves of cumbrous pride!
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. COLEridge.
SEVERED.FRIENDSHIP.
ALAS! they had been friends in youth,
But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love, Doth work like madness in the brain. And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline. Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother: They parted-ne'er to meet again! But never either found another
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. From Christabel.
LL thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!
She leaned against the armèd man, The statue of the armèd knight; She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve.
I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story- An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose But gaze upon her face.
I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.
I told her how he pined and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face.
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade,—
There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable Knight!
And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land ;-
And how she wept, and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain ;
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain ;—
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