FROM LUCRETIUS.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca.—Lib. IV. v. 1.
Pierian heights, the Muses’ trackless haunts
And wilds untrodden erst by mortal feet,
O’er these I wander, haply there to find
New flowers and fountains new; I love to drink
Of the pure stream fresh-welling, and to cull
A wreath of orient hues and odours rare,
Whence never poet yet his chaplet wove.
PSALM LXXII.
ABRIDGED, AND ADAPTED[22] TO A PARTICULAR TUNE.
Lord, to the King thy judgments give,
Give to his Son thy righteousness:
So shall thy people safely live,
So he thy chosen flock shall bless.
Great his dominion, large his sway
O’er earth and ocean shall extend:
Him shall remotest isles obey,
Him the wide sea from end to end.
War and the battle then shall cease,
Then righteous men in favour stand;
Peace shall return, a lasting peace;
Plenty again shall store the land.
While He, with choicest blessings crown’d,
Long on his throne shall sit sublime;
Honour’d by all the nations round,
Honour’d by Kings of every clime.
Blest be our God for these fair days,
These happy days that rise again!
O may his glorious name and praise
Fill all the earth! Amen, amen.
[22] By adapted, is here meant, partly, that the accented syllables in the verse coincide with the accented notes of the tune.
MIDNIGHT DEVOTION.
WRITTEN IN THE GREAT STORM, 1822.
When the storm’s increasing roar,
In the fearful hour of night,
And the blast that rives my door
Start the sleepers with affright;
While the fierce descending rain
And the warring winds of heaven
All embattled rush amain
On my fragile window driven;
I, for those who bide this pelting,
Breathe a prayer of charity,
And, my soul with pity melting,
Heavenly Father, call on Thee.
SILBURY HILL[23].
O thou, to whom in the olden time was raised
Yon ample Mound, not fashion’d to display
An artful structure, but with better skill
Piled massive, to endure through many an age,
How simple, how majestic is thy tomb!
When temples and when palaces shall fall,
And mighty cities moulder into dust,
When to their deep foundations Time shall shake
The strong-based pyramids, shall thine remain
Amid the general ruin unsubdued,
Uninjured as the everlasting hills,
And mock the feeble power of storms and Time.
[23] Silbury Hill is a Barrow of the largest size. It stands close by the road from London to Bath: 80 miles west from Hyde-Park Corner.
TO
THE DAISY.
Gentle flower, young April’s pride,
Say not Nature hath denied
Thee her bounty or her grace,
Though thou lack the Rose’s face.
Where she spreads her carpet green
There thy maiden form is seen,
Drest in robes of purest white,
Ever constant in her sight,
But at will to wanton wild,
Like a playful darling child.
Thee she tends in summer days,
And the nibbling ewes that graze
Spare to crop her favourite:
And the Fairies, when by night
Their green paths they quaintly tread,
Walk not o’er thy sleeping head.