See wither'd Winter, bending low his head;
His ragged locks stiff with the hoary dew;
His eyes, like frozen lakes, of livid hue;
His train, a sable cloud, with murky red
Streak'd.—Ah! behold his nitrous breathings shed
Petrific death!—Lean, wailful Birds pursue,
On as he sweeps o'er the dun lonely moor,
Amid the battling blast of all the Winds,
That, while their sleet the climbing Sailor blinds,
Lash the white surges to the sounding shore.
So com'st thou, Winter, finally to doom
The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropt sprays,
Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb,
Her vanish'd hopes, and aye-departed days.
SONNET XXVIII.
O, Genius! does thy Sun-resembling beam
To the internal eyes of Man display
In clearer prospect, the momentous way
That leads to peace? Do they not rather seem
Dazzled by lustres in continual stream,
Till night they find in such excessive day?
Art thou not prone, with too intense a ray,
To gild the hope improbable, the dream
Of fancied good?—or bid the sigh upbraid
Imaginary evils, and involve
All real sorrow in a darker shade?
To fond credulity, to rash resolve
Dost thou not prompt, till reason's sacred aid
And fair discretion in thy fires dissolve?
SONNET XXIX.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
If Genius has its danger, grief and pain,
That Common-Sense escapes, yet who wou'd change
The Powers, thro' Nature, and thro' Art that range,
To keep the bounded, tho' more safe domain
Of moderate Intellect, where all we gain
Is cold approvance? where the sweet, the strange,
Soft, and sublime, in vivid interchange,
Nor glad the spirit, nor enrich the brain.
Destructive shall we deem yon noon-tide blaze
If transiently the eye, o'er-power'd, resign
Distinct perception?—Shall we rather praise
The Moon's wan light?—with owlish choice incline
That Common-Sense her lunar lamp shou'd raise
Than that the solar fires of Genius shine?
SONNET XXX.
That song again!—its sounds my bosom thrill,
Breathe of past years, to all their joys allied;
And, as the notes thro' my sooth'd spirits glide,
Dear Recollection's choicest sweets distill,
Soft as the Morn's calm dew on yonder hill,
When slants the Sun upon its grassy side,
Tinging the brooks that many a mead divide
With lines of gilded light; and blue, and still,
The distant lake stands gleaming in the vale.
Sing, yet once more, that well-remember'd strain,
Which oft made vocal every passing gale
In days long fled, in Pleasure's golden reign,
The youth of chang'd Honora!—now it wears
Her air—her smile—spells of the vanish'd years!
SONNET XXXI.
TO THE DEPARTING SPIRIT OF AN ALIENATED FRIEND.