RECANTATORY, IN REPLY TO THE FOREGOING ELEGANT ADMONITION.
Let the sublimer muse, who, wrapp'd in night,
Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,
Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm,
Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight;
Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,
Disdain the plaintive sonnet's little form,
And scorn to its wild cadence to conform,
The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight.
But me, far lowest of the sylvan train,
Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest shade
With wildest song;—me, much behoves thy aid
Of mingled melody, to grace my strain,
And give it power to please, as soft it flows
Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent close.
SONNET ON HEARING THE SOUNDS OF AN ÆOLIAN HARP.
So ravishingly soft upon the tide
Of the infuriate gust, it did career,
It might have soothed its rugged charioteer,
And sunk him to a zephyr; then it died,
Melting in melody;—and I descried,
Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of Druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such as, 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?
SONNET.
What art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands.
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
Thou guidest the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span
Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan
Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?
Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.
SONNET TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
Lofft, unto thee one tributary song
The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring;
She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng,
And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring.
Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,
Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild,
Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth,
And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child:
Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal,
Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire,
Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the lyre,
And show thy labours for the public weal,
Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme,
But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.
SONNET TO THE MOON.
WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.