My noble old warrior! this heart has beat high,
Since you told of the deeds that our countrymen wrought;
Ah! give me the sabre which hung by thy thigh,
And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!
O, despise not my youth! for my spirit is steel'd,
And I know there is strength in the grasp of my hand;
Yea, as firm as thyself would I move to the field,
And as proudly would die for my dear father-land.
In the sports of my childhood I mimick'd the fight,
The shrill of a trumpet suspended my breath;
And my fancy still wander'd by day and by night
Amid tumult and perils,'mid conquest and death.
My own eager shout in the heat of my trance,
How oft it awakes me from dreams full of glory,
When I meant to have leap'd on the hero of France,
And have dash'd him to earth pale and deathless and gory!
As late through the city with bannerets streaming,
And the music of trumpets the warriors flew by,
With helmet and scymetar naked and gleaming
On their proud trampling thunder-hoof'd steeds did they fly,
I sped to yon heath which is lonely and bare
For each nerve was unquiet, each pulse in alarm,
I hurl'd my mock lance through the objectless air,
And in open-eyed dream prov'd the strength of my arm.
Yes, noble old warrior! this heart has beat high,
Since you told of thedeeds that our countrymen wrought;
Ah! give me the falchion that hung by thy thigh,
And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!
[2] His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips,
The sense, and spirit, and the light divine,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were virtue's native crest, th' immortal soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry, to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
He suffer'd, nor complain'd; tho' oft with tears
He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,
Yea, with a deeper and yet holier grief
Mourn'd for the oppressor. In those sabbath hours
His solemn grief, like the slow cloud at sunset,
Was but the veil of purest meditation
Pierced thro' and saturate with the rays of mind.
'Twas sweet to know it only possible!
Some wishes cross'd my mind and dimly cheer'd it,
And one or two poor melancholy pleasures,
Each in the pale unwarming light of hope
Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by
Moths in the moonbeam!
Behind the thin
Grey cloud that cover'd, but not hid, the sky,
The round full moon look'd small.
The subtle snow in every passing breeze
Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.
On the broad mountain top
The neighing wild colt races with the wind
O'er fern and heath-flowers.
Like a mighty giantess
Seized in sore travail and prodigious birth,
Sick nature struggled: long and strange her pangs,
Her groans were horrible; but O, most fair
The twins she bore, Equality and Peace.
Terrible and loud
As the strong voice that from the thunder-cloud
Speaks to the startled midnight.
Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye
Of genius fancy-craz'd.
The mild despairing of a heart resign'd.
For the Hymn on the Sun
The sun (for now his orb
'Gan slowly sink)
Shot half his rays aslant the heath, whose flow'rs
Purpled the mountain's broad and level top.
Rich was his bed of clouds, and wide beneath
For the Hymn on the Moon
In a cave in the mountains of Cashmeer there is an image of ice, which makes its appearance thus: Two days before the new moon there appears a bubble of ice, which increases in size every day till the fifteenth, by which time it is an ell or more in height; then as the moon wanes, the image decreases till it vanishes away.
In darkness I remain'd;-the neighb'ring clock
Told me that now the rising sun at dawn
Shone lovely on my garden.
These be staggerers that, made drunk by power,
Forget thirst's eager promise, and presume,
Dark dreamers! that the world forgets it too!
Perish warmth,
Unfaithful to its seeming!
Old age, 'the shape and messenger of death,'
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door.
God no distance knows
All of the whole possessing.
With skill that never alchemist yet told,
Made drossy lead as ductile as pure gold.
Guess at the wound and heal with secret hand.
The broad-breasted rock
Glasses his rugged forehead in the sea.
I mix in life, and labour to seem free,
With common persons pleas'd and common things,
While every thought and action tends to thee,
And every impulse from thy influence springs.