No nightingale did ever chaunt A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard Will no one tell me what she sings? Or is it some more humble lay, Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang ELEGIAC STANZAS Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm I WAS thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile! So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep, Ah! then-if mine had been the painter's hand I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile, Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years: a chronicle of heaven ; Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given. A picture had it been of lasting ease, Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, So once it would have been-'tis so no more; A power is gone which nothing can restore; Not for a moment could I now behold Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend If he had lived, of him whom I deplore. This work of thine I blame not, but commend; O'tis a passionate work!-yet wise and well, And this huge Castle, standing nere sublime, waves. Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied, for 'tis surely blind. But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne,— Such sights, or worse, as are before me here! Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. TO H. C. (Hartley Coleridge; six years old.) O THOU! Whose fancies from afar are brought; The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; In such clear water that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed vision! O happy child! That art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sat within the touch of thee. O! too industrious folly! O! vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite ; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks; Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife 'TIS SAID THAT SOME HAVE DIED FOR LOVE "TIS said that some have died for love: And there is one whom I five years have known; Upon Helvellyn's side: He loved the pretty Barbara died, And thus he makes his moan: Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid, When thus his moan he made: . 'O move, thou cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie, That in some other way yon smoke May mount into the sky! The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart: I look-the sky is empty space; I know not what I trace; But, when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart. |