To George Felton Mathew   
   
   
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,      
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;      
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view      
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true      
Than that in which the brother Poets joy’d,           5   
Who with combined powers, their wit employ’d      
To raise a trophy to the drama’s muses.      
The thought of this great partnership diffuses      
Over the genius loving heart, a feeling      
Of all that’s high, and great, and good, and healing.           10   
   
Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee      
Past each horizon of fine poesy;      
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note      
As o’er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float      
’Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,           15   
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:      
But ’tis impossible, far different cares      
Beckon me sternly from soft “Lydian airs,”      
And hold my faculties so long in thrall,      
That I am oft in doubt whether at all           20   
I shall again see Phoebus in the morning:      
Or flush’d Aurora in the roseate dawning!      
Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;      
Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;      
Or again witness what with thee I’ve seen,           25   
The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,      
After a night of some quaint jubilee      
Which every elf and fay had come to see:      
When bright processions took their airy march      
Beneath the curved moon’s triumphal arch.           30   
   
But might I now each passing moment give      
To the coy muse, with me she would not live      
In this dark city, nor would condescend      
’Mid contradictions her delights to lend.      
Should e’er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,           35   
Ah! surely it must be whene’er I find      
Some flowery spot, sequester’d, wild, romantic,      
That often must have seen a poet frantic;      
Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,      
And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;           40   
Where the dark-leav’d laburnum’s drooping clusters      
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,      
And intertwined the cassia’s arms unite,      
With its own drooping buds, but very white.      
Where on one side are covert branches hung,           45   
’Mong which the nightingales have always sung      
In leafy quiet; where to pry, aloof,      
Atween the pillars of the sylvan roof,      
Would be to find where violet beds were nestling,      
And where the bee with cowslip bells was wrestling.           50   
There must be too a ruin dark, and gloomy,      
To say “joy not too much in all that’s bloomy.”      
   
Yet this is vain—O Mathew lend thy aid      
To find a place where I may greet the maid—      
Where we may soft humanity put on,           55   
And sit, and rhyme and think on Chatterton;      
And that warm-hearted Shakspeare sent to meet him      
Four laurell’d spirits, heaven-ward to intreat him.      
With reverence would we speak of all the sages      
Who have left streaks of light athwart their ages:           60   
And thou shouldst moralize on Milton’s blindness,      
And mourn the fearful dearth of human kindness      
To those who strove with the bright golden wing      
Of genius, to flap away each sting      
Thrown by the pitiless world. We next could tell           65   
Of those who in the cause of freedom fell;      
Of our own Alfred, of Helvetian Tell;      
Of him whose name to ev’ry heart’s a solace,      
High-minded and unbending William Wallace.      
While to the rugged north our musing turns           70   
We well might drop a tear for him, and Burns.      
   
Felton! without incitements such as these,      
How vain for me the niggard Muse to tease;      
For thee, she will thy every dwelling grace,      
And make “a sunshine in a shady place:”           75   
For thou wast once a flowret blooming wild,      
Close to the source, bright, pure, and undefil’d,      
Whence gush the streams of song: in happy hour      
Came chaste Diana from her shady bower,      
Just as the sun was from the east uprising;           80   
And, as for him some gift she was devising,      
Beheld thee, pluck’d thee, cast thee in the stream      
To meet her glorious brother’s greeting beam.      
I marvel much that thou hast never told      
How, from a flower, into a fish of gold           85   
Apollo chang’d thee; how thou next didst seem      
A black-eyed swan upon the widening stream;      
And when thou first didst in that mirror trace      
The placid features of a human face:      
That thou hast never told thy travels strange,           90   
And all the wonders of the mazy range      
O’er pebbly crystal, and o’er golden sands;      
Kissing thy daily food from Naiad’s pearly hands.

To My Brother George   
   
Full many a dreary hour have I past,      
My brain bewilder’d, and my mind o’ercast      
With heaviness; in seasons when I’ve thought      
No spherey strains by me could e’er be caught      
From the blue dome, though I to dimness gaze           5   
On the far depth where sheeted lightning plays;      
Or, on the wavy grass outstretch’d supinely,      
Pry ’mong the stars, to strive to think divinely:      
That I should never hear Apollo’s song,      
Though feathery clouds were floating all along           10   
The purple west, and, two bright streaks between,      
The golden lyre itself were dimly seen:      
That the still murmur of the honey bee      
Would never teach a rural song to me:      
That the bright glance from beauty’s eyelids slanting           15   
Would never make a lay of mine enchanting      
Or warm my breast with ardour to unfold      
Some tale of love and arms in time of old.      
   
But there are times, when those that love the bay,      
Fly from all sorrowing far, far away;           20   
A sudden glow comes on them, nought they see      
In water, earth, or air, but poesy.      
It has been said, dear George, and true I hold it,      
(For knightly Spenser to Libertas told it,)      
That when a Poet is in such a trance,           25   
In air he sees white coursers paw, and prance,      
Bestridden of gay knights, in gay apparel,      
Who at each other tilt in playful quarrel,      
And what we, ignorantly, sheet-lightning call,      
Is the swift opening of their wide portal,           30   
When the bright warder blows his trumpet clear,      
Whose tones reach nought on earth but Poet’s ear.      
When these enchanted portals open wide,      
And through the light the horsemen swiftly glide,      
The Poet’s eye can reach those golden halls,           35   
And view the glory of their festivals:      
Their ladies fair, that in the distance seem      
Fit for the silv’ring of a seraph’s dream;      
Their rich brimm’d goblets, that incessant run      
Like the bright spots that move about the sun;           40   
And, when upheld, the wine from each bright jar      
Pours with the lustre of a falling star.      
Yet further off, are dimly seen their bowers,      
Of which, no mortal eye can reach the flowers;      
And ’tis right just, for well Apollo knows           45   
’Twould make the Poet quarrel with the rose.      
All that’s reveal’d from that far seat of blisses,      
Is, the clear fountains’ interchanging kisses,      
As gracefully descending, light and thin,      
Like silver streaks across a dolphin’s fin,           50   
When he upswimmeth from the coral caves,      
And sports with half his tail above the waves.      
   
These wonders strange he sees, and many more,      
Whose head is pregnant with poetic lore.      
Should he upon an evening ramble fare           55   
With forehead to the soothing breezes bare,      
Would he naught see but the dark, silent blue      
With all its diamonds trembling through and through?      
Or the coy moon, when in the waviness      
Of whitest clouds she does her beauty dress,           60   
And staidly paces higher up, and higher,      
Like a sweet nun in holy-day attire?      
Ah, yes! much more would start into his sight—      
The revelries, and mysteries of night:      
And should I ever see them, I will tell you           65   
Such tales as needs must with amazement spell you.      
These are the living pleasures of the bard:      
But richer far posterity’s award.      
What does he murmur with his latest breath,      
While his proud eye looks through the film of death?           70   
“What though I leave this dull, and earthly mould,      
“Yet shall my spirit lofty converse hold      
“With after times.—The patriot shall feel      
“My stern alarum, and unsheath his steel;      
“Or, in the senate thunder out my numbers           75   
“To startle princes from their easy slumbers.      
“The sage will mingle with each moral theme      
“My happy thoughts sententious; he will teem      
“With lofty periods when my verses fire him,      
“And then I’ll stoop from heaven to inspire him.           80   
“Lays have I left of such a dear delight      
“That maids will sing them on their bridal night.      
“Gay villagers, upon a morn of May,      
“When they have tired their gentle limbs with play,      
“And form’d a snowy circle on the grass,           85   
“And plac’d in midst of all that lovely lass      
“Who chosen is their queen,—with her fine head      
“Crowned with flowers purple, white, and red:      
“For there the lily, and the musk-rose, sighing,      
“Are emblems true of hapless lovers dying:           90   
“Between her breasts, that never yet felt trouble,      
“A bunch of violets full blown, and double,      
“Serenely sleep:—she from a casket takes      
“A little book,—and then a joy awakes      
“About each youthful heart,—with stifled cries,           95   
“And rubbing of white hands, and sparkling eyes:      
“For she’s to read a tale of hopes, and fears;      
“One that I foster’d in my youthful years:      
“The pearls, that on each glist’ning circlet sleep,      
“Gush ever and anon with silent creep,           100   
“Lured by the innocent dimples. To sweet rest      
“Shall the dear babe, upon its mother’s breast,      
“Be lull’d with songs of mine. Fair world, adieu!      
“Thy dales, and hills, are fading from my view:      
“Swiftly I mount, upon wide spreading pinions,           105   
“Far from the narrow bounds of thy dominions.      
“Full joy I feel, while thus I cleave the air,      
“That my soft verse will charm thy daughters fair,      
“And warm thy sons!” Ah, my dear friend and brother,      
Could I, at once, my mad ambition smother,           110   
For tasting joys like these, sure I should be      
Happier, and dearer to society.      
At times, ’tis true, I’ve felt relief from pain      
When some bright thought has darted through my brain:      
Through all that day I’ve felt a greater pleasure           115   
Than if I’d brought to light a hidden treasure.      
As to my sonnets, though none else should heed them,      
I feel delighted, still, that you should read them.      
Of late, too, I have had much calm enjoyment,      
Stretch’d on the grass at my best lov’d employment           120   
Of scribbling lines for you. These things I thought      
While, in my face, the freshest breeze I caught.      
E’en now I’m pillow’d on a bed of flowers      
That crowns a lofty clift, which proudly towers      
Above the ocean-waves. The stalks, and blades,           125   
Chequer my tablet with their quivering shades.      
On one side is a field of drooping oats,      
Through which the poppies show their scarlet coats;      
So pert and useless, that they bring to mind      
The scarlet coats that pester human-kind.           130   
And on the other side, outspread, is seen      
Ocean’s blue mantle streak’d with purple, and green.      
Now ’tis I see a canvass’d ship, and now      
Mark the bright silver curling round her prow.      
I see the lark down-dropping to his nest,           135   
And the broad winged sea-gull never at rest;      
For when no more he spreads his feathers free,      
His breast is dancing on the restless sea.      
Now I direct my eyes into the west,      
Which at this moment is in sunbeams drest:           140   
Why westward turn? ’Twas but to say adieu!      
’Twas but to kiss my hand, dear George, to you!

To Charles Cowden Clarke   
    
    
Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning,      
And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning;      
He slants his neck beneath the waters bright      
So silently, it seems a beam of light      
Come from the galaxy: anon he sports,—           5   
With outspread wings the Naiad Zephyr courts,      
Or ruffles all the surface of the lake      
In striving from its crystal face to take      
Some diamond water drops, and them to treasure      
In milky nest, and sip them off at leisure.           10   
But not a moment can he there insure them,      
Nor to such downy rest can he allure them;      
For down they rush as though they would be free,      
And drop like hours into eternity.      
Just like that bird am I in loss of time,           15   
Whene’er I venture on the stream of rhyme;      
With shatter’d boat, oar snapt, and canvass rent,      
I slowly sail, scarce knowing my intent;      
Still scooping up the water with my fingers,      
In which a trembling diamond never lingers.           20   
    
By this, friend Charles, you may full plainly see      
Why I have never penn’d a line to thee:      
Because my thoughts were never free, and clear,      
And little fit to please a classic ear;      
Because my wine was of too poor a savour           25   
For one whose palate gladdens in the flavour      
Of sparkling Helicon:—small good it were      
To take him to a desert rude, and bare,      
Who had on Baiae’s shore reclin’d at ease,      
While Tasso’s page was floating in a breeze           30   
That gave soft music from Armida’s bowers,      
Mingled with fragrance from her rarest flowers:      
Small good to one who had by Mulla’s stream      
Fondled the maidens with the breasts of cream;      
Who had beheld Belphoebe in a brook,           35   
And lovely Una in a leafy nook,      
And Archimago leaning o’er his book:      
Who had of all that’s sweet tasted, and seen,      
From silv’ry ripple, up to beauty’s queen;      
From the sequester’d haunts of gay Titania,           40   
To the blue dwelling of divine Urania:      
One, who, of late, had ta’en sweet forest walks      
With him who elegantly chats, and talks—      
The wrong’d Libertas,—who has told you stories      
Of laurel chaplets, and Apollo’s glories;           45   
Of troops chivalrous prancing through a city,      
And tearful ladies made for love, and pity:      
With many else which I have never known.      
Thus have I thought; and days on days have flown      
Slowly, or rapidly—unwilling still           50   
For you to try my dull, unlearned quill.      
Nor should I now, but that I’ve known you long;      
That you first taught me all the sweets of song:      
The grand, the sweet, the terse, the free, the fine;      
What swell’d with pathos, and what right divine:           55   
Spenserian vowels that elope with ease,      
And float along like birds o’er summer seas;      
Miltonian storms, and more, Miltonian tenderness;      
Michael in arms, and more, meek Eve’s fair slenderness.      
Who read for me the sonnet swelling loudly           60   
Up to its climax and then dying proudly?      
Who found for me the grandeur of the ode,      
Growing, like Atlas, stronger from its load?      
Who let me taste that more than cordial dram,      
The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram?           65   
Shew’d me that epic was of all the king,      
Round, vast, and spanning all like Saturn’s ring?      
You too upheld the veil from Clio’s beauty,      
And pointed out the patriot’s stern duty;      
The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell;           70   
The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell      
Upon a tyrant’s head. Ah! had I never seen,      
Or known your kindness, what might I have been?      
What my enjoyments in my youthful years,      
Bereft of all that now my life endears?           75   
And can I e’er these benefits forget?      
And can I e’er repay the friendly debt?      
No, doubly no;—yet should these rhymings please,      
I shall roll on the grass with two-fold ease:      
For I have long time been my fancy feeding           80   
With hopes that you would one day think the reading      
Of my rough verses not an hour mis[s]pent;      
Should it e’er be so, what a rich content!      
Some weeks have pass’d since last I saw the spires      
In lucent Thames reflected:—warm desires           85   
To see the sun o’er peep the eastern dimness,      
And morning shadows streaking into slimness      
Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water;      
To mark the time as they grow broad, and shorter;      
To feel the air that plays about the hills,           90   
And sips its freshness from the little rills;      
To see high, golden corn wave in the light      
When Cynthia smiles upon a summer’s night,      
And peers among the cloudlet’s jet and white,      
As though she were reclining in a bed           95   
Of bean blossoms, in heaven freshly shed.      
No sooner had I stepp’d into these pleasures      
Than I began to think of rhymes and measures:      
The air that floated by me seem’d to say      
“Write! thou wilt never have a better day.”           100   
And so I did. When many lines I’d written,      
Though with their grace I was not oversmitten,      
Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I’d better      
Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter.      
Such an attempt required an inspiration           105   
Of a peculiar sort,—a consummation;—      
Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been      
Verses from which the soul would never wean:      
But many days have past since last my heart      
Was warm’d luxuriously by divine Mozart;           110   
By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden’d;      
Or by the song of Erin pierc’d and sadden’d:      
What time you were before the music sitting,      
And the rich notes to each sensation fitting.      
Since I have walk’d with you through shady lanes           115   
That freshly terminate in open plains,      
And revel’d in a chat that ceased not      
When at night-fall among your books we got:      
No, nor when supper came, nor after that,—      
Nor when reluctantly I took my hat;           120   
No, nor till cordially you shook my hand      
Mid-way between our homes:—your accents bland      
Still sounded in my ears, when I no more      
Could hear your footsteps touch the grav’ly floor.      
Sometimes I lost them, and then found again;           125   
You chang’d the footpath for the grassy plain.      
In those still moments I have wish’d you joys      
That well you know to honour:—“Life’s very toys      
“With him,” said I, “will take a pleasant charm;      
“It cannot be that ought will work him harm.”           130   
These thoughts now come o’er me with all their might:—      
Again I shake your hand,—friend Charles, good night.

To My Brother George   
   
   
Many the wonders I this day have seen:      
  The sun, when first he kist away the tears      
  That fill’d the eyes of morn;—the laurel’d peers      
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;—      
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,           5   
  Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,—      
  Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears      
Must think on what will be, and what has been.      
E’en now, dear George, while this for you I write,      
  Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping           10   
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,      
  And she her half-discover’d revels keeping.      
But what, without the social thought of thee,      
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?

Written on the day that Mr. Leigh Hunt left Prison   
   
   
What though, for showing truth to flatter’d state,      
  Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he,      
  In his immortal spirit, been as free      
As the sky-searching lark, and as elate.      
Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait?           5   
  Think you he nought but prison walls did see,      
  Till, so unwilling, thou unturn’dst the key?      
Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate!      
In Spenser’s halls he strayed, and bowers fair,      
  Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew           10   
With daring Milton through the fields of air:      
  To regions of his own his genius true      
Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair      
  When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew?

How many bards gild the lapses of time!   
   
How many bards gild the lapses of time!      
  A few of them have ever been the food      
  Of my delighted fancy,—I could brood      
Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:      
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,              
  These will in throngs before my mind intrude:      
  But no confusion, no disturbance rude      
Do they occasion; ’tis a pleasing chime.      
So the unnumber’d sounds that evening store;      
  The songs of birds—the whisp’ring of the leaves—          
The voice of waters—the great bell that heaves      
  With solemn sound,—and thousand others more,      
That distance of recognizance bereaves,      
  Make pleasing music, and not wild uproar.      

 To a Friend who sent me some Roses   
   
As late I rambled in the happy fields,      
  What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew      
  From his lush clover covert;—when anew      
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:      
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,              
  A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw      
  Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew      
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.      
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,      
  I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:              
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me      
  My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:      
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea      
  Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.      

To G. A. W.   
   
   
Nymph of the downward smile, and sidelong glance,      
  In what diviner moments of the day      
  Art thou most lovely? When gone far astray      
Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance?      
Or when serenely wand’ring in a trance              
  Of sober thought? Or when starting away,      
  With careless robe, to meet the morning ray,      
Thou spar’st the flowers in thy mazy dance?      
Haply ’tis when thy ruby lips part sweetly,      
  And so remain, because thou listenest:              
But thou to please wert nurtured so completely      
  That I can never tell what mood is best.      
I shall as soon pronounce which grace more neatly      
Trips it before Apollo than the rest.

 O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell   
   
   
O solitude! if I must with thee dwell,      
  Let it not be among the jumbled heap      
  Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—      
Nature’s observatory—whence the dell,      
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,              
  May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep      
  ’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap      
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.      
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,      
  Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,              
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,      
  Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be      
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,      
  When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

To My Brothers   
   
   
Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,      
  And their faint cracklings o’er our silence creep      
  Like whispers of the household gods that keep      
A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls.      
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,          
  Your eyes are fix’d, as in poetic sleep,      
  Upon the lore so voluble and deep,      
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.      
This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice      
  That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.              
Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise      
  May we together pass, and calmly try      
What are this world’s true joys,—ere the great voice,      
  From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.