TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

MILD offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,

And cradled in the winds.

Thee when young spring first questioned winter's sway,

And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,

Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So virtue blooms; brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows

Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear

Serene the ills of life.

ODE ADDRESSED TO H. FUSELI, ESQ. R. A.

ON SEEING ENGRAVINGS FROM HIS DESIGNS.

MIGHTY magician! who on Torneo's brow,

When sullen tempests wrap the throne of night, Art wont to sit and catch the gleam of light That shoots athwart the gloom opaque below; And listen to the distant death-shriek long

From lonely mariner foundering in the deep,
Which rises slowly up the rocky steep,
While the weird sisters weave the horrid song.
Or, when along the liquid sky

Serenely chant the orbs on high,
Dost love to sit in musing trance,

And mark the northern meteor's dance

(While far below the fitful oar

Flings its faint pauses on the steepy shore),

And list the music of the breeze,

That sweeps by fits the bending seas;

And often bears with sudden swell

The shipwrecked sailor's funeral knell,

By the spirits sung, who keep

Their night-watch on the treacherous deep,

And guide the wakeful helmsman's eye
To Helice in northern sky;

And there upon the rock reclined

With mighty visions fill'st the mind,

Such as bound in magic spell

Him who grasp'd the gates of Hell,
And, bursting Pluto's dark domain,
Held to the day the terrors of his reign.

Genius of Horror and romantic awe!

Whose eye explores the secrets of the deep,
Whose power can bid the rebel fluids creep,
Can force the inmost soul to own its law;
Who shall now, sublimest spirit,
Who shall now thy wand inherit,
From him† thy darling child who best
Thy shuddering images expressed?
Sullen of soul, and stern, and proud,
His gloomy spirit spurned the crowd,
And now he lays his aching head
In the dark mansion of the silent dead.

Mighty magician! long thy wand has lain
Buried beneath the unfathomable deep;
And oh! for ever must its efforts sleep,
May none the mystic sceptre e'er regain?
Oh, yes, 'tis his! Thy other son!
He throws thy dark-wrought tunic on,

Fuesslin waves thy wand, again they rise, Again thy wildering forms salute our ravish'd Him didst thou cradle on the dizzy steep [eyes. Where round his head the vollied lightnings flung, And the loud winds that round his pillow rung Woo'd the stern infant to the arms of sleep; † Dante.

* Dante.

Or on the highest top of Teneriffe
Seated the fearless boy, and bade him look
Where far below the weather-beaten skiff
On the gulf bottom of the ocean strook.
Thou mark'dst him drink with ruthless ear
The death-sob, and, disdaining rest,
Thou saw'st how danger fired his breast,
And in his young hand couched the visionary spear
, Then, Superstition, at thy call,

She bore the boy to Odin's Hall,
And set before his awe-struck sight
The savage feast and spectred fight;
And summoned from his mountain tomb
The ghastly warrior son of gloom,
His fabled runic rhymes to sing,

While fierce Hresvelger flapped his wing;
Thou show'dst the trains the shepherd sees,
Laid on the stormy Hebrides,

Which on the mists of evening gleam,
Or crowd the foaming desert stream;
Lastly her storied hand she waves,
And lays him in Florentian caves;
There milder fables, lovelier themes,
Enwrap his soul in heavenly dreams,
There pity's lute arrests his ear,
And draws the half reluctant tear;
And now at noon of night he roves
Along the embowering moonlight groves,
And as from many a caverned dell

The hollow wind is heard to swell,

He thinks some troubled spirit sighs,
And as upon the turf he lies,

Where sleeps the silent beam of night,
He sees below the gliding sprite,
And hears in Fancy's organs sound
Aërial music warbling round.

Taste lastly comes and smooths the whole, And breathes her polish o'er his soul; Glowing with wild, yet chastened heat, The wondrous work is now complete.

The Poet dreams : the shadow flies, And fainting fast its image dies. But lo! the Painter's magic force Arrests the phantom's fleeting course; It lives it lives the canvas glows, And tenfold vigour o'er it flows. The Bard beholds the work achieved, And as he sees the shadow rise Sublime before his wondering eyes, Starts at the image his own mind conceived.

TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K. G
I. 1.

RETIRED, remote from human noise,

An humble Poet dwelt serene;

His lot was lowly, yet his joys
Were manifold, I ween.