Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

And blest are they who in the main

This faith, even now, do entertain:

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried;

No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:
Full oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task imposed, from day to day;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought:
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance-desires :
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose which ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we any thing so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds

And Fragrance in thy footing treads;

3;

Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;

And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh

and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!

I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh! let my weakness have an end!

Give unto me, made lowly wise,

The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS.

I.

PREFATORY SONNET.

4

NUNS fret not at their Convent's narrow room;
And Hermits are contented with their Cells;
And Students with their pensive Citadels :
Maids at the Wheel, the Weaver at his Loom,
Sit blithe and happy; Bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in Foxglove bells:

In truth, the prison, unto which we doom

Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to me,

In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground:

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find short solace there, as I have found.