In the long-deserted hall, In dead beauty's withered bower, That makes glad the fleeting hour; Closer cling we unto those Who must leave us or be left; Life's mysterious warp and weft. Henry Glassford Bell. Hales Owen. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. IN every village marked with little spire, Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame, There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire, A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name, Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame; They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Awed by the power of this relentless dame, And ofttimes, on vagaries idly bent, For unkempt hair, or task unconned, are sorely shent. And all in sight doth rise a birchen tree, Which Learning near her little dome did stow, Though now so wide its waving branches flow, And work the simple vassals mickle woe; For not a wind might curl the leaves that blew, So have I seen (who has not, may conceive) Of sport, of song, of pleasure, of repast; They start, they stare, they wheel, they look aghast ; Sad servitude! such comfortless annoy May no bold Briton's riper age e'er taste! Ne superstition clog his dance of joy, Ne vision empty, vain, his native bliss destroy. Near to this dome is found a patch so green The noises intermixed, which thence resound, Do Learning's little tenement betray; Where sits the dame disguised in look profound, Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Tway birchen sprays; with anxious fear entwined, William Shenstone. MY Hampstead. ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. Y heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Now more than ever seems it rich to die, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain, Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! |