10.

No more;-time halts not in his noiseless march

Nor turns, nor winds, as doth the liquid flood;
Life slips from underneath us, like that arch

Of airy workmanship whereon we stood,

Earth stretched below, Heaven in our neighbourhood.
Go forth, my little Book! pursue thy way;

Go forth, and please the gentle and the good;

Nor be a whisper stifled, if it say

That treasures, yet untouched, may grace some future Lay.

XXXVI.

TO ENTERPRISE. *

KEEP for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on a chalky cliff of Britain's Isle,

A slender Volume grasping in thy hand-
(Perchance the pages that relate

The various turns of Crusoe's fate)

Ah, spare the exulting smile,

And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon-light;

But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,

Nor turn thy face away

From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

This poem having risen out of the " Italian Itinerant," &c. (page 269) it is here annexed.

1.

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,

While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee ENTERPRISE.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom she to young Ambition bore,
When Hunter's arrow first defiled

The Grove, and stained the turf with gore;
Thee winged Fancy took, and nursed
On broad Euphrates' palmy shore,
Or where the mightier Waters burst
From caves of Indian mountains hoar!
She wrapped thee in a panther's skin;
And thou, whose earliest thoughts held dear
Allurements that were edged with fear,

(The food that pleased thee best, to win)
From rocky fortress in mid air

The flame-eyed Eagle oft wouldst scare
With infant shout,—as often sweep,
Paired with the Ostrich, o'er the plain;
And, tired with sport, wouldst sink asleep
Upon the couchant Lion's mane!
With rolling years thy strength increased;
And, far beyond thy native East,
To thee, by varying titles known,
As variously thy power was shown,
Did incense-bearing Altars rise,
Which caught the blaze of sacrifice,
From Suppliants panting for the skies!

2.

What though this ancient Earth be trod No more by step of Demi-god,

Mounting from glorious deed to deed

As thou from clime to clime didst lead,
Yet still, the bosom beating high,

And the hushed farewell of an eye

Where no procrastinating gaze

A last infirmity betrays,

Prove that thy heaven-descended sway

Shall ne'er submit to cold decay.

By thy divinity impelled,

The Stripling seeks the tented field;
The aspiring Virgin kneels; and, pale
With awe, receives the hallowed veil,
A soft and tender Heroine

Vowed to severer discipline;
Inflamed by thee, the blooming Boy
Makes of the whistling shrouds a toy,
And of the Ocean's dismal breast
A play-ground and a couch of rest;
Thou to his dangers dost enchain,
'Mid the blank world of snow and ice,
The Chamois-chaser, awed in vain
By chasm or dizzy precipice;

And hast Thou not with triumph seen

How soaring Mortals glide serene

From cloud to cloud, and brave the light

With bolder than Icarian flight?

Or, in their bells of crystal, dive

Where winds and waters cease to strive,

For no unholy visitings,

Among the monsters of the Deep,
And all the sad and precious things
Which there in ghastly silence sleep?