POEMS,

WRITTEN DURING, OR SHORTLY AFTER, THE PUBLICATION OF CLIFTON GROVE.

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 inclined
With mighty visions fill'st the mind,
Such as bound in magic spell

Him* who grasped 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 exprest?
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! forever 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 ravished eyes. Him didst thou cradle on the dizzy steep

Where round his head the volleyed lightnings flung, And the loud winds that round his pillow rung

Wooed the stern infant to the arms of sleep.
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'st him drink with ruthless ear
The death-sob, and disdaining rest,

Thou sawest 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 sat 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 showedst 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
Aerial 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 vigor o'er it flows. The Bard beholds the work achieved, And as he sees the shadow rise, Sublime before his wandering eyes, Starts at the image his own mind conceived.

ODE,

ADDRESSED TO THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K.G.

RETIRED, remote from human noise,

A humble Poet dwelt serene,

His lot was lowly, yet his joys

Were manifold I ween.

He laid him by the brawling brook

At eventide to ruminate,

He watched the swallow swimming round,

And mused, in reverie profound,

On wayward man's unhappy state,

And pondered much, and paused on deeds of ancient

date.

II. 1.

"Oh, 'twas not always thus," he cried,
"There was a time when genius claimed
Respect from even towering pride,

Nor hung her head ashamed:
But now to wealth alone we bow,
The titled and the rich alone,
Are honored, while meek merit pines,
On penury's wretched couch reclines,

Unheeded in his dying moan,

As, overwhelmed with want and woe, he sinks unknown.

III. 1.

"Yet was the muse not always seen

In poverty's dejected mien,

Not always did repining rue,

And misery her steps pursue.

Time was, when nobles thought their titles graced,
By the sweet honors of poetic bays,

When Sidney sung his melting song,

When Sheffield joined the harmonious throng,
And Lyttleton attuned to love his lays.
Those days are gone-alas, forever gone!
No more our nobles love to grace

Their brows with anadems, by genius won,
But arrogantly deem the Muse as base;

How differently thought the sires of this degenerate race!"

I. 2.

Thus sang the minstrel :-still at eve

The upland's woody shades among,