With thy clear keen joyaunce Languor cannot be ; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee; Thou lovest, but never knew love's fad fatiety. Waking or asleep Thou of death muft deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal ftream? We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our fincereft laughter With fome pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those which tell of faddeft thought. Yet if we could fcorn Hate, and pride, and fear,— If we were things born Not to fhed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever could come near. Better than all measures Of delightful found; Better than all treasures That in books are found, To poet were thy fkill, thou scorner of the ground. Teach me half the gladness That thy foul must know; Such harmonious madness From my lips fhould flow, The world would liften then as I am liftening now. XXVIII. SHELLEY. THE SKYLARK. IRD of the Wilderness, Blithefome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea, Emblem of happiness, Bleft be thy dwelling-place, Oh to abide in the defert with thee. Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth; Where on thy dewy wing, Where art thou foaring, Thy lay is in Heaven, thy love is on earth. O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red ftreamer that heralds the day; Over the rainbow's rim, Mufical cherub, foar finging away. Then when the gloaming comes, Far where the heather blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be; Bleft be thy dwelling-place, Oh! to abide in the defert with thee. HOGG. XXIX. THE CORAL ISLE. SAW the living pile ascend, The Maufoleum of its architects; Still dying upwards as their labours clofed. Slime the material, but the flime was turned To adamant by their petrific touch. Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, Their masonry imperishable. All Life's needful functions, food, exertion, reft, Were overruled to carry on the process, Which out of water brought forth folid rock. grew, A coral island, stretching east and west. Compared with this amazing edifice, Raised by the weakest creatures in existence, The Pyramids would be mere pinnacles, The giant ftatues wrought from rocks of granite, puny ornaments for such a pile But As this stupendous mound of catacombs, Filled with dry mummies of the builder, worms. JAMES MONTGOMERY. XXX. THE MOLE HILL. ELL me, thou duft beneath my feet, By wafting winds and flooding rains, The mole that scoops, with curious toil, Thinks not fhe ploughs fo rich a foil, But oh! where'er fhe turns the ground, My kindred earth I fee; Once every atom of this mound Lived, breathed, and felt like me. Like me, these elder-born of clay And went to reft at night. |