With eager gaze and wetted cheek
My wonted haunts along,
Thus, faithful maiden! thou shalt seek
The youth of simplest song.
But I along the breeze shall roll
The voice of feeble power;
And dwell, the moon-beam of thy soul,
In slumber's nightly hour.
THE COMPLAINT OF NINATHOMA.
How long will ye round me be swelling,
O ye blue-tumbling waves of the sea?
Not always in caves was my dwelling,
Nor beneath the cold blast of the tree.
Through the high-sounding halls of Cathlóma
In the steps of my beauty I strayed;
The warriors beheld Ninathóma,
And they blessed the white-bosomed maid!
A ghost! by my cavern it darted!
In moon-beams the spirit was drest—
For lovely appear the departed
When they visit the dreams of my rest!
But disturbed by the tempest's commotion
Fleet the shadowy forms of delight-
Ah cease, thou shrill blast of the ocean!
To howl through my cavern by night.
Ir, while my passion I impart,
You deem my words untrue,
O place your hand upon my heart—
Feel how it throbs for you!
Ah no! reject the thoughtless claim
In pity to your lover!
That thrilling touch would aid the flame,
It wishes to discover.
AH! cease thy tears and sobs, my little life!
1 did but snatch away the unclasped knife :
Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye,
And to quick laughter change this peevish cry!
Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of woe,
Tutored by pain each source of pain to know!
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire;
Alike the good, the ill offend thy sight,
And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright!
Untaught, yet wise! mid all thy brief alarms
Thou closely clingest to thy mother's arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest!
Man's breathing miniature! thou mak'st me sigh-
A babe art thou-and such a thing am I!
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow!
O thou that rearest with celestial aim
The future seraph in my mortal frame,
Thrice holy Faith! whatever thorns I meet
As on I totter with unpractised feet,
Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee,
Meek nurse of souls through their long infancy!
WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SEPTEMBER, 1795, IN ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM BRISTOL.
Good verse most good, and bad verse then seems better Received from absent friend by way of letter.
For what so sweet can laboured lays impart
As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart?—ANON.
NOR' travels my meandering eye
The starry wilderness on high;
Nor now with curious sight
I mark the glowworm as I pass,
Move with "green radiance” through the grass,
An emerald of light,
O ever present to my view!
My wafted spirit is with you,
And soothes your boding fears:
I see you all oppressed with gloom
Sit lonely in that cheerless room—
Ah me! you are in tears!
Beloved woman! did you fly
Chilled Friendship's dark disliking eye,
Or Mirth's untimely din?
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,
When aches the void within.
But why with sable wand unblest
Should Fancy rouse within my breast
Dim-visaged shapes of dread?
Untenanting its beauteous clay
My Sara's soul has winged its way,
And hovers round my head!
I felt it prompt the tender dream,
When slowly sank the day's last gleam ;
You roused each gentler sense,
As sighing o'er the blossom's bloom
Meek evening wakes its soft perfume
With viewless influence.
And hark, my love! The sea-breeze moans Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones
In bold ambitious sweep,
The onward-surging tides supply
The silence of the cloudless sky
With mimic thunders deep.
Dark reddening from the channeled Isle1
(Where stands one solitary pile
Unslated by the blast)
The watchfire, like a sullen star
Twinkles to many a dozing tar
Rude cradled on the mast.
Even there-beneath that light-house towerIn the tumultuous evil hour
Ere peace with Sara came,
Time was, I should have thought it sweet
To count the echoings of my feet,
And watch the storm-vexed flame,
And there in black soul-jaundiced fit
A sad gloom-pampered man to sit,
And listen to the roar:
When mountain surges bellowing deep
With an uncouth monster leap
Plunged foaming on the shore.
Then by the lightning's blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shattered bark;
The Holmes, in the Bristol Channel.
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