All lovely and all honourable things,
Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel

The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul
Unborrowed from my country. O divine
And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole
And most magnificent temple, in the which
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,
Loving the God that made me!

May my fears,

My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts
And menace of the vengeful enemy

Pass like the gust, that roared and died away
In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard
In this low dell, bowed not the delicate grass.

But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze:
The light has left the summit of the hill,
Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful,
Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,
Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot!
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy hill,
Homeward I wind my way; and lo! recalled
From bodings that have well nigh wearied me,

I find myself upon the brow, and pause
Startled! And after lonely sojourning
In such a quiet and surrounded nook,
This burst of prospect, here the shadowy Main,
Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty
Of that huge amphitheatre of rich
And elmy Fields, seems like society-
Conversing with the mind, and giving it
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought!
And now, beloved Stowey! I behold

Thy church-tower, and, methinks the four huge elms
Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;
And close behind them, hidden from my view,
Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe
And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light
And quickened footsteps thitherward I tend,
Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!
And grateful, that by nature's quietness
And solitary musings, all my heart

Is softened, and made worthy to indulge

Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.

Nether Stowey, April 28th, 1798.

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER.

A WAR ECLOGUE.

WITH AN APOLOGETIC PREFACE.*

The Scene a desolated Tract in la Vendée. FAMINE is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter FIRE and SLAUGHTER.

FAMINE.

SISTERS! sisters! who sent you here?

SLAUGHTER (to Fire).

I will whisper it in her ear.

FIRE.

No! no! no!

Spirits hear what spirits tell :

"Twill make an holiday in Hell.
No! no! no!

Myself, I named him once below,

And all the souls, that damned be,

Leaped up at once in anarchy,

Clapped their hands and danced for glee.

Printed at the end of this volume.

They no longer heeded me;

But laughed to hear Hell's burning rafters
Unwillingly re-echo laughters!

No! no! no!

Spirits hear what spirits tell:

"Twill make an holiday in Hell!

FAMINE.

Whisper it, sister! so and so!
In a dark hint, soft and slow.

SLAUGHTER.

Letters four do form his name

And who sent you?

Вотн.

The same! the same!

SLAUGHTER.

He came by stealth, and unlocked my den,

And I have drank the blood since then
Of thrice three hundred thousand men.

Who bade you do it?

Вотн.

SLAUGHTER.

The same! the same!

Letters four do form his name.

He let me loose, and cried Halloo!

To him alone the praise is due.

FAMINE.

Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled,
Their wives and their children faint for bread.
I stood in a swampy field of battle;
With bones and skulls I made a rattle,

To frighten the wolf and carrion-crow

And the homeless dog-but they would not go.
So off I flew: for how could I bear
To see them gorge their dainty fare?
I heard a groan and a peevish squall,
And through the chink of a cottage-wall-
Can
you guess what I saw there?

Вотн.

Whisper it, sister! in our ear.

FAMINE.

A baby beat its dying mother:

I had starved the one and was starving the other!

Who bade you do 't?

Вотн.

FAMINE.

The same! the same

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