heaving heart shall cradle me to rest! Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and medicine me with sighs!
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o’er my pallid cheek. 10
Chill’d by the night, the drooping Rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely Day;
Young Day returning at her promis’d hour
Weeps o’er the sorrows of her favourite Flower;
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs, 15
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th’ expanding flow’ret feels:
His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals!
LINES: 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
Receiv’d from absent friend by way of Letter.
For what so sweet can labour’d 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, 5
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 10
Sit lonely in that cheerless room —
Ah me! You are in tears!
Belovéd Woman! did you fly
Chill’d Friendship’s dark disliking eye,
Or Mirth’s untimely din? 15
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,
When aches the void within.
But why with sable wand unblessed
Should Fancy rouse within my breast 20
Dim-visag’d shapes of Dread?
Untenanting its beauteous clay
My Sara’s soul has wing’d its way,
And hovers round my head!
I felt it prompt the tender Dream, 25
When slowly sank the day’s last gleam;
You rous’d each gentler sense,
As sighing o’er the Blossom’s bloom
Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume
With viewless influence. 30
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 35
With mimic thunders deep.
Dark reddening from the channell’d Isle
(Where stands one solitary pile
Unslated by the blast)
The Watchfire, like a sullen star 40
Twinkles to many a dozing Tar
Rude cradled on the mast.
Even there — beneath that lighthouse tower —
In the tumultuous evil hour
Ere Peace with Sara came, 45
Time was, I should have thought it sweet
To count the echoings of my feet,
And watch the storm-vex’d flame.
And there in black soul-jaundic’d fit
A sad gloom-pamper’d Man to sit, 50
And listen to the roar:
When mountain surges bellowing deep
With an uncouth monster-leap
Plung’d foaming on the shore.
Then by the lightning’s blaze to mark 55
Some toiling tempest-shatter’d bark;
Her vain distress-guns hear;
And when a second sheet of light
Flash’d o’er the blackness of the night —
To see no vessel there! 60
But Fancy now more gaily sings;
Or if awhile she droop her wings,
As skylarks ‘mid the corn,
On summer fields she grounds her breast:
The oblivious poppy o’er her nest 65
Nods, till returning morn.
O mark those smiling tears, that swell
The open’d rose! From heaven they fell,
And with the sunbeam blend.
Blest visitations from above, 70
Such are the tender woes of Love
Fostering the heart they bend!
When stormy Midnight howling round
Beats on our roof with clattering sound,
To me your arms you’ll stretch: 75
Great God! you’ll say — To us so kind,
O
