Verses on Various Occasions

class="i2">Her prayers were not in vain;

And that God’s grace-according love

Has come as gentle rain,

Which, falling in the vernal hour,

Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.
Dear Frank, we both are summon’d now

As champions of the Lord;⁠—

Enroll’d am I, and shortly thou

Must buckle on thy sword;

A high employ, nor lightly given,

To serve as messengers of heaven!
Deep in my heart that gift I hide;

I change it not away

For patriot-warrior’s hour of pride,

Or statesman’s tranquil sway;

For poet’s fire, or pleader’s skill

To pierce the soul and tame the will.
O! may we follow undismay’d

Where’er our God shall call!

And may His Spirit’s present aid

Uphold us lest we fall!

Till in the end of days we stand,

As victors in a deathless land.

 

V
Nature and Art
For an Album

“Man goeth forth” 4 with reckless trust

Upon his wealth of mind,

As if in self a thing of dust

Creative skill might find;

He schemes and toils; stone, wood and ore

Subject or weapon of His power.
By arch and spire, by tower-girt heights,

He would his boast fulfil;

By marble births, and mimic lights⁠—

Yet lacks one secret still;

Where is the master-hand shall give

To breathe, to move, to speak, to live?
O take away this shade of might,

The puny toil of man,

And let great Nature in my sight

Unroll her gorgeous plan;

I cannot bear those sullen walls,

Those eyeless towers, those tongueless halls.
Art’s labour’d toys of highest name

Are nerveless, cold, and dumb;

And man is fitted but to frame

A coffin or a tomb;

Well suits, when sense is pass’d away,

Such lifeless works the lifeless clay.
Here let me sit where wooded hills

Skirt yon far-reaching plain;

While cattle bank its winding rills,

And suns embrown its grain;

Such prospect is to me right dear,

For freedom, health, and joy are here.
There is a spirit ranging through

The earth, the stream, the air;

Ten thousand shapes, garbs ever new,

That busy One doth wear;

In colour, scent, and taste, and sound

The energy of Life is found.
The leaves are rustling in the breeze,

The bird renews her song;

From field to brook, o’er heath, o’er trees,

The sunbeam glides along;

The insect, happy in its hour,

Floats softly by, or sips the flower.
Now dewy rain descends, and now

Brisk showers the welkin shroud;

I care not, though with angry brow

Frowns the red thunder-cloud;

Let hail-storm pelt, and lightning harm,

’Tis Nature’s work, and has its charm.
Ah! lovely Nature! others dwell

Full favour’d in thy court;

I of thy smiles but hear them tell,

And feed on their report,

Catching what glimpse an Ulcombe yields

To strangers loitering in her fields.
I go where form has ne’er unbent

The sameness of its sway;

Where iron rule, stern precedent,

Mistreat the graceful day;

To pine as prisoner in his cell,

And yet be thought to love it well.
Yet so His high dispose has set,

Who binds on each his part;

Though absent, I may cherish yet

An Ulcombe of the heart;

Calm verdant hope divinely given,

And suns of peace, and scenes of heaven;⁠—
A soul prepared His will to meet,

Full fix’d His work to do;

Not laboured into sudden heat,

But inly born anew.⁠—

So living Nature, not dull Art,

Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.


 

VI
Introduction to an Album

I am a harp of many chords, and each

Strung by a separate hand;⁠—most musical

My notes, discoursing with the mental sense,

Not the outward ear. Try them, they will reply

With wisdom, fancy, graceful gaiety,

Or ready wit, or happy sentiment.

Come, add a string to my assort of sounds;

Widen the compass of my harmony;

And join thyself in fellowship of name

With those, whose courteous labour and fair gifts

Have given me voice, and made me what I am.


 

VII
Snapdragon
A Riddle for a Flower Book

I am rooted in the wall

Of buttress’d tower or ancient hall;

Prison’d in an art-wrought bed.

Cased in mortar, cramp’d with lead;

Of a living stock alone

Brother of the lifeless stone.
Else unprized, I have my worth

On the spot that gives me birth;

Nature’s vast and varied field

Braver flowers than me will yield,

Bold in form and rich in hue,

Children of a purer dew;

Smiling lips and winning eyes

Meet for earthly paradise.

Choice are such⁠—and yet thou knowest

Highest he whose lot is lowest.

They, proud hearts, a home reject

Framed by human architect;

Humble-I can bear to dwell

Near the pale recluse’s cell,

And I spread my crimson bloom,

Mingled with the cloister’s gloom.
Life’s gay gifts and honours rare,

Flowers of favour! win and wear!

Rose of beauty, be the queen

In pleasure’s ring and festive scene.

Ivy, climb and cluster, where

Lordly oaks vouchsafe a stair.

Vaunt, fair Lily, stately dame,

Pride of birth and pomp of name.

Miser Crocus, starved with cold,

Hide in earth thy timid gold.

Travell’d Dahlia, freely boast

Knowledge brought from foreign coast.

Pleasure, wealth, birth, knowledge, power,

These have each an emblem flower;

So for me alone remains

Lowly thought and cheerful pains.

Be it mine to set restraint

On roving wish and selfish plaint;

And for man’s drear haunts to leave

Dewy morn and balmy eve.

Be it mine the barren stone

To deck with green life not its own.

So to soften and to grace

Of human works the rugged face.

Mine, the Unseen to display

In the crowded public way,

Where life’s busy arts combine

To shut out the Hand Divine.
Ah! no more a scentless flower,

By approving Heaven’s high power,

Suddenly my leaves exhale

Fragrance of the Syrian gale.

Ah! ’tis timely comfort given

By the answering breath of Heaven!

May it be! then well might I

In College cloister live and die.


 


VIII
The Trance of Time


“Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari!”


In childhood, when with eager eyes

The season-measured year I view’d,

All, garb’d in fairy guise,

Pledged constancy of good.
Spring sang of heaven; the summer flowers

Bade me gaze on, and did not fade;

Even suns o’er autumn’s bowers

Heard my strong wish, and stay’d.
They came and went, the short-lived four;

Yet, as their varying dance they wove,

To my young heart each bore

Its own sure claim of love.
Far different now;⁠—the whirling year

Vainly my dizzy eyes pursue;