By turns from each to each I roved,
And each by turns again I loved;
For ages ne'er could one have proved
More lovely than the rest.
"O blessed band, of birth divine,
What mortal task is like to mine!"-
And further had I spoke,
When, lo! there pour'd a flood of light
So fiercely on my aching sight,
I fell beneath the vision bright,
And with the pain awoke.
AMERICA TO GREAT BRITAIN.*
ALL hail! thou noble land,
Our fathers' native soil!
O stretch thy mighty hand,
Gigantic grown by toil,
O'er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore;
For thou, with magic might,
Canst reach to where the light
Of Phœbus travels bright
The world o'er!
The genius of our clime,
From his pine-embattled steep,
Shall hail the great sublime;
While the Tritons of the deep
With their conchs the kindred league shall proclaim
Then let the world combine
O'er the main our naval line,
Like the milky-way, shall shine
Bright in fame!
Though ages long have pass'd
Since our fathers left their home,
Their pilot in the blast,
O'er untravell'd seas to roam,—
Yet lives the blood of England in our veins!
And shall we not proclaim
That blood of honest fame,
Which no tyranny can tame
By its chains?
While the language free and bold
Which the bard of Avon sung,
In which our MILTON told
How the vault of heaven rung,
When Satan, blasted, fell with his host;
While this, with reverence meet,
Ten thousand echoes greet,
From rock to rock repeat
Round our coast;
While the manners, while the arts,
That mould a nation's soul,
Still cling around our hearts,
Between let ocean roll,
Our joint communion breaking with the sun: Yet, still, from either beach,
The voice of blood shall reach,
More audible than speech,
"We are one!"
*This poem was first published in COLERIDGE's "Sybilline Leaves," in 1810.
FIVE weary months sweet Inez number'd
From that unfading bitter day
When last she heard the trumpet bray
That call'd her Isidor away-
That never to her heart has slumber'd;
She hears it now, and sees, far bending
Along the mountain's misty side,
His plumed troop, that, waving wide,
Seems like a rippling, feathery tide,
Now bright, now with the dim shore blending;
She hears the cannon's deadly rattle-
And fancy hurries on to strife,
And hears the drum and screaming fife
Mix with the last sad cry of life.
O, should he-should he fall in battle!
Yet still his name would live in story,
And every gallant bard in Spain
Would fight his battles o'er again.
And would not she for such a strain
Resign him to his country's glory?
Thus Inez thought, and pluck'd the flower
That grew upon the very bank
Where first her ear bewilder'd drank
The plighted vow-where last she sank
In that too bitter parting hour.
But now the sun is westward sinking;
And soon amid the purple haze,
That showers from his slanting rays,
A thousand loves there meet her gaze,
To change her high heroic thinking.
Then hope, with all its crowd of fancies,
Before her flits and fills the air;
And, deck'd in victory's glorious gear,
In vision Isidor is there.
Then how her heart mid sadness dances!
Yet little thought she, thus forestalling
The coming joy, that in that hour
The future, like the colour'd shower
That seems to arch the ocean o'er,
Was in the living present falling.
The foe is slain. His sable charger
All fleck'd with foam comes bounding on,
The wild Morena rings anon,
And on its brow the gallant Don,
And gallant steed grow larger, larger;
And now he nears the mountain-hollow;
The flowery bank and little lake
Now on his startled vision break-
And Inez there.-He's not awake-
Ah, what a day this dream will follow!
But no he surely is not dreaming.
Another minute makes it clear.
A scream, a rush, a burning tear
From Inez' cheek, dispel the fear
That bliss like his is only seeming.