THE POET AND THE CAGED TURTLEDOVE.
As often as I murmur here
My half-formed melodies,
Straight from her osier mansion near,
The Turtledove replies:
Though silent as a leaf before,
The captive promptly coos;
Is it to teach her own soft lore,
Or second my weak Muse?
I rather think, the gentle Dove
Is murmuring a reproof,
Displeased that I from lays of love
Have dared to keep aloof;
That I, a Bard of hill and dale,
Have caroll'd, fancy free,
As if nor dove, nor nightingale,
Had heart or voice for me.
116 THE POET AND CAGED TURTLEDOVE.
If such thy meaning, O forbear,
Sweet Bird! to do me wrong;
Love, blessed Love, is every where
The spirit of my song:
'Mid grove, and by the calm fireside,
Love animates my lyre ;
That coo again!-'tis not to chide,
I feel, but to inspire.
CHATSWORTH! thy stately mansion, and the pride
Of thy domain, strange contrast do present
To house and home in many a craggy rent
Of the wild Peak; where new-born waters glide
Through fields whose thrifty Occupants abide
As in a dear and chosen banishment,
every semblance of entire content;
So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried!
Yet He whose heart in childhood gave her troth
To pastoral dales, thin set with modest farms,
May learn, if judgement strengthen with his growth,
That, not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms;
And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms
The extremes of favoured life, may honour both.
DESPONDING Father! mark this altered bough,
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call ;
In all men, sinful is it to be slow
To hope in Parents, sinful above all.
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED,
AT BISHOPSTONE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
WHILE poring Antiquarians search the ground.
Upturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,
Takes fire: The men that have been reappear;
Romans for travel girt, for business gowned,
And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned,
In festal glee: why not? For fresh and clear,
As if its hues were of the passing year,
Dawns this time-buried pavement.
Hoards may come forth of Trajans, Maximins,
Shrunk into coins with all their warlike toil:
Or a fierce impress issues with its foil
Of tenderness-the Wolf, whose suckling Twins
The unlettered Ploughboy pities when he wins
The casual treasure from the furrowed soil.
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