And when the evening light decays,

And all is calm around,

There is sweet music to his ear

In the distant sheep-bell's sound.

But, oh! of all delightful sounds
Of evening or of morn,

The sweetest is the voice of Love,
That welcomes his return.

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS, AND HOW HE

66

GAINED THEM.

You are old, Father William," the young man

cried;

"The few locks which are left you are gray;

You are hale, Father William,

a hearty old man:

Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remembered that youth would fly fast, And abused not my health and my vigor at first, That I never might need them at last."

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,

"And pleasures with youth pass away;

And yet you lament not the days that are gone: Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"In the days of my youth," Father William replied, "I remembered that youth could not last; I thought of the future, whatever I did,

That I never might grieve for the past."

"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,

"And life must be hastening away;

You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death : Now tell me the reason, I pray."

"I am cheerful, young man," Father William replied;

"Let the cause thy attention engage:

In the days of my youth, I remembered my God; And he hath not forgotten my age."

WESTBURY, 1799.

TRANSLATION OF A GREEK ODE ON
ASTRONOMY,

WRITTEN BY S. T. COLERIDGE, FOR THE PRIZE AT CAM-
BRIDGE, 1793.

1.

HAIL, venerable NIGHT!

O first-created, hail!

Thou who art doomed in thy dark breast to veil

The dying beam of light,

The eldest and the latest thou,

Hail, venerable NIGHT!

Around thine ebon brow

Glittering plays, with lightning rays,
A wreath of flowers of fire.

The varying clouds with many a hue attire
Thy many-tinted veil.

Holy are the blue graces of thy zone;
But who is he whose tongue can tell
The dewy lustres which thine eyes adorn?
Lovely to some the blushes of the Morn;
To some the glories of the Day,

When, blazing with meridian ray,

The gorgeous Sun ascends his highest throne: But I, with solemn and severe delight,

Still watch thy constant car, immortal NIGHT!

2.

For then to the celestial palaces

Urania leads, - Urania, she

The goddess who alone

Stands by the blazing throne,

Effulgent with the light of Deity;
Whom Wisdom, the Creatrix, by her side
Placed on the heights of yonder sky,
And, smiling with ambrosial love, unlocked
The depths of Nature to her piercing eye.
Angelic myriads struck their harps around;"
And, with triumphant song,

The host of Stars, a beauteous throng,

Around the ever-living Mind
In jubilee their mystic dance begun;
When at thy leaping forth, O Sun!
The Morning started in affright,
Astonished at thy birth, her Child of Light!

3.

Hail, O Urania, hail!

Queen of the Muses, Mistress of the Song!
For thou didst deign to leave the heavenly throng
As earthward thou thy steps wert bending,
A ray went forth, and harbingered thy way;
All Ether laughed with thy descending.
Thou hadst wreathed thy hair with roses,
The flower that in the immortal bower

Its deathless bloom discloses.

Before thine awful mien, compelled to shrink,
Fled Ignorance, abashed, with all her brood,
Dragons, and Hags of baleful breath;

Fierce Dreams, that wont to drink
The Sepulchre's black blood;
Or, on the wings of storms

Riding in fury-forms,

Shriek to the mariner the shriek of Death.

4.

I boast, O Goddess! to thy name
That I have raised the pile of fame;
Therefore to me be given

To roam the starry path of heaven,

To charioteer with wings on high, And to rein in the Tempests of the sky.

5.

Chariots of happy Gods! Fountains of Light!
Ye Angel-Temples bright!

May I unblamed your flamy thresholds tread?
I leave Earth's lowly scene;

I leave the Moon serene,
The lovely Queen of Night;

I leave the wide domains

Beyond where Mars his fiercer light can fling,
And Jupiter's vast plains

(The many-belted king);

Even to the solitude where Saturn reigns,
Like some stern tyrant to just exile driven.
Dim-seen, the sullen power appears
In that cold solitude of heaven,

And slow he drags along

The mighty circle of long-lingering years.

6.

Nor shalt thou escape my sight,

Who at the threshold of the sun-trod domes

Art trembling, youngest Daughter of the Night! And you, ye fiery-tressèd strangers! you,

Comets who wander wide,

Will I along your pathless way pursue,
Whence bending I may view

The Worlds whom elder Suns have vivified.