Beholding me, with quick-averted glance
Pass on the other side. But still these hues
Remain unaltered, and these features wear
The look of Infancy and Innocence.
I search myself in vain, and find no trace
Of what I was: those lightly arching lines
Dark and o’erchanging now, and that sweet face
Settled in these strong lineaments! There were
Who formed high hopes and flattering ones of thee,
Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak
Each opening feeling. Should they not have known,
If the rich rainbow on a morning cloud
Reflects its radiant dyes, the husbandman
Beholds the ominous glory, and foresees
Impending storms! They augured happily
That thou didst love each wild and wondrous tale
Of fairy fiction, and thine infant tongue
Lisped with delight the godlike deeds of Greece
And rising Rome; therefore they deemed, forsooth,
That thou shouldst tread Preferment's pleasant
path.
Ill-judging ones ! they let thy little feet
Stray in the pleasant paths of Poesy ;
And, when thou shouldst have pressed amid the
crowd, There didst thou love to linger out the day, Loitering beneath the laurel's barren shade. SPIRIT OF SPENSER! was the wanderer wrong?
ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE OLD
SPANIEL.
AND they have drowned thee, then, at last, poor
Phillis ! The burden of old age was heavy on thee, And yet thou shouldst have lived! What though thine
eye Was dim, and watched no more with eager joy The wonted call that on thy dull sense sunk With fruitless repetition, the warm sun Might still have cheered thy slumbers ; thou didst
love To lick the hand that fed thee; and, though past Youth's active season, even life itself Was comfort. Poor old friend, how earnestly Would I have pleaded for thee! thou hadst been Still the companion of my boyish sports ; And, as I roamed o'er Avon's woody cliffs, From many a day-dream has thy short, quick bark Recalled my wandering soul. I have beguiled Often the melancholy hours at school, Soured by some little tyrant, with the thought Of distant home, and I remembered then Thy faithful fondness; for not mean the joy, Returning at the happy holidays, I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively Sometimes have I remarked thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude of life.
Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed for ever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity.
But fare thee well! Mine is no narrow creed;
And He who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless Man. There is another world
For all that live and move,
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
INFINITE GOODNESS to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee.
BRISTOL, 1796.
RECOLLECTIONS OF A DAY'S JOURNEY
IN SPAIN.
Not less delighted do I call to mind,
Land of Romance! thy wild and lovely scenes,
Than I beheld them first. Pleased I retrace
With Memory's eye the placid Minho's course,
And catch its winding waters gleaming bright
Amid the broken distance. I review
Leon's wide wastes, and heights precipitous,
Seen with a pleasure not unmixed with dread,
As the sagacious mules along the brink
Wound patiently and slow their way secure;
And rude Galicia's hovels, and huge rocks
And mountains, where, when all beside was dim,
Dark and broad-headed the tall pines erect
Rose on the farthest eminence distinct,
Cresting the evening sky.
Rain now falls thick,
And damp and heavy is the unwholesome air :
I by this friendly hearth remember Spain,
And tread in fancy once again the road,
Where twelve months since I held my way, and
thought Of England and of all my heart held dear, And wished this day were come.
The morning mist, Well I remember, hovered o'er the heath, When with the earliest dawn of day we left The solitary Venta.* Soon the sun Rose in his glory ; scattered by the breeze, The thin fog rolled away, and now emerged We saw where Oropesa's castled hill Towered dark, and dimly seen; and now we passed Torvalva's quiet huts, and on our way Paused frequently, looked back, and gazed around, Then journeyed on, yet turned and gazed again, So lovely was the scene. That ducal pile Of the Toledos now with all its towers Shone in the sunlight. Half way up the hill,
Embowered in olives, like the abode of Peace,
Lay Lagartina ; and the cool, fresh gale,
Bending the young corn on the gradual slope,
Played o'er its varying verdure. I beheld
A convent near, and could almost have thought
The dwellers there must needs be holy men;
For, as they looked around them, all they saw
Was good.
But, when the purple eve came on,
How did the lovely landscape fill my heart !
Trees, scattered among peering rocks, adorned
The near ascent; the vale was overspread
With ilex in its wintry foliage gay,
Old cork-trees through their soft and swelling bark
Bursting, and glaucous olives, underneath
Whose fertilizing influence the green herb
Grows greener, and, with heavier ears enriched,
The healthful harvest bends. Pellucid streams
Through many a vocal channel from the hills
Wound through the valley their melodious way
And, o'er the intermediate woods descried,
Naval-Moral's church-tower announced to us
Our resting-place that night, a welcome mark;
Though willingly we loitered to behold
In long expanse Plasencia's fertile plain,
And the high mountain-range which bounded it,
Now losing fast the roseate hue that eve
Shed o'er its summit and its snowy breast;
For eve was closing now.
Faint and more faint The murmurs of the goatherd's scattered flock
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