So shall the fairy-train by glow-worm light
With rainbow tints thy folding pennons fret,
Thy scaly breast in deeper azure dight,
Thy burnish'd armour speck with glossier jet.
With viewless fingers weave thy wintry tent,
And line with gossamer thy pendant cell,
Safe in the rift of some lone ruin pent
Where ivy shelters from the storm-wind fell.
Blest if like thee I cropt with heedless spoil
The gifts of youth and pleasure in their bloom,
Doom'd for no coming winter's want to toil,
Fit for the spring that waits beyond the tomb.
RECOMMENDED TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE SLAVE TRADE.
RARE music! I would rather hear cat-courtship
Under my bed-room window in the night,
Than this scraped cat-gut's screak. Rare dancing too!
Alas, poor bruin! how he foots the pole
And waddles round it with unwieldy steps
Swaying from side to side !—The dancing master
Hath had as profitless a pupil in thee
As when he would have tortured my poor toes
To minuet grace, and made them move like clock-work
In musical obedience. Bruin! bruin!
Thou art but a clumsy biped !—and the mob
With noisy merriment mock his heavy pace,
And laugh to see him led by the nose,-themselves
Led by the nose, embruted, and in the eye
Of reason from their nature's purposes
Now could I sonnetize thy piteous plight,
And prove how much my sympathetic heart
Even for the miseries of a beast can feel,
In fourteen lines of sensibility.
But we are told all things were made for man,
And I'll be sworn there's not a fellow here
Who would not swear 'twere hanging blasphemy
To doubt that truth. Therefore as thou wert born,
Bruin! for man, and man makes nothing of thee
In any other way, most logically
It follows, that thou must be born to dance,
That that great snout of thine was form'd on purpose
To hold a ring, and that thy fat was given thee
Only to make pomatum !
To demur
Were heresy. And politicians say,
(Wise men who in the scale of reason give
No foolish feelings weight,) that thou art here
Far happier than thy brother bears who roam
O'er trackless snows for food; that being born
Inferior to thy leader, unto him
Rightly belongs dominion; that the compact
Was made between ye, when thy clumsy feet
First fell into the snare, and he gave up
His right to kill, conditioning thy life
Should thenceforth be his property :-besides,
"Tis wholesome for thy morals to be brought
From savage climes into a civilized state,
Into the decencies of Christendom.-
Bear! bear! it passes in the parliament
For excellent logic this! what if we say
How barbarously man abuses power,
Talk of thy baiting, it will be replied,
Thy welfare is thy owner's interest,
But wert thou baited it would injure thee,
Therefore thou art not baited. For seven years,
Hear it, O heaven, and give ear, O earth!
For seven long years this precious syllogism
Has baffled justice and humanity!
HYMN TO THE PENATES.
YET one song more! one high and solemn strain
Ere, Phoebus! on thy temple's ruined wall
I hang the silent harp: there may its strings,
When the rude tempest shakes the aged pile,
Make melancholy music. One song more!
Penates! hear me! for to you I hymn
The votive lay. Whether, as sages deem,
Ye dwell in the inmost heaven, the counsellors
Of Jove; or, if, supreme of deities,
All things are yours, and in your holy train
Jove proudly ranks, and Juno, white-armed queen,
And wisest of immortals, the dread maid,
Athenian Pallas. Venerable powers!
Hearken your hymn of praise! Though from your rites Estranged, and exiled from your altars long,
I have not ceased to love you, household gods!
In many a long and melancholy hour
Of solitude and sorrow, hath my heart
With earnest longings prayed to rest at length
Beside your hallowed hearth...for peace is there!
Yes, I have loved you long. I call on you
Yourselves to witness with what holy joy,
Shunning the polish'd mob of human kind,
I have retired to watch your lonely fires,
And commune with myself. Delightful hours,
That gave mysterious pleasure, made me know
All the recesses of my wayward heart,
Taught me to cherish with devoutest care
Its strange unworldly feelings, taught me too
The best of lessons-to respect myself.
Nor have I ever ceased to reverence you,
Domestic deities! from the first dawn
Of reason, through the adventurous paths of youth,
Even to this better day, when on mine ear
The uproar of contending nations sounds
But like the passing wind, and wakes no pulse
To tumult. When a child-(and still I love
To dwell with fondness on my childish years),
When first a little one, I left my home,
I can remember the first grief I felt,
And the first painful smile that clothed my front
With feelings not its own: sadly at night
I sat me down beside a stranger's hearth;
And when the lingering hour of rest was come,
First wet with tears my pillow. As I grew
In years and knowledge, and the course of time
Developed the young feelings of my heart,
When most I loved in solitude to rove
Amid the woodland gloom; or where the rocks
Darkened old Avon's stream, in the ivied cave
Recluse, to sit and brood the future song,-
Yet not the less, Penates, loved I then
Your altars, not the less at evening hour
Delighted by the well-trimmed fire to sit,
Absorbed in many a dear deceitful dream
Of visionary joys: deceitful dreams—
And yet not vain-for painting purest joys,
They formed to fancy's mould her votary's heart.
By Cherwell's sedgy side, and in the meads
Where Isis in her calm clear stream reflects
The willow's bending boughs, at early dawn,
In the noontide hour, and when the night-mist rose,
I have remembered you: and when the noise
Of lewd intemperance on my lonely ear
Burst with loud tumult, as recluse I sat,
Pondering on loftiest themes of man redeemed
From servitude, and vice, and wretchedness,
I blest you, household gods! because I loved
Your peaceful altars and serener rites.
Nor did I cease to reverence you, when driven
Amid the jarring crowd, an unfit man
To mingle with the world; still, still my heart
Sighed for your sanctuary, and inly pined;
And loathing human converse, I have strayed
Where o'er the sea-beach chilly howled the blast,
And gazed upon the world of waves, and wished
That I were far beyond the Atlantic deep,
In woodland haunts, a sojourner with peace.
Not idly fabled they the bards inspired,
Who peopled earth with deities. They trod
The wood with reverence where the Dryads dwelt;
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