HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

XLVII.

NIGHT.

THE crackling embers on the hearth are dead; The indoor note of industry is still;

The latch is fast; upon the window-sill

The small birds wait not for their daily bread; The voiceless flowers-how quietly they shed

Their nightly odours;-and the household rill
Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill

The vacant expectation, and the dread
Of listening night. And haply now She sleeps ;
For all the garrulous noises of the air

Are hush'd in peace; the soft dew silent weeps,
Like hopeless lovers for a maid so fair:-
Oh! that I were the happy dream that creeps
To her soft heart, to find my image there.

XLVIII.

NOT IN VAIN.

LET me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my being was an accident

Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain

Hath its own mission, and is duly sent

To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent

'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main. The very shadow of an insect's wing,

For which the violet cared not while it stayed

Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,

Proved that the sun was shining by its shade.

Then can a drop of the eternal spring,

Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

XLIX.

NOVEMBER.

THE mellow year is hastening to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast-
That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;

The patient beauty of the scentless rose,

Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,
Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows:
In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine,
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,
And the gaunt woods, in ragged scant array,

Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine.

L.

TO NATURE.

It may indeed be phantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie

Lessons of love and earnest piety.

So let it be; and if the wide world rings

In mock of this belief, to me it brings

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.

So will I build my altar in the fields, And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields

Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,

Thee only God! and Thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

LI.

FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

Он it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please,
Or let the easily persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low

And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

"Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or listening to the tide with closed sight,

Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed of inward light,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.