THE OLD MAN'S COMFORTS,

AND HOW HE GAINED THEM.

You are old, Father William the young man cried,
The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.

Ι

In the days of my youth, Father William replied
I remember'd that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigour 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 remember'd 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 remember'd 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 CAMBRIDGE, 1793.

1.

HAIL, venerable NIGHT!
O first-created, hail!

Thou who art doom'd 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, unlock'd
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,
Astonish'd 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 harbinger'd thy way : All Ether laugh'd with thy descending.

Thou hadst wreath'd thy hair with roses,
The flower that in the immortal bower
Its deathless bloom discloses.

Before thine awful mien, compelled to shrink,
Fled Ignorance abash'd 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,