tangle the weed from the fear of snapping the flower. A third and heavier accusation has been brought against me, that of obscurity; but not, I think, with equal justice. An author is obscure, when his conceptions are dim and imperfect, and his language incorrect, or inappropriate, or involved. A poem that abounds in allusions, like the Bard of Gray, or one that impersonates high and abstract truths, like Collins's Ode on the poetical character, claims not to be popular—but should be acquitted of obscurity. The deficiency is in the reader. But this is a charge which every poet, whose imagination is warm and rapid, must expect from his contemporaries. Milton did not escape it; and it was adduced with virulence against Gray and Collins. We now hear no more of it: not that their poems are better understood at present, than they were at their first publication; but their fame is established; and a critic would accuse himself of frigidity or inattention, who should profess not to understand them. But a living writer is yet sub judice; and if we cannot follow his conceptions or enter into his feelings, it is more consoling to our pride to consider him as lost beneath, than as soaring above us. If any man expect from my poems the same easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for him I have not written. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adfero. I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward:” it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments ; it has endeared solitude ; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me. 66 S. T. C, CONTENTS. Lines written at the King's Arms, Ross.. Destruction of the Bastile........ Lines to a beautiful Spring in a Village On a Friend who died of a Frenzy Fever induced To a Young Lady, with a Poem on the French Sonnet I. “My Heart has thanked thee, Bowles” 62 63 III. “ Though roused by that dark vizir Riot rude 64 IV. “ When British Freedom from a happier land” 64 · V.“ It was some Spirit, Sheridan !”. 65 VI.“ O what a loud and fearful shriek” 66 VII.“ As when far off”.... 66 VIII. “ Thou gentle look” 67 IX. “ Pale Roamer through the Night!” 68 X.“ Sweet Mercy !" 68 XI. Thou Bleedest, my Poor Heart”... 69 XII. To the Author of the Robbers 70 Lines, composed. while climbing Brockley Coomb 70 Lines in the Manner of Spenser 71 Imitated from Ossian....... 73 The Complaint of Ninathoma..... 74 Imitated from the Welsh 75 To an Infant... 75 Lines in Answer to a Letter from Bristol 76 To a Friend in Answer to a melancholy Letter... 80 Religious Musings 82 The Destiny of Nations, a Vision..................... 98 CC Ode to the Departing Year....... The Ballad of the Dark Ladie. A Fragment.... 150 Lewti, or the Circassian Love Chaunt. The Picture, or the Lover's Resolution The Night Scene, a Dramatic Fragment To an Unfortunate Woman......... To an Unfortunate Woman at the Theatre Lines composed in a Concert Room To a Lady, with Falconer's Shipwreck ..... 172 To a Young Lady on her recovery from a Fever 173 Something Childish, but very Natural Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni 183 Lines written in the Album at Elbingerode in the On observing a Blossom on the First of Feb- Reflections on having left a place of Retirement 193 Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison...... |