ON RECEIVING A CROWN OF IVY FROM THE SAME

[First published 1818; not reprinted.]

A CROWN of ivy! I submit my head

To the young hand that gives it,-young, 'tis true,
But with a right, for 'tis a poet's too.

How pleasant the leaves feel! and how they spread
With their broad angles, like a nodding shed

Over both eyes! and how complete and new,
As on my hand I lean, to feel them strew
My sense with freshness,-Fancy's rustling bed!

Tress-tossing girls, with smell of flowers and grapes
Come dancing by, and downward piping cheeks,
And up-thrown cymbals, and Silenus old
Lumpishly borne, and many trampling shapes,-
And lastly, with his bright eyes on her bent,
Bacchus.-whose bride has of his hand fast hold.

ON THE SAME

[First published 1818; not reprinted.]

It is a lofty feeling, yet a kind,

Thus to be topped with leaves;—to have a sense
Of honour-shaded thought,—an influence

As from great Nature's fingers, and be twined
With her old, sacred, verdurous ivy-bind,

As though she hallowed with that sylvan fence
A head that bows to her benevolence,

Midst pomp of fancied trumpets in the wind.

'Tis what's within us crowned. And kind and great
Are all the conquering wishes it inspires,—

Love of things lasting, love of the tall woods,

Love of love's self, and ardour for a state

Of natural good befitting such desires,

Towns without gain, and haunted solitudes.

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TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON

[First published in The Examiner, October 20, 1816; reprinted in 1818.]

HAYDON, whom now the conquered toil confesses
Painter indeed, gifted, laborious, true,

Fit to be numbered in succession due
With Michael, whose idea austerely presses,
And sweet-souled Raphael with his amorous tresses;
Well hast thou urged thy radiant passage through
A host of clouds; and he who with thee grew,
The bard and friend, congratulates and blesses.

'Tis glorious thus to have one's own proud will,
And see the crown acknowledged that we earn ;
But nobler yet, and nearer to the skies,

To feel one's-self, in hours serene and still,
One of the spirits chosen by heaven to turn
The sunny side of things to human eyes.

September 3, 1816.

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ΤΟ

Title. Written in a blank leaf of his Copy of Vasari's Lives of the Painters. 1816. II yet] still 1816.

TO HORATIO SMITH

[First published in The Examiner, January 4, 1818; reprinted in Foliage, 1818.]

1817.

WITH what a fine unyielding wish to bless,
Does Nature, Horace, manage to oppose

The town's encroachments! Vulgar he, who goes
By suburb gardens which she deigns to dress,
And does not recognize her green caress
Reaching back to us in those genial shows
Of box-encircled flowers and poplar rows,

Or other nests for evening weariness.

Then come the squares, with noon-day nymphs about;
Then vines, and ivy; tree tops that look out

Over back walls; green in the windows too;-
And even where gain huddles its noisiest rout,
The smile of her sweet wisdom will break through,
For there, dear Horace, has she planted you.

II green] flowers Examiner.

12 gain... its] Gain . . . his Examiner.

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TO JOHN HAMILTON REYNOLDS

ON HIS LINES UPON THE STORY OF RIMINI

[First published 1818; not reprinted.]

REYNOLDS, whose Muse, from out thy gentle embraces,
Holding a little crisp and dewy flower,
Came to me in my close-entwined bower,
Where many fine-eyed Friendships and glad Graces,
Parting the boughs, have looked in with like faces,
And thanked the song which had sufficient power
With Phoebus to bring back a warmer hour,
And turn his southern eye to our green places:

Not for this only, but that thou dost long
For all men's welfare, may there be a throng
Of kind regards, wherever thou appearest ;
And in thy home, firm-handed Health, a song
Girt with rich-hearted friends, and she the nearest
To whom the warble of thy lip is dearest.

ON HIS GIVING ME A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR

[First published 1818; not reprinted.]

I FELT my spirit leap, and look at thee

Through my changed colour with glad grateful stare,
When after showing us this glorious hair,

Thou didst turn short, and bending pleasantly
With gracious hand gav'st the great lock to me.
An honouring gift indeed! which I will wear
About me, while I breathe this strenuous air,
That nursed his Apollonian tresses free.

I'll wear it, not as my inherited due,

(For there is one, whom had he kept his art
For Freedom still, nor left her for the crew
Of lucky slaves in his misgiving heart,

I would have begged thy leave to give it to)
Yet not without some claims, though far apart.

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ΤΟ

Title. To

TO THE SAME

ON THE SAME SUBJECT

[First published 1818; reprinted 1832-60.]
It lies before me there, and my own breath

Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside
The living head I stood in honoured pride,
Talking of lovely things that conquer death.
Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath

Ran his fine fingers, when he leant, blank-eyed,
And saw, in fancy, Adam and his bride

With their heaped locks, or his own Delphic wreath.

There seems a love in hair, though it be dead.
It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread

Of our frail plant, -a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk;—as if it said,
Patience and Gentleness is Power. In me
Behold affectionate eternity.

Title. On a lock of Milton's hair 1832-60.

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TO THE SAME

ON THE SAME OCCASION

[First published 1818; reprinted 1832.]

A LIBERAL taste, and a wise gentleness
Have ever been the true physician's dower,
As still is visible in the placid power
Of those old Grecian busts; and helps to bless
The balmy name of Haller, and the address

Of cordial Garth; and him in Cowley's bower,
Harvey; and Milton's own exotic flower,

Young Deodati, plucked from his caress.

To add to these an ear for the sweet hold

Of music, and an eye, aye and a hand

For forms which the smooth Graces tend and follow,
Shows thee indeed true offspring of the bland

And vital god, whom she of happy mould,

The Larissaean beauty, bore Apollo.

น. 5, 6 :

M.D., who gave the author a lock of Milton's hair. 1832.

Cullen's dear memory, with his heart's address,
And flowing Garth 1832.

ΤΟ

THE NILE

[First published 1818; reprinted 1832, 1857, 1860.]

Ir flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,

Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands

That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,

The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,

As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,

And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along

Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.
Title. A Thought of the Nile 1832.

TO THOMAS STOTHARD, R.A.

[First published 1818; reprinted 1832, 1860.]

THY fancy lives in a delightful sphere,
Stothard,-fit haunt for spirit so benign;
For never since those southern masters fine,
Whose pictured shapes like their own souls appear
Reflected many a way in waters clear,

Has the true woman's gentle mien divine
Looked so, as in those breathing heads of thine,
With parted locks, and simple cheek sincere.
Therefore, against our climate's chilly hold,

Thou hast a nest in sunny glades and bowers; And there, about thee, never growing old,

Are these fair things, clear as the lily flowers, Such as great Petrarch loved,-only less cold, More truly virtuous, and of gladdening powers.

ll. 4, 5:

In whose blest shapes, unforc'd, unfaultering, clear
Manifest truth and sweet-eyed soul appear. 1832.

ΤΟ

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