THE FIRST MAN.

HAT was't awakened first the untried ear
Of that sole man who was all human kind?
Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind,
Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere?
The four mellifluous streams which flowed so near,
Their lulling murmurs all in one combined?
The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind
Bursting the brake-in wonder, not in fear,
Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground
Send forth mysterious melody to greet
The gracious pressure of immaculate feet?
Did viewless seraphs rustle all around,

Making sweet music out of air as sweet?
Or his own voice awake him with its sound?

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

ONG time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
For yet I lived like one not born to die :

A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,

No hope I needed, and I knew no fears,

But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep; and waking
I waked to sleep no more; at once o'ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears

Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran-

A rathe December blights my lagging May ;
And still I am a child, though I be old :
Time is my debtor for my years untold.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

HOMER.

AR from the sight of earth, yet bright and plain
As the clear noon-day sun, an 'orb of song'
Lovely and bright is seen amid the throng

Of lesser stars, that rise, and wax, and wane,
The transient rulers of the fickle main;

One constant light gleams thro' the dark and long
And narrow aisle of memory. How strong,

How fortified with all the numerous train

Of truths wert thou, great poet of mankind,
Who told'st in verse as mighty as the sea,
And various as the voices of the wind,

The strength of passion rising in the glee
Of battle. Fear was glorified by thee,
And Death is lovely in thy tale enshrined.

HARTLEY Coleridge.

HITHER is gone the wisdom and the power
That ancient sages scattered with the notes
Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats
In the void air; even at this breathing hour,
In every cell and every blooming bower

The sweetness of old lays is hovering still;
But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,
The rugged root that bare the winsome flower
. Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays
That sweetly nestle in the foxglove bells,

Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells
Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays,
Then might our pretty modern Philomels
Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.

HARTLEY Coleridge.

TO A FRIEND.

E parted on the mountains, as two streams
From one clear spring pursue their several

ways;

And thy fleet course hath been thro' many a maze
In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams
To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams
Brightened the tresses that old poets praise;
Where Petrarch's patient love and artful lays,
And Ariosto's song of many themes,
Moved the soft air. But I, a lazy brook,

As close pent up within my native dell,

Have crept along from nook to shady nook,

Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell. Yet now we meet, that parted were so wide, O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side.

HARTLEY Coleridge.