The Spirit of Poesy [pp. 278-279]

plicit faith to any mortal. He was too comprehensive to please a faction; and the more general his subject and the less connected with temporary objects, the more triumphant his discussion
of it. There was, therefore, no little truth in the
famous line in which Goldsmith summed up the
career of his illustrious friend:-" he gave up to
party what was meant for mankind;" for the
reader of the present day, to whom many of the
questions to which he was devoted are comparatively indifferent, cannot but lament that historical, ethical or philosophical themes of vast and
lasting interest, had not exclusivelyemployed his
pen. The essay on the "Sublime and Beautiful," and the work on the French Revolution by
their immediate reference to natural and social
truths, elicited his finest powers; and eloquently
suggest how admirably such discussions were
adapted both to his abilities and his taste. Here
and there, indeed, throughout his speeches, opportunities arise for expatiating on a universal
truth or an important principle, which he always
seizes with the avidity of a mind to which isolated details and transient causes are a hindrance,
and the perspective of great ideas a necessary
inspiration.
THE SPIRIT OF POESY.
As the dew-drop to the rose,
As the sun-beam on the sea,
As the stars unto the night,
Shining with a cheering light,
Art thou to me
Blessed Spirit of Poesy!
Full of light and full of gladness,
Full of sweet serenity,
Lighting up the mists of sadness
Till they melt themselves and flee
Blithesomely and airily; As the storm-clouds darkly rolled,
At the sunbeam's dawning ray,
Brightly smiling float away
In shapes and colors manifold.
What art thou? not a fleeting dream,
The eager phantasy of youth
That passeth with our morning's beam, Like dew-drops on a lily's breast
Trembling in their sweet unrest To me thy very being wears
The fadeless light of truth.
Yea, thou wert with me long ago
When singing mid the summer flowers, Or when beside the rippling stream
Musing in a voiceless dream
Through the golden sunset hours,
Restless thoughts would come to me
Whispering to my haunted mind
Of a form I might not see,
Of an unheard melody,
Strange, and dim, and undefined;
Till half in love and half in fear
I turned me to the quiet skies,
And deemed that in each beauteous star
Shining faint, and distant far,
1 met the glance of angel eyes;
And heard amid the wind's low sigh
A strange and fitful harmony.
And thou art with me still-thy smile
Is as a glory round my way,
Guiding through the lonely night,
Where without that cheering light
My wayward steps had gone astrayStooping to the lowly places,
Fainting by the common way.
Seeming deathless joys there be
That blossom like the autumn flowers,
Blossom for a few brief hours,
Soon to perish utterly;
Until we turn amid our tears
Yearning for the coming years
Though btirthened with a deeper careFor then we deem that highlier powers
And sterner wisdom shall be ours,
Making grief less hard to bear:
But thou-I have no fear for thee,
So beautiful, so bright thou art,
So fiull of sweet divinity,
That death in thee can have no partThyself art immortality.
At times thou comest unto me
In the semblance of a fairy,
Borne on pinions light and airy,
Smiling with a sunny glee.
And I follow as I may,
As with light Psychean grace
Through illimitable space
Thou tak'st thy pathless way.
Thou leadest me to lonely woods
And] to the sea-girt strand,
Where all throughout the moonless night
The plunging waters hoarse and white
Beat on the ribbed sand;
And the ships go sailing by,
Sailing on the shadowy sea
Like the pale stars in the sky,
Silently-silently,
To fairy founts, and haunted rills,
Welling forth forevermore
From the silent hearts of lonely hills,
'Mid fluted shell and sparry ore,
And many a lovely flower that dwells
Unseen, beside the fountain's brim,
Or in the rocky niches dim,
Like gentle nuns in their cloister-cells
Singing ever a holy hymn:Or where, in some deserted isle,
Standeth an old Cathedral pile,
'Neath whose matted ivy-screen,
Peer from corners dusk and dim,
Carved forms and faces grim,
With feathery fern and lichens hoar
And richest mosses mantled o'er, Richest moss of rarest green!
And then it is a joy to me
'Mid those ruins lone and hoary
-. AY,
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