Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And drank the milk of Paradise. THE PAINS OF SLEEP. ERE on my bed my limbs I lay, In humble Trust mine eye-lids close, No wish conceived, no thought expressed! Only a sense of supplication. A sense o'er all my soul imprest But yester-night I prayed aloud Up-starting from the fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me : A lurid light, a trampling throng, And whom I scorned, those only strong! For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe, So two nights passed: the night's dismay The third night, when my own loud scream And having thus by tears subdued Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin: For aye entempesting anew The unfathomable hell within The horror of their deeds to view, And whom I love, I love indeed. APOLOGETIC PREFACE ΤΟ FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER." (See page 154.) Ar the house of a gentleman, who by the principles and corresponding virtues of a sincere Christian consecrates a cultivated genius and the favourable accidents of birth, opulence, and splendid connexions, it was my good fortune to meet, in a dinner-party, with more men of celebrity in science or polite literature, than are commonly found collected round the same table. In the course of conversation, one of the party reminded an illustrious Poet, then present, of some verses which he had recited that morning, and which had appeared in a newspaper under the name of a War-Eclogue, in which Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, were introduced as the speakers. The gentleman so addressed replied, that he was rather surprised that none of us should have noticed or heard of the poem, as it had been, at the time, a good deal talked of in Scotland. It may be easily supposed, that my feelings were at this moment not of the most comfortable kind. Of all present, one only knew, or suspected me to be the author; a man who would have established himself in the first rank of England's living Poets, if the Genius of our country had not decreed that he should rather be the first in the first rank of its Philosophers and scientific Benefactors. It appeared the general wish to hear the lines. As my friend chose to remain silent, I chose to follow his example, |