Self-confiding wretch, I thought I could love thee as I ought, Win thee and deserve to feel All the Love thou canst reveal, And still I chuse thee, follow still.

1805. First published from an MS. in 1893.

16

'Twas not a mist, nor was it quite a cloud, But it pa.s.s'd smoothly on towards the sea-- Smoothly and lightly between Earth and Heaven: So, thin a cloud, It scarce bedimm'd the star that shone behind it: And Hesper now Paus'd on the welkin blue, and cloudless brink, A golden circlet! while the Star of Jove-- That other lovely star--high o'er my head Shone whitely in the centre of his Haze . . . one black-blue cloud Stretch'd, like the heaven, o'er all the cope of Heaven.

Dec. 1797. First published from an MS. in 1893.

17

[NOT A CRITIC--BUT A JUDGE]

Whom should I choose for my Judge? the earnest, impersonal reader, Who, in the work, forgets me and the world and himself!

You who have eyes to detect, and Gall to Chastise the imperfect, Have you the heart, too, that loves,--feels and rewards the Compleat?

1805. Now first published from an MS.

18

A sumptuous and magnificent Revenge.

March 1806. First published from an MS. in 1893.

19

[DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI]

Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree!

Flash, like a love-thought, thro' me, Death!

And take a life that wearies me.

Leghorn, June 7, 1806. First published in _Letters of S. T. C._, 1875, ii. 499, n. 1. Now collected for the first time. Adapted from Percy's version of 'Waly, Waly, Love be bonny', st. 3.

Marti'mas wind when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves aff the tree?

O gentle death, when wilt thou c.u.m?

For of my life I am wearie.

20

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank-- (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits His channel'd brow; low murmurs stir by fits And dark below the horrid Faquir sits-- An Horror from its broad Head's branching wreath Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath--

1806-7. Now first published from an MS.

21

Let Eagle bid the Tortoise sunward soar-- As vainly Strength speaks to a broken Mind.[1001:1]

1807. First published in _Thomas Poole and His Friends_, 1888, ii. 195.

22

The body, Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul, The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself.

Its own yet not itself.

Now first published from an MS.

23

Or Wren or Linnet, In Bush and Bushet; No tree, but in it A cooing Cushat.

May 1807. Now first published from an MS.

24

The reed roof'd village still bepatch'd with snow Smok'd in the sun-thaw.

1798. Now first published from an MS. Compare _Frost at Midnight_, ll.

69-70, _ante_, p. 242.

25

And in Life's noisiest hour There whispers still the ceaseless love of thee, The heart's self-solace } and soliloquy.

commune }

1807. Now first published from an MS.

26

You mould my Hopes you fashion me within: And to the leading love-throb in the heart, Through all my being, through my pulses beat; You lie in all my many thoughts like Light, Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve, On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake; And looking to the Heaven that bends above you, How oft! I bless the lot that made me love you.

1807. Now first published from an MS.

27

And my heart mantles in its own delight.