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A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously;

heart

Unknowing of its cause of agony.

his

But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him! to her he was
Even as a brother, but no more: 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Himself like what he had been: on the sea

And on the shore he was a wanderer!
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me; but he was
A part of all, and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them: by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd around,
when she And they were canopied by the blue sky
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better: in her home,

Of a time-honour'd race. It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not, and why?

Time taught him a deep answer

loved

Another! even now she loved another;
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

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A thousand leagues from his, her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy,
Daughters and sons of beauty,
but, behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be? she had all she
loved;

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. There was an ancient mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparison'd: Within an antique oratory stood The boy of whom I spake; he was alone, And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon He sate him down; and seized a pen, and traced Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as't were With a convulsion, then arose again, And he who had so loved her was not there And, with his teeth and quivering hands, did To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. What could her grief be? Ishe had loved him not, Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved; Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd Upon her mind, - a spectre of the past.

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tear

What he had written; but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused
The lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then,
and yet
She knew she was by him beloved! she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his
heart

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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The wanderer was return'd. I saw him stand
Before an altar, with a gentle bride:
Her face was fair,

but was not that which
made

The starlight of his boyhood! as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then,
As in that hour, a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came;
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own
words;

-

And all things reel'd around him! he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have
been;

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the And the quick spirit of the universe

shade,

All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny came back,
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The lady of his love, oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul: her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look ́
Which is not of the earth: she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight — familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy! but the wise
Have a far deeper madness; and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift:
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The wanderer was alone as heretofore;
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him! he was a mark
For blight and desolation, - compass'd round
With hatred and contention: pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment: he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains! with the

stars

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Southey.

Robert Southey ward am 12. August 1774 in Bristol geboren, studirte zu Oxford Theologie und fasste darauf den Plan mit Coleridge und Lorell nach Amerika zu gehn und dort eine Pantisowacy zu gründen. Es wurde jedoch Nichts daraus und Southey machte nun eine Reise nach Lissabon, von der er nach sechs Monaten zurückkehrte, sich vermählte und fortan literarischen Beschäftigungen lebte. Während der Jahre 1800 und 1801 besuchte er nochmals Spanien und Portugal und wurde darauf bei seiner Zurückkunft Secretair des damaligen Kanzlers der Schatz

kammer von Irland, Carry, legte aber 1803 dieses Amt nieder und zog sich nach Keswick in Cumberland zurück. 1813 erhielt er die Bestallung eines Hofpoeten, ohne die Verpflichtung indessen den Geburtstag des Königs alljährlich mit einer Ode zu feiern und 1834 eine Pension von 300 Pfund Sterling. Er starb 1843.

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Southey hat sehr viele poetische wie prosaische Schriften hinterlassen. Seine dichterischen Leistungen umschliessen mehrere epische Poesieen von grösserem Umfange, wie z. B. Thalaba, Madae, the curse of Kehama, Roderick; ein Trauerspiel Wat Tyler, viele lyrische Gedichte u. s. w. Eine treffliche Auswahl aus denselben für die Jugend erschien London 1831 in 12. Gesammelt kamen seine poetischen Werke London 1820, 14 Bde in 8. heraus. Die Eigenschaften, welche ihn als Dichter auszeichnen, sind Reichthum der Phantasie, Geist, Lebendigkeit, Witz und Gefühl, aber es fehlt ihm an Ruhe und Besonnenheit; er lässt sich zu sehr vom Augenblicke hinreissen und giebt zu viel auf den ersten Eindruck. Er glänzt zu oft auf Kosten der Wahrheit und bleibend ist daher selten eine seiner Gestalten. Zu häufig bringt er bloss rhetorische Schönheit statt poetischer und glaubt zu genügen, wenn er die nackten Seiten seiner Stoffe durch schimmernden Flitter verhüllt. Uebrigens ist er vollkommener Herr der Sprache, aber mehr ihr launenhafter Tyrann als ihr wohlwollender Gebieter.

Noch weit bedeutender als seine Dichtungen, sind seine Biographieen, namentlich seine Lebensbeschreibung Nelson's; hier ist er auch in den kleinsten Theilen ein bewährter Meister und ein edles Vorbild.

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Back on the past he turns his eye; Remembering with an envious sigh The happy dreams of Youth.

So reaches he the latter stage Of this our mortal pilgrimage,

With feeble step and slow; New ills that latter stage await, And old Experience learns too late

That all is vanity below. Life's vain delusions are gone by, Its idle hopes are o'er, Yet Age remembers with a sigh The days that are no more.

Hannah.

Passing across a green and lonely lane
A funeral met our view. It was not here
A sight of every day, as in the streets
Of some great city, and we stopt and ask'd
Whom they were bearing to the grave. A girl,
They answer'd, of the village, who had pined
Through the long course of eighteen painful
months

With such slow wasting, that the hour of death
Came welcome to her. We pursued our way
To the house of mirth, and with that idle talk
Which passes o'er the mind and is forgot,
We wore away the time. But it was eve
When homewardly I went, and in the air
Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade
Which makes the eye turn inward: hearing then
Over the vale the heavy toll of death
Sound slow, it made me think upon the dead;
I question'd more, and learnt her mournful tale.
She bore unhusbanded a mother's pains;
And he who should have cherish'd her, far off
Sail'd on the seas. Left thus a wretched one,
Scorn made a mock of her, and evil tongues
Were busy with her name. She had to bear
The sharper sorrow of neglect from him
Whom she had loved so dearly. Once he wrote,
But only once that drop of comfort came
To mingle with her cup of wretchedness;
And when his parents had some tidings from him,
There was no mention of poor Hannah there,
Or 'twas the cold inquiry, more unkind
Than silence. So she pined and pined away,
And for herself and baby toil'd and toil'd;
Nor did she, even on her death-bed, rest
From labour, knitting there with lifted arms,

Till she sunk with very weakness. Her old mother

Omitted no kind office, working for her,
Albeit her hardest labour barely earn'd
Enough to keep life struggling, and prolong
The pains of grief and sickness. Thus she lay
On the sick bed of poverty, worn out
With her long suffering and those painful thoughts
Which at her heart were rankling, and so weak,
That she could make no effort to express
Affection for her infant; and the child,
Whose lisping love perhaps had solaced her,
Shunn'd her as one indifferent. But she too
Had grown indifferent to all things of earth;
Finding her only comfort in the thought
Of that cold bed wherein the wretched rest.
There had she now, in that last home been laid,
And all was over now, sickness and grief,

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Her shame, her suffering, and her penitence: Their work was done. The school-boys as they

sport

In the church-yard, for awhile might turn away
From the fresh grave till grass should cover it;
Nature would do that office soon; and none
Who trod upon the senseless turf would think
Of what a world of woes lay buried there!

The Ebb tide.

Slowly thy flowing tide

Came in, old Avon! scarcely did mine eyes, As watchfully I roam'd thy green-wood side, Behold the gentle rise.

With many a stroke and strong The labouring boatmen upward plied their oars, And yet the eye beheld them labouring long Between thy winding shores.

Now down thine ebbing tide The unlabour'd boat falls rapidly along; The solitary helmsman sits to guide, And sings an idle song.

Now o'er the rocks that lay So silent late the shallow current roars; Fast flow thy waters on their sea-ward way, Through wider-spreading shores.

Avon! I gaze and know

The lesson emblem'd in thy varying way; It speaks of human joys that rise so slow, So rapidly decay.

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Time's tardy course to manhood's envied stage; With what an agony of tenderness Alas! how hurryingly the ebbing years

Then hasten to old age!

She gazed upon her children, and beheld His image who was gone. O God! be Thou, Who art the widow's friend, her comforter!

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In that day's glory, whose obscurer name
No proud historian's page will chronicle.
Peace to his honest soul! I read his name,
'Twas in the list of slaughter, and blest God
The sound was not familiar to mine ear.
But it was told me, after, that this man
Was one whom lawful violence had forced
From his own home, and wife, and little ones,
Who by his labour lived; that he was one
Whose uncorrupted heart could keenly feel
A husband's love, a father's anxiousness;
That, from the wages of his toil, he fed
The distant dear ones, and would talk of them
At midnight, when he trod the silent deck
With him he valued;
Which he had known,

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talk of them, of joys

oh God! and of the hour

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The Battle of Blenheim.

It was a summer evening,

Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door

Was sitting in the sun,

And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin

Roll something lurge and round, Which he beside the rivulet

In playing there had found;

He came to ask what he had found,

That was so large, and smooth, and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,

Who stood expectant by;

And then the old man shook his head,

And with a natural sigh,

"Tis some poor fellow's scull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.

"I find them in the garden,

"For there's many here about; "And often when I go to plough,

"The ploughshare turns them out! "For many thousand men," said he, "Were slain in that great victory."

"Now tell us what 'twas all about,"

Young Peterkin he cries; While little Wilhelmine looks up,

With wonder-waiting eyes; "Now tell us all about the war, "And what they kill'd each other for."

"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; "But what they kill'd each other for,

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