O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces; Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school. For as old Atlas on his broad neck places Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it;--so Do these upbear the little world below Of Education,--Patience, Love, and Hope. Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show, The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope, And robes that touching as adown they flow, Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow. O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie, Love too will sink and die. But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive From her own life that Hope is yet alive; And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes, And the soft murmurs of the mother dove, Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies;-- Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. Yet haply there will come a weary day, When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength, Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth, And both supporting does the work of both. 1829. DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE A SOLILOQUY Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, _While_, and _on whom_, thou may'st--shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite: And though thou notest from thy safe recess Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, Love them for what they _are_; nor love them less, Because to _thee_ they are not what they _were_. 1826. LOVE'S FIRST HOPE O Fair is Love's first hope to gentle mind! As Eve's first star thro' fleecy cloudlet peeping; And sweeter than the gentle south-west wind, O'er willowy meads, and shadow'd waters creeping, And Ceres' golden fields;--the sultry hind Meets it with brow uplift, and stays his reaping. ?1824. PHANTOM All look and likeness caught from earth, All accident of kin and birth, Had pass'd away. There was no trace Of aught on that illumined face, Upraised beneath the rifted stone, But of one spirit all her own;-- She, she herself, and only she, Shone through her body visibly. 1804. TO NATURE