Robert Southey (1774 – 1843)
English poet of the Romantic school, one of the so-called Lake Poets, and Poet Laureate.
"In my days of youth, I remembered my God,
And he hath not forgotten my age."
Oh, when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
Where Washington hath left
His awful memory
A light for after times!
"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory."
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
He passed a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility;
And he owned with a grin
That his favorite sin
Is pride that apes humility.
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”
They sin who tell us love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
. . . . .
Love is indestructible,
Its holy flame forever burneth;
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
. . . . .
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
Thou hast confessions to listen,
And bells to christen,
And altars and dolls to dress;
And fools to coax,
And sinners to hoax,
And beads and bones to bless;
And great pardons to sell
For those who pay well,
And small ones for those who pay less.
My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
What will not woman, gentle woman dare,
When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little, snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.
Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew
The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you
His eyes have closed; and ye, loved books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown,
Adding immortal labors of his own;
Whether he traced historic truth with zeal
For the state's guidance, or the church's weal;
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious Art,
Informed his pen, or Wisdom of the heart
Or Judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Large were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings find a holier nest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw's top, but he to heaven was vowed
Through a life long and pure, and steadfast faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory."
Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life,and it ought not to be.Southey's famous reply to Charlotte Bronte
"You are old, Father William." the young man cried,
"The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William—a hearty old man:
Now tell me the reason, I pray."
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store.
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, —
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.