Selected Poems of Bernard Barton, the 'Quaker Poet'. Christopher Stokes W.

and mother

      Of knowledge and of feeling? Look around!

      Mark how one being differs from another;

      Yet the world’s book is spread before each human brother.

      Was this world, then, the parent and the nurse 10

      Of him whose mental eye outliv’d the sight

      Of all its beauties?—Him who sang the curse

      Of that forbidden fruit, which did invite

      Our first progenitors, whom that foul sprite,

      In serpent-form, seduc’d from innocence, 15

      By specious promises, that wrong and right,

      Evil and good, when they had gather’d thence,

      Should be distinctly seen, as by diviner sense?

      They pluck’d, and paid the awful penalty

      Of disobedience: yet man will not learn 20

      To be content with knowledge that is free

      To all. There are, whose soaring spirits spurn

      At humble lore, and, still insatiate, turn

      From living fountains to forbidden springs;

      Whence having proudly quaff’d, their bosoms burn 25

      With visions of unutterable things,

      Which restless fancy’s spell in shadowy glory brings.

      Delicious the delirious bliss, while new;

      Unreal phantoms of wise, good, and fair,

      Hover around, in every vivid hue 30

      Of glowing beauty; these dissolve in air,

      And leave the barren spirit bleak and bare

      As alpine summits: it remains to try

      The hopeless task (of which themselves despair)

      Of bringing back those feelings, now gone by, 35

      By making their own dreams the code of all society.

      “All fear, none aid them, and few comprehend;”

      And then comes disappointment, and the blight

      Of hopes, that might have bless’d mankind, but end

      In stoic apathy, or starless night: 40

      And thus hath many a spirit, pure and bright,

      Lost that effulgent and ethereal ray,

      Which, had religion nourish’d it, still might

      Have shone on, peerless, to that perfect day,

      When death’s veil shall be rent, and darkness dash’d away. 45

      Ere it shall prove too late, thy steps retrace:

      The heights thy muse has scal’d, can never be

      Her loveliest, or her safest dwelling-place.

      In the deep valley of humility,

      The river of immortal life flows free 50

      For thee—for all. Oh! taste its limpid wave,

      As it rolls murmuring by, and thou shalt see

      Nothing in death the Christian dares not brave,

      Whom faith in God has given a world beyond the grave!

       TO LYDIA

      Midnight has stol’n upon me! sound is none,

      Save when light, tinkling cinders, one by one,

      Fall from my fire; or its low, fluttering blaze,

      A faint and fitful noise at times betrays;

      Or distant baying of the watch-dog, caught 5

      At intervals. It is the hour of thought!

      Canst thou then marvel, now that thought is free,

      Memory should wake, and Fancy fly to thee?—

      That she should paint thee, wrapp’d in peaceful sleep?

      While round thy happy pillow spirits keep 10

      Their post unseen: those watchers of the night,

      Who, o’er the innocent, with fond delight

      Stand centinels, and, by their guardian power,

      Preserve from evil, Virtue’s slumbering hour.

      Calm, healthful, and refreshing be thy rest! 15

      And be thy dreams as blissful, as e’er blest,

      In Fancy’s sweetest, purest, loveliest mood,

      The hours of stillness and of solitude!

       WINTER

      Thou hast thy beauties: sterner ones, I own,

      Than those of thy precursors; yet to thee

      Belong the charms of solemn majesty

      And naked grandeur. Awful is the tone

      Of thy tempestuous nights, when clouds are blown 5

      By hurrying winds across the troubled sky;

      Pensive, when softer breezes faintly sigh

      Through leafless boughs, with ivy overgrown.

      Thou hast thy decorations too; although

      Thou art austere: thy studded mantle, gay 10

      With icy brilliants, which as proudly glow

      As erst Golconda’s; and thy pure array

      Of regal ermine, when the drifted snow

      Envelopes nature; till her features seem

      Like pale, but lovely ones, seen when we dream. 15