TO THE REV. W. L. BOWLES

      FIRST VERSION, PRINTED IN ‘MORNING CHRONICLE’, DECEMBER 26, 1794

      My heart has thank’d thee, BOWLES! for those soft strains,

       That, on the still air floating, tremblingly

       Wak’d in me Fancy, Love, and Sympathy!

      For hence, not callous to a Brother’s pains

      Thro’ Youth’s gay prime and thornless paths I went; 5

       And, when the darker day of life began,

       And I did roam, a thought-bewilder’d man!

      Thy kindred Lays an healing solace lent,

      Each lonely pang with dreamy joys combin’d,

       And stole from vain REGRET her scorpion stings; 10

       While shadowy PLEASURE, with mysterious wings,

      Brooded the wavy and tumultuous mind,

      Like that great Spirit, who with plastic sweep

      Mov’d on the darkness of the formless Deep!

      VIII

      MRS. SIDDONS

      As when a child on some long Winter’s night

       Affrighted clinging to its Grandam’s knees

       With eager wond’ring and perturb’d delight

      Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees

      Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell; 5

       Or of those hags, who at the witching time

       Of murky Midnight ride the air sublime,

      And mingle foul embrace with fiends of Hell:

      Cold Horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear

       More gentle starts, to hear the Beldame tell 10

       Of pretty Babes, that lov’d each other dear.

      Murder’d by cruel Uncle’s mandate fell:

      Even such the shiv’ring joys thy tones impart,

      Even so thou, SIDDONS! meltest my sad heart!

      December 29, 1794.

1795

       TO WILLIAM GODWIN

       Table of Contents

      AUTHOR OF ‘POLITICAL JUSTICE’

      O form’d t’ illume a sunless world forlorn,

       As o’er the chill and dusky brow of Night,

       In Finland’s wintry skies the Mimic Morn

      Electric pours a stream of rosy light,

      Pleas’d I have mark’d OPPRESSION, terror-pale, 5

      Since, thro’ the windings of her dark machine,

      Thy steady eye has shot its glances keen —

      And bade th’ All-lovely ‘scenes at distance hail’.

      Nor will I not thy holy guidance bless,

       And hymn thee, GODWIN! with an ardent lay; 10

       For that thy voice, in Passion’s stormy day,

      When wild I roam’d the bleak Heath of Distress,

      Bade the bright form of Justice meet my way —

      And told me that her name was HAPPINESS.

      January 10, 1795.