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XXXVI.

GOLD AND SILVER FISHES IN A VASE.

THE soaring lark is blest as proud
When at heaven's gate she sings;
The roving bee proclaims aloud
Her flight by vocal wings;
While Ye, in lasting durance pent,
Your silent lives employ

For something more than dull content,
Though haply less than joy.

Yet might your glassy prison seem
A place where joy is known,
Where golden flash and silver gleam
Have meanings of their own;
While, high and low, and all about,
Your motions, glittering Elves!
Ye weave no danger from without,
And peace among yourselves.

Type of a sunny human breast

Is your transparent cell;

Where Fear is but a transient guest,
No sullen Humours dwell;

Where, sensitive of every ray

That smites this tiny sea, Your scaly panoplies repay The loan with usury.

How beautiful!-Yet none knows why
This ever-graceful change,
Renewed-renewed incessantly—
Within your quiet range.

Is it that ye with conscious skill
For mutual pleasure glide;

And sometimes, not without your will,
Are dwarfed, or magnified?

Fays, Genii of gigantic size!
And now, in twilight dim,
Clustering like constellated eyes,
In wings of Cherubim,

When the fierce orbs abate their glare ;

Whate'er your forms express, Whate'er ye seem, whate'er ye areAll leads to gentleness.

Cold though your nature be, 'tis pure;
Your birthright is a fence

From all that haughtier kinds endure
Through tyranny of sense.
Ah! not alone by colours bright

Are Ye to heaven allied,
When, like essential Forms of light,
Ye mingle, or divide.

For day-dreams soft as e'er beguiled
Day-thoughts while limbs repose;

For moonlight fascinations mild,
Your gift, ere shutters close—

Accept, mute Captives! thanks and praise;
And may this tribute prove
That gentle admirations raise
Delight resembling love.

1829.

XXXVII.

LIBERTY.

(SEQUEL TO THE ABOVE.)

[ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND THE GOLD AND SILver fishes having been removED

TO A POOL IN THE PLEASURE-GROUND OF RYDAL MOUNT.]

'The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made for themselves, under whatever form it be of government. The liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country. Of this latter we are here to discourse.'-CowLEY.

THOSE breathing Tokens of your kind regard,
(Suspect not, Anna, that their fate is hard;
Not soon does aught to which mild fancies cling
In lonely spots, become a slighted thing;)
Those silent Inmates now no longer share,
Nor do they need, our hospitable care,
Removed in kindness from their glassy Cell
To the fresh waters of a living Well;

That spreads into an elfin pool opaque

Of which close boughs a glimmering mirror make,
On whose smooth breast with dimples light and small
The fly may settle, or the blossom fall.

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-There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower
Fearless (but how obscured!) the golden Power,
That from his bauble prison used to cast
Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast;

And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome,
The silver Tenant of the crystal dome;

Dissevered both from all the mysteries

Of hue and altering shape that charmed all eyes.

They pined, perhaps, they languished while they shone; And, if not so, what matters beauty gone

And admiration lost, by change of place

That brings to the inward creature no disgrace?
But if the change restore his birthright, then,
Whate'er the difference, boundless is the gain.
Who can divine what impulses from God
Reach the caged lark, within a town-abode,
From his poor inch or two of daisied sod?
O yield him back his privilege !—No sea
Swells like the bosom of a man set free ;
A wilderness is rich with liberty.

Roll on, ye spouting whales, who die or keep
Your independence in the fathomless Deep!
Spread, tiny nautilus, the living sail;

Dive, at thy choice, or brave the freshening gale!
If unreproved the ambitious eagle mount
Sunward to seek the daylight in its fount,

Bays, gulfs, and ocean's Indian width, shall be,
Till the world perishes, a field for thee!

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