XXXVI. GOLD AND SILVER FISHES IN A VASE. THE soaring lark is blest as proud For something more than dull content, Yet might your glassy prison seem Type of a sunny human breast Is your transparent cell; Where Fear is but a transient guest, Where, sensitive of every ray That smites this tiny sea, Your scaly panoplies repay The loan with usury. How beautiful!-Yet none knows why Is it that ye with conscious skill And sometimes, not without your will, Fays, Genii of gigantic size! 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; From all that haughtier kinds endure Are Ye to heaven allied, For day-dreams soft as e'er beguiled For moonlight fascinations mild, Accept, mute Captives! thanks and praise; 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, That spreads into an elfin pool opaque Of which close boughs a glimmering mirror make, -There swims, of blazing sun and beating shower And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome, 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? Roll on, ye spouting whales, who die or keep Dive, at thy choice, or brave the freshening gale! Bays, gulfs, and ocean's Indian width, shall be, |