ect, and he peoples space
With creatures of his own. The glorious forms
Which haunt his solitude, and brightly fill
Imagination's airy hall, atone
For all the faults and follies of his kind.
Nor marvel that he cannot comprehend
The speculative aims of worldly men:
Dearer to him a leaf, or bursting bud,
Culled fresh from Nature's treasury, than all
The golden dreams that cheat the care-worn crowd.
His world is all within. He mingles not
In their society; he cannot drudge
To win the wealth they toil to realize.
A different spirit animates his breast.
Their eager calculations, hopes, and fears,
Still flit before him, like dim shadows thrown
By April's passing clouds upon the stream,
A moment mirrored in its azure depths,
Till the next sunbeam turns them into light!--

Rashly confiding, still to be deceived,
Our youthful poet overleaps the bounds
Of probability. He walks this earth
Like an enfranchised spirit; and the storms,
That darken and convulse a guilty world,
Come like faint peals of thunder on his ear,
Or hoarser murmurs of the mighty deep,
Which heard in some dark forest's leafy shade
But add a solemn grandeur to the scene.--
The genial tide of thought still swiftly flows
Rejoicing onward, ere the icy breath
Of sorrow falls upon the sunny fount,
And chains the music of its dancing waves.--
What is the end of all his lovely dreams--
The bright fulfilment of his earthly hopes?
Too often penury and dire disease,
Neglect, a broken heart, an early grave!--
Oh, had he tuned his harp to truths divine,
With saints and martyrs sought a heavenly crown,
How had his theme immortalized his song!--

Behold the man, who to the poet's fire
Unites the painter's fascinating art;
His touch embodies all that fancy brings
To charm the mental vision, and he dives
Into the rich and shadowy world of thought,
Soars up to heaven, or plunges down to hell,
In search of forms to mortal eyes unknown,
To animate the canvass. His bold eye
Confronts the king of terrors. Through the gates
Of that dark prison-house of woe and dread
Hails the infernal monarch on his throne,
Crowned with ambition's diadem of fire.--
Unsatisfied with all that Nature gives
To charm the wandering heart and roving eye,
He would portray Omnipotence.--Rash man!
Reason revolting shudders at the act.--
God is a Spirit without form or parts;
And canst thou, from a human model, trace
The awful grandeur of Creation's King?
Nature supplies thee with no