I. To my brother George

MANY the wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kist away the tears
That fill’d the eyes of morn; - the laurel’d peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;-
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,-
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what has been.
E’en now, dear George, while this for you I write,
Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping
So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,
And she her half-discover’d revels keeping.
But what, without the social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?


Poems (1817)