[De Profundis Clamavi]

Come, come thou bleak December wind, And blow the dry leaves from the tree! Flash, like a love-thought, thro' me, Death! And take a life that wearies me.

Leghorn, June 7, 1806. First published in Letters of S. T. C., 1875, ii. 499, n. 1. Now collected for the first time. Adapted from Percy's version of 'Waly, Waly, Love be bonny', st. 3.

Marti'mas wind when wilt thou blaw, And shake the green leaves aff the tree? O gentle death, when wilt thou cum? For of my life I am wearie.

20

As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood, That crests its head with clouds, beneath the flood Feeds its deep roots, and with the bulging flank Of its wide base controls the fronting bank-- (By the slant current's pressure scoop'd away The fronting bank becomes a foam-piled bay) High in the Fork the uncouth Idol knits His channel'd brow; low murmurs stir by fits And dark below the horrid Faquir sits-- An Horror from its broad Head's branching wreath Broods o'er the rude Idolatry beneath--

1806-7. Now first published from an MS.

21

Let Eagle bid the Tortoise sunward soar-- As vainly Strength speaks to a broken Mind.[1001:1]

1807. First published in Thomas Poole and His Friends, 1888, ii. 195.

22

The body, Eternal Shadow of the finite Soul, The Soul's self-symbol, its image of itself. Its own yet not itself.

Now first published from an MS.

23

Or Wren or Linnet, In Bush and Bushet; No tree, but in it A cooing Cushat.

May 1807. Now first published from an MS.

24

The reed roof'd village still bepatch'd with snow Smok'd in the sun-thaw.

1798. Now first published from an MS. Compare Frost at Midnight, ll. 69-70, ante, p. 242.

25

And in Life's noisiest hour There whispers still the ceaseless love of thee, The heart's self-solace } and soliloquy. commune }

1807. Now first published from an MS.

26

You mould my Hopes you fashion me within: And to the leading love-throb in the heart, Through all my being, through my pulses beat; You lie in all my many thoughts like Light, Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve, On rippling stream, or cloud-reflecting lake; And looking to the Heaven that bends above you, How oft! I bless the lot that made me love you.

1807. Now first published from an MS.

27

And my heart mantles in its own delight.

Now first published from an MS.

28

The spruce and limber yellow-hammer In the dawn of spring and sultry summer, In hedge or tree the hours beguiling With notes as of one who brass is filing.

1807. Now first published from an MS.

29