Decke^di-H 
 
 4 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 ir %.. iFK^vv^n <! \<^^^ 
 
 ^—

 
 LYRIC OFFERINGS, 
 
 BY 
 
 LAMAN BLANC HARD. 
 
 " Our poesy U as a gum, which oozeth 
 " From whence 'tis nourislieil. " 
 
 TiiHoii uf AOteiii 
 
 LONDON: 
 WILLL\M HARRISON AINSWORTH, 
 
 OLD BOND STREET. 
 MDCCCXXVm.
 
 LONDON: 
 POULTER, PRINTER, GREAT CUESTERFIELl) STREET.
 
 /5f 
 
 TO 
 
 CHARLES LAMB 
 
 THESE PAGES 
 
 ARK INSCRIBED. 
 
 866153
 
 n itJOit*0 ^lilrr. 
 
 I. 
 
 She stood beside the ruin of a wall 
 Painted and carved; where iinplucked flowers and moss 
 O'crgrew the beauty of the ruUng Cross: 
 And sainted foreheads, which in other time 
 Had bowed their earth in heaven's cloud-columned hall, 
 Were greenly wreathed in mockery of age. 
 And here a bank its purple shadow kept 
 Above a lake, where Hope perchance had wept. 
 Ere yet a tear was made the mirror of a crime. 
 And here a monument whose ice-like page 
 Dropt as the day perused it — though a bard 
 Had found therein the coldness of reward : 
 Dark trees were dying round it. Farther on 
 A gray and falling bridge sent gentle strife 
 
 B
 
 A I'OET'S BRIDE. 
 
 Through waters, which, unstained with human \U'e, 
 
 Made music mid tlie roots tliat twined the stone. 
 
 And far beyond a plain, where hving forms 
 
 Flashed in the lustre of warm summer hours. 
 
 And a thick world of forest, whose deep tune 
 
 And shadows stretched where no sear leaves were strewn. 
 
 Stood hills, the hiding-place of sunny storms 
 
 That laughed amid the light in sudden showers. 
 
 II. 
 
 She looked not on the pride of marble, built 
 By mortal hands ; but happy, yet afraid 
 Of her sweet soaring, still unweighed by guilt, 
 Gazed on the light that man could never shade, 
 Nature's first spirit. O'er the sands she strayed 
 Mute as a wish within a human breast ; 
 And ever where her step its footmark made 
 Some wave did woo its faintness into rest. 
 Or, as the fairy wind, her travels passed 
 O'er buds and leaves, that bowed but did not Inonk. 
 Her heart was as a vase where Love at last 
 Had found a warmth to keep his flowers awake ; 
 A twilight fount, whose varied currents take 
 The hue of heaven and fall with it to earth, 
 Lending life beauty, and atttiction mirth.
 
 A POET'S BRIDE. 
 
 Her eyes had many shadows, as each dye, 
 Each tinge of thought, dissolved into its sky. 
 Their lids encircled with small beams of gold 
 Were silver clouds ; and shewed the sun behind 
 A world of deepening blue,— that chased the cold 
 Left on her temples by some wandering wind ; 
 Feeding with light, or sending fitful showers 
 To wash her warm cheek's fondest passion-flowers, 
 
 III. 
 
 Her lips released the music which the lute 
 Of her soft tongue discoursed : or if 'twas mute, 
 A living whisper, a perpetual breath. 
 Almost a sigh, did on her lips remain ; 
 As if 'twould rather linger in such death 
 Than fly to life where louder breathings reign. 
 O'er the transparent clearness of her brow 
 Her hair, like a fine waterfall, waved down 
 Bathing the pliant marble of her neck ; 
 Whose native light streamed through without a speck, 
 Now flashing out in snowiness, and now 
 Hiding its glory in a ringlet's crown. 
 Her waist love-zoned ; her veins seemed heaven's I)lue, 
 And their bright blood the sunshine that runs through. 
 Simple, yet robed in all that dignifies; 
 
 B 2
 
 A POET'S BRIDE. 
 
 Gifted with beauty's artless eloquence ; 
 Her look fell humble, as ashamed to rise, 
 And her thin hand upraised its innocence 
 To screen (in vain) those spirit-lighted eyes. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A Poet's heart beat for her in that hour. 
 And gave its pride to grace her single power ; 
 Though he had taught life's sleep to dream and think 
 Of shapes unmet with, save in death's far sky, 
 Which his youth pined for — yet on earth each link 
 Of his soul's chain had been some ardent eye. 
 And there stood she to whom the poet's line 
 Seemed hope's true calendar of wild desire ; 
 "Whose speech was music, wliose unwasting fire 
 IJurned on her gentle heart as on a shrine. 
 Their eyes perceive each other's beauty, growing 
 AVith too much splendour to be gazed upon ; 
 But only felt to tremble in its flowing, 
 With fear that fetters not the hope it girds ; 
 While as he speaks, all cold concealment gone, 
 A silver sigh answers his golden words. 
 
 V. 
 
 And that brief moment of the heart's unveiling 
 Is worth its long years of succeeding light ;
 
 A POET'S BRID^:. 
 
 For every coming liour must liiitl it failing 
 With liopes that may return not— onward sailing 
 Until its voyage shall be wrecked in night, 
 And all things darken in the sinking sight. 
 Not thus with these— the poet who had seen 
 Earth's splendour fade before him ; and the bride 
 Whom his stript breast now sheltered in its pride — 
 In whom no thought recoiled on what had been, 
 But clasped the heart whereof she felt the queen, 
 And feared no darkness as the daylight died. 
 Each was the other's life : their passion seemed 
 All that hath e'er been found, or feigned, or dreamed ; 
 The atmosphere and earth, the sky, the shade — 
 All which was theirs to see, and all that cannot fade. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Their melancholy was but deeper joy, 
 Too deep for smiles— for ho was marked with grief; 
 And she, though sunnier thoughts the spell destroy. 
 Was fashioned in the sweetest starriest time 
 E'er whispered of in poet's midnight rhyme ; 
 And her pale gloom had ever felt relief 
 In token of a morrow. Now they were 
 Throned on the bosom of their love, uniting 
 In one small circle all that least can err,
 
 A POET'S IJ R I D E. 
 
 Sting and deceive, with all that most can bless, 
 
 Support and shield in virtue's pathlessness. 
 
 They winged them o'er the fields of air, alighting 
 
 In some lone spot to talk on fairy themes ; 
 
 Or twined within the hollow of a shell 
 
 Whose sea-voice sang to them, steered their true dreams 
 
 Where never mortal eye hath seen how well 
 
 The beautiful unenvied things of ocean dwell. 
 
 They met the winds together ; walked the space 
 
 Of their serene dominion as a meadow, 
 
 Reading strange poetry on heaven's face, 
 
 Translated by the heart. Their spirits rode 
 
 On a loose rose-leaf or a flying shadow. 
 
 Looking for happiness ; and in such quest 
 
 Its ample heaven inhaling, as afar 
 
 His fleet heart's horses bore her willing car. 
 
 They gazed upon their vastness of abode, 
 
 And asked not if the traveller Time should rest ; 
 
 They knew no measure in mortality. 
 
 And if the heavens should change they could r.ot guess, 
 
 If the pale earth should shrink beneath the sea, 
 
 And the large sun roll blank and shadowless. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Around his heart she hovered like a biid 
 Secun^ ol il^ firm nest : his faintest word
 
 A POET'S li R I D E. 
 
 Called sudden light into her love-taught eyes, 
 And bound lici in a chain of ecstacies. 
 She sent rich-laden sighs from out her soul, 
 And caused fair sniiles and dew-like tears to sit 
 In his heart's honeysuckles ; or on the scroll 
 Of the vast shore his haunting image traced, 
 And wept to see the waters razing it. 
 Or harped some magic words of love misplaced, 
 Then clung in sweet conviction to her own, 
 Jireathing her winged wishes through her eyes, 
 That trembled as they tlew. And on a throne 
 Built in a little skiff, impelled by sighs 
 And launched on tears (a picture of man's love). 
 They drifted in the morning of the moon — 
 He on her heart which lulled him still too soon ; 
 Whilst his illumined features mutely move 
 M'ith the strange life within ; till it would fly 
 Like a quick cloud before the wakening eye. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 She watched him like a star, till sleep would seal 
 Her fervid eyes ; till each sweet sense would reel, 
 Yet never tiring, with deep prayers and hope, 
 And love that gazing could no longer feel, 
 I5ut burned and burned — too strangely to reveal. 
 Then safely bounding from some daisied slope,
 
 A P O K T ' S B R I D i:. 
 
 She passed lie r lingers o'er liis l)ro.v, and wrought, 
 
 A spell of peace around each struggling thought. 
 
 She studied how his secret pain to win 
 
 That she might bear it, though 'twere sharp witli sin. 
 
 Still waiting on liis eye as her life's king 
 
 That motioned her still purpose ; from the bee 
 
 That gave him its true wealth she wooed the sting, 
 
 And balmcd his worldly htkrt with Love's own surgery. 
 
 In earth's dim chamber she did liang a lamp, 
 
 Gilding its walls with cheerfulness, and breathed 
 
 Strength in the sinking fire that chased the damp ; 
 
 And as he left the chilling crowd she flew 
 
 His love to kindle and his hate subdue ; 
 
 Binding his shattered feelings, till he sheathed 
 
 That withering fury— smiling in the hue 
 
 The truant tincture of a poet's mind, 
 
 That feels a joy in rest which flight could never find. 
 
 IX. 
 
 His wearied teet she batlied with pUasaut waters; 
 And with a magic care she treasured up 
 The dew of morning in a lily's ciip, 
 For the noon's banquet, not produced by slaugliters. 
 Which she did spread in such peace-haunting bowers 
 That all the year seomcd sown with long and hapi>y hours.
 
 A POETS BRIDE. 
 
 And when Night's wing hath skimmed the purple air, 
 
 And fond hearts sleep within a breast as fair, 
 
 Her's throbbed before him, or enthralled beside, 
 
 Answered its nature's name — a poet's bride. 
 
 In every season, scene, and wearying trial, 
 
 Still rose she as the light on his heart's dial; 
 
 Folding his bosom from each naked woe, 
 
 The storm above and frozen world below. 
 
 In rage, compassion, pride — in that disdain 
 
 Which knows no terror and v^hich owns no pain, 
 
 In the strange frenzy of that full belief 
 
 Which finds imagined rapture in dull grief. 
 
 In those wild moments of unearthliness 
 
 "When mortals with the dead, not living, hold 
 
 Their spiritual converse— she did press 
 
 Still as his own ; a wanderer from life's fold 
 
 To share his herblcss mountain and bleak waste. 
 
 And mould her beauty to her shepherd's taste. 
 
 To have no prompter but his look — no song 
 
 Eut Love's deep whisper which contained no wrong. 
 
 X. 
 
 At the year's dawn pale coronals she twined 
 To screen him from the sun, whose furious ray 
 She locked in her parched heart; and then resigned 
 Her burning wealth to warm his wintry day.
 
 10 A PO ET'S \MilD i: 
 
 Aud lovelier were the leaves that took their birth 
 
 From that fair stem than e'er have dropt to earth 
 
 High on Affection's mount its tops partook 
 
 Heaven's holiest light, its root earth's clearest brook. 
 
 Formed to depend, and yet majestic made ; 
 
 To bend in pliancy, yet rise unchecked. 
 
 Save by the hand that clung to it for aid 
 
 When Hope's bold galley on the world lay wrecked. 
 
 Branching and budding to its master's hand, 
 
 A breath might stir it, whirlwinds not command ; 
 
 Gracing the calm — or, struck by sudden thunder, 
 
 With bending top it saved the blossoms under. 
 
 In the wide wilderness it had no brother ; 
 
 A gentle sky bedewed it in pure love ; 
 
 And though it shared the sorrow of its mother, 
 
 Rooted in dust, its bright brow waved above. 
 
 XI. 
 
 She lived as lives the moon for her dark lord, 
 Or rainbow, scabbard of the tempest's sword ; 
 Thus like a mountain shadow, broad or brief 
 
 / 
 
 As the sun ruktli ; or a Itird's bright grief 
 Loving the beam that blinds it — thus lived she 
 For iiim vviio lived for all — whose heart and mitid 
 Were of one essence, nnxed and most refined;
 
 A POETS BRIDE. 11 
 
 Whose moral was a deep unhiding sea ; 
 Though men in life ne'er ventured on its glory, 
 They found in death the truth of his strange story. 
 Thus lived they in the world things of the sky, 
 Witli hopes that could not falter, love not die. 
 Their lives a secret from the vulgar throng. 
 Their very names unsyllabled in song. 
 To poets and their brides alone is given 
 Passion like theirs to light earth's path to heaven. 
 And they were circled by Love's fairies there — 
 Daughters bird-voiced, but more than cygnets fair. 
 Learning and lisping joy— and sons with wreathed hair. 
 
 XII. 
 They were united where no human ear 
 Drank their deep vow, and where no human gaze 
 Startled their still intensity of praise ; 
 Where feet save theirs ne'er wandered, nor huge piles 
 Of turrets and tall porticoes appear, 
 Wild nature mocking with smooth symmetry. 
 The clouds in maiden meekness fled the smiles 
 Of their bright lover, blushing into eve. 
 In heaven's high arch showed nothing made to die, 
 Where mortal pride ne'er led its pageantry, 
 And mortal fame had wrought not to achieve
 
 12 A POETS BRIDE. 
 
 Its sculptured triumph on a lifeless stone. 
 
 All shapes looked free, yet fastened ; most alone 
 
 And yet encompassed by society. 
 
 In the far valley camels caught the wealth 
 
 Poured from the liberal mountain, titted yet 
 
 For their unladen lives and sunny health ; 
 
 And o'er a modest, nuite, clear rivulet 
 
 That gushed at a hill's foot, a lone tree hung, 
 
 Sending its leafy shade to pay the debt 
 
 Of its green nourishment : and all day here 
 
 Came happy bands of never-hunted deer, 
 
 Whose footsteps bent the mountain-nests among 
 
 Ne'er frighted bird, or hushed its merry tongue. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Then might the bard and his young Eve confer 
 
 Of lands too sacred for the serpent's tiail, 
 
 Free paradises where no hand might err. 
 
 They turned their eyes on a most gentle dale. 
 
 Gracious, like morning standing on its shore 
 
 Ready to sail, for it did seem no more 
 
 Than the fleet gardens of the firmament. 
 
 There light and music, hue and odour blent, 
 
 Played round their senses, beamed into their blood. 
 
 Gales, trembling with their freight, mild lightning sent
 
 A POETS BRIDE. 13 
 
 Into tlie bosoms of unwearied streams, 
 
 That for the love of flowers still poured their flood, 
 
 And told their wave-lipped secrets as they went. 
 
 And lilies bowed their heads, as with love-dreams, 
 
 To look on the gay jewels, which the hand 
 
 Of human vanity ne'er dived for : wings 
 
 Of most minute and perishable things 
 
 Slept, as if rested on immortal land. 
 
 In leaves that hardly hid them, and which floated 
 
 Like little ships upon their sea of light. 
 
 Each object wore the air of one devoted, 
 
 Filled with rich sympathies of sound and s^ight. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Bees at perpetual springs in honey-draughts 
 Drank to the health of the gay sun, and hived 
 Treasure unvalued where no theft had thrived ; 
 In lasting homes^where "Winter never wafts 
 Its piercing blight, but floats unhurting by, 
 Leaving a cool repose in the o'erheated sky. 
 In the green boughs and on the glittering ground 
 Were bowers for gentle birds, such as ne'er dropt 
 At fowler's foot, or with unheeded sound 
 Fluttered on brazen spire or ruined spot, 
 Or peaceful thatch of cotter ivy-topped. 
 
 c
 
 14 A POET'S ]]R1D!:, 
 
 And tlieie tliey flourished in tlieii cliangclcss lot 
 Within pavilions wove of tendrils rare ; 
 And nothing saw they that might be torf:;ot, 
 But all that moved in the delighted air 
 Stilled at their melodies and grew more fair. 
 
 XV. 
 
 And blood of lambs not destined for the knife 
 Of luxury or of sacrifice, atoning 
 For man's proud evil with their harmless life, 
 Ran pure as mountain water, calmly clear : 
 And fed with freedom hearts unworn with moaning. 
 Goats climbed the hilly places without fear 
 Glad with continual pasture, where each blade 
 Did seem to bear a separate shape and shade, 
 Growing in green luxuriance. Vineyards yield 
 Their purpling drink up to the thirsty day. 
 And a tall wood flings forth its olive shield 
 "Where curious forms of limpid currents stray. 
 O'er grassy pinnacles a pine-tree soared 
 Sun-bronzed, like Tiiunipli on a pedestal; 
 And groves of ever-ripened fruits afford 
 Delicious rest and banqueting, and all 
 That Nature's holiest hand refineth unadored.
 
 A FOET'S BRIDE, 15 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Ami ;i';l tlu' living venUiio grows so well 
 Ko soft small worm liatli lit'i' auM its roots; 
 Aiul through the air no suuir! uiiociioeil shoots, 
 And not a leaf but whose light curl can tell 
 Of waters playing on their coral ihiti's : 
 No sigh or sorrow, or iicavt-hearU i'arewi!!, 
 Or sharper wail when worUily promise fell — 
 Leaving the heart to break or find its fruits 
 Black with a deadly bloom— to feel its fame 
 But folly, disappointment and dumb shame. 
 Here nothing lived that owned an earthly law : 
 Sincerity and Fearlessness were by ; 
 And each seemed kindred to the scenes it saw 
 Break on its separate nature, from an eye 
 Which guiltless oped at morn and closed as merrily. 
 The air not dark and damp with human ills 
 Was as a heavenly breath, serene, endued 
 With warmer life and trner principles ; 
 With woman's faith not man's ingratitude. 
 Nature, amid the rich romantic scene, 
 Assumed the likeness of a faery (piecne. 
 Marking with sunny wand her pleasant circles green. 
 
 C 2
 
 16 A POET'S lilUDE. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Here among scenes which the pale tempest pities, 
 Sigliing along the desert and tlie waves; 
 Here unprophaned beneath the breath of cities, 
 Nor Inimbled by the height of painted domes 
 '(Fit pride for kings and wonder of rude slaves), 
 These two united were. Upon the eartli. 
 Heaven's altar first, they knelt and saw there homes 
 Formed for all time— for mournfulncss and mirth. 
 O'er chains like theirs but transient torture plays, 
 Whose links are forged from ever-pliant rays. 
 Round the fair world they looked and saw no error; 
 All there was hope, not precipiced by terror, 
 But laugliing like an infant through a dream 
 Which ne'er might waken to a sadder theme. 
 Their creed is written on each other's heart, 
 And sealed with truth that no false hand can part. 
 
 And o'er them flies the day, but leaves behind 
 
 A track where the moon glides, with stars strewn o'er, 
 Like jewels in the night-sea ; and they find 
 A bird is lingering by, unseen before. 
 With crest of crimson lightening more and more. 
 As the sun droppeth on his drowsy shore. 
 
 XVIII. 
 And as a seraph-guide its wings did shew 
 
 The path from that proud place, and did illume
 
 A POET'S BRIDE. 17 
 
 With darting lights, and filled with rare perfume, 
 The herbage and the air; that held no foe 
 To the sweet rites which none beside may know. 
 And now the bird hath severed the gray gloom, 
 A winged devotee of love ; and under 
 A palm-tree's ceiling shows a shrine of wonder, 
 Surrounded with sweet flowers — some hung like bells 
 And breathed upon, as a faint ringing tells : 
 And some when evening closed them shut within 
 The beam which they had loved ; and these shed round 
 That mystic couch the light which they did win. 
 Each thing displayed a beauty so profound 
 That heaven's pare eyes look down and see no sin , 
 And the presiding moon hears not a sound 
 In her fine hall more happy than the sighs, 
 That break from the bride's bosom to apprize 
 Her poet lord, as falls the last disguise 
 From her full wish ; and on the threshold fair 
 Of that safe structure, a scarce-murmured air 
 Invites her further. — They have entered there. 
 1824. 
 
 c'3
 
 ri)c Spirit of Dof^i). 
 
 What is it but the living voice 
 Heard in the earth and air, 
 Bidding a blade of grass rejoice 
 That man may not despair ! 
 What is it but the air of heaven 
 Along an earthly lyre, 
 
 Whence drop the snows that death has driven 
 To quench its chords of lire. 
 Its music mingles with the singing 
 With which the seas and shores are ringing, 
 When nothing folds the mystic sense 
 And all is naked and intense. 
 It is the voice of wondrous things 
 Covered and crowned with magical wings, 
 Whose rustling as they stir on higli 
 Wakes in the heart of heaven a spell of Poesy.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY 19 
 
 The Moon is a harp in yon hall, 
 Whence beams and strange haimonies fall; 
 Its Hashing o'e^ myriads flew, 
 But its voice was bestowed for a few. 
 It burns in the delicate air, 
 But hark ! are its melodies there ? 
 The light may be seen on the main, 
 But the sound must be sought in the brain. 
 
 And Stars are voiced with pleasant songs 
 Whose sweetness to the night belongs ; 
 Notes that sail along the sea — 
 You wonder how such notes could be, 
 Weeping for them as they flee 
 Through the wave mysteriously. 
 Measures made to steal and tinkle 
 Through the crystal veins of light; 
 Poet-spirits born to twinkle 
 On the breast of Night. 
 Many eyes behold them glisten — 
 Rich the ear that stays to listen. 
 
 Each form of thin and pallid Mist 
 That passes and melts, by the starlight kisso.l^
 
 20 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 
 
 The natural smoke from the morning's lamp, 
 Hath a sound as it walks, though you hear no tramp ; 
 And from rounds of fairy wreathing 
 Comes a meek and mournful breathing — 
 Murmured passion, sad and holy — 
 All that's sweet is melancholy. 
 Clouds that look like swans, and steer 
 O'er the sky-sea calm and clear, 
 Keep like them their treasured tune 
 From the hot and gaudy noon, 
 Gliding through the live-long day 
 To the precincts of the moon- 
 There to sing themselves away 
 For the beauty of a ray, 
 Dying still too soon. 
 
 And some are rocked and twined 
 In the arms of the passionate Wind ; 
 And others wander from their kind 
 To listen a sea-lute's plaint, 
 AVhich tells of a star that had pined 
 For something which it could not lind— 
 Save where a sun-taught hand would paint 
 A shadow, tremulous and faint, 
 On the bosom of a wave, 
 Where at last it gained a grave.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 21 
 
 And some there aie that love to swhu 
 Across the Light they scarcely dim; 
 Each turning to its fount a face 
 Smiling like the seraphim, 
 Wiiom they image whilst they chase 
 Their fellows of the radiant limb. 
 
 Lo ! thousands are strewing 
 Snow- flowers on the way, 
 VVhere the morn is renewing 
 A tenderer day. 
 And some are entwining 
 Tiioir innocent forms 
 To keep her from shining 
 On envious storms. 
 Some dare the beholding 
 Of Day when he wakes ; 
 And some are seen folding 
 Tlieir sun-dropping flakes. 
 Like birds how they quiver, 
 Those children of laght : fi' 
 
 They drop on that river 
 Of radiant light. 
 
 Now the water-harp is strung, 
 And the quiet Wave hath sung ;
 
 22 THE SPIRIT OF POESY, 
 
 Beautiful billows with faces of green 
 That smile ou the i!:Utteiing gulf between ; 
 Each hath its eiown and each its song, 
 Borne on the nuisical brctze along. 
 
 '&• 
 
 The waters sing to the shore, 
 
 The forests sing to the sea, 
 
 All that hath motion in land or in ocean 
 
 Is gifted with minstrelsy. 
 
 The torrents are sparkling and proud 
 
 Talking to the vales aloud ; 
 
 Gently breaking from a bubble, 
 
 Voices breathe their pensive trouble ; 
 
 Mists that slumber on the hill 
 
 Murmur through their dreaming still ; 
 
 And the winds salute the mountains, 
 
 And the stars believe the fountains. 
 
 There's a noise within the ilowers 
 
 Which they whisper to the hours — 
 
 'Tis to tell liow they are sighing 
 
 For the serenade of showers — 
 
 'Tis to tell how they are dying 
 
 For things that are faithless and Hying. 
 
 A Rainbow! it is heaven's lyre, 
 Which Passion and fair Peace inspire.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 2i 
 
 Nothing's sweet that will not sound it, 
 Nothing's bright but mingles round it ; 
 Each young colour hath a chord 
 Quivering with some trusting word — 
 Every word betrays the hue 
 Where its brief existence grew. 
 Boweth not the storm, subdued 
 To its charmed and tranquil mood ? — 
 Symbol in the air suspended 
 Of the soul, when life is ended ! 
 View its wreaths of fadeless fire — 
 Hearken, oh! Earth, to Heaven's lyre. 
 
 Is it some fanciful belief, or arc 
 The spirits of our being borne afar 
 Amid yon rainbow, that the free warm thought 
 May live where not an ice-chain may be wrought? 
 Are not all hopes and infant promisings 
 Reposing yonder, without wound or wings? 
 All that is beautiful below, and pure, 
 Doth it not melt to bliss unchilled and sure? 
 Are these frail fancies? that romantic bow 
 Hath man's wild poesy and woman's glow. 
 O ! could the heart's first music meet the sight, 
 Twould take the likeness of that rdnbow's light ;
 
 24 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 
 
 For there as in the heart all passions mix 
 That change with the rich sun and will not fix. 
 Its aziire hath the charm of some fine eye 
 Which Genius looked from in its ecstacy : 
 Anon with a young maiden's blood it burns 
 As her cheek's rose into a lily turns ; 
 That green hath formed some lover's diadem 
 Ere hope had withered on its living stem. 
 Each hue hath language — all the million dyes 
 Quake with the noise of kisses and of sighs. 
 And none are silent — listening while they bless 
 They gleam and speak in Huent tenderness. 
 Dreams are their subject, hopes not meant to fail, 
 And love, which is our nature's nightingale. 
 
 Things that lighten, things that fly, 
 Own the spells of Pcesy. 
 Through creation, bright or black, 
 Winged Poesy, thou piercest; 
 If in peace the gentlest track, 
 If in pride, the fiercest. 
 Not a wind but lisps thy name. 
 Not a flower but makes replying ; 
 In the frost-work and in flame 
 I behold thee lying.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 25 
 
 All that's frantic, fair, and high. 
 Is of Nature's Poesy. 
 
 A minstrel is sitting alone 
 Upon a white and wordless stone. 
 That seals up the bed of a gentle bride 
 Whose mortal hath immortal grown, 
 And left no track in the human tide — 
 Perhaps she were his own. 
 The sigh that trembled o'er her ^lay 
 May hold some speech of love for her ; 
 He trusts it to yon fainting ray 
 That upward takes its silent way — 
 A fleet and faithful messenger. 
 And many a fond dream-whispered word 
 Upon his heart is sweetly sinking ; 
 As if a slight and snowy bird 
 Within his brain that instant stirred 
 Its wing, and answered his mute thinking. 
 
 Heard ye the murmur on a Mother's tongue 
 O'er what was made to die, but died too young; 
 A heart that held through darkness and through puiu, 
 And when the light fell on it — it was slain. 
 
 D
 
 26 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 
 
 I heard her anguish though its seat was far — 
 
 ! air and voice of Dreams, how true ye are ! 
 And there were other sounds that did discourse 
 And bind my soul with a most gentle force. 
 
 ^ I caught the breathings of a girl whose mind 
 Was haunted by a shadow^ left behind 
 By some illumined figure that had walked 
 Across her heart, betraying as it talked. 
 That heart beneath her flesh, as you may see 
 The ruby midst the water's purity, 
 
 c- 
 
 1 saw, and heard its language — 'twas of tears, 
 Of longings, niemories,'of all save fears. 
 
 I looked, and it was wasting sigh by sigh. 
 
 Until at last 'twas nothing. I stood by 
 
 And saw it vanish — a light, veined leaf, 
 
 Whose summer life a breath had made so brief. 
 
 Then strayed I near a grating, and my mind 
 
 Wondered and wept that auglit should be confined. 
 
 I glanced betwixt the bars — it was a space 
 
 Narrow and damp, and full of foul disgrace : 
 
 Its walls were phrenzy-figured. And upon 
 
 That dungeon floor appeared a skeleton. 
 
 One knee was bent— its prayer seemed rage and pride ; 
 
 I saw the right arm moulder from its side. 
 
 The other raised had tried to seize the grate — 
 
 Where day divulged the lineaments of hate.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 27 
 
 Tlie chainer had been chained — the idol bowed 
 And paid deep homage to a scornful crowd. 
 Bnt all things failed him save the chain and cell : 
 I breathed with music— 'twas the Enslaver's knell. 
 
 But soon far other notes serene and mild 
 Came o'er my soothed spirit — 'twas a Child 
 Lisping a blessing. Then a Dove appeared 
 Whose bosom had been robbed of all it reared. 
 And soon a breeze came flowing thitlier, bright 
 With many Insects, crimsoning the light.— 
 Then on the sands a Maiden sought a ship, 
 With words that fell like life-drops from the lip. — 
 A Slave came forth in bonds, which he did burst, 
 And stood all free as man arose at first. — 
 Two Birds, with dusky wings and breast of sun, 
 Were circled in a gilded cage : the one 
 Fluttered and sang, and tried to gain my look, 
 And from its plume the glossiest feather shook. 
 The other stirred not, sang not; it had lost 
 The fire of song within it's prison's frost. 
 It was too delicate, too proud to live— 
 I feared to breathe, it seemed so sensitive. 
 At last it moaned ; then gazed upon the wire 
 And dropped.— a thing to weep for and admire ! 
 
 D 2
 
 28 THE SPIRIT OF POESY. 
 
 The other lightened round the cage, and shewed 
 No sign of sorrow in its lone abode ; 
 Bnt still it sang exultingly. I sighed — 
 I could not love it like the one that died. 
 
 The light partook of an enchantment's hue : 
 A thousand fairy eyes came twinkling through; 
 And a young bard some pensive treasure sought 
 Where waters lulled him in his starry thought. 
 But mark how from yon lattice looks an eye 
 In fondness forth, yet half despairingly : 
 And one that worships it, that grief to share, 
 A moment stands — he is no longer there. 
 His step is quick yet low ; his sight seems dim 
 And bent on earth — but her's is fixed on him. 
 How rich the strength that through her veins hath ran ! 
 How proud is woman suffering for man ! 
 She sleeps, she smiles ; day hath no dreams like these. 
 Her eyes are closed — it is her heart that sees. 
 
 All beauty hath a voice j and I have found 
 Life hath no pleasure like the sense of Sound. 
 And earth hath still a heaven for ears and eyes, 
 Since Poesy doth teach all hearts to harmonize.
 
 THE SULTANA 
 PREPARING FOR HER BATH. 
 
 •^****^ 
 
 [descriptive of a picture, the production of a 
 
 FRIEND.] 
 
 The Glory of the Light hath died away, 
 The dazzled Earth grows dim. And now the moon 
 (A silver seal in)on the closing day) 
 Steals through the twilight ; and a tranquil tune 
 Comes from the deep to soothe the sun's decay. 
 
 Heaven's harp hath ceased; but many an echo fair 
 
 In mellow music pants upon the air. 
 
 The sun hath sunk ; hut lo ! there is a light 
 Richer than yon unsleadfast stars reveal : 
 The noon hath melted into chilling night, 
 Yet can the soul a warmth and freshness feel : 
 The signs and sounds of day have perished quite, 
 Yet hath the quiet earth a breathing given 
 Sweeter than all the varied sounds of heaven. 
 
 D 3
 
 30 THE SULTANA 
 
 Not from the lamp within yon radiant room 
 
 Ascends the new-born beam ; nor from the pride 
 
 Of Eastern art arises a perfume 
 
 That fills a scene by beauty sanctified ; 
 
 But there, arrayed in all that Luxury's loom 
 
 Hath woven for her children, is reclined 
 
 A fair and fond creation of the mind. 
 
 From her, and from the splendour of her face. 
 The night hath caught its lustre wild and warm ; 
 All that is there, of grandeur or of grace. 
 Its proud impression traces from the form. 
 That, like the ruling pleasure of the place, 
 Shows in the midst the figure of a dream 
 Where Love had learnt his first and tenderest theme. 
 
 Like to the fount of old, whereof to drink 
 Was to inhale the fatal fire of love : 
 So things, not doomed from such delight to shrink. 
 Beneath her glance grow beautiful, above 
 All other tints of beauty. On the brink 
 Of a new joy she now resigns her veil. 
 And what she looks on ceases to be pale.
 
 PREPARING FOR HER BATH. 31 
 
 'Tvvas feigned in early time, and men have l)nng 
 Tlieir faith upon the dieani, tiiat Love was born 
 Of Beauty : let the truth at length be sung. 
 Beauty was born of Love : for pride and scorn 
 Have crept to him in smiles, and Time looked young. 
 With him the winter is no longer cold, 
 And summer views its dust transformed to gold. 
 
 So all about her varies with her eyes. 
 Beauty the sure effect, but Love the cause ; 
 Though in her veins a haughty transport vies 
 With natural tenderness ; whose milder laws 
 Her spirit may o'erleap but not despise. 
 Thus, softly stern, she points to the sublime. 
 The splendour and the sweetness of her clime. 
 
 Her slightly closing eyelids well express, 
 With the full pride of passion, and the sense 
 Of power but half displayed — the consciousness 
 That only joy, unniingled and intense, 
 Is j)resent to her eyes ; which, sent to bless 
 The turbaned tyrant of some lavish land. 
 See all its ripe fruits falling to her hand.
 
 »2 THE SULTA N A 
 
 But on her smooth cheek shows a settled flush 
 Of Love's fine fever : not the single hue 
 Of youth for its own i)eauties taught to blush, 
 But a mute mingling of emotions true, 
 Peaceful yet all impassioned ; till a gush 
 Of glory o'er her brow its way hath won, 
 And marks a fond Sultana of the Sun. 
 
 Her slaves are ready— by her couch they shine, 
 The genii of her passions. From her arm, 
 All richly rounded by a taste divine, 
 One bending girl, with many a graceful charm, 
 The glittering circlet draws. But the deep mine 
 Of ocean hath no pearl like that soft skin, 
 The sky no tincture like the tide within. 
 
 Close at her side another damsel stands, 
 A sun-taught teacher of voluptuous lore, 
 Ready to fan her; or with glancing hands 
 To scatter sweets upon the silken floor ; 
 Or loose her bosom from its gentle bands— 
 That flashes from beneath its slight cimar, 
 As lluough a cloud the lightning of a star.
 
 PREPARING FOR HER BATH. 33 
 
 But chief a sable slave, of quaintest mien, 
 And garb grotesque and costly, stoops to raise 
 Her veil, as some dark vapour may be seen 
 Unfolding the fair day. And he surveys 
 Love's early sunshine, fervent but serene, 
 
 And feels his frozen spirit warm the while, 
 
 His face uncouthly curling to a smile. 
 
 And with that aged slave awaits a train 
 
 Of youthful figures, winged at her will ; 
 
 And all about are glistening tokens lain 
 
 Of exquisite device, and wrought with skill. 
 
 All that can breathe delight, and banish pain 
 From earth's bright circle, gathers round a spot 
 Where grief might well be hushed and guilt forgot. 
 
 Thus in the centre of the group, impressed 
 With the full life of that luxuriant hour. 
 Shaming the gems of her imperial vest, 
 Yet softly languid, fainting like a flower, 
 Mid draperies of silk her light limbs rest ; 
 And thus, beneath the charm of sunmier airs. 
 The sweet Sultana for her bath prepares.
 
 34 THE SULTANA 
 
 How will the williiig waters curl around 
 Their dainty visitant ! What sparkles clear, 
 And what a welcome of enraptured sound, 
 Will rise to meet her on her cool career ! 
 And glancing from her to its marble bound, 
 Each melting wave, whilst lucidly revealing 
 Her form, will waken up some pleasant feeling. 
 
 There in the night, beneath a silence deep, 
 Thus whitely visible behold her glide, 
 A wonder in the waters ! come to steep 
 In living joy a breast too bright to hide. 
 Methinks the element would seem to weep 
 
 As from each rising limb, in pearly rain, 
 
 It drips like dew into its fount again. 
 
 And having passed that baptism of pure pleasure— 
 The weary warmth and deep luxuriance 
 Of day subsiding to a milder measure — 
 She wraps her senses in a shadowy trance. 
 Tempting the night to stay with Hope's own treasure ; 
 Dim dreams and winged visions — faliy things 
 That gush from out our sleep like desart springs.
 
 PREPARING FOR HER BATH. 35 
 
 And sad it were, and sad it is, to find 
 A harslier moral in a fate so fair ; 
 To feel that some dark venom lurks behind. 
 Like insects that have golden wings, but bear 
 A poisoned body; to behold the mind. 
 Where all beside a ripening radiance found, 
 Barren and blighted on that holy ground. 
 
 To see the wings of Freedom flap the dust, 
 Or view her signs but as the darts of old 
 That, flying, turned to fire: the simple trust 
 And truth of life exchanged for caution cold ; 
 The ample theme of Reason undiscussed. 
 
 And man's high spirit stooping from the skies 
 Seeking on earth a sensual paradise. 
 
 Yet, ah ! what marvel if for hearts like her's 
 The failing mind at last forget to soar ! 
 Circled with joy, and shunning all that stirs 
 The soul with stronger hopes, it bows before 
 The altar of a faith which, whilst it errs. 
 
 Makes glad our way with pleasures unrepressed, 
 Till life's loud rapture ends in silent rest.
 
 3(J THE SULTANA. 
 
 And fov the fair Sultana, if we trace 
 No cloud upon her cheek, nor sign of woe, 
 It is her clime that lightens through her face. 
 And as the Prophet's fabled regions show 
 Forms that glide shadowless along the space, 
 So she on earth, a dream that cannot fade, 
 INIight move amid the light and leave no shadi
 
 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 
 
 It was a sight to be forgot 
 
 When Nature's night shall come ; 
 A sound, to be remembered not 
 
 When Music shall be dumb. 
 For there are tones that will not share 
 The fate of the forgotten air, 
 
 But haunt with ceaseless hum ; 
 And there are scenes that fail to quit 
 The eye, till tears have blinded it. 
 
 Mine eye and ear of hue and sound 
 
 A quickened sense retain ; 
 Echo and shade alike are found 
 
 Self-stored within my brain : 
 Yet is there one peculiar sense. 
 That holds impressions most intense 
 
 Of parted bliss or pain, — 
 And long will these iu memory dwell, 
 Fond inmatei of its honied cell.
 
 38 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 
 
 The sun was wasting through the day, 
 
 Above a scene as fair 
 As ever tempted glance to stay, 
 
 And end its wanderings there. 
 The clear expanse on high was calm. 
 As though the day dissolved in balm 
 
 Upon the healthful air, 
 To heal the wounds of scattered flowers, 
 Wind-stricken by the wintry hours. 
 
 Voices, of insect and of bird, 
 Their hymns to heaven addressed ; 
 
 Bnt chief the summoning chimes were heard 
 That cheer the fervent breast : 
 
 The sun seemed one large amulet 
 
 Of love — the day benignly set 
 Apart for prayer and rest; 
 
 As God himself thereon did cease 
 
 From labour, hallowing it with peace. 
 
 Lo, at each chime, with sober pace 
 Approached a thoughtful throng : 
 Virgins, with flushed but placid face. 
 
 Their grandsires led along. 
 From many a sunny winding came 
 The poor and proud, the swift, the lame — 
 
 The sickly and the strong ; 
 In bands of mingled sex and size— 
 The fair, the simple, and the wise.
 
 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 
 
 P'ar other sight anon was mine, 
 
 Far other sounds than those 
 That called the pilgrim to a shrine, 
 
 The mourner from his woes. 
 For, parted from the holy fane 
 By graves wherein the wept and vain 
 
 Lay wrapt in green repose, 
 There gleamed jnst o'er the nettle's head 
 A low undecorated shed. 
 
 Mean and uncouth such place appeared 
 
 Amid the landscape wide ; 
 Perchance its humble walls were reared 
 
 To shame what shone beside— 
 Heaven's temple, banner-graced and gilt ; 
 Unlike the simple altars built 
 
 Ere earth was trod by Pride. 
 Whate'er its use, its narrow span, 
 Unwindowed, was not meant for man. 
 
 For man, the cheerful hall or hut 
 
 May shew what time hath done ; 
 Whilst spirits glad as his are shut 
 
 From freedom and the sun. 
 Ah ! never did a manly limb 
 Repose in spot so damp and dim 
 
 Since sands were taught to run : 
 Yet something, lost to Nature's race, 
 \Vns living in that tomb like place. 
 
 39
 
 40 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 
 
 A moan scarcc-stifleil, long and low, 
 
 Betrayed the deepening dart 
 Of thraldom in that haunt of woe, 
 
 And smote upon my heart ; 
 Not answerless : for on my cheek 
 A paler pity seemed to speak, 
 
 In language lost to art, 
 Even unto heaven for that which tried 
 To hush the grief it could not hide. 
 
 b' 
 
 I paused — to hear mine inmost sense 
 
 The moan reverberate ; 
 I trod the nettles from the fence, 
 
 And shook the fastened gate. 
 At last a worm-worn cleft I found : — 
 Within, upon the grassless ground, 
 
 There lay— as desolate 
 As aught that ever missed its dam— 
 A lone, and meek, and captive Lamb. 
 
 The scene was touching to behold; 
 
 For glancing round about, 
 Within all seemed so dusk and cold, 
 
 So bright and warm without. 
 A little Lamb ! untimely caught, 
 Untimely sold — and thither brought ! 
 
 Condemned at first, no doubt, 
 ('Tis said to be the will divine) 
 To die in pangs, that man may dine.
 
 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 41 
 
 And as it lay with eye ho'f-clo=;o(i, 
 
 And ilooce all oartli-dofiled. 
 So pent-up, yet to ills exposed— 
 
 And helpless, like a child : 
 What marvel if my fancy deemed 
 Tiiat lonely Lamb a thing that dreamed 
 
 Of spots and seasons mild ! 
 Of meadows far away, and brooks 
 That mirrored its first peaceful looks ! 
 
 Even as I gazed the captive stirred ; 
 
 And though no chain was seen, 
 I thought the sigh my hushed ear heard 
 
 A fetter's clank had been. 
 It rose, and stood beneath a ray- 
 That through the roof had found its way ; 
 
 Then sought vvitii step serene 
 The gate ; and through a time-worked space 
 Streamed the full meekness of its face. 
 
 And all around its eyes were cast 
 
 Most mutely eloquent ; 
 Till on the moss they fixed, at last, 
 
 That decked a monument. 
 Then glancing on each warm green spot, 
 With all its gambols unforgot, 
 
 Back to its bed it went ; 
 Tiiere dreaming still of field and flood 
 To wait— till men should shed its blood, 
 
 K 3
 
 42 THE CAPTIVE LAMB. 
 
 Meek Lamb ! tliy moan within my soul 
 
 A moral left behind; 
 For prayer and anthem o'er it stole 
 
 More idly than the wind. 
 I turned from saints, from praisings loud, 
 To muse on martyrdoms less proud: 
 
 And often strays my mind 
 From all I sought — from all I am— . 
 To think upon that prisoned Lamb.
 
 ^onnct^* 
 
 I. 
 
 YESTERDAY. 
 
 Pale pilgrim of the heavens, that late didst glide ' 
 
 With siinbeam-staflf the violet vales along, 
 
 Where fountains of fresh dew gushed up in song, 
 
 To bathe thy golden feet, and then subside — 
 
 Last wave that sparkled on Time's ebbing tide — 
 
 How are thy bright limbs laid amid the throng 
 
 Of vanished days, that drooped o'er eartlily wrong, 
 
 Seeing how virtue is to vice allied, 
 
 And vanished blushingly. Sad Yesterday ! 
 
 Night's winding-sheet is round thee, and the eyes 
 
 That found a health — or fever — in thy ray, 
 
 And thoughtfully perused on evening skies 
 
 Thine elegy, star-lettered, — now away 
 
 Turn their brief thoughts of thee, and thus men moralize.
 
 44 SONNETS. 
 
 II. 
 
 TO-DAY. 
 
 A mbe'ral worldling, gay philosopher, 
 Art thou that lift'st thy young and yellow head 
 O'er the dim burial of the scarce-cold dead- 
 Building above thy brother's sepulchre 
 A home of love, that sense might almost err, 
 Deeming thine end therein to woo and wed 
 The flower-haired Earth for ever. Yet the red 
 In yonder west may well such dreams deter ! 
 Yes, thou, all-hiuled To-Day ! whose outstretched hand 
 Scatters loose riches on a bankrupt land, 
 Even thou art but a leaf from off the tree 
 Of yellowing Time : a grain of glistening sand 
 Dashed from the waters of that unsailcd sea, 
 Where thou to-night shalt sink, and I as soon may be.
 
 SONNETS. 45 
 
 III, 
 
 TO-MORROW. 
 
 Who shall imagine how thy wing may sweep, 
 
 Many and mighty nations laying bare 
 
 To bliglit — war — famine ? Who shall say if e'er 
 
 The day may burn again?— how men that sleep 
 
 May wake, and wander up and down, and keep 
 
 Their eyes on the dark east in long despair ! 
 
 Or, coming, wak'st thou from thy cloudy lair 
 
 A Lion-sun ? or like a Lark, to reap 
 
 Music in heaven for the glad ear of earth? 
 
 The signs of many yesterdays appear 
 
 But fading sparks on gossip memory's hearth ; 
 
 Thine are as comets burning. For thy birth 
 
 Freedom, half stifled in the clasp of Fear, 
 
 Looks o'er a wailing world. The dawn, the dawn, is near !
 
 46 SONNETS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 WISHES OF YOUTH. 
 
 Gaily and greenly let my seasons run ; 
 
 And should the war- winds of the world uproot 
 
 The sanctities of life, and its sweet fruit 
 
 Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun ; 
 
 The dews be turned to ice — fair days begun 
 
 In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit 
 
 Despair and discord keep Hope's harpstring mute ; 
 
 Still let me live as Love and Life were one : 
 
 Still let nie turn on earth a childlike gaze 
 
 And trust the whispered charities that bring 
 
 Tidings of human truth ; with inward praise 
 
 Watch the weak motion of each common thing, 
 
 And find it glorious — still let me raise 
 
 On wintry wrecks an altar to the Spring.
 
 SONNETS. 47 
 
 V. 
 
 ON TIME. 
 
 To one that marks the quick and certain round 
 
 Of year on year, and finds how every day 
 
 Brings its gray hair, or bears a leaf away 
 
 From the full glory with which life is crowned, 
 
 Ere youth becomes a shade and fame a sound ; 
 
 Surely to one that feels his foot on sand 
 
 Unsure, the bright and ever-visible hand 
 
 Of Time points far above the lowly bound 
 
 Of pride that perishes ; and leads the eye 
 
 To loftier objects and diviner ends — 
 
 A tranquil strength, sublime humility, 
 
 A knowledge of ourselves, a faith in friends, 
 
 A sympathy for all things born to die, 
 
 With cheerful love for those whom truth attends.
 
 48 SONNETS. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE CHARM OF SOUND. 
 
 Thou that with silenced heart, by stream or glade, 
 
 The music of the morn hast haply heard, 
 
 When every leaf hath canopied some bird ; 
 
 Whose step through wood and wilderness hath strayed 
 
 When all the living sunshine dies in shade, 
 
 When nothing in the haunted heaven hath stirred, 
 
 And earth hath echoed forth no wakening word : — 
 
 Oh, come, ere yet the youthful year shall fade, 
 
 Among the mountains and the woods once more 
 
 Pluck healthful pleasures, such as grew of yore 
 
 Wild in the ways of life. The fevered air 
 
 Of cities stifleth Reason, and their roar 
 
 Leaves in the soul the silence of despair : 
 
 Then come where Thought resides, for Music too is there.
 
 SONNETS. 49 
 
 VII. 
 
 HIDDEN JOYS. 
 
 Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem, 
 
 There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground 
 
 But holds some joy, of silence or of sound; 
 
 Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. 
 
 The very meanest things are made supreme 
 
 With innate ecstacy. No grain of sand 
 
 But moves a bright and million-peopled land, 
 
 And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 
 
 For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye 
 
 Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things. 
 
 And touched mine ear with power. Thus far or nigh, 
 
 Minute or mighty, fixed or free with wings, 
 
 Delight from many a nameless covert sly 
 
 Peeps sparkling, and in tones familiar sings.
 
 .59 SONNETS. 
 
 V 
 
 VIII. 
 
 INFANCY ASLEEP. 
 
 The fairest thing that human eyes may view 
 
 Now breathes beneath my own — a sleeping child, 
 
 Smiling amid its thoughts and visions mild : 
 
 Its face upturned in hope's pervading hue, 
 
 As the glad morning of the mind dawns through. 
 
 These wordless lips as yet have only smiled 
 
 On life, nor hath an evil taint defiled 
 
 Eyes that are closed like flowers — whose tears are dew 
 
 From the heart's inmost heaven. Oh! infant heir 
 
 Of Nature, in thy fresh and delicate dust 
 
 If aught of ill be mingled, 'twere unjust 
 
 To deem it thine ; for on thy forehead fair 
 
 Sit purity and peace : be ours the trust 
 
 Tiiat Age shall find them still unchilled by crime or care !
 
 SONNETS. ^1 
 
 IX. 
 
 TO J. O. 
 
 I CLASS thee, moral Critic, with tlie few 
 
 Whose simple friendship is a kind of fame ; 
 
 On whose unpurchased praise we rest a claim 
 
 To glories which the Caesars never knew. 
 
 Thy nature was conceived ere falsehood grew 
 
 A fashion in the world, and Wit took shame 
 
 To twine a wreath for Wisdom's naked name. 
 
 Thus have thy words a power that doth endue 
 
 Our dreams with faith, our deeds with gentleness. 
 
 Within the mirror of thy single mind 
 
 All noble thoughts their clear reflection find ; 
 
 And thy calm spirit, shunning all excess — 
 
 Keen in its quest of good, to ills resigned — 
 
 Pursues its way in smiles, intent to cheer and bless.
 
 52 SONNETS. 
 
 X. 
 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 There is a social and a solemn spell, 
 
 A spirit in our dust, a dream divine, 
 
 Filling the world with inspiration fine, 
 
 And making virtue purely visible ; 
 
 Whether in hall of state or studious cell, — 
 
 Where'er the currents of our life incline. 
 
 Oh! equal Liberty ! this power is thine! 
 
 For at thy voice, which Instinct knows as well 
 
 As doth a child its mother's natural tone. 
 
 The darkened soul looks sunward, like a bird 
 
 Whose wing hath paused on mountains not its own. 
 
 By thee, fair Freedom, in the outcast herd 
 
 The seeds of high nobility arc sown, 
 
 And abject minds are taught the wisdom of a word.
 
 SONNETS. 53 
 
 XI. 
 
 TO NATURE. 
 
 Sweet Nature, witli thy bosom ever young 
 
 In green temptation, and in healthier charms 
 
 Tiian Art hatli yet been painted witli ; whose arms 
 
 Have roclied to rest a mind that oft liath clung 
 
 To the rich promise of thy secret tongue, 
 
 Fulfilled in silence : — Nature, not of those 
 
 Who, shunning thy most fond and sure repose, 
 
 For crowded cities their high harps have strung, 
 
 And poured in thankless cars their rapturous rhyme, — 
 
 Forgetting how eacii hollow flower around 
 
 May hold an echo of Fame's answering sound 
 
 In natural numbers, simple yet sublime — 
 
 O ! not of such is he whom changing time 
 
 Has only brought a wish to tread tliy halkwed grouiid. 
 
 » 2
 
 54 SONNETS. 
 
 xir. 
 
 TO D. W. J. 
 
 When I behold the false and flattered state 
 
 "Which all ambition points at, and survey 
 
 The harried pageants of the passing day, 
 
 Where all press on to share a fleeting fate — 
 
 Methinks the living triumphs that await 
 
 On hours like thine might tempt the proud to stay. 
 
 For on a green and all unworldly way 
 
 Thy hand hath twined the chaplet of the great, 
 
 And the first warmth and fragrance of its fame 
 
 Are stealing on thy soul. The time shall be 
 
 When men may find a music in thy name, 
 
 To rouse deep fancies and opinions free ; 
 
 Aff"ection fervid as the Sun's bright flame, 
 
 And sympathies unfathomed as the Sea.
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 xm. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 V 
 
 Wake from your misty nests — instinctive wake, 
 
 Ye fine, and numberless, and sleeping things ! 
 
 The Infant Saviour of all blossomings 
 
 From heaven's blue womb hath passed ; and for the sake 
 
 Of Earth, and her green family, doth make 
 
 In air redemption and soft gloryings. 
 
 The world, as though inspired, erectly flings 
 
 Its shadowy coronals away, to slake 
 
 A holy thirst for light: and, one by one. 
 
 The enamoured hills — with many a startled dell, 
 
 Fountain and forest — blush before the Sun ! 
 
 Voices and wings are up, and waters swell; 
 
 And flowers, like clustered shepherds, have begun 
 
 To ope their fragrant mouths, and heavenly tidings tell.
 
 5G SONNETS. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 NOON. 
 
 How all the spirits of nature love to greet, 
 
 In mystic recognition from the grass, 
 
 And cloud, and spray — a warm and vivid class — 
 
 The eagle-tiring Noon ; 'around whose feet 
 
 The glories of the brim-full summer meet : 
 
 That reeling Time beholds his sober glass 
 
 Turn to a goblet; and the sands that pass 
 
 Seem drops of living wine ! O, this is sweet, 
 
 To see the heavens all open, and the hood 
 
 Of crystal Noon flung back ! the earth meanwhile 
 
 Filling her veins with sunshine — vital blood 
 
 Of all that now from her full breast doth smile 
 
 (Casting no shadow) on that pleasant flood 
 
 Of light, where every mote is some small minstrel's isle.
 
 SONNETS. 57 
 
 XV. 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 Already hath the day grown gray with age ; 
 And in the west, like to a conqueror crowned, 
 Is faint with, too much glory. On the ground 
 Re flings his dazzling arms ; and, as a sage. 
 Prepares him for a cloud-hung hermitage, 
 Wliere Meditation meets him at the door; 
 And all around— on wall, and roof, and floor, 
 Some pensive star unfolds its silver page 
 Of truth, which God's own hand hath testified. 
 Sweet Eve ! whom poets sing to as a bride, 
 Queen of the quiet— Eden of Time's bright map— 
 Tiiy look allures me from my hushed fire-side, 
 And sharp leaves rustliug at my casement tap, 
 And beckon forth my mind to dream upon thy lap !
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The pulse of Time is stopt : a silentiiess 
 
 Hath seized the waters, and the winds, and all 
 
 That motion claims or music natural. 
 
 The altar of all life stands victimless. 
 
 Of beast or bird, in joyance or distress, 
 
 All token sleeps ; nor leaf is heard to fall 
 
 As Midnight holds her breath ! The kingly hall 
 
 Is barred — the slave inherits an excess 
 
 Of infelt royalty — the exile views 
 
 His home in dreams; nay, even the student breaks 
 
 From his worn volume, and forgets to muse 
 
 On words and worlds— the miser only wakes. 
 
 Warming his fingers at a golden heap. 
 
 He smiles in Midnight's face, and will not trust to sleep
 
 SONNETS. 59 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THE MOUNTAINS. 
 
 Oh, Mountains! on your glorious points sublime, 
 
 The threshold of our earth, to stand and see 
 
 The seasons on swift wings come forth and flee ; 
 
 And from the changes of enchanted time 
 
 To draw the moral music of my rhyme, — 
 
 How full of joy this simple lot would be : 
 
 To cushion on the grass my bended knee, 
 
 And worship Nature in a clearer clime. 
 
 For on the hills have mortal footsteps found 
 
 The eagle-nest of Freedom, and a throne 
 
 Where Peasant-princes have been proudly crowned. 
 
 Full many a stirring air and pastoral tone 
 
 Come breathing from them still ; and all the ground 
 
 Is full of strange delight and glories deeply sown.
 
 GO SONNETS. 
 
 XVlll. 
 NATURAL STUDIES. 
 
 To see the grace and glory of the year, 
 
 Cradled in leaves, grow with the breath of May, 
 
 At whose warm touch the winter melts away, 
 
 And all the wakened heaven shows full and clear; 
 
 To mark the faint but freshening light appear, 
 
 And throw its first fair gold upon the gray. 
 
 Giving glad promise of the dazzling day ; 
 
 To view the mute and labouring night uprear 
 
 Its starriness through storms ; or trace the tide 
 
 Forth from its pebbly prison flowing free — 
 
 These link the soul, oh Nature ! unto thee ; 
 
 And in these scenes are figured and implied 
 
 The dawn and growth of life, when taught by pride, 
 
 The mind disdains the dust, and feels its liberty.
 
 SONNETS. 61 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE STATE OF MAN. 
 
 Oh ! who can look upon the lofty mind 
 
 O'eicome l)y taunt and tears ; observe tlie vow 
 
 Of princes unfulfilled, and the slow plough 
 
 Crushing the peasant's hopes ; the weak resigned 
 
 To wrongs — the crafty trampling on the kind ; 
 
 The laurel wreathed upon a branded brow, 
 
 Hiding, not honouring ; the olive bough 
 
 Faded, and cast upon the common wind — 
 
 And earth a doveless Ark. Oh! who can see 
 
 How weak the wise, how fallen are the free ; 
 
 How Thirst sits pining by the plenteous main, 
 
 While Virtue finds her garland but a chain, — 
 
 Nor deem the golden hour is still to be, 
 
 When Life shall look to heaven exempt from pride and pain.
 
 fi2 SONNETS. 
 
 XX. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF KEATS. 
 
 Mute Minstrel of the Eve, pale, inystica!, 
 When one by one comes forth the pensive train 
 Of things not born for vi'orldly strife and pain, 
 That cannot fade, though doomed perchance to fall ; 
 Fond Cherisher of passions, fancies, all 
 Whose essence fills a poet's flower-like home — 
 I saw but now, within yon distant dome, 
 A cloud that cast its transitory pall 
 Across the quivering light: and I did think 
 That moment on the cold and shadowing shame 
 With which thy starry spirit hath been crowned. 
 How vain their torturings were ! for thou didst sink 
 With the first stone cast at thy martyred fame ; 
 How like the snow that's ruined by a sound ! 
 1823.
 
 SONNETS. 63 
 
 XXI. 
 
 DELIGHT NOT DISTANT. 
 
 Around man's hearth his dearest blessings meet. 
 Why look we for a fruit that grows afar 
 Planted in peril, when free pastures are, 
 Like promises, spread round our calm retreat! 
 Man flies the land, to range where billows beat ; 
 Forsakes his hut, to track the conqueror's car: 
 Yet he whose eyes but watch some wandering star, 
 May crush the steadier glow-worm at his feet. 
 And thus who idly grasp a doubtful good, 
 In thoughts obscure and passions wild and vain. 
 Neglect the native pleasures of the blood, 
 And turn its health and hopes to present pain ; 
 Missing, for gems deep fixed within the flood, 
 The readier riches of the fragrant plain.
 
 MY PEN. 
 
 Nothing in the earth or sea 
 Ever lent itself to me, 
 As an agency to give 
 Shape to tliought that it might live j 
 As an implement to stay 
 Fancy on her hidden way, 
 Turning every tone of her's 
 Into sparkling characters. 
 Whence drew I the pliant quill 
 That hath compassed my will ? 
 Flying fondly here and there 
 As a feather on the air,— 
 Sealing each unfinished spell, 
 Poesy's own Ariel. 
 
 Not from light and loving wing 
 Fresh from the perfumed Spring,
 
 MY PEN. ^^ 
 
 Fanning the red cheek of Morn, 
 Plumed trophy have I torn. 
 Not from eagle or from lark, 
 Milky dove or raven dark ; 
 Nor from swallow, that forsakes 
 Heaven when adverse Winter wakes; 
 Nor from song-souled nightingale, 
 With whose rich ^nd raptured tale, 
 Since the evening stole above, 
 Poets' ears have fallen in love. 
 
 Seas have offered np to men, 
 
 Trustingly, a diamond pen ; 
 
 Point of crystal, fine and hard, 
 
 Many a window-pane hath marr'd,— 
 
 And 'tis oft the poet's curse 
 
 To mar his little light with verse. 
 
 Hut the light from heaven's halls 
 
 On my floor unbroken falls, 
 
 Narrow though my lattice seem 
 
 To admit the boundless beam ; 
 
 And my fingers would despond 
 
 Guiding the rich diamond. 
 
 That with visible incision 
 
 Vo^'r. I'!0 Hiin ;mi'' Hum.'ht-like virinu.
 
 66 iMY PEN. 
 
 Some a glassy pen have found 
 In the revel's vFizard round, 
 Tracing every word in wine 
 
 With a relic half divine 
 
 Fragment of a cup let slip 
 From a foul and lying lip. 
 Others in the sapless stem 
 
 Of a blighted, bloomless flower, 
 Ministrant have won to them 
 
 Of a deep and moral power. 
 But the glass may pierce a vein, 
 And the stem a thorn retain ; 
 Thus may gushing blood imbue 
 Things baptized in wine and dew. 
 
 Yet though soon the glow may sink 
 From that warm and crimson ink, 
 Richer though it fade to- day, 
 Glittering tint by tint away. 
 Is such blood from martyred veins 
 Than a sea of golden gains : 
 Or the ink which traitors find — 
 Traitors to the heart and mind— 
 Which, like water that begets 
 Toiuls and aspics where it wets,
 
 MY PEN. 67 
 
 Wakes a spirit to disturb 
 Fragrant bud and healing lierb. 
 
 Not a sunbeam is my qnill, 
 Nor a tear-hung icicle ; 
 Nor an arrow's instant light, 
 Sharp and fatal in its flight ; 
 Not a trophy won from man, 
 Nor splinter from a lady's fan 
 Steeped in fragrance. 'Tis indeed 
 But a frail and bending reed, 
 Plucked by a most listless hand 
 In a waste and flowerless land, 
 By the margin of a stream 
 Where the idle eddies gleam, 
 Even as hopes within the breast- 
 Dazzling as they drop to rest. 
 
 What is this uncultured waste 
 But my bosom's fruitless pride ? 
 
 What the stream that sparkles past, 
 But its fleet and living tide ? 
 
 Something in ourselves must be 
 
 Still our own dependency.
 
 68 MY PEN. 
 
 Yet the reed with which I write 
 Hath a magic power to bless — 
 
 Pouring through its tube a light 
 On my moral wilderness, 
 
 That the tempest is forgot, 
 
 In a glad and golden lot.
 
 TO ONE DESERTED. 
 
 Fair stem of many hopes, what wind hath borne 
 
 This blight upon thee? wliat hath chilled thy root, 
 
 Turning to ashes all its golden fruit? 
 
 Whose holy hand hath cast thee forth to mourn, 
 
 An exile from thy paradise, where thou 
 
 Hadst plucked the bitter joy which fails thee now, 
 
 Like summer promises frost-broken. Sure 
 
 The hand that smites thy bosom must be pure ; 
 
 A snow-shower quenching that ill-fated flame 
 
 That hath but burned to tinge thy cheek with shame. 
 
 No ruffian death should seize so fair a life, 
 
 Bleeding like some pale lamb beneath the knife. 
 
 Hath not Love's banquet-board been spread for thee ? 
 
 And the dark poisoner—say, who is he? 
 
 What tale is in thine eyes!— each tear a word 
 
 That tells such truths as man hath seldom heard. 
 
 Oh, it is hard to die by hands which we 
 
 Had deemed most gentle ; and whose faintest fitain 
 
 Our purest tears have rendered clear again.
 
 70 TO ONE DESERTED. 
 
 Art thou thus killed ! The riches of thy shrine 
 Are fall'n to dust, though worshipped as divine; 
 And kneeling there, it did invade thine eye, 
 Where each sharp grain begets an agony. 
 \* Oh, it is burning bitterness to find 
 
 Truth on the lip, and meanness in the mind ,• — 
 
 To drink from the sweet stream, and then behold 
 
 A snake uncurling from the billow's fold. 
 
 And he, thy pilot, led thee to the rocks— 
 
 Who swore to shield thee from the mid-day sun; 
 
 Who brought a string to bind thy loosened locks, 
 
 And so hath strangled the fond heart he won. 
 
 What fine-spun threads compose the net, wherein 
 
 The mind is taught to suffer ere it sin. 
 
 How shall the bird escape the fowler's strings, 
 
 Or soar, when selfish craft has stript its wings? 
 
 For him, the heartless and unhallowed lord 
 Of the sweet world that waited on his word— 
 Oh, be his lot to find the fevered shame 
 Fly far from thee, and darken round his fame ! 
 To range o'er hill and heath, by tempest lost, 
 And find no blessing like the love he lost.
 
 TO AN EARTHLY BEAUTY, 
 
 No fairy I deem thee that paces by night 
 
 O'er a brook's pebbled banlc, or a grass-covered height ; 
 
 No spirit art thou such as gleam through the deep, 
 
 Or inliabit the pearl-builded palace of sleep ; 
 
 I may not believe thee the fiction that breaks 
 
 On the poet's wild eye when his morning first wakes ; 
 
 No shadow that haunts on some sea-girdled ground 
 
 That can melt in a sunbeam or soar in a sound. 
 
 But a mortal I own thee, a child of our earth, 
 
 With a lip full of song and an eye full of mirth. 
 
 No chain may I find in a single bright hair, 
 
 Nor deem that a halo is hovering there ; 
 
 Yet methinks (though thy lip hath more Sappho than Eve) 
 
 I could well from thy hand stolen apples receive ; 
 
 And thy heart hath a corner where mine could have lain, 
 
 With a sigh or a song for the clank of my chain. 
 
 Yet think not I prize what those glances reveal 
 That awake in the eyes what the heart cannot feel ; 
 Tiiy voice liath a cadence that lingers on time, 
 And we suffer in prose all vvc picture in rhyme. 
 Though fancy bring forth, it is fact that conceives : 
 If we reach not the fruit we are sprinkled with leaves.
 
 72 TO AN EARTHLY BEAUTY. 
 
 Thy spell may be surest when feeling comes forth, 
 
 Like a lily resisting the winds of the north ; 
 
 When the cheek's crimson smnmer is mantled with frost, 
 
 And hope in the spring of its promise is lost. 
 
 But give me the look that steals ont from thy lash, 
 
 When the clear lid half closes, refining the flash ! 
 
 It is then that we read on thy bosom's pure page 
 
 In a minute much more than is told in an age ; 
 
 Then the language of life we interpret in song, 
 
 And sin against right in sweet sighs for the wrong — 
 
 When beauties like waves wash their wealth on our shoie, 
 
 And the grave of one joy is the cradle of more. 
 
 Oh, breathe on the flame so enkindled in mirth: 
 Could it last it might dry all the tears upon earth ; 
 And teach us that woman can sow through our sleep 
 A harvest of visions that sages might reap. 
 And well I discern, as crowned promises pass. 
 Like Banquo's bright issue, thou bearest a glass j 
 Where graces uncounted and sparkling are seen 
 Like stars in the sea when no cloud soars between. 
 Oh, if here I could stay for a century on, 
 Till all that now dazzles is scattered and gone, 
 When borne to heaven's gate through the gardens of air, 
 jNIethinks I should asl. — " if thy spirit was there ?"
 
 SONG FOR SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-DAY. 
 
 Oh ! the names are unnumbered that Fame with a hand 
 
 All dazzling and trembling hath traced upon sand ; 
 
 But one must be lasting, still dear and divine— 
 
 And whose should it be, sweetest Shakspeare, but thine ? 
 
 As youths at the tomb of the Painter are said 
 To touch with their pencils the life- laurelled head, 
 So the name of our Shakspeare a music can raise, 
 To sweeten the strain that would soar in his praise. 
 
 Ob, the hours and the days that have glided along. 
 When the tide of the blood seemed an Avon of song ; 
 When the shapes that we saw, and the sounds that we heard. 
 Were the dreams and the glories, the world of his word. 
 
 Still, still to the fancy shall Rosalind cling, 
 From Ophelia's fair flesh still the violets spring : 
 Oh, the young heart had proved but a honeyless hive. 
 Had not time kept the blossoms of Shakspeare alive. 
 
 H
 
 74 SONG FOR SHAKSPEARE'S BIRTH-DAY. 
 
 May the tears of the gentle descend upon them, 
 While the shores have a flower or the sea hath a gem ; 
 For Will's wizard line is the famed purple hair, 
 Whose magical virtue secures us from care. 
 
 "&• 
 
 Sweet Shakspeare, we seek not to measure thy flight, 
 Or add to thy rainbow superfluous light ; 
 But like silkworms we offer our wealth up to thee, 
 As fed from thy own hallowed Mulberry-tree.
 
 STANZAS FOR EVENING. 
 
 There is an hour when leaves are still and winds sleep on 
 
 the wave ; 
 When far beneath the closing clouds the day hath found a grave ; 
 And stars, that at the note of dawn begin their circling flight, 
 Return, like sun-tired birds, to seek the sable boughs of night. 
 
 The curtains of the mind are closed and slumber is most sweet, 
 And visions to the hearts of men direct their fairy feet; 
 The wearied wing hath gained a tree, pain sighs itself to rest, 
 And beauty's bridegroom lies upon the pillow of her breast. 
 
 There is a feeling in that hour which tumult ne'er hath known, 
 Which nature seems to dedicate to silent things alone ; 
 The spirit of the lonely wakes as rising from the dead. 
 And finds its shrowd adorned with flowers, its night-lamp 
 newly fed. 
 
 The mournful moon her rainbows hath, and mid the blight of all 
 That garlands life some blossoms live^ like lilies on a pall; 
 Thus while to lone Affliction's conch some stranger-joy may come, 
 The bee that hoardeth sweets all day hath sadness in its hum.
 
 76 STANZAS FOR EVENING. 
 
 Yet some there are whose fire of years leaves no remembered 
 
 spark, 
 Whose summer-time itself is bleak, whose very daybreak dark. 
 The stem though naked still may live, the leaf though perished 
 
 cling, 
 }iut if at first the root be cleft, it lies a branchless thing. 
 
 And oh! to such— long, hallowed nights their patient music 
 
 send : 
 The hours like drooping angels walk, more graceful as they bend ; 
 And stars emit a hope -like ray, that melts as it comes nigh, 
 And nothing in that calm hath life that doth not wish to die. 
 
 1821.
 
 PLEASURES OF PROMISE. 
 
 Things may be well to seem that are not well to be, 
 And thus hath fancy's dream been realized to me. 
 We deem the distant tide a blue and solid ground ; 
 We seek the green hill's side, and thorns are only found. 
 
 Is hope then ever so ?— or is it as a tree, 
 Whereon fresh blossoms grow, for those that faded be ? 
 Oh, who may think to sail from peril and from snare, 
 When rocks beneath us fail, and bolts are in the air ! 
 
 Yet hope the storm can quell with a soft and happy tiints 
 Or hang December's cell with figures caught from June. 
 And even unto me there cometh, less forlorn. 
 An impulse from the sea, a promise from the morn. 
 
 When summer shadows break, and gentle winds rejoice, 
 On mountain or on lake ascends a constant voice. 
 With a hope and with a pride its music woke of old, 
 And every pulse replied in tales as fondly told. 
 
 Though illusion aids no more the poetry of youth, 
 Its fabled sweetness o'er it leaves a pensive truth ; — 
 That tears the sight obscure, that sounds the ear lietray, 
 That nothing can nUiire the heart to go astray. 
 
 H 3
 
 THE DOMINION OF PAIN. 
 
 In all that live, endure, and die, ^ 
 
 In every vision of the brain ; 
 
 On Love's fond lip, in Pleasure's eye; 
 
 The hermit's pulse, the warrior's vein ; 
 
 In hearts that pause and plunge again. 
 
 Frail victims of the passing hour,— 
 
 We find thy far dominion, Pain ; 
 
 We trace the foot-prints of thy power. 
 Though some are washed away by tears, 
 Whilst some survive the march of years. 
 
 Who cannot weep was never blest : 
 Would all were woeless that have wept; 
 Would all that heaves might be at rest — 
 And sleep might come to those that slept .' 
 My soul hath long its vigils kept 
 O'er sense of pain and dreams of death ; 
 And knows not why its course hath crept 
 Thus idly on for feverish breath. 
 
 Whilst hour by hour it longs to sleep, 
 I feel it doomed to watch and vvoop.
 
 FICTION AND TRUTH. 
 
 There was a glare of light, a mass 
 
 Of things that perisli as they pass ; 
 
 A fiction of the eye and ear, 
 
 And living hearts not more sincere. 
 
 Mine nursed a wound they could not lie'al, 
 
 Mine saw a scene they could not see ; 
 
 How little I for thera might feel, 
 
 How less could they for me ! 
 
 I knew not why I wandered there, 
 In secret hope or dim despair; 
 Or in that dream of mute surprise 
 That leads us to a brink, and flies. 
 But there I breathed amid the throng, 
 As one who walks a foreign strand. 
 Watching the waves that roll along 
 And part him from his laud.
 
 80 FICTION AND TRUTH. 
 
 When siulden as a star that drops 
 Behind the far-off forest tops, 
 Brief as the quick and quivering spark 
 On struggling waters wiki and dark — 
 There came a spirit on my patli, 
 A beauty dying in its birth, 
 Gifted with all that woman hath 
 Of music and of mirth. 
 
 A brow, the whitest world of thought 
 That ever pen or pencil wrought; 
 A breast as wonderful and warm 
 As ever love-dream failed to form. 
 Methonght although of mortal mould 
 It held the flame of years to come : 
 I asked my heart—'twas sick and cold ; 
 My hope— but it was dumb. 
 
 It came and claimed no kindred there ; 
 
 But glanced on me, as though a hair, 
 
 Plucked from the brow of Time, might be 
 
 A chain to bind it unto me. 
 
 On me it gazed, an instant gazed, 
 
 Then passed through closing crowds again; 
 
 A pinnace on the sea-foam raised 
 
 To strike the swimmer's brain.
 
 FICTION AND TRUTH. 81 
 
 Thus fairest things should vanish fleet 
 Ere earth hath stained their failing feet; 
 And all the blossoms she may shed 
 Are destined to adorn the dead. 
 I wished its momentary stay 
 Could be my term of life below ; 
 Unknown to pass in still display, 
 By one regretted go. 
 
 Its presence came so brightly brief, 
 Its gladness bore no tinge of grief; 
 The cheek of hope but not its fears. 
 The eyes of love without their tears. 
 Alas ! the eye that chased my pain 
 May now be weeping o'er its own ; 
 The breast where angels might have lain 
 Tears may have turned to stone. 
 
 And where that light was found and lost 
 I counted o'er a cloudlike host, 
 Bright with the sunshine which they shade, 
 Wliile all beneath them freeze and fade. 
 The flame had sunk where it began ; 
 The scene was still a painted show. 
 They said 'twas truth—I turned to Man, 
 And sighed to find it so. 
 1824.
 
 TO GREECE. 
 
 [a fragment.] 
 
 O ! MISTRESS of rich seas, whose every billow 
 Hath hymned a hope, or been some poet's pillow ; 
 Mother of mountain isles, whose every stone 
 Hath borne the glory of some name unknown ! 
 Whose shores a holy echo still repeat, 
 And shew the sun-prints of immortal feet ; 
 Where but to thee shall youthful spirits turn, 
 Finding an orient cradle in thine urn ! 
 O ! scenes, where Homer lived and Byron died, 
 Greece ! of the angel-sun the earthly bride, 
 How dost thou win our worship ! To thy shores, 
 The mind's first Eden though profaned by crime, 
 How files untutored Poesy, and pours 
 Its song of triumph on thy hills sublime, 
 Pavillioned by the skies ! Thy temple-roof 
 Now forms the pavement for an impious hoof ; 
 And o'er the land a blighting breath is spread 
 To hide the heaven still bright above thy head— 
 A banner for thy cause, a mantle for thy dead !
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 
 
 The secret world in human eyes 
 Is delaged still with tears ; 
 Our breath is turned to feverish sighs, 
 And nature nursed in fears. 
 Cannot life rend its thin disguise, 
 Or be what it appears ! 
 
 All passion is a blazing brand 
 Thrown on a ready pile ; 
 Friendship a pressure of the hand ; 
 Pity a winter-srnile ; 
 And hope but wind across the sand, 
 That forms, and fails the while. 
 
 Our life is as an idle boat 
 Along a winding river; 
 An aimless arrow sprung remote 
 From an ethereal quiver ;-— 
 And pilotless it still must float, 
 And aimless speed for ever.
 
 84 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 
 
 Then let man build upon the grave 
 A hope that cannot sink ; 
 A wintry waste his foot must brave, 
 Yet may he find some brink : 
 Or haply drop within the wave, 
 Whose wine he thought to drink.
 
 THE POET S HEART. 
 
 'Tis like unto that dainty flower 
 Tliat shuts by day its fragrance nit, 
 And lifts unto a darkened hour 
 Its little essence-cup. 
 
 'Tis as the grape on which it lives ; 
 That pleasure -ripened heart must be 
 In sorrow cruslied, or ere it gives 
 The wine of poesy. 
 
 Or like some silver-winged fly, 
 By taper tempted from its flight, 
 It sparkles, faints, falls quiveringly, 
 And mingles with the light. 
 
 And sure it bears a fortune such 
 As waits upon that graceful bird, 
 Whose music, mute to living touch, 
 At death's dim porch is heard. 
 
 I
 
 86 THE POET'S HEART. 
 
 And still the dolphin's fate partakes : 
 Though blight the hue which pride hath given, 
 'Tis pain whose darting pencil wakes 
 The master-tints of heaven. 
 
 A mine where many a living gem 
 In cell so deep lies casketed, 
 That man sends down a sigh for them, 
 And turns away his head. 
 
 But not that dainty flower, the grape^ 
 The insect's sufTerance and devotion ; 
 The swan's life-ending song, and shape 
 Diviner with emotion ; — 
 
 And not the dolphin's sacrifice, 
 The mine's most rare and dazzling part— 
 O ! not all these could pay its price. 
 Or form one poet's heart.
 
 A HISTORY OF LIFE. 
 [fuom an lnpublished drama.] 
 
 Life !— 'tis the sickliest shadow that e'er crossed 
 
 The goodly green o' the earth ; the hoarsest sound 
 
 That ever smote the silver ear of night 
 
 From thunder-throated seas. Man hath not weighed 
 
 A thing so light as his own life, that seems 
 
 The strength of many things, centre of hope ; 
 
 And hath its little worlds — love, glory, gain — 
 
 Riding around, as buoyant and more brief. 
 
 How like the monarch of all life looks man ; 
 
 Yet doth a lean and livid worm out-reign 
 
 The crowned Napoleon in the human heart ! 
 
 Whate'er our summer, ice begins and ends — 
 
 The cradle, and the coffin, of our year. 
 
 All earth is but an hour-glass ; and the sands 
 
 That tremble through are men. And as they pass 
 
 Some sparkle and would linger ; but the rest 
 
 Come sweeping heavily onward, and tread out 
 
 The unredeeming lustre — and all sink. 
 
 The starriest page that history hath traced, 
 
 In her own dubious twilight, is a tab
 
 88 A HISTORY OF LIFE. 
 
 Of buried men that used their tears for ink ; 
 A tombstone for the tired, which tells of those 
 That wept and vanished, toiled and marvelled why. 
 And all the students of our life have looked 
 Bearded Ambition in the face, and laughed. 
 'J'hemselves perchance had travelled far on foot, 
 The roots of knowledge nurturing with their blood ; 
 Yet reared they not a branch or bud to shade 
 Wearied adventure ; — while the few dry leaves, 
 Which Autumn swept from Eden, make a flame 
 'J'hat thaws no bond from ignorance and sloth. 
 So moves the visioned world ; so runs the tale 
 Studied in April. Nothing true survives 
 Save fiction ; which hath still the truest been. 
 And so less trusted — 'tis a judging world. 
 Man idles in the sun, and finds a heath 
 To cross at eventide : the beam that flung 
 Freshness and strength upon his brow now leaves 
 His step unpiloted ; while naked Death 
 Conies like the shadow of the world abroad, 
 Blotting his features out. Thus is he born 
 That old Philosophy may smile : and dies 
 That worms may thrive, and the thin poet write 
 An unread epitaph. This, this is Life, 
 1821.
 
 THE WAVE. 
 
 [SUGRESTED BY AN EARLY RECOLLECTION OF A BEAUTtFl L 
 POEH BY SHELLEY, ENTITLED " THE CLOUD."] 
 
 A being I take from fountains that break 
 
 In the depths of the ocean sand, 
 
 And my form is curled througli the yielding world 
 
 To freshen the living land. 
 
 And the sparkles I fling from my watery wing, 
 
 As it mounts to meet the day, 
 
 Are gems for the hair of the sea-girls fair 
 
 That rise on my shining way. 
 
 I pass by the place where the earth's cold race 
 
 Repose in silent cells ; 
 
 And the lovely and lone have found a throne 
 
 On a heap of glistening shells. 
 
 I sing for hours to leaves and to flowers 
 That never beheld the moon, 
 But sprinkle their sheen of gold and green 
 To ihank my lingering. tune. 
 
 I 3
 
 90 THE WAVE. 
 
 I glide like a sniile o'er the coral pile. 
 
 With the ocean-snake entwined ; 
 
 And sweep in my track the dolphin's back, 
 
 Leaving a light behind. 
 
 Bright wealth on my wings for a hundred kings 
 
 From the sea's blue mine I bring ; 
 
 The loveliest glare that slumbers there 
 
 I waft like a waking thing, 
 
 While I strew the strands with diamond sands, 
 
 And to beauty a pearl I fling. 
 
 And every star on its cloud-built car 
 
 Beholds its dominion of light. 
 
 As I welcome each ray with a spark from the spray 
 
 That trembles and shines all night. 
 
 I waft some skiff where an eye on the cliff 
 
 Looks fearfully o'er the foam, 
 
 And save from the deck of some beautiful wreck 
 
 The riches of those that roam. 
 
 While all that have being in water are seeing 
 
 Their crystal casements through; 
 
 As I dart where pride hath splashed and died, 
 
 And pain hath shrieked adieu; 
 
 Where fear hath gasped, where hope hath clasped, 
 
 And love when life was new.
 
 THE WAVE. 91 
 
 The cloud on high, the wave of the sky, 
 
 I choose for my shadowy bride, 
 
 And she comes sometimes from her shoreless climes, 
 
 And kisses my trembling tide. 
 
 But like all that is fair, on earth or in air, 
 
 She dissolves in silent pain ; 
 
 And weeps on my flood her silvery blood 
 
 That gushes in gentle rain. 
 
 Then I turn from my bower of the fresh sea-flower, 
 
 Which an emerald lamp hangs o'er; 
 
 I moan farewell to my palace of shell, 
 
 Where the song-echo woke before — 
 
 And the night-spirits dim hear my last low hymn, 
 
 As I faint on the fading shore. 
 
 1823.
 
 ON THE SICKNESS OF A CHILD. 
 
 A chilling I'ear pervades my breast, 
 
 For thee, my stricken child ! 
 The hope within me 'n repressed. 
 For Death looks through my dream of rest 
 
 With aspect wan and wild. 
 
 A gloomy and a gathering fear, 
 
 A thought untold and deep. 
 My eyes perchance have scarce a tear, 
 But there are scenes full frequent here 
 
 That teach the heart to weep. 
 
 And mine hath wept, my blighted boy ; 
 
 It weeps and trembles now; 
 To think how frail a thing is Joy, 
 When darkening doubts so soon destroy 
 
 The graces of its brow.
 
 ON THE SICKNESS OF A CHILD. 93 
 
 Our hopes should have, but humble whigs, 
 
 When liealth must still be sought 
 In outward and unholy things, 
 Remote from the sublimer springs 
 Of feeling and of thought. 
 
 Spectre of Pride, art tiiou my own, 
 
 jMy little laughing child ? 
 Whose voice was as a wakening tone, 
 That might have into music grown, 
 
 And made my spirit mild : 
 
 Tcacliing my step once more to wind 
 Through childhood's grassy way, 
 
 And bringing back my infant mind, 
 
 When life was a delight refined, 
 And time kept holiday. 
 
 Yes, yes, thou art my own, although 
 
 Thy song be turned to sighs ; 
 Thy dimples made to cradle woe. 
 Thy cheeks' fair sunshine changed to snow, 
 
 And love hath left thine eyes.
 
 94 ON THE SICKNESS OF A CHILD. 
 
 Oh, yes, thou art my own — the leaf, 
 
 The budding of my tree ; 
 A gieen dehght, a blossom brief, 
 Whose promised glory ends in grief. 
 Like things that fade and flee. 
 
 A harmony within my ears, 
 
 A brightness round my brow, 
 A growing warmth through wintry years, 
 A star above my tide of tears^ 
 AH tljese to me wert thou ! 
 
 I gaze around the freshened earth 
 Which spring hath made so fair; 
 
 I hear the lark-voiced morning's mirth ; 
 
 And then I look beside my hearth, 
 And find a winter there.
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 The heavens are dyed with autumn, — the dim Day, 
 Stretched on its purple death-bed, sinks away. 
 Silence and Even (seldom found apart) 
 Come forth, to strengthen yet subdue the heart. 
 But ere thus, missioned with intenser joys, 
 They veil the deep, and lull the forest's noise ; 
 Ere yet the truant winds have home returned. 
 To cool some leaf whose breast hath all day burned ; 
 Ere o'er the waters steal night's misty feet, 
 And on the plains of heaven her children meet;— 
 Nature a moment pauses— nothing heaves 
 As Time looks back upon the path he leaves. 
 A scarce-felt flush is seen to live and die- 
 As if the sun re-oped his heavy eye ; 
 Then by some tending cloud was fanned to sleep, 
 And bathed his burning forehead in the deep. 
 Lo ! ere he drops, how fast the vapours ride 
 To dip their feathers in his wealthy tide ; 
 While some to hover round his head repair, 
 And wind their p<UUd lingers through his hair :
 
 '^.■ 
 
 96 SUNSET. 
 
 Some flap tlicir wings of snow amid his hi oath, 
 And on his bosom diink a golden death ; 
 While others stretch their arms to make a path 
 Of gentle steps into his ocean-bath ! 
 
 One swifter-footed star hath reached its throne, 
 
 Sui-veys the west, and rules the east alone : 
 
 To share that realm its radiant fellows fly, 
 
 Above the azure mountains of the sky — 
 
 There on the bluest summits take their stand, 
 
 To guard the monarch of that minstrel land ; 
 
 And warn the night to draw around his rest 
 
 The last pale curtain of the purpHng west. 
 
 All earth seems anchored on the sands of peace ; 
 
 And life begins where sound and motion cease. 
 
 Charmed by the star-break all things stay their flight, 
 
 And the fond waters bid the sun " good night !" 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 I'oulter, Printer, 1, Great Chesterfield btieet.
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below. 
 
 REMINGTON RAND INC. 20 213 (533) 
 
 THE UVnARY 
 
 UNIYEIiSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 1.08 AMGELES
 
 UC SOUTHERN 
 
 REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 365 854 9 
 
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