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STANZA S.*

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A chain is on my spirit's wings,
When thro' the crowded town I fare;
Spell-like, the present round me clings,
A blinding film, a stifling air.

* This poem was written simultaneously with another, by the late W. M. Praed; the two Poets sitting side by side and rhyming in friendly rivalry. Praed's poem is here subjoined. Alas, that the world is still waiting for the long-promised collection of all his poems!

WRITTEN BELOW THE PORTRAIT OF AN

UNKNOWN LADY.

"WHAT are you, Lady? nought is here

To tell your name or story,

To claim for you our smile or tear,
To dub you Whig or Tory;
I don't suppose we ever met;
And how should I discover
Where first you danced a minuet,
Or first deceived a lover?

Tell me what day the Post records
Your mother's silk and satin;

What night your father lulls the Lords

With little bits of Latin;

Who made your shoes, whose skill designs

Your dairy, or your grotto;

And in what page Debrett enshrines

Your pedigree and motto.

But when amid the relics lone

Of other days I wander free, My spirit feels its fetters flown, And soars in joy and liberty.

Fresh airs blow on me from the past;
Stretch'd out above me like a sky,

Its starry dome, mysterious, vast,
Satiates my soul's capacious eye.

I hear the deep, the sea-like roar Of human ages, billowing on; No living voice, no breeze, no oar, One awful sound is heard alone.

And do you sing, or do you sigh?
And have you taste in bonnets ?
And do you read philosophy?
Or do you publish sonnets?
And does your beauty fling away
The fetters Cupid forges?
Or are you to be married, pray,
To-morrow at Saint George's ?"

I spoke! methought the pencilled fan
Fluttered, or seemed to flutter ;-
Methought the painted lips began
Unearthly sounds to utter:
"I have no home, no ancestry,
No wealth, no reputation;
My name, fair Sir, is Nobody;

Am I not your relation ?"

I feel the secret, wondrous tie

Of fellowship with ages fled; Warm, as with man ; but pure

and high,

As with the sacred, changeless dead.

Whate'er they felt, whate'er they wrought,
Appears, sublimed from earthly stains;
What transient was, is lost to thought;
What cannot die, alone remains.

What are our woes? the pain, the fear,
That gloom this world of time and change?

No low-born thought can enter here;

No hope, that has a bounded range.

Thou Good unseen! thou endless End!
Last goal of hope, last bourn of love!
To thee these sleepless yearnings tend;
These views beyond, these flights above.

Past time, past space, the spirit flings
Its giant arms in search of thee;
It will not rest in bounded things;
Its Freedom is Infinity!

FRAGMENT.

TO AN INFANT.

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THOU pretty, witless, helpless thing,
With eyes so mildly blue,

And looks, for ever wandering

'Mid a world so bright and new;

And round soft arm, and fairy hand,
Too restless to be held;

And smiles, that come without command,

And vanish uncompell'd:

Sweet marvel! how we gaze on thee

No haunting thoughts of heretofore,
No bodings of hereafter,-
Thou pourest forth for evermore

Thine own sweet song of laughter;

A fold wherein rich meanings lie,

Joy's language in the bud;

Like a stranger's speech, whose tone and eye

Half make it understood.

*

PEACE TO THE FAR AWAY.

PEACE to the far away! heart-peace, and mirth, Honour, and love, to that pure-minded being,

Whom, through the cloudless air of solitude, Mine inward eye now views, though far in space Divided, and in heart divided more,

Farther than tongue can tell; for sound or sign Of man's device avails not to express

The infinite distance the mysterious gulph
"Twixt heart and alien heart. Yet still I gaze,

As on some bright and unapproached star
The meditative wanderer, in fond hope

That, even from such communion with thy spirit,
A healing influence may descend, to calm
And harmonize mine own. For I am vext
With many thoughts: the kindly spirit of hope
Is sick within me: fretting care, and strife
With my own heart, have ta'en from solitude
Its natural calm; while, in the intercourse

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