At wakes and fairs with wandering mountebanks,[and mocks When she stands cresting the clown's head, The crowd beneath her. Verily I think, Such place to me is sometimes like a dream Or map of the whole world: thoughts, link by link, [gleam Enter through ears and eyesight, with such Of all things, that at last in fear I shrink, And leap at once from the delicious stream.

PERSONAL TALK.

I.

I AM not one who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk,-
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies
bright,
[stalk, !
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the
These all wear out of me, like forms, with
chalk
[night,
Painted on rich men's floors for one feast
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow. There find I personal themes, a plenteous

store;

Matter wherein right voluble I am :
To which I listen with a ready ear;
Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear-
The gentle lady married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una with her milk-white
lamb.

IV.

NOR can I not believe but that hereby Great gains are mine; for thus I live remote From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought, Comes to me not: malignant truth, or lie. Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and. joyous thought:

And thus from day to day my little boat Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably. Blessings be with them--and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler caresThe poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,

Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

In wrath) fell headlong from the fields of air,
Yet a rich guerdon waits on minds that dare,
If aught be in them of immortal seed,
And reason govern that audacious flight
Which heaven-ward they direct. Then
droop not thou,

Erroneously renewing a sad vow

In the low dell 'mid Roslin's faded grove :
A cheerful life is wha' the muses love,
A soaring spirit is their prime delight.

FAIR prime of life! were it enough to gild With ready sunbeams every straggling

shower;

tilled

And, if an unexpected cloud should lower, Swiftly thereon a rainbow arch to build For fancy's errands,—then, from fields half[flower, Gathering green weeds to mix with poppy Thee might thy minions crown, and chant thy power,

Unpitied by the wise, all censure stilled.
Ah! show that worthier honours are thy
due;

Fair prime of life! arouse the deeper heart:
Confirm the spirit glorying to pursue
Some path of steep ascent and lofty aim;
And, if there be a joy that slights the claim
Of grateful memory, bid that joy depart.

I HEARD (alas! 'twas only in a dream) Strains-which, as sage antiquity believed, By waking ears have sometimes been re

ceived

Wafted adown the wind from lake or stream;
A most melodious requiem,-a supreme
And perfect harmony of notes, achieved
By a fair swan on drowsy billows heaved,
Oer which her pinions shed a silver gleam.
For is she not the votary of Apollo?
And knows she not, singing as he inspires,
That bliss awaits her which the ungenial
hollow*

Of the dull earth partakes not, nor desires?
Mount, tuneful bird, and join the immortal
quires !
[vain to follow.

She soared-and I awoke,-struggling in

From thy remonstrance would be no appeal! But to promote and fortify the weal Of our own being, is her paramount end; A truth which they alone shall comprehend Who shut the mischief which they cannot heal. [bliss ; Peace in these feverish times is sovereign Here, with no thirst but what the stream can slake,

And startled only by the rustling brake, Cool air I breathe; while the unincumbered mind,

By some weak aims at services assigned To gentle natures, thanks not heaven amiss.

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.

CALVERT ! it must not be unheard by them
Owed many years of early liberty.
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
This care was thine when sickness did con-

demn

[stem : That I, if frugal and severe, might stray Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and Where'er I liked; and finally array My temples with the muse's diadem. Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth, If there be aught of pure, or good, or great, In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays Of higher mood, which now I meditate,It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived youth! To think how much of this will be thy praise.

To struggle through dark ways; and when Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew

Soul-animating strains-alas, too few!

NOT love, nor war, nor the tumultuous

swell

Of civil conflict, nor the wrecks of change, Nor duty struggling with afflictions strange,

And so the bright immortal Theban band, Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove's command,

Might overwhelm-but could not separate!

THE stars are mansions built by nature's hand;

The sun is peopled; and with spirits blest, Say, can the gentle moon be unpossest? Huge ocean shows, within his yellow strand, A habitation marvellously planned, For life to occupy in love and rest; All that we see is dome, or vault, or nest, Or fort, erected at her sage command. Is this a vernal thought? Even so, the spring [heart, Gave it while cares were weighing on my 'Mid song of birls, and insects mumuring And while the youthful year's prolific art-Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning

Abodes, where self-disturbance hath no

part.

TO LADY BEAUMONT.

LADY! the songs of spring were in the grove [flowers; While I was shaping beds for winter While I was planting green unfading bowers,

wove

And shrubs to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as fancy
[powers
The dream, to time and nature's blended
I gave this paradise for winter hours,
A labyrinth, lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmur-
ing pines

Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of spring.

TO THE LADY MARY LOWTHER, With a selection from the poems of Anne, Countess of Winchelsea; and extracts of similar character from other writers; transcribed by a female friend.

LADY! I rifled a Parnassian cave
(But seldom trod) of mildly-gleaming ore;
And culled, from sundry beds, a lucid store
Of genuine crystals, pure as those that pave
The azure brooks where Dian joys to lave

Her spotless limbs; and ventured to explore Dim shades-for reliques, upon Lethe's shore,

Cast up at random by the sullen wave. To female hands the treasures were resigned; [clear And lo this work!-a grotto bright and From stain or taint; in which thy blameless mind [austere ; May feed on thoughts though pensive not Or, if thy deeper spirit be inclined To holy musing, it may enter here.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know-'twas rightly said;
Whom could the muses else allure to tread
Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest
chains?

When happiest fancy has inspired the strains,
How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear
At last of hindrance and obscurity,
Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of
morn;

Bright, speckless as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,
Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.

THE shepherd, looking eastward, softly [bright!"

said,

Bright is thy veil, O moon, as thou art Forthwith, that little cloud, in ether spread, And penetrated all with tender light, She cast away, and showed her fulgent head Uncovered; dazzling the beholder's sight As if to vindicate her beauty's right, Her beauty thoughtlessly disparaged. Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside, [went ;

Went floating from her, darkening as it And a huge mass, to bury or to hide, Approached the glory of this firmament; Who meekly yields, and is obscured;

climb'st the sky, "How silently, and with how wan a face!" Where art thou? Thou whom I have seen on high [rac ! Running among the clouds a wood-nymph's Unhappy nuns, whose common breath's a sigh [pace! Which they would stifle, move at such a The northern wind, to call thee to the chase, Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had power of Merlin, goddess! this should be · [riven, And the keen stars, fast as the clouds were Should sally forth, an emulous company, Sparkling, and hurrying through the clear [given, But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be Queen both for beauty and for majesty.

The

blue heaven;

EVEN as the dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,

So burns yon taper 'mid a black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The lake below reflects it not; the sky
Muffled in clouds affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet round the body of that joyless thing,
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
A gay society with faces bright, [sing,
Conversing, reading, laughing; or they
While hearts and voices in the song unite.

MARK the concentred hazels that inclose Yon old gray stone, protected from the ray Of noontide suns : and even the beams that play [blows, And glance, while wantonly the rough wind Are seldom free to touch the moss that grows Upon that roof-amid embowering gloom The very image framing of a tomb, In which some ancient chieftain finds repose Among the lonely mountains.-Live, ye trees! [keep And thou, gray stone, the pensive likeness

Far more than fancy to the influence bends
When solitary nature condescends
To mimic times forlorn humanities.