But 'tis done all words are idleWords from me are vainer still; But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way without the will.— Fare thee well!—thus disunited,

Torn from every nearer tie, Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted More than this I scarce can die.

A SKETCH.*

"Honest-Honest lago!

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."-Shake.

Born in the garret, the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next-for some gracious service unexprest,
And from its wages only to be guess'd-
Raised from the toilet to the table,-where
Her wandering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie-
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess—
An only infant's earliest governess!

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which Flattery fool'd not-Baseness could not blind,
Deceit infect not-near Contagion soil-
Indulgence weaken-nor Example spoil—
Nor master'd Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown-
Nor Genius swell-nor Beauty render vain-
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain-

Nor Fortune change-Pride raise-nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive,

Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme:-now laid aside too long
The baleful burden of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake;
If early habits-those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,

And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints

With all the kind mendacity of hints

While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers with smiles

A thread of candour with a web of wiles;

Mrs. Charlinomt.

A plain blunt show of briefy spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless neart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment-and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)—
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:

Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged-
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade,
This female dogstar of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.

Oh! wretch without a tear-without a thought,
Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought-
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
May the strong curse of crush'd affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black-as thy will for others would create:
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,-
The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread!
Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with

prayer,

Look on thine earthly victims-and despair!
Down to the dust!-and, as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear-
Thy name-thy human nanie-to every eye
The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorr'd compeers—
And festering in the infamy of years.

ΤΟ

1.

When all around grew drear and dark, And reason half withheld her rayAnd hope but shed a dying spark Which more misled my lonely way;

2.

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deem'd too kind,
The weak despair-the cold depart;
S.

When fortune changed-and love fled far
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast
Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose and set not to the last. 4.

Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!

That watch'd me as a seraph's eye, And stood between me and the night, For ever shining sweetly nigh.

• His sister, Mrs, Leigh,

5.

And when the cloud upon us came, Which strove to blacken o'er thy rayThen purer spread its gentle flame,

And dash'd the darkness all away.

6.

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,

And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke.

7.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree, That still unbroke, though gently bent, Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

8.

The winds might rend-the skies might pour, But there thou wert-and still would'st be Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.

9.

But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite

The kind-and thee the most of all.
10.

'Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken-thine will never break; Thy heart can feel-but will not move; Thy soul, though soft, will never shake. 11.

And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found and still are fix'd in thee-
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert-ev'n to me.

ODE.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

I.

We do not curse thee, Waterloo! Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew; There 't was shed, but is not sunkRising from each gory trunk, Like the Water-spout from ocean, With a strong and growing motionIt soars, and mingles in the air, With that of lost LABEDOYEREWith that of him whose honour'd grave Contains the "bravest of the brave." A crimson cloud it spreads and glows, But shall return to whence it rose ; When 't is full 't will burst asunderNever yet was heard such thunder

As then shall shake the world with wonder

Never yet was seen, such lightning

As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!
Like the Wormwood Star foretold

By the sainted Seer of old,
Show'ring down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood."

II.

The Chief has fallen, but not by you,
Vanquishers of Waterloo!

When the soldier citizen
Sway'd not o'er his fellow men-
Save in deeds that led them on
Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son-
Who, of all the despot's banded,

With that youthful chief competed? Who could boast o'er France defeated, Till one Tyranny commanded?

Till, goaded by ambition's sting, The Hero sunk into the King? Then he fell:-So perish all, Who would men by man enthral!

III.

And thou too of the snow-white plume!
Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb,'
Better hadst thou still been leading
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding
Than sold thyself to death and shame
For a meanly royal name;
Such as he of Naples wears,
Who thy blood-bought title bears.
Little didst thou deem, when dashing

On thy war-horse through the ranks,
Like a stream which burst its banks,
While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing,
Shone and shiver'd fast around thee-
Of the fate at last which found thee:
Was that haughty plume laid low
By a slave's dishonest blow?
Once-as the Moon sways o'er the tide,
It roll'd in air, the warrior's guide;
Through the smoke-created night
Of the black and sulphurous fight,
The soldier raised his seeking eye
To catch that crest's ascendancy,—
And, as it onward rolling rose,
So moved his heart upon our foes,
There, where death's brief pang was quickest,
And the battle's wreck lay thickest,
Strew'd beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagle's burning crest-
(There with thunder-clouds to fan her,
Who could then her wing arrest-
Victory beaming from her breast?)
While the broken line enlarging
Fell, or fled along the plain;
'There be sure was MURAT charging!
There he ne'er shall charge again!

IV.

O'er glories gone the invaders march,
Weeps Triumph o'er each levell'd arch-
But let Freedom rejoice,

With her heart in her voice;

But, her hand on her sword,

Doubly shall she be adored;

France has twice too well been taught
The "moral lesson" dearly bought-
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With CAPET or NAPOLEON!

But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause-
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven,

With their breath, and from their birth,
Though Guilt would sweep it from the earth;
With a fierce and lavish hand

Scattering nations' wealth like sand;
Pouring nations' blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter!

Idol of the soldier's soul!

First in fight, but mightiest now:
Many could a world control,

Thee alone no doom can bow.
By thy side for years I dared
Death; and envied those who fell,
When their dying shout was heard,
Blessing him they served so well.
3.

Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes
Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free!

Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.
4.

Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,

In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,
All thou calmly dost regn,
Could he purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thine?
5.

My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!

Never did I droop before; Never to my sovereign sue,

As his foes I now implore:

Ail I ask is to divide

Every peril he must brave;

Sharing by the hero's side

His fall, his exile, and his grave.

MOST

ON THE STAR OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR."

[FROM THE FRENCH.] 1.

Star of the brave!-whose bearn hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead-
Thou radiant and adored deceit!
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,-
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

2.

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays; Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;

The music of thy martial sphere Was fame on high and honour here And thy light broke on human eyes, Like a Volcano of the skies.

3.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

4.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

5.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

6.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail!
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When hy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

7.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh Goddess! may we bo
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. [FROM THE FRENCH.] 1.

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF "THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY."

Absent or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,

In turn thy converse, and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall come
By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And "MEMORY" o'er her Druid's tomb
Shall weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will she then repay

Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,
And blend, while ages roll away,
Her name immortally with thine!

SONNET.

April 19, 1812.

Rousseau-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and de Staël-
10 Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall;
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall

Where dwelt the wise and wond'rous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o'er thy chrystal sea,
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the heirs of immortality

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!

STANZAS TO 1.

Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.

2.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.

3.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd

To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemn— They may torture, but shall not subdue me'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.

4.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,—
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.

• His sister, Mrs. Leigh.

5.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it
"Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

6.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perisn'd. Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

DARKNESS.

had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all nearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gather'd round their blazing homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled, And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,

And gnash'd their teeth and howled: the wild birds shriek'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh,
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought ou no food
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no neod
Of aid from them-She was the universe.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE.

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

I stood beside the grave of him who blazed T'he comet of a season, and I saw The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe On that neglected turf and quiet stone, With name no clearer than the names unknown, Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd Through the thick deaths of half a century; And thus he answer'd-" Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; He died before my day of Sextonship, And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,-and do we rip The veil of Immortality? and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight? So soon and so successless? As I said, The Architect of all on which we tread, For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;-as he caught As 't were the twilight of a former Sun, Thus spoke he,-"I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way To pay him honour,-and myself whate'er Your honour pleases,"-then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook Sune certain coins of silver, which as 't were Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare So much but inconveniently;-Ye smile, I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while, Because my homely phrase the truth would tell. You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell

With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.

THE DREAM.

I.

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,

And dreams in their developement have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;

They pass like spirits of the past, they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creations of the mind ?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, Green and of mild declivity, the last As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such, Save that there was no sea to lave its base, But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd, Not by the sport of nature, but of man: These two, a maiden and a youth, were there Gazing-the one on all that was beneath Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her; And both were young, and one was beautiful: And both were young-yet not alike in youth As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge The maid was on the eve of womanhood; The boy had fewer summers, but his heart Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye There was but one beloved face on earth, And that was shining or him; he had look'd Upon it till it could not pass away; He had no breath, nor being, but in hers; She was his voice; he did not speak to her, But trembled on her words; she was his sight, For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers, Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased' To live within himself; she was his life, The ocean to the river of his thoughts, Which terminated all: upon a tone, A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart Unknowing its cause of agony.

But she in these tond feelings had no share : Her sighs were not for him; to her he was Even as a brother-but no more; 't was much For brotherless she was, save in the name