But oft when the cares of life Have set my temples aching, When visions haunt me of a wife, When duns await my waking, Or Hobby in a hurry, For hours and hours, I think and talk I wish that I could run away And pray Sir Giles at Datchet Lane, And call the milk-maids Houris; That I could be a boy again A happy boy at Drury's! MEMORY. STAND on a funeral mound, Far, far from all that love thee; With a barren heath around, And a cypress bower above thee: And think, while the sad wind frets, And the night in cold gloom closes, Of spring, and spring's sweet violets, Of summer, and summer's roses. Sleep where the thunders fly Across the tossing billow; Thy canopy the sky, And the lonely deck thy pillow: And dream, while the chill sea-foam In mockery dashes o'er thee, Of the cheerful hearth, and the quiet home, And the kiss of her that bore thee. Watch in the deepest cell Of the foeman's dungeon tower, Till hope's most cherish'd spell Has lost its cheering power; And sing, while the galling chain Of the huntsman hurrying o'er the plain, Talk of the minstrel's lute, The warrior's high endeavour, When the honied lips are mute, And the strong arm crush'd for ever: Look back to the summer sun, From the mist of dark December; Then say to the broken-hearted one, ""Tis pleasant to remember!" JOSEPHINE. WE did not meet in courtly hall, And she knew she could not be, love, My pretty Josephine. We did not part beneath the sky, Where we first had laugh'd at love, And the lamps were bright above: She did not speak of ring or vow, My light skiff on the wave, As of the hand that gave; "Go gayly o'er the sea, love, And find your own heart's queen; And look not back to me, love, Your humble Josephine!" That garland breathes and blooms no more, I would not, could I choose, restore Yet oft their wither'd witchery But oh! remember'd still! And even from this scene, One look is o'er the tide, love, One thought with Josephine! Alas! your lips are rosier, Your eyes of softer blue, And I have never felt for her As I have felt for you; Our love was like the snow flakes, Which melt before you pass Or the bubble on the wine, which breaks Which she has never seen; Thy dim eyes tell a tale, A pitious tale, of vigils; and the trace Changed love! but not alone! I am not what they think me; though my cheek Wear but its last year's furrow, though I speak Thus in my natural tone. The temple of my youth Was strong in moral purpose: once I felt I went into the storm, And mock'd the billows of the tossing sea; Vainly the heart is steel'd In wisdom's armour; let her burn her books! I look upon them as the soldier looks Upon his cloven shield. Virtue and virtue's rest, How have they perish'd! Through my onward course The glory and the glow Of the world's loveliness have pass'd away; Is not the damning line Of guilt and grief engraven on me now? No matter! I will turn To the straight path of duty; I have wrought, At last, my wayward spirit to be taught What it hath yet to learn. Labour shall be my lot; My kindred shall be joyful in my praise; And Fame shall twine for me, in after days, A wreath I covet not. And if I cannot make, Dearest thy hope my hope, thy trust my trust, Yet will I study to be good, and just, And blameless, for thy sake. Thou may'st have comfort yet; Whate'er the source from which those waters glide, Forget me-and farewell! But say not that in me new hopes and fears, Indelibly, within, All I have lost is written; and the theme TIME'S CHANGES. I SAW her once-so freshly fair And Nature joy'd to view its moulding: Her cheeks' fine hue divinely glowingHer rosebud mouth-her eyes of jetAround on all their light bestowing: Oh! who could look on such a form, So nobly free, so softly tender, And darkly dream that earthly storm Should dim such sweet, delicious splendour! For in her mien, and in her face, And in her young step's fairy lightness, Naught could the raptured gazer trace But beauty's glow, and pleasure's brightness. I saw her twice-an alter'd charm- Than girlhood's talisman less warm, The very image of its mother; They seem'd to live but in each other:But matron cares, or lurking wo, Her thoughtless, sinless look had banish'd, And from her cheek the roseate glow Of girlhood's balmy morn had vanish'd; Lay something softer, fonder, deeper, I saw her thrice-Fate's dark decree As even my reveries portray'd her; The retrospect was scarcely bitter; That every louder mirth is follyA pensiveness, which is not grief, A stillness-as of sunset streaming A fairy glow on flower and leaf, Till earth looks on like a landscape dreaming. A last time-and unmoved she lay, Beyond life's dim, uncertain river, A glorious mould of fading clay, From whence the spark had fled for ever! I gazed-my breast was like to burst And, as I thought of years departed, The years wherein I saw her first, As moved she in her matron duty, Of ripen'd hope, and sunny beautyI felt the chill-I turn'd aside Bleak desolation's cloud came o'er me, And being seem'd a troubled tide, Whose wrecks in darkness swam before me! THE BELLE OF THE BALL. YEARS-years ago-ere yet my dreams Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty; Were in my fowling-piece and filly; In short, while I was yet a boy, I fell in love with Laura Lilly. I saw her at a country ball; There when the sound of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall, Of hands across and down the middle. Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that sets young hearts romancing: She was our queen, our rose, our star; And when she danced-oh, heaven, her dancing! Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Her eyes were full of liquid light; Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 't was Venus from her isle, I wonder❜d where she'd left her sparrows. She talk'd of politics or prayers; Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets; Of daggers or of dancing bears, Of battles, or the last new bonnets; By candle-light, at twelve o'clock, If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmur'd Little. I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them for the Sunday Journal. Whose colour was extremely hectic; Her grandmother, for many a year, And lord-lieutenant of the county. And mortgages, and great relations, And India bonds, and tithes and rents, Oh! what are they to love's sensations? Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses; He cares as little for the stocks, As Baron Rothschild for the muses. She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach, Young blossom in her boudoir fading; She touch'd the organ; I could stand For hours and hours and blow the bellows. She kept an album, too, at home, Well fill'd with all an album's glories; Paintings of butterflies and Rome, Patterns for trimming, Persian stories; Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter; And autographs of Prince Laboo, And recipes of elder water. And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored, Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted, Her poodle dog was quite adored, Her sayings were extremely quoted. I knew that there was nothing in it; Her heart had thought of for a minute; In phrase which was divinely moulded; AndFly Not Yet," upon the river; Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, The usual vows-and then we parted. There had been many other lodgers; ALFRED TENNYSON. Mr. TENNYSON, says LEIGH HUNT, in a notice written several years ago of his earlier poems, "is of the school of KEATS; that is to say, it is difficult not to see that KEATS has been a great deal in his thoughts; and that he delights in the same brooding over his sensations, and the same melodious enjoyment of their expression........Much, however, as he reminds us of KEATS, his genius is his own: he would have written poetry had his precursor written none; and he has, also, a vein of metaphysical subtlety, in which the other did not indulge........He is a great lover of a certain home kind of landscape, which he delights to paint with a minuteness that in the Moated Grange becomes affecting, and in the Miller's Daughter would remind us of the Dutch school if it were not mixed up with the same deep feeling, though varied with a pleasant joviality. He has yet given no such evidence of sustained and broad power as that of Hyperion, nor even of such gentler narrative as the Eve of St. Agnes and the poems of Lamia and Isabella, but the materials of the noblest poetry are abundant in him." The general judgment was less favourable than that of Mr. HUNT. TENNYSON's poems were keenly reviewed in several of the leading journals of criticism, and he is said at an early day to have withdrawn from the market and burned all the unsold copies. Yet the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 contained Mariana, Oriana, Madeline, The Death of the Old Year, The Miller's Daughter, Enone, and other pieces quite equal to the larger number of his more recent productions. Locksley Hall is in my opinion the best of TENNYSON'S Works-the poem in which there is the truest feeling, the most strength, directness, and intensity. He is sensible of his want of the inventive faculty, and rarely attempts the creation of incidents. Dora was suggested by one of Miss MITFORD's portraits, and the Lady Clare by Mrs. FARRAR's Inheritance; The Day Dream, The Lady of Shalott, Godiva, and other narrative pieces, are versions of old stories; and the poetry of The Arabian Nights was ready made to his hand. He excels most in his female portraitures; but while delicate and graceful they are indefinite, while airy and spiritual are intangible. As we read BYRON or BURNS beautiful forms stand before us, we see the action of their breathing and read the passionate language of their eyes; but we have glimpses only of the impalpable creations of TENNYSON, as on gold-bordered clouds they bend to listen to dream-like melodies which go up from fairy lakes and enchanted palaces. There are exceptions as the picture of the Sleeping Beauty, in the Day Dream, which is rarely excelled for statue-like definiteness and warmth of colouring. Some of his portraits of men also are fine. It would be difficult to discover any thing in its way more graphic than this description from The Miller's Daughter: I see the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, And full of dealings with the world. There are equally felicitous stanzas in several of his longer poems, which are generally, more than those quoted in this volume, disfigured by affectations of thought and expression. Mr. TENNYSON has studied KEATS, SHELLEY, and the Greek poets, and, of the last especially, has made free and unacknowledged use. The peculiarities of his style. have attracted attention, and his writings have enough intrinsic merit, probably, to secure him a permanent place in the third or fourth rank of contemporary English poets. 2 P 445 LOCKSLEY HALL. COMRADES, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn : Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. "Tis the place, and round the gables, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cata racts. Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west. Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" Saying, “Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden [ sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! Oh the dreary, dreary moorland! Oh the barren, barren shore! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! When I clung to all the present for the promise Is it well to wish thee happy?-having known that it closed: When I dipp'd into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes, me to decline As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him-it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand Better thou wert dead before me, though I slew thee with my hand! Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, |