No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,
Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure,
By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all,
Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral.
A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation,
Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;

Hell knows a fear far worse,

A fear-a future state ;-'tis positive Negation!

COLOGNE.

IN Köhln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fang'd with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,

All well defined, and several stinks!

Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne ;

But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

ON MY JOYFUL DEPARTURE FROM THE SAME CITY.

As I am rhymer,

And now at least a merry one,

Mr. Mum's Rudesheimer
And the church of St. Geryon

Are the two things alone

That deserve to be known

In the body and soul-stinking town of Cologne.

NE PLUS ULTRA.

SOLE Positive of Night!
Antipathist of Light!

Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod-
The one permitted opposite of God !---
Condensed blackness and abysmal storm
Compacted to one sceptre

Arms the Grasp enorm―

The Intercepter

The Substance that still casts the shadow Death!-
The Dragon foul and fell-

The unrevealable,

And hidden one, whose breath

Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell !---
Ah! sole despair

Of both th' eternities in Heaven!

Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer,

The all-compassionate!
Save to the Lampads Seven,

Reveal'd to none of all th' Angelic State,
Save to the Lampads Seven,

That watch the throne of Heaven!

NAMES.

I ASKED my fair one happy day,

What I should call her in my lay;

By what sweet name from Rome or Greece;
Lalage, Neæra, Chloris,

Sappho, Lesbia, or Doris,

Arethusa or Lucrece.

"Ah!" replied my gentle fair,

"Beloved, what are names but air?

Choose thou whatever suits the line;

Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,

Call me Lalage or Doris,

Only, only call me Thine.”

LINES

TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABUSIVE REVIEW.

WHAT though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking chorus
From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak:
So was it, neighbour, in the times before us,
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak,
Romped with the Graces; and each tickled Muse
(That Turk, Dan Phoebus, whom bards call divine,
Was married to—at least, he kept—all nine)
Fled, but still with reverted faces ran;

Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse,
They had allur'd the audacious Greek to use,

Swore they mistook him for their own good man.
This Momus-Aristophanes on earth

Men called him-maugre all his wit and worth

Was croaked and gabbled at. How, then, should you,
Or I, friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew?
No! laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee,
"I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me !"

"One word with two meanings is the traitor's shield and shaft: and a slit tongue be his blazon!"-Caucasian Proverb.

"THE Sun is not yet risen,

But the dawn lies red on the dew:

Lord Julian has stolen from the hunters away,

Is seeking, Lady, for you.

Put on your dress of green,

Your buskins and your quiver;

Lord Julian is a hasty man,

Long waiting brook'd he never.

I dare not doubt him, that he means
To wed you on a day,
Your lord and master for to be,

And you his lady gay.

O Lady! throw your book aside!

I would not that my Lord should chide."

Thus spake Sir Hugh the vassal knight

To Alice, child of old Du Clos,

As spotless fair, as airy light

As that moon-shiny doe,

The gold star on its brow, her sire's ancestral crest!
For ere the lark had left his nest,

She in the garden bower below

Sate loosely wrapt in maiden white,
Her face half drooping from the sight,
A snow-drop on a tuft of snow!

O close your eyes, and strive to see
The studious maid, with book on knee,-
Ah! earliest-open'd flower;
While yet with keen unblunted light
The morning star shone opposite
The lattice of her bower-
Alone of all the starry host,
As if in prideful scorn

Of flight and fear he stay'd behind,
To brave th' advancing morn.

O! Alice could read passing well,
And she was conning then
Dan Ovid's mazy tale of loves,

And gods, and beasts, and men.

The vassal's speech, his taunting vein,
It thrill'd like venom thro' her brain;
Yet never from the book

She rais'd her head, nor did she deign
The knight a single look.

"Off, traitor friend! how dar'st thou fix

Thy wanton gaze on me?

And why, against my earnest suit,

Does Julian send by thee?

"Go, tell thy Lord, that slow is sure:

Fair speed his shafts to-day!

I follow here a stronger lure,
And chase a gentler prey."

She said and with a baleful smile

The vassal knight reel'd offLike a huge billow from a bark Toil'd in the deep sea-trough,

That shouldering sideways in mid plunge,
Is travers'd by a flash.

And staggering onward, leaves the ear
With dull and distant crash.

And Alice sate with troubled mien

A moment; for the scoff was keen,
And thro' her veins did shiver !
Then rose and donn'd her dress of green,
Her buskins and her quiver.

There stands the flow'ring may-thorn tree!
From thro' the veiling mist you see
The black and shadowy stem ;-
Smit by the sun the mist in glee
Dissolves to light some jewelry-
Each blossom hath its gem!

With tear-drop glittering to a smile,
The gay maid on the garden-stile
Mimics the hunter's shout.

"Hip! Florian, hip! To horse, to horse! Go, bring the palfrey out.

"My Julian's out with all his clan,

And, bonny boy, you wis,

Lord Julian is a hasty man,

Who comes late, comes amiss."

Now Florian was a stripling squire,
A gallant boy of Spain,

That toss'd his head in joy and pride,
Behind his Lady fair to ride,

But blush'd to hold her train.

The huntress is in her dress of green,-
And forth they go; she with her bow,
Her buskins and her quiver !-
The squire no younger e'er was seen--
With restless arm and laughing een,
He makes his javelin quiver.

And had not Ellen stay'd the race,
And stopp'd to see, a moment's space,
The whole great globe of light
Give the last parting kiss-like touch
To the eastern ridge, it lack'd not much,
They had o'erta'en the knight.

It chanced that up the covert lane,
Where Julian waiting stood,

A neighbour knight prick'd on to join
The huntsmen in the wood.

And with him must Lord Julian go,
Tho' with an anger'd mind:
Betroth'd not wedded to his bride,
In vain he sought, 'twixt shame and pride,
Excuse to stay behind.

He bit his lip, he wrung his glove,
He look'd around, he look'd above,
But pretext none could find or frame !
Alas! alas! and well-a-day!

It grieves me sore to think, to say,
That names so seldom meet with Love,

Yet Love wants courage without a name !

Straight from the forest's skirt the trees
O'er-branching, made an aisle,
Where hermit old might pace and chaunt
As in a minster's pile.