THERE is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only Poets know;-'t was 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 Poet's

Joy

The Moon's

THE Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said,
"Bright is thy veil, O Moon, as thou art bright!" Triumph
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 disparagèd.
Meanwhile that veil, removed or thrown aside,
Went floating from her, darkening as it went ;
And a huge mass, to bury or to hide,
Approached this glory of the firmament ;
Who meekly yields, and is obscured-content
With one calm triumph of a modest pride.

Snowdrops WHEN haughty expectations prostrate lie,
in the Storm And grandeur couches like a guilty thing,
Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring
Mature release, in fair society

Survive, and Fortune's utmost anger try;
Like these frail snow-drops that together cling,
And nod their helmets, smitten by the wing
Of many a furious whirl-blast sweeping by.
Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great
May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to
stand

The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate;

And so the bright immortal Theban band,
Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove's command,
Might overwhelm, but could not separate !

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Hail, HAIL, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour!
Twilight Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night;
But studious only to remove from sight

Day's mutable distinctions.-Ancient Power!
Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower,
To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest
Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest
On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower
Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen
The self-same vision which we now behold,
At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power! brought
forth;

These mighty barriers, and the gulf between ;
The flood, the stars,- —a spectacle as old
As the beginning of the heavens and earth!

"WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the To the

sky,

How silently, and with how wan a face!
Where art thou? Thou so often seen on high
Running among the clouds a Wood-nymph's race
Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh
Which they would stifle, move at such a pace !
The northern Wind, to call thee to the chase,
Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had I
The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be:
And all the stars, fast as the clouds were riven,
Should sally forth, to keep thee company,
Hurrying and sparkling through the clear blue
heaven;

But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given,
Queen both for beauty and for majesty.

EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Sullenly 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,

Conversing, reading, laughing;-or they sing,
While hearts and voices in the song unite.

hidden Moon

The solitary light

Nature's THE stars are mansions built by Nature's hand; many And, haply, there the spirits of the blest Mansions

Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest;
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 fortress, reared at Nature's sage command.
Glad thought for every season! but the Spring
Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,
'Mid song of birds, and insects murmuring;
And while the youthful year's prolific art-
Of bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning
Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.

Between the DESPONDING Father! mark this altered bough,
Flower and So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
the Fruit Or moist with dew; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call:
In all men, sinful is it to be slow

To hope-in Parents, sinful above all.

"As the cold aspect of a sunless way

lier chill,

Captivity

Strikes through the Traveller's frame with dead- Mary Queen

Oft as appears a grove, or obvious hill,
Glistening with unparticipated ray,

Or shining slope where he must never stray;
So joys, remembered without wish or will,
Sharpen the keenest edge of present ill,-
On the crushed heart a heavier burthen lay.
Just Heaven, contract the compass of my mind
To fit proportion with my altered state!
Quench those felicities whose light I find
Reflected in my bosom all too late!—
O be my spirit, like my thraldom, strait;
And, like mine eyes that stream with sorrow, blind!"

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WHEN human touch (as monkish books attest)
Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells
Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells,
And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest;
Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest
To rapture! Mabel listened at the side

Of her loved mistress: soon the music died,
And Catherine said, Here E set up my rest.
Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought
A home that by such miracle of sound
Must be revealed :-she heard it now, or felt
The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought;
And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt
Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.

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of Scots

St Catherine of Ledbury