Loathing thy polluted lot,

Hie thee, maiden, hie thee hence! Seek thy weeping mother's cot, With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is wo:
With a musing melancholy

Inly arm'd, go, maiden! go.

Mother sage of self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O melancholy!

The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion Is the memory of past folly.

Mute the sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimm'd the tender corn,

Or the bean-field's odorous blooms;

Scon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring,

And embathe in heavenly light.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.
NOR cold nor stern my soul! yet I detest
These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng,
Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast,
In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not music's genuine power, nor deign
To melt at nature's passion-warbled plaint;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrill'd strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.

Hark the deep buzz of vanity and hate!

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,
While the pert captain, or the primmer priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.
O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kiss'd,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder trees,
For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,
Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow,
That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

The things of nature utter; birds or trees, Or moan of ocean gale in weedy caves,

Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

THE KEEPSAKE.

THE tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The fox-glove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath th' up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk

By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has work'd (the flowers which most she knew 1
loved,)

And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked
By her full bosom's joyous restlessness,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower,
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze,
Over their dim, fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet image of disquiet

In the smooth, scarcely-moving river-pool.
There, in that bower where first she own'd her love,
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretch'd
The silk upon the frame, and work'd her name
Between the moss-rose and forget-me-not-
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair.
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet inight ne'er forget her smile, her look,
Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)
Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood
Nor yet th' entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, .that when spring re-
turn'd,

She would resign one-half of that dear name,
And own thenceforth no other name but mine!

TO A LADY.

WITH FALCONER'S "SHIPWRECK." AH! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams, In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice; Nor while half-listening, 'mid delicious dreams, To harp and song from lady's hand and voice;

One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole empire of Germany, (Vergissmein nicht,) and, we believe, in Den mark and Sweden.

And sweet it is, in summer bower,
Sincere, affectionate, and gay,
One's own dear children feasting round,
To celebrate one's marriage-day.

But what is all, to his delight,

Who having long been doom'd to roam, Throws off the bundle from his back

Before the door of his own home?

Home-sickness is a wasting pang;

This feel I hourly more and more: There's healing only in thy wings, Thou breeze that playest on Albion's shore!

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION. Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,

The linnet and thrush, say, "I love and I love!"

THE VISIONARY HOPE.

SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly kneeling He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of heal

ing,

That his sick body might have ease and rest;
He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,
Though nature forced; though like some captive
guest,

Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half-concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confess'd,
Sickness within and miserable feeling:
Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repell'd in vain,
Each night was scatter'd by its own loud screams,
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

That hope, which was his inward bliss and boast Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he

would

For love's despair is but hope's pining ghost!

Dreams, (the soul herself forsaking,)

Tearful raptures, boyish mirth; Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this earth!

O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if life be love.

THE COMPOSITION OF A KISS.

CUPID, if storying legends* tell aright,
Once framed a rich elixir of delight.
A chalice o'er love-kindled flames he fix'd,
And in it nectar and ambrosia mix'd:

With these the magic dews, which evening brings,
Brush'd from th' Idalian star by faery wings:
Each tender pledge of sacred faith he join❜d,
Each gentler pleasure of th' unspotted mind-
Day-dreams, whose tints with sportive brightness
glow,

And hope, the blameless parasite of wo.

The eyeless chemist heard the process rise,
The steamy chalice bubbled up in sighs;

Sweet sounds transpired, as when th' enamour'd dove

Pours the soft murmuring of responsive love.
The finish'd work might envy vainly blame,

And "Kisses" was the precious compound's name.

With half the god his Cyprian mother blest,
And breathed on SARA's lovelier lips the rest.

III. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

Yea, he deserves to find himself deceived,
Who seeks a heart in the unthinking man.
Like shadows on a stream, the forms of life
Impress their characters on the smooth forehead:
Naught sinks into the bosom's silent depth.
Quick sensibility of pain and pleasure
Moves the light fluids lightly; but no soul
Warmeth the inner frame.

Schiller.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.

Besides the rivers Arve and Arveiron, which have their sources in the foot of Mont Blanc, five conspicuous torrents rush down its sides, and within a few paces of the Glaciers, the gentiana major grows in immense

numbers, with its "flowers of loveliest blue."

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause

*Effinixt quondam blandum meditata laborem Basia lascivâ Cypria Diva manâ, Ambrosiæ succos occultâ temperat arte, Fragransque infuso nectare tingit opus. Sufficit et partem mellis, quod subdolus olim Nou impune favis surripuisset Amor,

On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,

Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy:
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing-there
As in her natural form, swell'd vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Companion of the morning star at dawn,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink:
Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who call'd you forth from night and utter death
From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shatter'd and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam ?

And who commanded, (and the silence came,)
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living

flowers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?— God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!

Decussos violæ foliis ad miscet odores
Et spolia æstivis plurima rapta rosis.
Addit et illecebras et mille et mille lepores,
Et quot Acidalius gaudia Cestus habet.
Ex his composuit Dea basía; et omnia libaos
Invenias nitidæ sparsa per ora Cloës.
Carm Quod Vol II.