But see! e'en now the Muse's charm prevails;
The shapes are moved; the stricken circle fails;
With backward grins of malice they retire,

Scared by her seraph looks, and smiles of fire:
That instant as the hindmost shuts the door,
The bursting sunshine smites the window'd floor;
Bursts too, on every side, the sparkling sound
Of birds abroad,—the elastic spirits bound,
And the fresh mirth of morning breathes around:
Away, ye clouds !-dull politics, give place!—
Off, cares, and wants, and threats, and all the race
Of foes to freedom, and to laurelled leisure!
To day is for the Muse-and dancing Pleasure!

Oh for a seat in some poetic nook,

Just hid with trees, and sparkling with a brook,

Where through the quivering boughs the sun-beams shoot

Their arrowy diamonds upon flower and fruit,

While stealing airs come fuming o'er the stream,
And lull the fancy to a waking dream!

There shouldst thou come, O first of my desires,
What time the noon had spent its fiercer fires,

T

And all the bower, with chequer'd shadows strown,

Glow'd with a mellow twilight of its own;

There shouldst thou come, and there sometimes with thee

Might deign repair the staid Philosophy,

To taste thy freshening brook, and trim thy groves,

And tell us what good task true glory loves.

I see it now! I pierce the fairy glade,

And feel the enclosing influence of the shade:-
A thousand forms, that sport on summer eves,
Glance through the light, and whisper in the leaves,
While every bough seems nodding with a sprite,
And every air seems hushing the delight,
And the calm bliss, fix'd on itself a while,
Dimples the unconscious lips into a smile.
Anon strange music breathes ;-the fairies show

Their pranksome crowd; and in grave order go

Beside the water, singing, small and clear,

New harmonies unknown to mortal ear,

Caught upon moonlight nights from some nigh-wander

ing sphere.

I turn to thee, and listen with fix'd eyes,

And feel my spirits mount on winged ecstasies.

In vain. For now with looks that doubly burn, Shamed of their late defeat, my foes return. They know their foil is short;-and shorter still, The bliss that waits upon the Muse's will. Back to their seats they rush, and reassume Their ghastly rights, and sadden all the room. O'er ears and brain the bursting wrath descends, Cabals, mis-statements, noise of private ends, Doubts, hazards, crosses, cloud-compelling vapours, With dire necessity to read the papers,

Judicial slaps that would have stung Saint Paul, Costs, pityings, warnings, wits,-and worse than all, (Oh for a dose of Thelwall or of poppy!)

The fiend, the punctual fiend, that bawls for copy!
Full in the midst, like that Gorgonian spell,

Whose ravening features glared collected hell,
The well-wigg'd pest his curling horror shakes,
And a fourth snap of threatening vengeance takes !
At that dread sight, the Muse at last turns pale,
Freedom and Fiction's self no more avail,

And lo, my Bower of Bliss is turn'd into a jail!
What then? What then? my better genius cries :—
Scandals and jails!—All these you may despise.

The enduring soul, that to keep others free
Dares to give up its darling liberty,
Lives wheresoe'er its countrymen applaud,
And in their great enlargement walks abroad:

But toils alone, and struggles every hour
Against the insatiate, gold-flush'd Lust of Power,
Can keep the fainting Virtue of thy land

From the rank slaves, that gather round his hand.
Be poor in purse,
and law will soon undo thee;
poor in soul, and self-contempt will rue thee.

Ве

I yield, I yield.-Once more I turn to you,
Harsh politics, and once more bid adieu

To the soft dreaming of the Muse's bowers,
Their sun-streak'd fruits, and fairy-painted flowers.
Farewell, for gentler times, ye laurell'd shades!
Farewell, ye sparkling brooks, and haunted glades,
Where the trim shapes, that bathe in moonlight eves,
Glance through the light, and whisper in the leaves,
While every bough seems nodding with a sprite,
And every air seems hushing the delight.

Farewell, farewell, dear Muse, and all thy pleasure!

He conquers ease, who would be crown'd with leisure.

1811.

SONG.

(TO THE AIR OF "THE DE'IL CAME FIDDLING THROUGH THE TOWN.")

Oн, one that I know is a knavish lass,
Though she looks so sweet and simple;
Her eyes there are none can safely pass,
And it's wrong to trust her dimple.
So taking the jade was by nature made,

So finish'd in all fine thieving,

She'll e'en look away what you

wanted to say,

And smile you out of your grieving.

To see her, for instance, go down a dance,

You'd think you sat securely,

For there's nothing about her of forward France,
And nothing done over demurely;

But lord! she goes with so blithe a repose,

And comes so shapely about you,

That ere you're aware, with a glance and an air, your heart from out you.

She whisks