As when a cloud the golden moon doth veil,
Its sides are ting'd with a resplendent glow,
Through the dark robe oft amber rays prevail,
And like fair veins in sable marble flow;
Still warble, dying swan! still tell the tale,
The enchanting tale, the tale of pleasing woe.

How soon the film of death obscur'd that eye,
Whence Genius mildly flash'd, and high debate.
How soon that voice, majestic and elate,

Melted in dying numbers! Oh! how nigh
Was night to thy fair morning. Thou didst die
A half-blown flow'ret which cold blasts amate.
But this is past thou art among the stars

Of highest heaven: to the rolling spheres
Thou sweetly singest: nought thy hymning mars,
Above the ingrate world and human fears.
On earth the good man base detraction bars
From thy fair name, and waters it with tears.

SPEN

SONNET TO SPENSER.†

PENSER! a jealous honourer of thine,
A forester deep in thy midmost trees,

Did last eve ask my promise to refine

Some English that might strive thine ear to please
But Elfin Poet 'tis impossible

For an inhabitant of wintry earth

To rise like Phoebus with a golden quill
Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.

*This sonnet also was first given in the Life, Letters &c. in 1848.

+Lord Houghton, who first gave this sonnet in Volume I of the Life, Letters &c., 1848, appended in the Aldine edition of 1876 the following note: "I am enabled by the kindness of Mr. W. A. Longmore, nephew of Mr. J. W. [sic, but quære H.] Reynolds, to give an exact transcript of this sonnet as written and given to his mother, by the poet, at his father's house in Little Britain. The poem is dated, in

It is impossible to escape from toil
O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:
The flower must drink the nature of the soil
Before it can put forth its blossoming:
Be with me in the summer days and I
Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

ODE TO APOLLO.*

I.

N thy western halls of gold

IN

When thou sittest in thy state,

Bards, that erst sublimely told

Heroic deeds, and sang of fate,

With fervour seize their adamantine lyres,
Whose chords are solid rays, and twinkle radiant fires.

2.

Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war,
And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar :

But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes.

3.

Then, through thy Temple wide, melodious swells
The sweet majestic tone of Maro's lyre :
The soul delighted on each accent dwells,
Enraptur'd dwells, not daring to respire,
The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre.

Mrs. Longmore's hand, Feb. 5th, 1818, but it seems to me impossible that it can have been other than an early production and of the especially Spenserian time." The transcript given varies in punctuation from previous versions; and I have followed it in the main. But there are two accidental variations, honour for honourer in line 1, and but for put in line 12. Beyond escape for the 'scape of former editions, I find no other difference of any consequence.

*First given among the Literary Remains in the second volume of the Life, Letters &c. The date to which Lord Houghton assigns the poem is February

4.

'Tis awful silence then again; Expectant stand the spheres; Breathless the laurell'd peers,

Nor move, till ends the lofty strain,

Nor move till Milton's tuneful thunders cease, And leave once more the ravish'd heavens in peace.

5.

Thou biddest Shakspeare wave his hand,
And quickly forward spring

The Passions a terrific band

And each vibrates the string

That with its tyrant temper best accords,

While from their Master's lips pour forth the inspiring words.

6.

A silver trumpet Spenser blows,

And, as its martial notes to silence flee,

From a virgin chorus flows

A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity.

'Tis still! Wild warblings from the Æolian lyre Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire.

7.

Next thy Tasso's ardent numbers
Float along the pleased air,

Calling youth from idle slumbers,

Rousing them from Pleasure's lair:

Then o'er the strings his fingers gently move,
And melt the soul to pity and to love.

8.

But when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,

We listen here on earth:

The dying tones that fill the air,

And charm the ear of evening fair,

From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.

When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,

The light of thy story,

Or was I a worm- - too low crawling, for death?
O Delphic Apollo !

2.

The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,
The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;

The eagle's feathery name

For wrath became stiffen'd—the sound
Of breeding thunder

Went drowsily under,
Muttering to be unbound.

O why didst thou pity, and for a worm
Why touch thy soft lute

Till the thunder was mute,

Why was not I crush'd—such a pitiful germ?
O Delphic Apollo !

3.

The Pleiades were up,

Watching the silent air;

The seeds and roots in the Earth

Were swelling for summer fare;

This also was first given in the Literary Remains, where it stood next to the preceding, though undated. As Lord Houghton retains it between the Ode to Apollo and the stanzas To Hope (dated February 1815) in the chronological Aldine edition, the date February 1815 may be presumed to be that of the Hymn as well as that of the Ode.

The Ocean, its neighbour,

Was at its old labour,
When, who who did dare

To tie, like a madman, thy plant round his brow,
And grin and look proudly,

And blaspheme so loudly,

And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?
O Delphic Apollo !

As

SONNET.*

S from the darkening gloom a silver dove
Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light,

On pinions that nought moves but pure delight,

So fled thy soul into the realms above,

Regions of peace and everlasting love;

Where happy spirits, crown'd with circlets bright
Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight,
Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove.
There thou or joinest the immortal quire

In melodies that even heaven fair
Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire,
Of the omnipotent Father, cleav'st the air
On holy message sent - What pleasure's higher?
Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?

STANZAS TO MISS WYLIE.†

I.

COME Georgiana! the rose is full blown,

The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,

The air is all scftness, and crystal the streams,

The West is resplendently clothed in beams.

*Lord Houghton gave this sonnet in the Aldine edition of 1876, with the date 1816. There is nothing to show to who se death the poet refers.

+ These stanzas, which are from the series of transcripts made by George Keats, are addressed to the object of the Sonnet to G. A. W. published in Keats's volume of 1817-to wit the lady who was afterwards the wife of George Keats. Though not so good as the Sonnet, they are on an equality with the verses in Keats's Tom Moore manner addressed to some ladies who sent him a shell and a copy of verses. They belong to the year 1816.