She wept with pity and delight, She blush'd with love, and virgin shame; And like the murmur of a dream, I heard her breathe my name. Her bosom heaved-she stept aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'dThen suddenly, with timorous eye She fled to me and wept. She half inclosed me with her arms, She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face. "Twas partly Love, and partly Fear, And partly 't was a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart. I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve, My bright and beauteous Bride. DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE, THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. A SOLILOQUY. UNCHANGED within to see all changed without, Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air, PHANTOM OR FACT? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE. AUTHOR. A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet- FRIEND. This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song? Or rather say at once, within what space AUTHOR. Call it a moment's work (and such it seems), This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matured the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of Life. WORK WITHOUT HOPE. LINES COMPOSED 21st FebruaRY, 1827. ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair- Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, YOUTH AND AGE. VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, When I was young ?-Ah, woful when! On winding lakes and rivers wide, That ask no aid of sail or oar, That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather, When Youth and I lived in't together. Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, But springtide blossoms on thy lips, What outward form and feature are He guesseth but in part; A DAY DREAM. My eyes make pictures, when they are shut: A willow and a ruin'd hut, And thee, and 'me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow! Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow! A wild-rose roofs the ruin'd shed, And that and summer well agree: Two dear names carved upon the tree! "Twas day! But now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night, The balmiest of the month of June! A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain. O ever-ever be thou blest! For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together. The shadows dance upon the wall, By the still dancing fire-flames made; And now they melt to one deep shade! Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play- Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women! LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS. OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope, REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE. And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, And myriads had reach'd Heaven, who never knew Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own, The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye 10 TO A LADY, THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN FROM his brimstone bed at break of day HAVE NO SOULS. NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave? For what you are you cannot have: "Tis I, that have one since I first had you! I HAVE heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I holdHis eyes are in his mind. A-walking the DEVIL is gone, To visit his little snug farm of the earth, And see how his stock went on. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backwards and forwards he swish'd his long tail As a gentleman swishes his cane. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper On a dung-heap beside his stable, And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel. A POTHECARY on a white horse And the Devil thought of his old Friend He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college; For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.* Down the river there plied with wind and tide, And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while, As he went through Cold-Bath Fields, he saw And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT. I mourn to thee and say-"Ah! loveliest friend! And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "Life" Cod. quid habent, "Trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called, Kar' óxny, may be regarded as Life sansu eminentiori: a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call Life now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes. Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted as grounded on subjects that have lost their interest-and for better reasons. If any one should ask, who General-meant, the Author bega leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT. ERE the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no NATURE'S ANSWER. Is 't return'd as 't was sent? Is 't no worse for the wear? Think first, what you ARE! Call to mind what you WERE! I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel. †This phenomenon, which the Author has himself expeof the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transrienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one actions, is applied figuratively in the following passage of the Aids to Reflection: on different characters, holds equally true of Genius: as many "Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 220. THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY A LAMENT. I seem to have an indistinct recollection of having read either in one of the ponderous tomes of George of Venice, or in some other compilation from the uninspired Hebrew Writers, an Apologue or Rabbinical Tradition to the following purpose: While our first parents stood before their offended Maker, and the last words of the sentence were yet sounding in Adam's ear, the guileful false serpent, a counterfeit and a usurper from the beginning, presumptuously took on himself the character of advocate or mediator, and pretending to intercede for Adam, exclaimed: "Nay, Lord, in thy justice, not so for the Man was the least in fault. Rather let the Woman return at once to the dust, and let Adam remain in this thy Paradise." And the word of the Most High answered Satan: "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Treacherous Fiend! if with guilt like thine, it had been possible for thee to have the heart of a Man, and to feel the yearning of a human soul for its counterpart, the sentence, which thou now counsellest, should have been inflicted on thyself." Or call my destiny niggard? O no! no! 4. For never touch of gladness stirs my heart, 5. The mother with anticipated glee 6. Then is she tenfold gladder than before! [The title of the following poem was suggested by a fact mentioned by Linnæus, of a Date-tree in a nobleman's garden, which year after year had put forth a full show of blossoms, but never produced fruit, till a branch from a Date-tree had been conveyed from a distance of some hundred leagues. The first leaf of the MS. from which the poem has been transcribed, and which contained the two or three introductory stanzas, is wanting: and the author has in vain taxed his memory to repair the loss. But a rude draught of the poem contains the substance of the stanzas, and the reader Why was I made for love, and love denied to me? is requested to receive it as the substitute. It is not impossible, that some congenial spirit, whose years do not exceed those of the author at the time the poem was written, may find a pleasure in restoring the Lament to its original integrity by a reduction of the thoughts to the requisite Metre.S. T.C. FANCY IN NUBIBUS, OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS. O! IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould "Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go From mount to mount through CLOUDLAND, gorgeous land! Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. THE TWO FOUNTS. STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY, "Twas my last waking thought, how it could be Methought he fronted me, with peering look In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin, Of Pleasure only will to all dispense, As on the driving cloud the shiny Bow, As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine, Her father's love she bade me gain; I went and shook like any reed! I strove to act the man-in vain! We had exchanged our hearts indeed. SONNET, COMPOSED BY THE SEASIDE, OCTOBER 1817. OH! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, To each quaint image issuing from the mould From mount to mount, through Cloudland, gorgeous land! (The soul's translucence through her crystal shrine !) Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own. A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing, Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam Till audibly at length I cried, as though In every look a barbed arrow send, WHAT IS LIFE? RESEMBLES life what once was held of light, Is very life by consciousness unbounded? And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand, Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea! THE EXCHANGE. WE pledged our hearts, my love and I, I in my arms the maiden clasping; I could not tell the reason why, HOARSE Mævius reads his hobbling verse And finds them both divinely smooth, |