AT night, when all is still around,
How sweet to hear the distant sound

Of footstep, coming soft and light!
What pleasure in the anxious beat,
With which the bosom flies to meet
That foot that comes so soft at night!

And then, at night, how sweet to say
""Tis late, my love!" and chide delay,
Though still the western clouds are bright;
Oh! happy, too, the silent press,
The eloquence of mute caress,

With those we love exchang'd at night!

TO LADY HOLLAND.

ON NAPOLEON'S LEGACY OF A SNUFF-BOX.

GIFT of the Hero, on his dying day,

To her, whose pity watch'd, for ever nigh; Oh! could he see the proud, the happy ray, This relic lights up in her generous eye, Sighing, he'd feel how easy 'tis to pay

A friendship all his kingdoms could not buy. Paris, July, 1821.

1 Sung in the character of a Frenchman.

EPILOGUE.

WRITTEN FOR LADY DACRE'S TRAGEDY OF INA

LAST night, as lonely o'er my fire I sat,
Thinking of cues, starts, exits, and—all that
And wondering much what little knavish sprite
Had put it first in women's heads to write :
Sudden I saw-as in some witching dream-
A bright-blue glory round my book-case beam,
From whose quick-opening folds of azure light
Out flew a tiny form, as small and bright
As Puck the Fairy, when he pops his head,
Some sunny morning, from a violet bed.
"Bless me!" I starting cried, "what imp are
you?"_

"A small he-devil, Ma'am-my name BAS BLET"A bookish sprite, much giv'n to routs and read

And has the sprite been here? No-jests apartHowe'er man rules in science and in art, The sphere of woman's glories is the heart. And, if our Muse have sketch'd with pencil true The wife-the mother-firm, yet gentle tooWhose soul, wrapp'd up in ties itself hath spun, Trembles, if touch'd in the remotest one; Who loves-yet dares even Love himself disown, When Honour's broken shaft supports his throne. If such our Ina, she may scorn the evils, Dire as they are, of Critics and-Blue Devils.

THE DAY-DREAM.

THEY both were hush'd, the voice, the chords,—
I heard but once that witching lay;

And few the notes, and few the words,
My spell-bound memory brought away;

Traces remember'd here and there,

Like echoes of some broken strain ;Links of a sweetness lost in air,

That nothing now could join again.

Ev'n these, too, ere the morning, fled;

And, though the charm still linger'd on, That o'er each sense her song had shed,

The song itself was faded, gone ;

Gone, like the thoughts that once were ours, On summer days, ere youth had set; Thoughts bright, we know, as summer flowers, Though what they were, we now forget.

In vain, with hints from other strains,
I woo'd this truant air to come-
As birds are taught, on eastern plains,
To lure their wilder kindred home.

In vain :-the song that Sappho gave,
In dying, to the mournful sea,
Not muter slept beneath the wave,
Than this within my memory.

At length, one morning, as I lay

In that half-waking mood, when dreams Unwillingly at last give way

To the full truth of daylight's beams,

A face the very face, methought,

From which had breath'd, as from a shrine Of song and soul, the notes I sought

Came with its music close to mine;

And sung the long-lost measure o'er,

Each note and word, with every tone And look, that lent it life before,

All perfect, all again my own!

Like parted souls, when, mid the Blest

They meet again, each widow'd sound Through memory's realm had wing'd in quest, Of its sweet mate, till all were found.

In these stanzas I have done little more than relate a fact in verse; and the lady, whose singing gave rise to this curious

instance of the power of memory in sleep, is Mrs. Robert Arkwright.

For sometimes, in repose, she hid Their rays beneath a downcast lid; And then again, with wakening air, Would send their sunny glances out, Like heralds of delight, to bear

Her heart's sweet messages about.

THE DREAM OF THE TWO SISTERS.

FROM DANTE.

Nell ora, credo, che dell' oriente

Prima raggiò nel monte Citerea,

Che di fuoco d' amor par sempre ardente,
Giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
Donna vedere andar per una landa
Cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea: -
Sappia qualunque 'l mio nome dimanda,
Ch' io mi son Lia, e vo movendo 'ntorno
Le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda-
Per piacermi allo specchio qui m' adorno;
Ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
Dal suo ammiraglio, e siede tutto il giorno.
Ell' è de' suoi begli occhi veder vaga,
Com' io dell' adornarmi con le mani ;
Lei lo vedere e me l'ovrare appaga.

DANTE, Purg. canto xxvii.

SOVEREIGN WOMAN.

A BALLAD.

THE dance was o'er, yet still in dreams That fairy scene went on;

Like clouds still flush'd with daylight gleams, Though day itself is gone.

And gracefully, to music's sound,

The same bright nymphs went gliding round; While thou, the Queen of all, wert thereThe Fairest still, where all were fair.

The dream then chang'd-in halls of state,
I saw thee high enthron'd;
While, rang'd around, the wise, the great
In thee their mistress own'd:
And still the same, thy gentle sway
O'er willing subjects won its way—
'Till all confess'd the Right Divine
To rule o'er man was only thine!

But, lo, the scene now chang'd again—
And borne on plumed steed,

I saw thee o'er the battle-plain
Our land's defenders lead;
And stronger in thy beauty's charms,
Than man, with countless hosts in arms,
Thy voice, like music, cheer'd the Free,
Thy very smile was victory!

Nor reign such queens on thrones alone-
In cot and court the same,
Wherever woman's smile is known,

Victoria's still her name.

For though she almost blush to reign,

Though Love's own flow'rets wreath the chain, Disguise our bondage as we will,

'Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

COME, PLAY ME THAT SIMPLE AIR AGAIN.

A BALLAD.

COME, play me that simple air again,

I us'd so to love, in life's young day,

And bring, if thou canst, the dreams that then
Were waken'd by that sweet lay.

The tender gloom its strain
Shed o'er the heart and brow,
Grief's shadow, without its pain-

Say where, where is it now?