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XX.

TO AILSA ROCK.

HEARKEN, thou craggy ocean pyramid !

Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams! When from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid? How long is't since the mighty power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams,

Or when grey clouds are thy cold cover-lid?
Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep !

Thy life is but two dead eternities—

The last in air, the former in the deep;

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skiesDrown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep, Another cannot wake thy giant size.

XXI.

ON FAME.

FAME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees;
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease.
She is a gipsy-will not speak to those

Who have not learnt to be content without her ;

A jilt whose ear was never whispered close,

Who think they scandal her who talk about her; A very gipsy is she, Nilus born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar.

Ye love-sick bards, repay her scorn with scorn,
Ye love-sick artists, madmen that ye are,
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

1817.

XXII.

ON A DREAM.

I dreamt of being in that region of Hell (wherein are Paulo and Francesco). I floated about the wheeling atmosphere with a beautiful figure, to whose lips mine were joined, it seemed for an age; and in the midst of all this cold and darkness I was warm. I tried a sonnet on it; there are fourteen lines in it, but nothing of what I felt."-Letter to his brother in America.

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,

When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept,
So on a Delphic reed my idle spright

So play'd, so charm'd, so conquered, so bereft
The dragon World of all its hundred eyes :
And seeing it asleep did fly away—

Not unto Ida with its snow-cold skies,

Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev'd a day;

But to that second circle of sad hell,

Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw

Of rain and hailstones, lovers need not tell

Their sorrows.
Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form
I floated with about that melancholy storm.

EPISTLES.

Among the rest a shepherd (though but young
Yet hartned to his pipe) with all the skill
His few yeeres could, began to fit his quill.
Britannia's Pastorals.-BROWNE.

TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW.

SWEET are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song ;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother poets joy'd
Who, with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.
The thought of this great partnership diffuses,
Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling

Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.
Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee

Past each horizon of fine poesy;

Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:

But 'tis impossible; far different cares
Beckon me sternly ftom soft "Lydian airs,"
And hold my faculties so long in thrall,
That I am oft in doubt whether at all

I shall again see Phœbus in the morning :
Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning!
Or a white Naiad in a rippling stream;
Or a rapt seraph in a moonlight beam;
Or again witness what with thee I've seen
The dew by fairy feet swept from the green,
After a night of some quaint jubilee
Which every elf and fay had come to see:
When bright processions took their airy march
Beneath the curved moon's triumphal arch.

But might I now each passing moment give
To the coy muse, with me she would not live
In this dark city, nor would condescend
'Mid contradictions her delights to lend.
Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind,
Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find
Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic,
That often must have seen a poet frantic ;
Where oaks, that erst the Druid knew, are growing,
And flowers, the glory of one day, are blowing;
Where the dark-leaved laburnum's drooping clusters
Reflect athwart the stream their yellow lustres,
And intertwined the cassia's arms unite,
With its own drooping buds, not very white.
Where on one side are covert branches hung,

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