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Rustle of the reaped corn;

Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment-hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meager from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.

O, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gazed at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side

White as Hebe's when her zone
Slipt in golden clasp, and down

Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison-string,
And such joys as these she'll bring.-
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.

ODE.

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;

With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

ROBIN HOOD.

TO A FRIEND.

No! those days are gone away,
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have Winter's shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest's whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rent nor leases.

No, the bugle sounds no more, And the twanging bow no more; Silent is the ivory shrill Past the heath and up the hill; There is no mid-forest laugh, Where lone Echo gives the half To some wight, amazed to hear Jesting, deep in forest drear.

On the fairest time of June You may go, with sun or moon, Or the seven stars to light you, Or the polar ray to right you; But you never may behold Little John, or Robin bold; Never one, of all the clan, Thrumming on an empty can

Some old hunting ditty, while He doth his green way beguile To fair hostess Merriment, Down beside the pasture Trent; For he left the merry tale Messenger for spicy ale.

Gone, the merry morris din ; Gone, the song of Gamelyn; Gone, the tough-belted outlaw Idling in the "grené shawe;" All are gone away and past! And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his tufted grave, And if Marian should have Once again her forest days, She would weep, and he would craze: He would swear, for all his oaks, Fall'n beneath the dock-yard strokes, Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her-strange! that honey Can't be got without hard money!

So it is; yet let us sing Honour to the old bow-string! Honour to the bugle-horn? Honour to the woods unshorn! Honour to the Lincoln green! Honour to the archer keen! Honour to tight little John, And the horse he rode upon! Honour to bold Robin Hood, Sleeping in the underwood! Honour to maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood clan! Though their days have hurried by, Let us two a burden try.

TO AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves
run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel-
shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy

hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by
hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

ODE ON MELANCHOLY.

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous
wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenu⚫

ous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

LEIGH HUNT.

LEIGH HUNT is the son of a clergyman of the complexion, are dark-but they have a gentle exChurch of England, and was born at Southgate, pression, akin to that of the gazelle. His look in Middlesex, October the 19th, 1784. He, as and his manner are both kindly and persuasive; well as Coleridge and Lamb, received his early indeed we have rarely met any one who so comeducation at Christ's Hospital, and chiefly under pletely realizes our notions of benevolence. His the same grammar-master; and, like Lamb, he conversation is exquisitely pleasing,-" combining was prevented from going to the University (on the vivacity of the school boy with the resources the Christ's Hospital foundation, it is understood of the wit, and the taste of the scholar." We to be a preparatory step to holy orders) by an im- know little of his political writings; they must pediment in his speech-which, however, he had have been fierce and bitter, for they alarmed his the good fortune to overcome. At school, as in opponents, and delighted and encouraged his after life, he was remarkable for exuberance of friends; but unquestionably the MAN is to be seen animal spirits, and for passionate attachment to in the tender, graceful, and affectionate effusions his friends, a feeling, also, which years have not of the Poet. He is only at home where the heart diminished; but he evinced little care for study, presides. In the earlier part of his career, his except when the exercises were in verse, when he opinions were assailed with the severest hostility. would "give up" double the quantity demanded He has outlived the animosity to which he was from him. His prose themes (he has told us subjected; the misfortunes to which he has been among other interesting facts) were generally so exposed have been met with philosophy; and his bad, that the master used to crumple them in his enemies have, like generous antagonists, aided in hand, and throw them to the boys for their amuse-binding up the wounds they had inflicted. He ment. Mr. Hunt has been an ardent though has at length received justice from all,-save his never an ungenerous, political partisan, and has political "friends." suffered in almost every possible way for the advocacy of opinions, which, whether right or wrong, he has lived to see in a great measure triumph. He is not the only early struggler for "Reform," who has been left by Reformers in power, to be recompensed by his own feelings.

The acquaintance of Mr. Hunt and Lord Byron began in prison, where Mr. Hunt was confined for the publication of an article in the "Examiner," which he then conducted. It was pronounced to be a libel on the Prince Regent ;-and originated in his sympathy with the sufferings of the people of Ireland. To the history of their after intercourse we have not space to refer. Time has pretty nearly satisfied the world that Mr. Hunt by no means overdrew the picture of the noble Bard. The leading feature in Mr. Hunt's character is a love of truth. This was unpalatable to Lord Byron, and, for a time also, to the public. Animal spirits, a power of receiving delight from the commonest every-day objects, as well as from remote ones, and a sort of luxurious natural piety, (so to speak,) are the prevailing influences of his writings. His friend, Hazlitt, used to say of him, in allusion to his spirits, and to his family stock (which is from the West Indies,) that he had "tropical blood in his veins."

In person he is tall, and slightly formed; his countenance is singularly fine; his eyes, like his

The poetry of Leigh Hunt has been, and ever will be, appreciated, by all who love nature, and sympathize with humanity. It is liable to the charge of occasional affectation; and it is to be lamented that, at times, he defaces the beauty of a composition by some trifling puerilities. Mr. Hazlitt appears to have divined the cause of these defects. "From great sanguineness of temper, from great quickness and unsuspecting simplicity, he runs on to the public as he does at his own fireside,-and talks about himself, forgetting that he is not always among friends." This disposition, however, is also the main source of his success. His nature is essentially GOOD; and what he writes makes its way to the heart. The models he consults are the true old English Poets; and the gayer spirits of Italy. He is a scholar, and "a special lover of books;" yet we never find in him a touch of pedantry. His poetry is like his mind,-a sort of buoyant outbreak of joyousness; and when a tone of sadness pervades it, is so gentle, confiding, and hoping, as to be far nearer allied to resignation than repining. Perhaps there is no Poet who so completely pictures himself; it is a fine and natural and all-unselfish egotism; and a glorious contrast to the gloomy and misanthropic moods which some Bards have laboured first to acquire, and then to portray.

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