SONNETS.

1.

TO MISS KELLY.

You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honor down
To please that many-headed beast the town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for

gain;

By fortune thrown amid the actors' train,
You keep your native dignity of thought ;

The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.

Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot

trace,
That vanish and return we know not how-
And please the better from a pensive face,
A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.

1

II.

ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KEN

SINGTON GARDEN.

1

1

QUEEN-BIRD that sittest on thy shining nest,
And thy young cygnets without sorrow

batchest,
And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest
Lest the white mother wandering feet molest:
Shrined are your offspring in a chrystal cradle,
Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst
Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first
Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able
To tread the land or waters with security.
Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin,
In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in
Confessing weakness, error, and impurity.
Did heavenly creatures own succession's line,
The births of heaven like to your's would shine.

III.

Was it some sweet device of Faery
That mocked my steps with many a lonely

glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlighted up the semblance of a smile.
In those fine eyes ? methought they spake the

while Soft soothing things, which might enforce

despair To drop the murdering knife, and let go by His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade Still court the foot-steps of the fair-hair'd maid? Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh? While I forlorn do wander reckless where, And ’mid my wanderings meet no Anņa there.

IV.

hely

maid?

chers

,

se the

METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, o Anna! mild-eyed

maid !
Beloved ! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot ;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.