And on her hair a glory, like a saint: She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. “Anon his heart revives : her vespers done, Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; “Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest, In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay, EVE OF ST. AGNES. With the rich beauties and the dim obscurities of lines like these, let us contrast the Verses addressed To a Tuft of early Violets by the fasAidious author of the Baviad and Mæviad. “Sweet flowers! that from your humble beds Thus prematurely dare to rise, To cold Aquarius' watery skies. “ Retire, retire! These tepid airs Are not the genial brood of May; And flatters only to betray. Lo! while your buds prepare to blow, And nips your root, and lays you low. But I will shield you; and supply A nobler bed on which to die. Has drunk the dew that gems your crest, O come and grace my Anna's breast. What worth, what goodness there reside, And spread their leaves with conscious pride. “ For there has liberal Nature joined Her riches to the stores of Art, The soft, the sympathising heart. Has drunk the dew that gems your crest, O come and grace my Anna's breast. Might I but hope with you to share-* By one short hour of transport there. * What an awkward bed-fellow for a tuft of violets ! “ More blest than me, thus shall ye live Your little day; and when ye die, A verse; the sorrowing maid, a sigh. " While I alas! no distant date, Mix with the dust from whence I came, Without a stone to tell my name." We subjoin one more specimen of these “ wild strains”* said to be “ Written' two years after the preceding." ECCE ITERUM CRISPINUS. “I wish I was where Anna lies; For I am sick of lingering here, I lost my all ; and life has prov'd A waste unlovely and unlov’d. Shall duly to her grave repair, And weeds that have“ no business there ?" * “ How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair Walk'd forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share, “ And who, with pious hand, shall bring : The flowers she cherish’d, snow-drops cold, To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould ? Upon her name for ever dear, And pour the bitter, bitter tear? While, ever as she read, the conscious maid, Mæviad, pp. 194, 202. Yet the author assures us just before, that in these “ wild strains" “ all was plain.” “ Even then (admire, John Bell ! my simple ways) No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays, Ibid v. 185–92. If any one else had composed these “wild strains," in which “ all is plain," Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things, “1. Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;" and proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he is thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of tenderness, and “ gasps at the recollection” of watery Aqua rius !” he! jam satis est! " Why rack a grub-a butterfly upon a wheel ?" “ I DID IT ; and would fate allow, Should visit still, should still deplore- But I, alas! can weep no more. The last I offer at thy shrine; And all thy memory fade with mine. That voice that might with music vie, Thy matchless eloquence of eye, Thy courage, by no ills dismay'd, Thy gay good-humour--can they “ fade ?" Cold turf, which I no more must view, A long, a last, a sad adieu!" It may be said in extenuation of the low, mechanic vein of these impoverished lines, that they were written at an early agethey were the inspired production of a youthful lover! Mr. Gifford was thirty when he wrote them, Mr. Keats died when he was scarce twenty! Farther it may be said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under all the disadvantages of a neglected education : but the same circumstance, were |