X.

TO J. H. REYNOLDS.

O THAT a week could be an age, and we
Felt parting and warm meeting every week,
Then one poor year a thousand years would be,
The flush of welcome ever on the cheek:
So could we live long life in little space,

So time itself would be annihilate,
So a day's journey in oblivious haze

To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!

To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant!
In little time a host of joys to bind,

And keep our souls in one eternal pant!
This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught
Me how to harbor such a happy thought.

ΤΟ

XI.

TIME's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb;
Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand;
Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,

And snared by the ungloving of thine hand.
And yet I never look on midnight sky,

But I behold thine eyes' well memoried light;

I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight;

I cannot look on any budding flower,

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips,

And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour

Its sweets in the wrong sense:-Thou dost eclipse Every delight with sweet remembering,

And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

*A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall.

XII.

TO SLEEP.

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws

Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole ;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

1819.

XIII.

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 Gipsey,-will not speak to those

Who have not learnt to be content without her;

A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her; A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;

Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

XIV.

ON FAME.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too."-Proverb.

How fever'd is the man, who cannot look

Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood;

It is as if the rose should pluck herself,

Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom, As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom : But the rose leaves herself upon the brier,

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, The undisturbed lake has crystal space; Why then should man, teasing the world for Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

1819.

grace,

XV.

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell:
No God, no Demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once.
Heart! Thou and I are here sad and alone;
I say, why did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O Darkness! Darkness! ever must I moan,

To question Heaven and Hell and Heart in vain.
Why did I laugh? I know this Being's lease,
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads;
Yet would I on this very midnight cease,

And the world's gaudy ensigns see in shreds; Verse, Fame, and Beauty are intense indeed, But Death intenser-Death is Life's high meed.

XVI.

ON A DREAM.*

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 conquer'd, so bereft
The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes,
And seeing it asleep, so fled away,
Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,

Nor unto Tempe, where Jove grieved a day, But to that second circle of sad Hell,

Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hail-stones, 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. 1819.

XVII.

IF by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet

Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrain❜d,
Sandals more interwoven and complete

To fit the naked foot of poesy;

Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gain'd
By ear industrious, and attention meet:

Misers of sound and syllable, no less

Than Midas of his coinage, let us be

Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown;

So, if we may not let the Muse be free,

She will be bound with garlands of her own.

1819.

* (See page 179.)

XVIII.

THE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,
Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,

Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist! Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise-
Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve,
When the dusk holiday-or holinight

Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day,
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

1819

XIX.

I CRY your mercy-pity-love-aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmask'd, and being seen-without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,-all-all-be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,—
Yourself your soul-in pity give me all,

Withhold no atom's atom, or I die,

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life's purposes-the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!