WHO HAD SUNG A ROMAN BALLAD.
BLAME not my vacant looks; it is not true,
That my discourteous thoughts did vainly stray
Out of the presence of your gentle lay,
While other eager listeners nearer drew,
Though sooth I hardly heard a note; for you,
Most cunning songstress, did my soul convey
Over the fields of space, far, far
To the dear garden-land, where long it grew.
Thus, all that time, beneath the ilex roof
Of an old Alban hill, I lay aloof,
With the cicala faintly clittering near,
Till, as your song expired, the clouds that pass Athwart the Roman plain, as o'er a glass, Thickened, and bade the Vision disappear.
AFTER A LONG ABSENCE ON THE CONTINENT.
NOR few, nor poor in beauty, my resorts
In foreign climes,-nor negligent or dull
My observation, but these long-left courts
I still find beautiful, most beautiful!
And fairly are they more so than before;
For to my eye, fresh from a southern land,
They wear the colouring of the scenes of yore,
And the old Faith that made them here to stand.
I paint the very students as they were,
Not the men-children of these forward days, But mild-eyed boys just risen from their knees, While, proud as angels of their holy care, Following the symbol-vested priest, they raise The full response of antique litanies.
I HAVE a debt of my heart's own to Thee,
School of my Soul, old lime and cloister shade,
Which I, strange suitor, should lament to see
Fully acquitted and exactly paid.
The first ripe taste of manhood's best delights,
Knowledge imbibed, while mind and heart agree,
In sweet belated talk on winter nights,
With friends whom growing time keeps dear to me,-
Such things I owe thee, and not only these:
I owe thee the far beaconing memories
Of the young dead, who, having crossed the tide
Of Life where it was narrow, deep, and clear,
Now cast their brightness from the further side
On the dark-flowing hours I breast in fear.
ON COWPER'S GARDEN AT OLNEY.
FROM this forlornest place, at morn and even,
Issues a voice imperative," Begone,
that let your vermin thoughts creep on
Beneath the unheeded thunders of high Heaven;
Nor welcome they, who, when free grace is given
To flee from usual life's dominion,
Soon as the moving scene or time is gone,
Return, like penitents unfitly shriven.
But Ye, who long have wooed the memory
Of this great Victim of sublime despair,
Encompassed round with evil as with air,
Yet crying, "God is good, and sinful He,"-
Remain, and feel how better 'tis to drink
Of Truth to Madness even than shun that fountain's
WHEN all these order'd fields were one wet moor,
This Rock, that is for us a single sight
Of wonderment and picturesque delight,
Was the salvation of the wandering Poor;
The Hermit here supported to his door
The tottering steps invited by the light
That, as a lower star, transpierc'd the night,
And gave a blessed rest on that hard floor;
Yet have we now a compensating gain—
The Rock has long return'd to nature's use,
Dismantled of its humanising power;
But, 'mid the civilised and fertile plain,
We gaily climb or pleasurably muse
On God's protection of each opening hour.
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