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 MOODS AND TENSES. 
 
 BY ONE OF US.
 
 The Readeii will easily correct the following typographical 
 errors which have escaped notice: — 
 
 Page 14 5th line from the bottom, change the colon after the 
 
 word " mine " into a period. 
 19. — 9th line from the top, " Adventurer's " should be 
 " Adventurers'." 
 
 25 4th line from the bottom, erase the mark of elision 
 
 from " Jumper's." 
 32.— 4th line from the top, supply an asterisk after 
 
 " beauteous one." 
 52. — 8th line from the top, for " bought," read '' brought." 
 64. — near the bottom, an entire line has accidentally been 
 omitted. Read as follows : 
 Old haunts ! how busily doth fancy's eye, 
 Flashing like light along the varied scene, 
 Glance o'er a thousand spots, &c. 
 68. — 2nd line from the bottom, supply a semicolon after 
 "memory." 
 
 79 10th line from the bottom, for " heads," read "hands." 
 
 141 11th line from the top, for " Ci bono," read " Cni 
 
 bono."
 
 MOODS AND TENSES. 
 
 BV 
 
 ONE OF US. 
 
 The heart of man is as a cup 
 Supplied with mingled sweets and bitters,- 
 And every drop that bubbles up 
 Towards the brim, looks dark or glitters. 
 Just as his thoughts are black or bright 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRLXTED FOR RICHARD GLYNN, 
 
 36, PALL MALL. 
 
 1827.
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEV, DORSET STREET.
 
 TK 
 4-768 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 
 Page 
 
 What's in a name? . . . . . 1 
 
 The Apology, in a Familiar Epistle to 
 
 
 11 
 
 Retrospection, or Natale Solum 
 
 
 41 
 
 Notes to Retrospection 
 
 
 87 
 
 Poems — Lines suggested by Paradise Lost 
 
 
 101 
 
 Liberty 
 
 
 106 
 
 On an Actor quitting the Stage 
 
 
 . 108 
 
 The Grandmother's Grave 
 
 
 . Ill 
 
 Parga 
 
 
 
 113 
 
 Ijovc's Defence 
 
 
 
 115 
 
 Bertha and Durirael 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 On a Changed Lover 
 
 
 
 . 131 
 
 Friendship's Valentine 
 
 
 
 132 
 
 The Old Hat 
 
 
 
 135 
 
 ToB C 
 
 
 
 139 
 
 A Word to the Wise 
 
 
 
 140 
 
 May-day Song 
 
 
 
 148 
 
 The Maiden's Knell 
 
 
 
 . 150 
 
 A Lament . ' 
 
 
 
 . 151 
 
 The Brothers 
 
 
 
 152 
 
 The Monument 
 
 
 
 . 161 
 
 The Captive Usurper 
 
 
 
 . 162 
 
 Night 
 
 
 
 . 166 
 
 The Penitent 
 
 
 
 ■ 174 
 
 A Prophecy 
 
 
 
 . 187
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Sonnets.— /j*|to . . . .190 
 
 HI 
 
 IV. 
 
 ■ >IiOve's Language , . .192 
 
 V. Holy Age . . . ,194 
 
 VI. The Last Hope . . . 195 
 
 VII. Man and the Seasons . . . 19C 
 
 COKCLUSION ...... 197 
 
 The contents of this volume (originating, as its name imports, 
 chiefly in self ) are, for the most part, of several years standing ; 
 written in occasional intervals of leisure, and then laid aside. 
 This will account for an allusion here and there, which may 
 appear somewhat out of date.
 
 WHAT'S IN A NAME? 
 
 Ct/ie author with his hook. J 
 
 Go, little book, from this my solitude 
 
 I cast thee on the waters. 
 
 SOUTHEY. 
 
 Yes— let it go ; — and though a thing 
 Of shreds and patches, it shall have 
 A name at least betokening 
 Some singleness of end, to brave 
 The fate of many a mingled lay 
 Whose fluttering hopes of living live 
 A little day, — then fly away, 
 Winged by the name of— Fugitive. 
 
 The rich— the poor — the court— the city. 
 Confess the influence of a name ; 
 And high, and low, and dull, and witty,' 
 All know how titles lead to fame : —
 
 WHAT S IN A NAME '. 
 
 And though in gentle Shakspeare's mind 
 A rose's name might not seem vital, 
 Yet books we find, — much like mankind,- 
 Achieve distinction by a title. 
 
 Who knows not him who dwelt upon 
 — Hour after hour — early and late — 
 One thought — to give his darling son 
 A name that might control his fate ? 
 How Trismegistus charmed the sire ! 
 But Shandy's demon ruled the roast : — 
 Misfortune dire had stirred the fire. 
 And lo, with Tristram all was lost ! 
 
 Twas not that his philosophy 
 
 Indulged an idle speculation 
 
 Of nomenclature's potency 
 
 Beyond a hint for education. 
 
 He deemed a name — so sage, so long, 
 
 The best of all apologies 
 
 For (right or wrong) his vast penchant 
 
 To teach his boy the ologies
 
 what's in a name? 
 
 But names preparative are pregnant 
 With disappointment's sad mischances ; — 
 They rarely jump well with the regnant 
 Wishes and thoughts as life advances : 
 And all the virtues of the mind, 
 Wrapt up in names of purity, 
 Fond parents find too seldom bind 
 Their spells around futurity. 
 
 Here a flint-hearted Charity — 
 And there a Patience we behold ; 
 One making mock at misery, 
 The other as an arrant scold : — 
 And lo, where Grace — a lady's maid — 
 For love-sick dear Miss Di, from school, 
 Contrives, (the jade) when duly paid, 
 To make Sir Solomon a fool. 
 
 And I might quote a dozen others 
 
 Whose hopes in names have been debated, 
 
 Of godfathers and godmothers 
 
 Out of baptismal promise cheated. 
 
 B 2
 
 WHAT S IN A N AME C 
 
 Therefore it seems more safe and wise, 
 In all sponsorial appellation, 
 Rather to prize what most defies 
 The perils of anticipation. 
 
 I'll tell a tale. — A parson once, Sirs, 
 Who smiled at names romantic styled, 
 At rustic christening asked the sponsors 
 As usual — *' Pray, who names this child? 
 Hob answered — ** Oi — the iieame be Joolier." 
 " iVhatT' — said the priest, with bantering tone- 
 " Joolier? — Joolier ? — have tve a fool here ? 
 Pooh — nonsense — I baptize thee, Joan !" 
 
 Now had this maid, with name uncommon, 
 Been doomed to rustic occupation, 
 Julia perhaps had spoiled the woman 
 With thoughts beyond her bumpkin station. 
 Butter and eggs, with such a name. 
 And poultry too, had been forsaken ; — 
 But Joan became a farmer's dame, 
 Plain honest soul, — and saved her bacon.
 
 what's in a NAM,£ ? 
 
 Oh, Wilhelmina — Wilhelmina — 
 Sweet swearer " by the living jingo !" — 
 Thy Goldsmith ne'er had soiled so fine a 
 Mouth as thine own with vulgar lingo, 
 But for thine other name ; — he knew 
 That " gods" must knuckle down to ^^fegs,' 
 When oaths out-flew from maids like you, 
 Cognominally known as — Skeggs. 
 
 And Chrononhotonthologos, 
 With other scruples than a Jew's, 
 Maugre his hungry stomach's loss, 
 The savory slice of pork eschews. 
 Shall he, forgetting all his big 
 Illustrious nomen's dignity, 
 Eat infra dig. hunches of pig — 
 Pork ! in a pantry too ? — Not he ! 
 
 Authors ! apply these hints as well 
 
 To books as men, — and never call 
 
 A volume " TuouciiiTs," whose pages tell 
 
 The writer never thought at all : —
 
 AVHAT 's IN A NAME ? 
 
 Be wary also how you dun us 
 With " Woodland Scenes," whose rural air 
 Pours Chelsea Bunhouse fumes upon us, 
 Or, reeking, smells of Greenwich Fair. 
 
 Perhaps the prudent way 's to indite 
 Your pages first, then wait a little 
 Till after-reading brings to light 
 Some name that answers to a tittle. 
 'Tis hard, indeed, if fortune hit 
 No lucky passage here or there, 
 No happy bit — no thoughts that fit 
 And suit your purpose to a hair. 
 
 There are who iiope by euphonies 
 To tickle fancy ; others scratch 
 A curious itch for oddities 
 In busy idlers as they watch : — 
 Some like to show their muse is up 
 [n lack-a-daisy ornament — 
 Some bid us " full of horrors sup" — 
 Some sicken us with sentiment.
 
 what's in a name? 
 
 Thus " Gems of Genius"—" Hop and Skip' — 
 
 " The Broken Heart" — " Parnassian Posies"— 
 
 " To-ho"— and '' Fancy's Flow'rets"— strip 
 
 Aonia's shrubs of lots of roses : — 
 
 While " Ghost on Ghost"—" 'Tis all my Eye"- 
 
 With " Tales of Delicate Distress"— 
 
 " The Noble Lie," and " Thinks-Me-I "— 
 
 Spring forth from sage Minerva'* press. 
 
 A name for me, then ! — First methought 
 The stuffing of a bard's portfolio 
 With dainty dishing might be brought 
 To table as "The Poet's Olio." 
 Pshaw ! — that 's a greasy title : — well, 
 Will " Fruits of Leisure" find more favour ? 
 No : though more true, it will not do 
 Better than t'other's kitchen flavour. 
 
 " The Vesper Oftering ?" — that would reach, 
 
 In three good words, as near the fact 
 
 As any periphrastic speech 
 
 Of three lines length : but then 'tis hack'd.
 
 AVHAT 'S IN A NAME? 
 
 — Hence, sentimentals, hence ! while I, 
 
 Abjuring names so novel-hke, 
 
 Just put forth my own theory 
 
 Of what a name should be to strike. 
 
 A name should take with brevity — 
 A name should leave the mind in doubt — 
 A name should make the curious cry 
 " Why, what the deuce is he about I" — 
 A name should never tie one down 
 To any style — or grave or light — 
 Boring the town with smile or frown ; — 
 No ! names should be indefinite. 
 
 A name can hardly be too plain — 
 That is, should not be ornamental : 
 It should (to say what 's said again) 
 Be any thing but sentimental. 
 Names never should make over-wrought 
 Direct appeals to readers' senses : 
 And lo ! a thought this moment 's caught, 
 To call my book — what ? — '' Moods and Tenses." 
 
 1
 
 what's in a name? 
 
 The why and wherefore folks may seek 
 As they read on ; and if they find 
 That for themselves the pages speak, 
 'Tis well : if not, — why never mind. 
 I '11 cry out first, and fain confess 
 The name is not without exception ; 
 But, more or less, it serves to express 
 The rules that governed the conception. 
 ****** 
 Offering — Fruits — Olio, then, are fled, 
 With other nothings of a name, 
 And Moods and Tenses in their stead 
 Must make or miss the way to fame. 
 Nor let my prelude's levity 
 The reader's graver sense offend ; — 
 The. book Avill be from lightness free, 
 Full often ere we reach the end. 
 
 The heart of man is as a cup 
 
 Supplied with mingled sweets and bitters 
 
 And every drop that bubbles up 
 Towards the brim looks dark or glitters
 
 10 AVHAT's IX A NAME? 
 
 Just as our thoughts are black or bright. 
 Ah, quench not then, with ill-timed jeer, 
 A gleam of light in sorrow's night, 
 — The smile that haply dries a tear.
 
 THE APOLOGY. 
 
 IN A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO 
 
 Dear Friend, though letters pass between us often 
 Which by their heartiness contrive to soften 
 The pains of absence — yet as they are chiefly 
 On various topics, which one touches briefly 
 Lest any thing of all one has to tell 
 (Such as that folks chez nous are pretty well — 
 That thus the world is wagging, and all that 
 Which comes within the limits of kind chat) 
 Should be omitted, and so leave a blank 
 Of subjects that must hold the highest rank 
 In the heart's tender yearnings ; — it falls out 
 That sundry matters which we are about, 
 Though with no wish or thought of reservation. 
 Stand little or no chance of full relation.
 
 12 THE EXCUSK. 
 
 Now, as you know some wastings of my time 
 
 Are answerable for the sin of rhyme, 
 
 And kindly share whatever may concern 
 
 Me as your friend, 'tis right that you should learn, 
 
 In somewhat more than in a general way, 
 
 What shape my thoughts and wishes take to-day — 
 
 (Perhaps 'twere more correct to say to-night. 
 
 Since rarely else, and then by fits, I write.) 
 
 — Well, then, what think you? — I 'm about to print 
 
 Some little things of mine. — I know you '11 hint 
 
 At other thoughts and higher expectations 
 
 From my long since acknowledged occupations. 
 
 " When last we met," you'll say, " no little thing 
 
 Had taught your muse to prune her soaring wing ; 
 
 But nobler inspirations then had fired 
 
 Your mind and heart, which ardently aspired 
 
 For something greater — something that might give 
 
 It's author all an Epic's hope to live. 
 
 Has then your muse been sleeping since, or is it 
 
 That she has fail'd to pay your pen a visit ? 
 
 How comes it that her lofty eagle-flight 
 
 Can stoop to little things, and thus alight 
 
 Down from her lowering, bold, sun-gazing height ?"
 
 THE EXCUSE. 13 
 
 Thus may you question with that friendly tone, 
 Speaking my credit dear as is your own ; — 
 And not less tuned to friendship's harmony 
 Might you, if near me, catch my tongue's reply : — 
 But now, since distant means can be no better, 
 My words must take their shape, and be a letter, 
 Which, while it chiefly tells by what obstruction 
 My muse foregoes her more severe production, 
 Will show how love of print, which nothing stifles. 
 Like mine, takes refuge in a heap of trifles. 
 
 Aonian billets (as I 've said before, 
 
 About two dozen lines behind, or more) — 
 
 Aonian billets-doux I seldom write, 
 
 Save in the witching, silent hours of night ; 
 
 For while the glorious sun rides in the sky, 
 
 I 've other — larger — fish, you know, to fry ; 
 
 But when those hours that wearied hearts love best 
 
 " Throw their dark mantle o'er" — (you know the rest) — 
 
 I " take my rouse," and may at times be caught 
 
 Indulging in that art which one is taught 
 
 Next to one's A B C — out-pouring from 
 
 My pen's unconscious nib such thoughts as come —
 
 14 SOCIETY. 
 
 Some sober and sedate, and some more gay, 
 According to my mood : — (the latter may 
 Haply at times drive bitterer thoughts away.) 
 Yet many a tempting hour, when one would rather 
 The simplest flowVet of Parnassus gather, 
 Than swill the quintessence of such delights 
 As tyrant Fashion makes her own o' nights, 
 The sundry calls of what we misname Pleasme 
 
 Will still be interrupting sweeter leisure 
 
 Sometimes, nay often, for a long long week 
 
 Together, one 's forbade so much as speak 
 
 A single word to any friendly muse : 
 
 — Invited here to-day — to-morrow there, 
 
 Where it perhaps might look particular. 
 
 Or, what is worse, be crabbed, to refuse ; 
 
 Nights roll away — away — and leave no sign 
 
 That they have been. — 'Tis often so with mine : — 
 
 — I speak not now of that Society, 
 
 To none more pleasant than it is to me, 
 
 Where hearty fellowship and happy ease 
 
 With frank and friendly talk conspire to please.
 
 THE JOURNAL 15 
 
 In which the mind, quitting its lonely mood, 
 Rubs off the rust that grows on solitude. 
 No ; never let me dub, in prose or rhyme, 
 Life's friendly intercourse a waste of time : 
 Though even this, when added to the mass 
 Of heartless visitings, becomes, alas ! 
 (Friendship's Penates, pardon me!) — a bore: 
 For, when a tasteless cup 's brimful before. 
 One added drop, though sweet, will make that cup 
 run o'er. 
 
 Still with the stream one goes, leaving the ample 
 
 Sources of self-enjoyment just to be 
 
 Parts of the world we live in. For example : 
 
 Suppose I give a night — or two — or three — 
 
 As from a journal kept some weeks ago 
 
 For wholesome after-reference, and to show 
 
 To you, my friend, who kindly wish to know, 
 
 How my desires to court a nobler muse 
 
 Were thwarted nightly. I leave you to choose 
 
 Which of the sundry sorts of obstacles 
 
 Were pleasant, and which not; — my Journal tells
 
 10 THE BLUE. 
 
 Only that " such things were" (and are !) the reins 
 By which life's varied intercourse restrains 
 A hand, which else, in silent hours, like mine, 
 Might lay some offerings to the tuneful Nine, 
 Upon a loftier altar in their shrine. 
 — Now " gather and surmise," while I rehearse 
 Some scenes (I 've turn'd my Journal into verse) 
 Which you may relish not the less for giving 
 Some of my goings-on and ways of living. 
 
 Last night, the sixth — at which a present chance 
 
 Of leisure serves me for a Parthian glance — 
 
 Last night was at a lady's where 1 spend, 
 
 At tea and small-talk well-nigh without end, 
 
 My early evenings sometimes with a friend. 
 
 — She's one who'll manage cleverly to bring 
 
 A bit oi something about every thing: 
 
 A chronicle she is of Magazines, 
 
 And, for ought I know, known behind their scenes ; 
 
 For by some sign, to her infallible. 
 
 Month after month, and year by year, she '11 tell
 
 THE BLUE. 17 
 
 Who writes in this — who edites that Review — 
 Calls Mr. Campbell Tom — and thinks 'twas too — 
 Too bad the spiteful Quarterly should choose 
 To heap my Lady Morgan with abuse : — 
 She thinks she 's fully up to all their tricks, 
 Who cry down worth because of politics. 
 — In early life she wrote a so-so book, 
 And scorns to marvel that it never took— 
 Giving this reason why it did not sell, 
 " 'Twas caviare, Sir, to the general." 
 — She travelled once, and held it right to keep 
 An Album, into which she '11 often peep ; 
 And when her memory has done its part, 
 To get a sentiment or so by heart, 
 Of Naples, Milan, Florence, or the Pope, 
 She '11 venture to express her ardent hope 
 — I don't remember what — but something witty : — 
 Then peeps again ; and vows 'tis monstrous pretty 
 That Byron names Venice — that watery city — 
 Rome of the ocean ! — yet, she 's vastly sorry 
 His lordship was so naughty as to worry 
 
 c
 
 18 SMALL VARIETIES. 
 
 The world with his Don Juan ;— then, again, 
 Why did he ever write that thing called Cain ? 
 
 She prides herself that once — 'twas at a ball, — 
 She got some side-wind notice from De Stael — 
 There she saw Talma too, — made " mems" of what 
 He said on that occasion ; — it was not 
 Much that he spoke indeed, — but then, you know, 
 'Twas he himself who said — Ok, qu'il fait chaud / 
 — She loves old Goethe's Faust — ay, to her heart — 
 And can't conceive, not she, for her poor part, 
 How Retsch's outlines should be not admired, 
 (Knowing the go 's to praise 'em 'till one 's tired) 
 By Gall and Spurzheim too she's half inspired. 
 She ventures, now and then, a word of Sappho, 
 Is quite at home with Hudibras and Ralpho ; 
 She prates of Pindar (Peter ?), and she '11 soar 
 At times, to old Anacreon (by Moore) ; 
 She knows as much as most about Ravanti ; 
 Loves Petrarch — Ariosto — ^Tasso — Dante — 
 (Englished, you know, by Dobson, Hoole, and Gary ;) 
 She sometimes quotes the Edda, — but she 's wary
 
 CHIT-CHAT. 19 
 
 In what she says of Ross's crimson snow ; 
 And deems it rather prudent not to go 
 
 Beyond her depth, when M thinks fit to be 
 
 Lost in the problem of the Polar sea ; 
 
 Though not a little given to take her flights 
 
 To icy mountains, and the Northern lights. 
 
 She wishes Parry back, and almost hates 
 
 To think upon those horrid Behring's straits — 
 
 Trusts the Adventurer's meat and also coal 
 
 Will last, — and hopes (prodigious !) from her soul 
 
 The voyagers may soon return, to prove 
 
 The sweets of home again — the joys of love.* 
 
 Mistress she is of this, and eke of that — 
 
 The very oracle of chit and chat ; 
 
 Nor quite unskilled in hoar antiquity, 
 
 (Herself, though single, rising sixty-three) ; 
 
 She holds it profanation not to admire 
 
 Poets and poetry ; and she '11 aspire 
 
 In sounding prose, at times, to string together 
 
 Johnsonian periods — all about the weather. 
 
 * Written during Captain Parry's first voyage.
 
 20 THE AMENDE. 
 
 She's up in Rubens, Raphael, Cuyp, Vandyke, 
 
 Books, Phidias, gas, steam-engines, and the like ; 
 
 She talks of Eastlake's Bandits, (who does not ?) 
 
 Of Hayter's glowing tints, and Walter Scott ; 
 
 Prints are to her " a passion," and the sight 
 
 Of coins and .relics is " an appetite." 
 
 A sort of critic, too ; and folks do say 
 
 She sent a notice on the last new play. 
 
 To the Old Monthly — ^but it was not printed ! 
 
 Indeed, by her 'tis somewhat more than hinted, 
 
 That taking umbrage at the indignity 
 
 Which could reject a lady^s offering, she 
 
 Had told the sage conductor, when he met her a 
 
 Week afterwards, — et cetera, et cetera. 
 
 Ye skin-deep learned dames, here I restrain 
 Myself within due bounds, and pull the rein. 
 'Tis only pufFed-up pompousness refuses 
 To relish what, to say the least, amuses, 
 Holding it infra dig. to say a word 
 Except on weighty matters. 'Tis absurd.
 
 THE AMENDE, 21 
 
 Small-talk is like small coin, (the thought 's not new, 
 
 Nathless, my friend, it may be so to you.) 
 
 It is a sort of social currency ; 
 
 And he who holds his learned head too high. 
 
 To think of buying pennyworths of fun, 
 
 And take his share in trifles, is like one 
 
 Who, though a Henry Hase of fifty pound 
 
 Burns in his breeches pocket, yet is found 
 
 Poor for most purposes within the range 
 
 Of daily life — because he wants small change. 
 
 I deem it misery to have one's eyes 
 
 And ears, and taste, so very, very nice, 
 
 That one and all, taste, ears, and eyes, must weigh 
 
 And scan, before we condescend to pay 
 
 The compliment of being pleased with what 
 
 Passes before us : — every thing cannot 
 
 Be best, you know ; but every thing may be 
 
 Useful as samples of variety. 
 
 My lady-friend, for instance, (to my mind 
 
 A specimen quite perfect of its kind) 
 
 Is knowing, complaisant, and pleasant too — 
 
 In short — why mince the matter ? — she 's a blue.
 
 22 A CONVERSAZIONE. 
 
 Still, if your present turn be for some graver 
 
 Orgies of learning, let me ask your favour 
 
 To follow me where haply you '11 be placed 
 
 Mid spirits more congenial with your taste. 
 
 After the social joys of tea and toast, 
 
 And gossip of last ev'ning, I could boast 
 
 Of higher game : — the rooms of a sage crony 
 
 Were open for a Conversazione, 
 
 And sterling science being the order there, 
 
 The rule of wisdom was to exclude the Fair. 
 
 A Conversation then's a place where men go 
 
 To talk ? — Oh, no ; lucus a non lucendo. 
 
 The dons, when we arrived, (methought t' enhance 
 
 What was to come) were sitting all mum-chance — 
 
 They hadn't, Sir, a word to throw a dog. 
 
 And, what was worse, had little or no prog 
 
 For creature-comfort ; nothing could I see 
 
 To oil the rusty mind's machinery. 
 
 But half a dozen straggling cups of tea — 
 
 A sloppy, cold libation of bohea ! 
 
 Ah ! what is tea to those who know, as we know, 
 
 The buoyant properties of Maraschino
 
 AT HOME. 23 
 
 To weigh up wit again when quite aground : 
 
 But here, perhaps, 'twas only too profound 
 
 To float upon the surface ; or the whole 
 
 Notion just then about a " flow of soul" 
 
 Lay in a very rigid tongue-control. 
 
 Well, after turning over a few prints, 
 
 And waiting patiently to catch some hints 
 
 Of mental potency, but finding none, — 
 
 I thought it quite as well to cut and run 
 
 Off to my lodgings, where my inclination 
 
 Not rendering me agog to take my station 
 
 Among the expectant Muses, I thought best 
 
 To say my prayers — take candle, — and to rest, — 
 
 But with a firm resolve that the next night 
 
 (This very one) I would proceed to indite 
 
 A trifle of my epic, unless fate 
 
 Should make " an evening party" end too late. 
 
 To which a card (that creature of futurity, 
 
 Reaching to-day its five weeks' full maturity, 
 
 Charged with the talismanic words " At ho^ne 
 
 Thursday the seventh") invites me now to come.
 
 S't A ROUT. 
 
 And so, though half it puts me in the dumps,. 
 I must whip on my pantaloons and pumps — - 
 See who is who in Bruton-street, and then 
 Hie home again to re-assume my pen, 
 Either to get on further in life's story. 
 Or take a goose-quill flight at higher glory. 
 The clock now strikes eleven — 'tis just the time ; 
 Here goes till twelve — and then return to rhyme. 
 
 ***** 
 The moment 's come ; but not, alas ! for me, 
 Pregnant with heart-expanding poesy — 
 (And, sooth to say, 'tis nearer four than three) 
 I 'm at my post, 'tis true, but tired and jaded, 
 The brightest flow'rets of Parnassus faded ; 
 My mind, such as it is, all in a maze, 
 A buzz, a hubbub, full of this and that — 
 Elopements — how d'ye do's — new dresses — plays — 
 Your La'aship can't be serious ! — dear me ! — what ? 
 Macready — charming weather — bless us ! — no ! 
 Oh law ! — pray what's the news ? — 1 hope you'll go- 
 Next Wednesday — 'tis her benefit, you know —
 
 A ROUT. 25 
 
 Now, really, now — but who is that young thing ? 
 She's just come out — (a glass of ice ?) knock — ring — 
 More company — delightful ! — what a crowd ! — 
 Your Lordship's very good — I'm vastly proud — 
 Ha, I declare, my dear — there 's Mrs. Racket — 
 How do ? — how do ? — and charming Lady Clacket — 
 Heavens ! — what a tongue she has ? — and only see. 
 Here are the Grangers come — there 's O — there 's P. 
 Belzoni, too, and pretty Mrs. D. 
 How stout she gets — (a jelly, ma'am ?)— Sir John, 
 Pray who is that queer friend of yonr's ? (some cake? ) 
 Don't go — 'tis early yet — but won't you take 
 Refreshments? — No. — Good night! — I'm glad they're 
 
 gone 
 The fogrums ! — Well ! the room at length is thinning — 
 The evening's snuggest moment just beginning ; 
 Perhaps the young folks now may stand a chance — 
 Can't we knock up, d'ye think, a little dance ? 
 (Miss Jumper's coming up !) oh, well, I vow 
 They'll help us out! — just come in time — now — now — 
 Sir George — my daughter Kate — come, one quadrille — 
 The Lancers — Julia, love, I 'm sure you will —
 
 26 A ROUT. 
 
 No, not to-night, I thank you.— Poz? now do; 
 
 Come now, you ?ntist — why 'tis but half-past two ! — 
 
 I '11 do as much next Friday week for you. 
 
 What, you will go then — well — well — never mind, 
 
 I '11 pay you ofF for this — 'tis so unkind ! — 
 
 Nay, if you will, good night ; but you had best 
 
 Not see my face again this week at least, 
 
 You cruel creature you ! But 'tis your marriage 
 
 Has made you grave, poor thing !— The Delmours' 
 
 carriage ! 
 My cloak !— Miss Tibbs's servant!— rattle— rattle— 
 The street 's alive with clattering wheels and cattle. 
 Good night !— Doors closed,— the lady of the house, 
 ('Twas whispered by a confidential mouse) 
 Turning lack-lustre eyes upon her spouse. 
 Exclaims — " Folks stay so long ! they never know 
 How very kind I think it when they go : 
 I really am quite tired out — Sir John 
 A'n't you rejoiced to be once more alone? 
 Look, if it isn't three o'clock and past ; 
 These things will be the death of me at last.
 
 SUCH THINGS ARE. 27 
 
 Dear me, I don't know when I shall recover. 
 Stanford, put out the lights — thank Heaven, that '« 
 over !" 
 
 Such are the joys of Lady Squeezem's rout. 
 
 It can't be helped, you know — one must " go out :" 
 
 And though these fashions are the very deuce 
 
 For those who relish not, but can't refuse 
 
 To make a unit, where a motley crowd 
 
 Magnify nothingness by talking loud, 
 
 P'rhaps 'tis a cheap escape from sundry jokes 
 
 For being queer and unlike other folks : 
 
 Yes, if one lives at all, thus it must be. 
 
 Just for the form's sake of society. 
 
 Nay, to speak truth, spite of the various scandals, 
 
 The clack, the clatter, rumpus, lamps and candles, 
 
 With which folks wipe their debts out once a year. 
 
 There are some gleams of sunshine even here. 
 
 For instance, had I, to escape this crowd, 
 Taken a step that is at least allowed,
 
 28 REFRESHMENT. 
 
 And, among those who 're " grieved they couldn't 
 
 come," 
 (Because, perhaps, they chose to stay at home) 
 Sent my apology to be displayed 
 Like theirs on marble tables, where they're laid 
 In heaps, to hint that though the rooms are crammed, 
 There are some dozens yet who might have jammed 
 Their bodies also ; (which ensemble shows 
 What lots of folks the lady hostess knows :) 
 Oh ! I had missed the sight of such a creature, 
 So sweet, so every-thing in form and feature ! 
 By Jove ! I 'd pass another such a night. 
 Yea, twenty, forty like it, so I might 
 Enjoy one repetition of that sight. 
 For such another glance as that I 'd try 
 My luck at routs for half a century. 
 Such looks from such bright eyes I never knew ! 
 But then, with thee, sweet saint! I 've nought to do. 
 Since in the squeeze was one, who by my guess 
 Had a heart's right in thy dear happiness : 
 And so, farewell !
 
 LA DEMOISELLE, 29 
 
 Thus then you see, my friend, 
 I 'm baulked once more in striving for the end 
 So long in view. — Well, let my poem sleep 
 Snug in my desk another night — 'tvpill keep. 
 Though in this chitty-chatty mood one may 
 Scribble, when half awake — away^ — away. 
 One 's all unfit, at more than half-past three. 
 To court severer Muses — or to be 
 Intent on weighty subjects, such as mine ; 
 Nor does my mind to aught but bed incline. 
 Unless, indeed, (and I 'm half bent upon it) 
 To greet that lovely creature with a sonnet. 
 Shall I begin, " beautiful being !" — no; 
 I won't commence my sonnet so — but so : 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Once, once again, in the omnipotence 
 Of thy most gentle, all-unconscious power, 
 Oh bless my waking eyes ! or in that hour 
 When slumber lightly seals mine outward sense.
 
 30 SONNETS. 
 
 Steal on me with thy quiet influence. 
 Silent and beautiful, — and be, or seem, 
 The sweetest being of the sweetest dream 
 That Truth's and Fancy's mingled effluence 
 E'er thrilled the heart withal ! — I saw thee there, 
 Most like the creature of some higher sphere 
 Stepped from her star. — But ah, that fragile grace, 
 And the blanched hue of that most delicate face 
 Bespeak thou art no less her mortal guest 
 Than of Earth's lovely daughters' loveliest ! 
 
 • • • . • • • 
 
 This stinted child of Poesy confines 
 Itself so strictly in its rhymes and lines, 
 That search where'er I might, I never knew 
 Of all the great in sonnet-craft, but few 
 (Though I rank most of them among my betters) 
 Who did not seem to put the Muse in fetters. 
 Yet I like sonnets, and oftimes offend 
 That way myself, — but chiefly to this end, 
 Because I think their strictness may be found 
 Good poet-practice. 'Tis a sort of school 
 To keep too lax a style within some bound, 
 And tie a rambler, like myself, to rule.
 
 BACHELORS. — THE OPERA, 31 
 
 Thus much for sonnets, then : and now I go 
 To sleep — perchance to dream — so bon 7 epos. 
 
 The 8th. — More promising — but passed — in what? 
 Me?n. Several pleasant friends came in to chat — 
 Foes to the silent Muse ; but what of that ? 
 I like the fellows well, and they like me. 
 — Oysters and punch, in strict sobriety, 
 And liberal talk ckez moi till half past three. 
 
 The next night, Saturday, the Muse is cheated 
 By her own sisters, where the sense is treated 
 With harmony, as Ronzi's vivid song 
 In thrilling utterance pours its tide along. 
 And sweet expression with a milder glory 
 Lives on the lips of gentle Caradori. 
 Where, too, the other Ronzi, who may be 
 Herself, for aught I know, Terpsichore — 
 Though with a form less airy than beseems 
 The dancing goddess of Canova's dreams —
 
 32 THE OPERA. — SUNDAY. 
 
 Gives every attitude a graceful sense, 
 
 And to each varied movement eloquence, 
 
 Till we almost forget to dwell upon 
 
 The loss of one — the sylph-like beauteous one- 
 
 Whose fairy-loved Cendrillon at the ball 
 
 Made every falling footstep musical. 
 
 The 10th, called dies non — but who knows why 
 
 Except the hungry men of law ? — not I. 
 
 The day 's a day that fitlier with it brings 
 
 Thoughts upon higher far and holier things 
 
 Than all the sounding elegance of rhyme : 
 
 A day that bids us take account of time — 
 
 A day, indeed, that never should pass by 
 
 Without deep musings on eternity. 
 
 And though perchance (for Sunday can't exempt us 
 
 From worldly thoughts) the itch of verse may tempt us 
 
 To fix some image that bears brightness in it, 
 
 Rather than lose " the Cynthia of the minute ;" 
 
 " JMademoiselle Mercandotti, now Mrs. Hughes Ball, whose 
 dancing was the very melody of motion.
 
 DINNERS, 33 
 
 Yet when the heart's not blunted to the zest 
 Of heaven's own goodness in its day of rest, 
 More solemn sentiment the mind pervades 
 Than " dreams of Pindus and th' Aonian maids." 
 
 The next three nights, spent in agreeable 
 And cheerful visits that I like full well ; 
 Which being one and all of the same caste. 
 The first and second friendly as the last, 
 My journal merely offers a reflection 
 As to what qualities confer perfection 
 On such affairs of sociable refection. — 
 Of all the feasts at which I ever bait. 
 Commend me to that snuggest number eight 
 For pleasant dinners, where one 's sure to meet 
 With general conversation as a treat. 
 With no restraint at all save politesse. 
 No knuckling down to pride— nor haughtiness 
 Beyond propriety — where nought that 's said 
 Or drank sends one disquieted to bed : 
 In all things nor too little nor too much — 
 Thanks be, of dinners I get sundry such, 
 
 D
 
 34 DINNERS. 
 
 And some of them just now. — In short, each day, 
 Till Monday 's past, (and that night to the play 
 With my young friends from * * street) I 'm hired 
 Beyond the chance of being muse-inspired : 
 For though from such like hospitalities, 
 However late the congress, one can rise 
 Before the usual hour of scribbling 's come, 
 (That is, with me) and get snug in at home ; 
 Still there 's that something in a set-out dinner 
 Makes ev'n the moderate feel they don't " grow 
 
 thinner" — 
 And, as the poet sings, your dainty bits 
 Fatten the ribs, but bankrupt out the wits ; 
 Besides, of all libations to the Nine, 
 Few things propitiate less than heavy wine. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 My journal here is void — unused my pen 
 Till the aforesaid Monday next — and then — 
 Dined at my friend's, and after went to see, 
 Ev'n as I said, with pretty A — and E — 
 The Irish poet's woeful Tragedy. — ■
 
 THE PLAY. 35 
 
 One of the lasses with an eye of mirth, 
 
 And lips where smiles are aye at constant birth, 
 
 Laughed out her funny notions of the play — 
 
 (You know the riante creature's chirping way) 
 
 She thought it high-flown stuff: — her milder sister 
 
 Drank in the sorrows of the heroine 
 
 With such a gentle grief — I could have kissed her 
 
 Sweet tears away — they almost summoned mine. 
 
 Methought it was the prettiest criticism 
 
 I yet had seen : and though the witticism 
 
 Of her blithe sister was perchance more true, 
 
 I liked the gentler better — pray don't you ? 
 
 Such are, however you may sagely rate them, 
 The facts which all are mainly as I state them, 
 With only, here and there, a sort of wise 
 Wrapping of names up somewhat in disguise ; — 
 Such are the various lets which make old Time 
 (Else dedicated to the birth of rhyme) 
 A winged and busy nothing : — then, with these, 
 Number in sundry other hindrances — 
 
 D 2
 
 86 DE OMNIBUS REBUS 
 
 Trips out of town on business or for pleasure, 
 
 All breaking in on quiet evening leisure — 
 
 Besides some vagrant fancies of my own, 
 
 Some whims of wandering, that almost atone 
 
 For wasted moments : — and to these, I ween, 
 
 You'll hardly fail to add one more, — I mean 
 
 That which has oftentimes drawn smiles from you,- 
 
 The aptness of that lump of Amadou 
 
 Ycleped a heart, that in my bosom lies, 
 
 To be the tindery victim of young eyes 
 
 From being's day of spring ev'n to that age 
 
 When the world's warier ones indulge more sage 
 
 Heart-worshippings than those eye-sparks of light 
 
 Which only seem to make existence bright, 
 
 Until such meteor glances all are banished. 
 
 And all their flickering beams away have vanished 
 
 Before the steadier glow of one, last, best. 
 
 Pure, all-in-all absorbing interest ;— 
 
 That genial, soul-inspiring, lasting flame 
 
 Which being love's own essence — not its name — 
 
 Annihilates the trivial past for ever, 
 
 And, unlike former visions, endeth — never !
 
 ET QUIBUSDAM ALUS. 37 
 
 — And you, my friend, no more the easy-hearted 
 
 Receiver of young smiles, as when we parted, 
 
 I think upon, not now as though your heart 
 
 Had found love's joys alone without the smart — 
 
 But as of one star-doomed to dwell and dwell 
 
 On fixed affections baffled : — you know well 
 
 The anxious feeling — ah, by woe concealed, 
 
 The dearest bosomed-thought kept unrevealed — 
 
 The one sweet sentiment of life confined 
 
 To rest a silent trust within the mind — 
 
 The hopes that looked to far-off future years 
 
 Checked by the birth of unimparted fears. 
 
 Fears hushed while honor's impulses restrain 
 
 The tongue, lest fate or fortune render vain 
 
 The longings of the heart, and to despair 
 
 Doom the fond breast which fain would garner there, 
 
 *' Like one intire and peifect chrysolite," 
 
 Her whose mild radiance shedding inward light 
 
 Might make the casket which enshrined it bright. — 
 
 You know how such perplexities ensnare 
 
 Time, — thoughts — and every thing — all that we are 
 
 Into themselves.— Of these I 'vc had niv share,
 
 38 LOVE. 
 
 But though, like you prophetic of Despair, I 
 
 Perchance, with far more cause, have been less wary.' 
 
 Thus then, with all such lets and hindrances. 
 
 Mingling annoyance with some things that please, 
 
 You will not wonder why a thwarted wight, 
 
 Who finds small scribbling-time except at night, — 
 
 Rather than smother his dear love of print, 
 
 Steals from his favourite Terence this good hint — 
 
 That still UT quimus may be kept snug by us 
 
 Quando ut volumus the fates deny us; — 
 
 And, baulked from cultivating higher arts. 
 
 Puts forth some trifles born by fits and starts. — 
 
 Let the world like or loathe, I know that you 
 
 Will give them some regard — and so, adieu ! — 
 
 But, hold — these jingling lines of mine obtained 
 
 A title which I fain would see sustained — 
 
 And though not written at a single sitting. 
 
 Yet being an " Epistle," it seems fitting 
 
 To end in letter fashion. — " What !" you cry, 
 
 " Letter indeed ? why 'tis a history." 
 
 'Tis so : — well — be revenged ; put out your strength 
 
 And punish me with one of equal length ;
 
 THE CHALLENGE. 
 
 39 
 
 All about what you do, and this, and that — 
 
 Be even with me — say — there 's tit for tat : — 
 
 Let it surpass all privilege of franks — 
 
 I '11 pay the postage heartily, with thanks. 
 
 Write then, and make " assurance double sure," — 
 
 Take full revenge — " pour on, I will endure." — 
 
 But 'tis high time to finish. My dear fellow, — 
 
 In every humour, whether grave or mellow, 
 
 Whether I write plain prose, or my muse pours 
 
 Her thoughts in rhyme — though miles on miles may 
 
 sever 
 Us each from other— still believe me ever 
 Most truly and unalterably — Yours.
 
 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 'OR 
 
 NAT ALE SOLUM. 
 
 Movemur enim, nescio quo pacto, locis ipsis in quibus eorum 
 
 quos diligimus aut admiramur adsunt vestigia. 
 
 Cicero. 
 
 Les plus simples usages, comme les relations les plus intimes ; 
 les inter^ts les plus graves, comme les moindres plaisirs, — tout 
 etoit de la patrie, — tout n'en est plus. On ne rencontre per- 
 sonne qui puisse vous parler d'autre-fois, — personne qui vous 
 atteste I'identite des jours passes avec les jours actuels ; — la 
 destinee recommence sans que la confiance des premieres annees 
 se renouvelle ; — ^I'on change de monde sans avoir change de 
 coeiir Mad. de Stael on crossing the Rhine.
 
 What now I sing is but to passe away 
 
 A vacant houre as some musitians play; 
 
 Or make another my owne griefes bemone, 
 
 Or to be least alone when most alone. 
 
 In this can I — though not whene'er I chuse— 
 
 Hug sweet content by my retyred muse — 
 
 And in a study find as much to please 
 
 As others in the greatest palaces. — 
 
 Each man that lives, according to his powre, 
 
 On what he loves bestowes an idle houre : 
 
 Instead of hounds that make the wooded hils 
 
 Talke in a hundred voyces to the rils, 
 
 I like the pleasing cadence of a hne 
 
 Strucke by the concert of the sacred Nine. 
 
 Such, of the Muses, are the able powres. 
 
 That since with them I spent my vacant houres, 
 
 I find nor hawke, nor hound, nor other thing, 
 
 Turnyes nor revels (pleasures for a king) 
 
 Yeeld more delight. 
 
 Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, 
 ( ivith a slight alteration. )
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Several of the following stanzas, though of the 
 prescribed sonnet dimension, will be found heretical 
 in the recurrence of their rhymes. That they are 
 thus sent forth " wanting in fair proportion" lies 
 somewhere between indolence and purpose. Of the 
 remainder indeed not many will be found of that ab- 
 solutely legitimate structure which consists in fitting 
 the first eight lines to the quadruple iteration of two 
 rhymes. While, however, the shackled monotony of 
 the true sonnet is in general avoided by allowing the 
 sixth and seventh lines to chime together in a new 
 rhyme, instead of echoing the second and third ; — the 
 admission of some few with a more regular construc- 
 tion serves for further variety. 
 
 Retrospection has grown to its present form out 
 of short intervals of leisure — a sonnet or two now and 
 then having been an agreeable evening recreation after
 
 44 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 
 
 weightier day engagements.— A sort of fanciful fond- 
 ness for the omens of numerical coincidences first led 
 the author to commemorate his birth-place in three 
 sonnets, conveying thereby a sly insinuation of the 
 * Graces; — a step beyond them made him cast his 
 thoughts on that most portentous of numbers, seven, 
 rerum omnium fere nodus; — an eighth, however, brought 
 him so near the Muses, that he must fain try his 
 luck with the auspicious Nine ; but these fascinating 
 creatures carrying him beyond himself, the nearest 
 point then to hit was the months of the year ;— still 
 the scribbling cacoethes at the finish of his twelfth 
 jnade him aspire at the lunar months ; — one more 
 brought him to a galaxy of sonnets in the square of 
 their own completed number ;— but this being passed 
 through, no resting place appeared short of the years 
 of his own age — and lo— when he topped those, the 
 fit being on him still, nothing could serve his turn (the 
 days in each month not being defined enough) but a 
 long leap from some twenty-odd, to the weeks of the 
 year: this jump fortunately brought him to a hand- 
 some close at the end of his fifty-second. Another
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 45 
 
 Step might have put him on a journey towards his 
 grand climacteric — dangerous ground ! for that once 
 passed, he must needs have gone on till the close of 
 the century. 
 
 So much for the progress : — the origin of his poem 
 may best be described in the words quoted before his 
 opening stanza, from a living poet who has himself 
 shewn, — in his River Duddon, — that a series of son- 
 nets might form a graceful poem. — There too the 
 author finds authority and example (not wanting else- 
 where) for his frequent preference of giving three 
 rhvmes to the first division of a sonnet.
 
 RETROSPECTION. 
 
 Yes — they can make who fail to find 
 
 Short leisure ev'u in husiest days ; — 
 
 Moments to cast a look behind. 
 
 And profit by the kindly rays 
 
 Which through the clouds do sometimes steal 
 
 And all the far-off Past reveal. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 I, 
 
 Place of my birth; — and I will add thy name 
 Albeit less musical than may be heard 
 Echoing its sweetness on the Muses' hill ; 
 For thou art known old Plymouth — and shalt still 
 Tell thine own story in the deathless fame 
 Of many thy sons whose names shall live revered 
 For genius, valor's high emprize, and worth 
 When nobler nothings moulder in the earth : — 
 Place of my birth — where'er life's path has led 
 Thy wandering child, still has his swelling heart 
 Throbbed, when amid the loud world's bustling tread 
 Thy name has met his ear — and, with a start, 
 Visions sprung up of deeds that cannot die 
 Bearing the freshness of eternity.
 
 48 RETROSPECTION. 
 
 II. 
 
 With what a fairy spell doth Memory 
 Call up the Past to throng the present hour, 
 Wielding her wand of more than wizard power 
 O'er beings of fore-gone reality — 
 Till all that was, in life's variety, 
 
 Bright days and dark — forgotten griefs and gladness- 
 Tales of old time, and joys long-past, and sadness — 
 Obeying her all-viewless potency, 
 Join in strange chorus ! The enchantress breathes 
 Her incantations in a Thought — that wreathes 
 Itself a garland from the varied flowers 
 Of years and years revived — while on, she scours 
 Up, up — uncheck'd — untired— to times far gone 
 With speed for which an instant's thousandth were 
 too long. 
 
 III. 
 The spell is on me now : — lo, she appears 
 Peopling the regions of my native shore 
 With forms which ne'er might meet, save thus, be- 
 fore ; — 
 And in mine eyes— eyes dim, alas ! with tears, — 
 The lost companions of my happier years 
 Stand as they lived ; — whilst Virtue in her glass 
 Shows the unsullying figures as they pass — 
 Like Banquo smiles, and points at them for hers !
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 49 
 
 And many a spirit mingles in the throng 
 Of many another age — spirits whose fame 
 Gleaming in glory, whilst their very name 
 Pours music, might light up the darkest song. 
 Till forth it shone in borrowed brilliancy 
 Sparkling with rays of immortality. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But more to thoughts— to scenes, these strains belong 
 
 Than men. — Away ! lest truth begin to prate 
 
 Of some who wore love's guise to cloke their hate — 
 
 Of knaves half hid in revelry and song— 
 
 And yellow wretches, with theii god of gold, 
 
 Who many a dear remembered-one among 
 
 Might point some tale far better left untold. 
 
 Oh ! these self-worshippers would mar the throng 
 
 Of noble souls — these things of dullest leaven — 
 
 Creatures of earth, without a spark of heaven. 
 
 Would soil the fond, the backward-reaching thought 
 
 Of what is pure, and bootless troubles raise. 
 
 Were the mild Muse to such a labour brought 
 
 As winnowing musty chaff from wheat of other days. 
 
 E
 
 50 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 V. 
 
 Hail narrow streets — haunts of mine innocent days ! 
 
 I almost like your dinginess : in sooth, 
 
 There 's not a nook or alley but doth raise 
 
 Some pleasing, fond remembrance of my youth ; — 
 
 Yea, ev'n yon lumpish Guildhall's lack of grace,* 
 
 That was the laugh of my uprising years, 
 
 Is now a thing of memory — and to me. 
 
 Seen through the long, long distance, it appears 
 
 Wrought from its shapelessness to symmetry. — 
 
 Let who will smile — I care not; for my part. 
 
 Linked with a thought of cherished infancy, 
 
 The crooked'st lane leads straight into my heart ; — 
 
 Albeit, old Town of mine, no love can screen 
 
 That ugliest truth of all — thou art not over clean ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 But who may sing the glories of thy fields. 
 Where rich luxuriance smiles on all around. 
 And, proud of blessings that boon nature yields, 
 Frank souls, and liberal open hearts abound — 
 Where labour's children, the brown sons of toil. 
 Air-free and guileless on all sides we meet 
 Bearing fresh witness of a healthful soil. — 
 Thrice happy race ! — ah, lovely scenes ! — ye greet 
 
 • See Note 1, at the end of the Poem,
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 51 
 
 This heart with things remembered, which have been 
 Most ministrant to its quick pulse of joy, 
 When light, and wild, and blithe — a heedless boy — 
 Ranging your valleys, meads, and uplands green, 
 I plucked and threw away life's fairest flowers, 
 Thoughtless — or making light — of future darker hours. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Past seems Present amid thoughts like these ; 
 And though fond lingerings among early days. 
 And boyish feelings, gather meagre praise 
 In hearts of sterner stuff, — nor e'er may please 
 Sir Stoic Affectation's apathies, 
 No matter — still I cherish (ah ! in vain) 
 The wish to be a very boy again ;* 
 Hugging the thousand kindly sympathies 
 Which mingle with my being, when the mind 
 Strays back to pleasure's pains which lie behind ; 
 And if some day, ere childhood comes again 
 With creeping age, I hold life's haughtier things 
 Other than pride's loud, hollow blusterings, 
 I too, perchance, may learn to scorn this humbler 
 strain. 
 
 • Note 2. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 But as it is with me,— ah ! why should thought 
 
 Be checked from beckoning hack the days long-lost. 
 In whose remembered influence I almost 
 
 Am that again which ne'er hath been forgot ? 
 
 The hand of time hath changed me— and for what ? 
 
 For wisdom ? — No ; that rightly understood 
 Is but to know and choose the path to good ; 
 Experience then ? — experience sure hath bought 
 Some gain with years ? Yes ; just enough to chill 
 The heart with one cold truth, — that happiness 
 Is but a dream of hope. — Then better far 
 To deck bright fancy in the lovely dress 
 She wore in spring-time, than too deeply feel 
 The blank reality of what we are. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The Ninth ! methinks that word sounds tunefully ! 
 This stanza shall be yours, harmonious Nine ! 
 And though an humble votary at your shrine 
 Now dips his nutshell cup in Castaly, 
 Breathe on him, thrill his heart to harmony. 
 And dub him Musagetes m your throng, 
 That your sweet names, filling his early song, 
 May meet and mingle into minstrelsy : —
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 53 
 
 Nor then desert him ; but bid every thought 
 That dwells upon your loveliness be fraught 
 With fresh Aonian treasures, misurpassed — . 
 That first or ninth, his thousandth and his last. 
 May one and all be yours ! — How say we then ? 
 — By Jove ! I '11 try my luck with stanza ten.* 
 
 X. 
 
 Hush ! is it heavenly music breathes around ? — 
 
 They come — First, blithe Thalia, hail ; — and see, 
 
 Sweet Polyhymnia — wise Calliope — 
 
 Clio — and bright Urania, starry-crowned — 
 
 Young Erato — and she of trip and bound, 
 
 The brisk, the light-of-heart Terpsichore — 
 
 With solemn-robed, divine Melpomene, — 
 
 All gather, gather to the varied sound 
 
 Of soft Euterpe's pipe. And though the lyre 
 
 Of him whose heart the very names inspire. 
 
 Be of an earthly strain, — ah ! how might he 
 
 Forego the thoughts of such sweet minstrelsy ? 
 
 To sing the Muses' number how refuse, 
 
 Albeit he haply miss the numbers of the Muse ? f 
 
 * f Notes 3 and 4.
 
 m UETROSPECTION, 
 
 XI. 
 
 In sooth, mine ancient Town, I love thee so. 
 That though unskilled Petrarca's verse to raise, 
 I fain would build some sonnets in thy praise. 
 And strive to clear my heart before I go 
 To higher themes— but far less dear to me 
 Than this, wherein the glass of Memory 
 Reflects the cloudless scenes of other days 
 That may return in heaven, but can no more below :— 
 For though the self-same fields may yet be green— 
 Though friends still crowd to greet the welcome guest— 
 Thouo-h every well-known haunt and favourite scene 
 Be yet unchanged ; —Truth makes a heavy moan. 
 For ah, the sunshine of the stainless breast* 
 Which o-ave young happiness its loveliest charm,— is 
 gone. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Yet 'tis a pleasant sorrow, when we seem 
 In Thought's fond flattery, to live over such 
 Young joyous hours ; and with the mind's touch 
 To grasp, albeit but in a waking dream, 
 Youth's freshest flowers again -to feel the beam 
 Of our fair summer warm the heart once more — 
 To give ourselves to fancy, and explore 
 With charmed sense the source of life's smooth stream ; 
 
 • Note 5.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 55 
 
 And thence, with innocent looks of the soul's lightness, 
 Our thoughts unwarped, and nought around but 
 
 brightness — 
 To sail down softly with that favouring tide. 
 — Oh, 'twere pure pleasure thus on — on — to glide 
 Through old delights — but for a dreary voice 
 Which whispers still through all — "These are departed 
 
 joys." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And thus, old scenes, in thought I visit ye ! — 
 
 — How may we choose but dwell again — again — 
 
 On that most fine and beautiful moment, when 
 
 Chasing perchance the rainbow playfully, 
 
 Or wandering wild, or watching the loud sea 
 
 In idle terror at the tempest-din, — 
 
 A flash of thought first prompts a voice within 
 
 To ask in wonder — Hoiv can these things he ? 
 
 — Oh, what a moment ! — when the young heart seeming 
 
 To shake off the dim shadows of past dreaming, 
 
 Wakes with the dawn of truth, in whose bright ray 
 
 The halcyons that had brooded o'er our day. 
 
 Lulling its. waves, rustle at length their wings 
 
 And rouse the soul to seek the harmonies of things.
 
 56 KETROSPECTIOK, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 O, then all nature teems with eloquence.* 
 Woods, waters, clouds, earth, sky, the flowers impart 
 Harmonious lessons to the new-strung heart ; — 
 Mountains have language, waves an influence, 
 Speaking to this fresh-born intelligence ; — 
 The winds grow musical, and every stream 
 Babbles a meaning ;— yea, ev'n thunders seem, 
 Though voicelike, not a terror to that sense, 
 Which, feeling God in all things, at that hour 
 Finds stars begin to write His name of power ; 
 And in the noontide brightness of its blaze. 
 This earth's great light-spring, the effidgent sun 
 Shrink to a spark amid the million rays 
 Which hint the glory of the Mightiest One. 
 
 XV. 
 
 But this is past. — ^Too soon the tale was done 
 Of those bright hours of youth, when wonder's hue 
 Made every thing look beautiful, and threw 
 A light from heaven around. — No more the sun 
 Shines to the unsoiled heart— the time is gone 
 When pleasant spring, and summer's sultry hour. 
 And autumn's fruitage, — yea, the storms which lower 
 O'er bleak December — each and every one 
 
 * Note 6.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 57 
 
 Brought its own unstained joys. — Yes, farewell all 
 Those days when every sound was musical — 
 Your feelings fled — ah, ne'er unmixed with pain 
 To thrill along the fine-tuned soul again — 
 What time my barque of life its sails unfurled 
 And launched into the troubled ocean of the world. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 We deem not him true child of happiness 
 
 Whose gold still multiplies each charm of sense, 
 
 Whom every gaud of lordliest eminence 
 
 And all earth's sumptuous pleasures seem to bless- 
 
 He may have all things largely to possess. 
 
 Shine the world's idol, and his own, — yet be 
 
 Poorer than poor, unblest as penury : 
 
 For life's most gorgeous gifts prove valueless. 
 
 Our pomps but empty shows, our gains mere loss, 
 
 And all the pride of glittering treasures —dross, 
 
 Till, through the adept heart's bland alchemy. 
 
 They catch new brightness from the ministry 
 
 Of goodly use — and shine forth all refined, 
 
 The pure, sublimed, unfading riches of the mind.
 
 58 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Smile— scorn the Muses' plain morality,* 
 
 And cry " 'Tis trite !"— thou, happiest above all 
 
 Thy fellows,— whom, forsooth, no ills befall 
 
 For wasted treasures : — she sings not for thee.— 
 
 Thou 'st missed no golden opportunity 
 
 To mend thy heart— nor found, to thy dear cost, 
 
 How other treasures, not of gold, are lost; — 
 
 What time (that talent !) used neglectingly — 
 
 What good omitted, — and what evil done — 
 
 What warnings scorned — what thoughts, that might 
 
 have grown 
 To virtues, — smothered.— Yes, all these and more 
 Knock at some hearts, but come not near thy door. 
 Smile while thou canst — the time may be when thou 
 Wilt shrink at homeliest truth,— as I do now. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 'Tis mine to feel the soul's deep consciousness, 
 When gazing, gazing back o'er life's career, 
 The dreary sense of many a wasted year 
 Drenches the heart, in all the bitterness 
 Of memories sad, which have no power to bless. 
 To have lived for less than little — nothing, worth 
 Man's higher heritage, — and, mid the birth 
 Of the mind's dark regrets, to feel no less 
 
 * Note ?•
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 59 
 
 The reckless triflings which have left me bare 
 
 In the heart's riches : — yes ! such thoughts there are 
 
 To touch with wormwood joys which still I have, 
 
 (Oh, fondly hugged !) whilst others from the grave 
 
 Rise up to prove their harvest hath but been 
 
 That fruit with tempting rind and ashes all within.* 
 
 XIX. 
 
 But hence — away with this lorn wandering. 
 Mid thoughts of ugly shape, which darkly throng- 
 Around me : — hence — 1 want to be among 
 The woods, the corn-fields, and there featly bring 
 A thousand sweets of Nature's offering 
 Back on the heart : then hie through many a scene, 
 Where, near the country-house or village green, 
 Remembrance may call up the sports of spring 
 And holiday : for what, though borne along 
 By fate to breathe beneath another sky. 
 Still the old days of frolic, dance, and song, 
 Live in the pleasant sadness of a sigh. — 
 Ah ! whilst it throbs, can time or distance sever 
 This heart from thee, my native Devon ? never ! 
 
 * Note 8.
 
 GO 
 
 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XX. 
 
 Those woody dells — that knoll — the plain — the hill — 
 
 All, all bring back old days : the very breeze 
 
 That sings its summer song among those trees, 
 
 Mingling its murmurs with that gurgling rill, 
 
 And, ah ! the pathway of the field, where still 
 
 I trace the wanderings of mine infant feet, 
 
 Each tells a story, as when old friends meet. 
 
 Till sweet o'ergushings from the heart distil 
 
 In " rain o' the eyes :"— and, lo ! yond clump of firs 
 
 On Mutley's boy-famed height — there my young years 
 
 Looked bright with many a joy. How dear to me 
 
 The season when youth's own heart-melody 
 
 Poured jocund forth its notes of uncared gladness, 
 
 Without the discord of a jarring sadness. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Then, let the memory of each o'er-past year 
 Bring back the freshness of its day of spring. 
 Spirits of the past !— wherefore would ye wring 
 A brooding heart with thoughts so dark and drear 
 As mock the kindly influence of a tear ? 
 Ah, since your happiest voice hath power to raise 
 But mournful echoes from departed days— 
 Smce ev'n the brightest of your hours appear
 
 on NATALE SOLUM. Gl 
 
 Like mourners — may such gentler memories 
 
 As live in snatches of old well-known songs 
 
 Be chiefly mine ; and like melodious sighs, 
 
 Steal o'er the soul's fine chord, which fain prolongs 
 
 Blithe notes to a sweet sadness, till they seem 
 
 Like the heart-echoed music of a lovely dream.* 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And now, methinks, I stand upon thai Hoe, 
 Losing myself in grandeur. Years are brought 
 Back by the subtle process of the thought, 
 And the heart reels as Memory's visions throw 
 Time — space — grief — all aside. And hark — below — 
 The eternal tides, that chafe the pebbled beach, 
 Mix their old music with the sea-birds"" screech, 
 Thrilling the soul with mingled sounds, that grow 
 Ev'n to a voice-like influence. On this side 
 Mount Edgecombe, rearing high its woody pride, 
 Smiles in green triumph, while with sterile brow 
 The far stretched bleakness of th' opposing height 
 Frowns darkly down on waves that ne'er may know 
 The freshly sparkling gleams of morning's lovely 
 light. 
 
 • Note 9.
 
 62 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Beautiful contrast ! what a glorious beam 
 
 Glows of The Sound's mid-waters, as they play 
 
 111 all the freshness of the new-born day. 
 
 Most like the young heart's buoyance, when the gleam 
 
 Of joy rests on it, and life's morning dream 
 
 Gilds all the future with its own pure ray. 
 
 Lo ! yet an hour, and all yond spacious bay 
 
 Grows black beneath a cloud — the darkling stream 
 
 Frets into billows at the gusty howl 
 
 Of the hoarse winds ; — deep-mouthed the thunders 
 
 growl, 
 And lashing; all the waves to fierce commotion 
 Down pours the tempest on the troubled ocean. 
 Such are man's life-joys, (nature cries aloud) 
 A few faint glints; the rest, storm — darkness— and a 
 
 cloud ! 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 A giant footstep hath been here ! Gaze round : 
 
 Lo ! where the mighty battle must have been — 
 
 If fabled, fable meet for such a scene. 
 
 Where many a scathed uptossing of the ground 
 
 Bespeaks no less a struggle : — here is seen 
 
 The sea-worn spot, as ancient stories tell, 
 
 Craggy, and stern, and wild — where that vast giant 
 
 fell :* 
 And there the great of old, on yond far bound 
 
 # Note 10.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. (33 
 
 Of Cornwall's hills, and each sea-stretching height 
 Might stand and gorge the terrors of that fight. 
 — Doubt not, for that in these degenerate days 
 Our weaker ken would fail ; but ye whose praise 
 Half fosters faith when magic tales are told— - 
 Gentles — forget not quite that these are Calc£{ of 
 
 mm 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Seaward, far off — now mocking the strain'd sight — 
 
 Now for a moment lost beneath the waves, 
 
 Whose foaming fury it for ever braves. 
 
 Lifts up its head that star-tower of the night, 
 
 Whose knitted structure's well-compacted might, 
 
 In graceful strength, displays a lasting claim 
 
 To be the monument of Smeaton's name.* 
 
 Him the toss'd shipman blesses for that light, 
 
 Which guides him through the dark and perilous deep 
 
 On to the spot where, charm'd, the billows sleep 
 
 Within the shelter of a wondrous pile 
 
 Of man's vast workmanship— that new-made isle, — 
 
 That marble isle, brought piecemeal from the 
 
 shore 
 To break the weltering waves, and check their savage 
 
 roar.f 
 
 • t Notes 11 and 12.
 
 64 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Hence — to "the sources of sublimity, — 
 
 And hark ! — the brooks — the rills — the streamlets telling 
 
 Their ceaseless stories on, for ever swelling 
 
 The river-floods that roll by heavily. 
 
 Some v^^ild as wildest noise and revelry 
 
 Dance over craggy falls — some gently wash 
 
 Green banks unchafed — others with dizzy dash 
 
 Leap down rough rocks, and plunge on foamingly. 
 
 As though in haste to lift the watery pride 
 
 Of our old streams, as, broad and broader flowing, 
 
 They pour their tumbling tributes to the tide — 
 
 Till here at length their wedded powers throwing 
 
 On ocean's breast, all gather mightily 
 
 To one magnificent expanse of sea. 
 
 XXVII, 
 
 Behold how solemnly those antique woods 
 Their shadows stretch in broad brown majesty, 
 Darkening the passage of the river-floods. — 
 Old haunts ! how busily doth fancy's eye 
 Glance o'er a thousand spots, yet not the less 
 For transiency drink draughts of beauty in — 
 Nor lose the influence of your loveliness. —
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 65 
 
 Thus, in thought-winged swiftness fleeting on 
 I name ye not : but hold !— where towering high 
 A huge shape bids us pause. We feel thy grand 
 Majestic shade— wild, craggy Dewerstone,* 
 Most like a giant's presence — and we stand 
 Breathing thy name aloud ere we can pass thee by. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Dewerstone — Dewerstone !— Now onwards stray 
 By streamlets old, dark moors, and forests green. 
 O'er heaths that richly tint the chequered scene, 
 To where these circling rocks, moss-grown and grey, 
 Dim as the memory of their Druids' day, 
 Scarce story dusky Eld : — then on, and gaze 
 Where loftiest Torrs their huge tops proudly raise, 
 Companioning the clouds — and thence away 
 To sit and think in some sequestered wood, 
 Where musing melancholy finds relief. 
 Poring on thoughts of hoar antiquity— 
 And lonely hearts indulge their autumn mood. 
 Catching a voice as every falling leaf 
 Whispers its story of mortality. — 
 
 * Note i;{.
 
 e^G RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 These rhymes — and said I they were coldly taught 
 
 To echo 'mid old scenes, and chiefly pore 
 
 On phantasies of soulless things ? — No more — 
 
 Break up the shackles that would curb dear thought 
 
 From rich imaginings, instinct and fraught 
 
 With all that o'er those scenes and feelings old 
 
 Sheds life and loveliness. — I should have told 
 
 Of gentle friends and kindred, — and thus caught 
 
 The very soul that ever seems to live 
 
 In those two words, shrined in the heart — 7nt/ home ; — 
 
 And I might call up some whose names would give 
 
 Grace to my muse, and hope for days to come : — 
 
 But names are not my cue ; what I impart 
 
 Sufficeth me, — I write to mine own heart. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Oh ! for some Muse, whose hallowing thoughts might 
 
 glow 
 With spirit above — above the loftiest tone 
 Of words, in saintlier guise to sing of one — 
 The goodliest, best — yet humblest — that below 
 Did ever through life's mingled colours show 
 Tints of the brighter heaven : — away — there's none. 
 Save of the earth ; — else, haply, might a son, 
 Warmed by that purer inspiration, throw
 
 OR XATALE "^OLl'M. 07 
 
 Himself, heart, soul, and all, upon one thought 
 Of filial reverence ; till having caught 
 And fixed the hues of blest humanity, 
 He might hold up an image gloriously 
 For men to love, for angels to admire, 
 And with heart-uttered voice exclaim — " Behold my 
 sire ! 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 But as it is, — not mine the muse to move 
 
 The mantle of humility aside 
 
 From that clear breast, where never thought of pride 
 
 Marr'd the mild perfectness of christian love : 
 
 It asks a finer touch — a chord above 
 
 The lowly sound of this my coarser strain — 
 
 A harmony of thought, for which in vain, 
 
 Athirst for music, oft my spirit strove 
 
 In her best hours : — then let me speed my way ; 
 
 Nor, rude of hand, think meetly to display 
 
 That high-helped virtue, which from dawning youth 
 
 To full, time-honoured, reverend age, hath striven 
 
 To make life's conduct beautiful as truth, 
 
 And its whole tenour like one hymn to heaven ! — * 
 
 * Note 14. 
 F 2
 
 68 RKTROSPKCTIOX, 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 My mother too ! thou best that ever bore 
 
 That thrilling;, tender name, whose sound alone 
 
 Makes all the pulses of the heart its own : — 
 
 If it be love within the bosom's core 
 
 To shrine thee, yet not causelessly deplore 
 
 How little of thy perfect, tranquil spirit 
 
 Fate, or what 's worse, myself — lets me inherit — ■ 
 
 If it be love to feel the heart run o'er 
 
 In blessings, yet confess its poverty 
 
 In all thy gentleness, — if still to be — 
 
 Whate'er to others — ready to resign 
 
 All that I have for one dear smile of thine ; 
 
 If these be marks of love's reality, 
 
 Then none on earth can equal mine for thee. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 Parents, companions, kindred mine, all hail ! 
 Friends of my life, whom time has proved to be 
 Such as the world has never matched to me — 
 Oh, deem not that my grateful feelings fail. 
 For that so late in this — my song — my tale — 
 Or whatsoever these strains appear to ye, 
 Poured from the bosom's fount to memory 
 I say that late I cite ye to my wail
 
 OH NATALK SOLUM. 69 
 
 O'er hours long fled, wherein I scarcely knew 
 How rich my blessings, being blest with you. 
 Ye had been first in place, even as ye are 
 The first in heart ; —but, as 1 gazed from far, 
 Mixed with your images rose thoughts which tell 
 Upbraiding tales on which I little loved to dwell. 
 
 . XXXIV. 
 
 In busy idlesse, at the vacant hour 
 Of boyhood, when the daily task is done, 
 How blithely will the thoughtless youngster run 
 Forth to the fields : off, and away he '11 scour. 
 As though he shook off trammels of hard power : 
 O'erjoyed his school imprisonment to shun, 
 He speeds along, hailing the setting sun, 
 On nature's richest works to gaze and pore 
 With pleasure-thrilled heart ; and lucky he 
 Who using time's chief minutes charily, 
 Finds after studious labours meet relief 
 In such a book : — but there was one, whose brief 
 Moments of gold were deemed of little cost, 
 Till elder hours, in vain, betrayed how much was 
 lost.
 
 70 HETROSPECTION, 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 In sooth, mine hero was a heedless wight — * 
 
 The single pupil of a peerless sire, 
 
 Whose pleasure-blent tuition might inspire 
 
 Dullards to hail instruction with delight.— 
 
 So richly privileged, he had no right 
 
 To be, like others, ready still to make 
 
 Excuse for idleness for idlesse' sake : 
 
 But he ne'er courted knowledge, till those bright 
 
 And transient hours of youth were passed away 
 
 With half their priceless freightage— he ne'er dreamed 
 
 How wasted time full hardly is redeemed ; 
 
 Nor thought, till moments pregnant with the fate 
 
 Of all his after-life were gone for aye, 
 
 How precious was their loss : 'twas then too late ! 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Yet match me days so bright as those days were, 
 When thus with boyhood's opening heart I strayed 
 Near aldered streams, or through the woodland glade, 
 And learnt how smiles from some young listener 
 Could throw a sweeter freshness o'er the year, 
 Or teach those vesper carollings, which float 
 From nature's choir, to pour a lovelier note. 
 By feeling tuned, upon the youthful ear.— 
 
 * Note 1ft.
 
 OK NATALE SOLUM. 71 
 
 Match me the moments when the woodbine-shade's 
 Soft scent, and all the incense of sweet flowers, 
 Caught richer perfume from some gentle maid's 
 Young praise, — the while a finer sense found out 
 (What heart less fond had never dreamt about) 
 How with a kindred feeling she would tread 
 Lightlier where violets hide the timid head. 
 — Match me, I say — oh, bring me back those hours ! 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Soul of Procrustes ! — there 's a verse too long ! 
 
 — I think that gentleman in olden time 
 
 Might be some critic of the sonnet's chime, 
 
 Who gained a murderer's name, because his strong 
 
 Rough gripe, throttling young efforts, choked that song 
 
 For ages ; till at length, in that fair clime 
 
 Where love is worship— Italy, — the rhyme 
 
 Once more looked up to live for aye among 
 
 The blind god's votaries, in a form so fair. 
 
 So beautifid, that were't not far above 
 
 The critic's reach, Procrustes' self v/ould own 
 
 His famous bedstead fitted to a hair— 
 
 Ev'n as the world acknowledges its tone 
 
 To lie the music, — yea, the l)reath of lo\r.
 
 72 KETROSPECTIOSr^ 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 Still should some critic-heir of his to-day 
 
 Shake at my extra rhyme his ominous head, 
 
 And, like Procrustes, send my muse to bed ; 
 
 Faith, I 'd " show fight," and try if the lax lay 
 
 Might not be championed in the modern way. 
 
 I 'd plead ('tis all the fashion) my own cause — 
 
 Brow-beat the sage dispensers of the laws, 
 
 And, taking for my text " Love's boundless sway," 
 
 Grasp long quotation's literary cudgel 
 
 To break the heads of all who dared to judge ill 
 
 Of me or mine : — volumes 1 'd bring to prove 
 
 That the great king of gods and men — young Love,. 
 
 Might surely snap his sovereign fingers at 
 
 A sonnet's rules and limits, — and all that. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 'Tis said that " Love will still be lord of all." — 
 There 's one quotation, sir, — of which I boast 
 That 'tis from one who in himself 's a host — 
 Who ? — why, Sir Walter : — so I scorn to fall 
 A-quoting farther, though within my call 
 I 've proofs on proofs to throw you on your back, 
 —But now let's go upon another tack, 
 And put a question arithmetical.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 73 
 
 Pray, though a sonnet to the very letter 
 
 Is deemed " the echo to the seat where love 
 
 Sits throned'' — would it, d'ye think, be hard to prove, 
 
 If fourteen lines are good, that sixteen 's better? 
 
 — Ay, but the rule, you say — oh, as to that, 
 
 Draw in your chair and let us have some chat. 
 
 XL. 
 
 You say the rule ; I hate those buckram rules. 
 Shakspeare, and others of that mighty rest, 
 (Whose names just now perscribere longum est) 
 Ne'er sought for nature in the musty schools. 
 But found her in the heart. If critic-tools 
 Moulded no grace for them (pray pass the bottle) — 
 If they ne'er found nor sought in Aristotle 
 Their soul of life and beauty,— were they fools ? 
 —But verhum sat ; — for sure you '11 frankly own 
 My cause is gained : and so good night,— I 've done. 
 — After this scrambling sort of episode, 
 'Tis time to seek once more the beaten road ; 
 And having done with Love's apology, 
 Proceed we next to his doxology.
 
 74 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Smile of young love !— thine is the brightest gleam 
 
 Of human joys that visit this sad earth ; 
 
 So spell-like, — ev'n dull beings at thy birth 
 
 Borrow new souls, while finer natures seem 
 
 To grow ethereal ; feeling in thy beam 
 
 As though, upspringing 'mid sensations new, 
 
 Within the heart of hearts a sweet flower grew. 
 
 — But who may paint thee — being like a dream 
 
 So subtly formed, and oh, too delicate 
 
 To live in language ; — yet the heart can sate 
 
 Itself in silence ; yea, the exquisite sense 
 
 Only lies deeper being unexpressed : — 
 
 Sweet smile ! the souls which entertain thee best 
 
 Know well how more than words is thy mute eloquence ! 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Oh, in life's early summer there was one 
 
 Most precious, — one whose whispered name to me 
 
 Was music with a thrill of ecstasy. — 
 
 For I had gazed till my young soul was grown 
 
 Dizzy with beauty ; — yea, ev'n words were gone — 
 
 Choked like the faultering wish they would impart, 
 
 And smothered in the tremblings of the heart. 
 
 — I felt her verv silence like a tone
 
 OR TSTATAI.E SOLUM. 75 
 
 Surpassing words— I deemed that I could drink 
 Thoughts from her eyes, and felt upon the brink 
 Of answering — love ; — but speech I say had fled : 
 Yet still T gazed — and gazing rivetted 
 The chain which held me, — but it was not thrall ; 
 For love's young chain is flow'rs — and here young love 
 was all. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 It was the morn of life, and none did know. 
 
 Or think, or guess, or fancy that o'er me 
 
 Then swayed a feeling, tempering the wild glee 
 
 Of boyhood's noisy hour ; — for it might grow 
 
 At times to cloudiness, yet only show 
 
 Like April's mood, when smiles soon conquer tears, 
 
 As sunshine peeps through showers, and hopes and 
 
 fears 
 Make busy pastime on youth's fickle brow. 
 
 So none e'er learnt my tale ; and now the seal 
 
 Is set for ever ;— and though since that hour 
 This heart full oft hath felt how young eyes steal 
 The thoughts to their bright glances— oh ! not one* 
 E'er thrilled its chords with such a spell of power 
 As that young fair enchantress : but — she 's gone. 
 
 * Note IG.
 
 76 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Then wherefore dwell thus fondly on a theme 
 Of feelings which survive but in a sigh — 
 That unavailing breath of memory ? — 
 Ah ! why, since their realities now seem 
 Like shadows of some ill-remembered dream — 
 Why reimbody thoughts of pain, — why tell 
 That thus I vainly loved — and oh ! how well ? 
 'Tis for a moment, — chiefly to redeem 
 One silent pledge long left upon the herse 
 Of young affections : — 'twas, that if my muse 
 E'er tricked her elder fancies forth in verse, 
 (So trifles oft are loved and dwelt upon) 
 Mary — the name of Mary should transfuse 
 Music o'er one poor line — and now 'tis done ! 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Of woman's gentle, loveliest race, did one 
 E'er cross my path in being's brightest hour, 
 And fail to prove, like heaven's best richest dower, 
 That 'tis indeed not good to be alone ? — 
 But oh, in misery how fitlier shown 
 What love and sweetness are in all her ways ! 
 Whose hand like her's a drooping head can raise ? 
 Of all that 's best, in all that 's kindliest done.
 
 OR XATALE SOI, CM. 77 
 
 Woman 's the angel agent. — Loveliest— hail ! — 
 And oh, if e'er this breast's fond fealty, 
 This bosom-sense of light in life's dark tale, 
 Swerve from its self-repaying trust in thee, — 
 If from thy praises my dull tongue refrain, 
 Or e'er in word or thought I do thee wrong, — 
 What feeling will my perished heart retain, 
 Save only one — that I have lived too long !* 
 
 X L V I . 
 
 Thanks be — so far as I have gone in life. 
 
 My heart appropriates not that deprecation ; 
 
 For, wander where I might — whate'er the station 
 
 My fate has bid me fill — in peace — in strife — 
 
 In joy — in grief — love's praise has still been rife 
 
 Within my breast, where aye some gentle queen 
 
 Of beauty has sat throned, though it has been 
 
 Unsweetened by that honey-drop — a wife. 
 
 To me, like every other son of song, 
 
 Affection's brightest thoughts of right belong. 
 
 What is a poet — (since I dare to start 
 
 My claim to that high title) — with a heart 
 
 Dead to the fervid impulses of love, 
 
 Albeit no yielding maid his ardent suit approve? 
 
 * Note 17.
 
 78 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 But I must hasten onwards to the close 
 
 Of this my mingled task. — I need not own 
 
 How much my song hath changed me, being grown, 
 
 Since it began, fond of the power which throws 
 
 A charm o'er grief. I feel that memory's woes 
 
 Would almost be, whate'er their dark alloy, 
 
 111 bartered for the garishness of joy ;* 
 
 And that remembered happiness bestows 
 
 A soft regret on sighs, until they fill 
 
 The heart with feelings which, albeit they borrow 
 
 Their sense from loss, are yet not all of sorrow. — 
 
 Thus changed, I would not choose but love thee still. 
 
 And find for years to come a friend in thee. 
 
 Thou soothing, painful, kind, sad, pleasant Memory. 
 
 XLVIII, 
 
 Plymouth ! — wherein, from the remotest age 
 
 Which knew thee. Charity hath found her shrine,t 
 
 May I not glory hailing thee as mine ? 
 
 There still lives moist-eyed Pity to assuage 
 
 The pangs of misery, or soothe the rage 
 
 Of fierce disease, — there ever stands the door 
 
 Of Mercy open to the houseless poor, — 
 
 There 's not a sorrow written in the page 
 
 * t Notes 18 and 19.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 79 
 
 Of human wretchedness, — there 's not a woe 
 But finds some gentle ministry ; — and though 
 In later years their strength thy children bend 
 To highest darings, not the less they blend 
 The growth of intellect — the march of mind — 
 With all that soothes the sorrows of mankind. 
 
 X L I X . 
 
 Lives there who doubts that, in our age, thy race 
 Aspire by noblest efforts to refine 
 That native ore, true produce from the mine 
 Of early worth, — go, let him strive to trace 
 What meaner lesson taught their heads to raise 
 That Dome with fadeless riches overspread,* 
 Of the great living and the mighty dead, — 
 Or, decked with relics of the Phidian grace, 
 What bade yond Fane in Doric dignity f 
 Spring up for them and their posterity — 
 There a fit treasure-house for many a rare 
 Bequest of glorious intellect, — and here 
 A goodly shrine for all that man may find 
 Of beautiful in art — the heir-looms of the mind ! 
 
 * t Notes 20 and 21.
 
 80 RETROSPECTION, 
 
 L. 
 
 See where in almost pristine beauty stands 
 
 The god, o'ercoming Python : — in his eye, 
 
 His brow, his mouth, methinks dwells prophecy 
 
 Of times to come, when barbarism's bands 
 
 Shall all be broken ; yea, his very hands 
 
 Look pow'r, and all his aspect has a sense. 
 
 Speaking of days when bright intelligence 
 
 Shall reign triumphantly in all the lands ! 
 
 — There too, thou wave-born goddess ! that dost seem 
 
 The sweet fulfilment of a poet's dream,* 
 
 Hast found meet home, where beauty's daughters shine 
 
 In native, heart-enchanting modesty ; 
 
 And their pure glow of loveliness, like thine, 
 
 Borrows its freshest graces from the sea. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Another, yet another still succeeds. — 
 
 My heart 's in tune — I cannot choose but write : 
 
 A moment more, — and then indeed good-night. 
 
 And if, in the loud world, there 's one who reads 
 
 These versicles of mine— (ill-matching beads 
 
 Strung in the Muse's desultory mood 
 
 Idly together) — and shall find one good, 
 
 One gentler feeling touched, nor seek for deeds 
 
 * Note 22.
 
 OR XAT\r.E SOLUM. 81 
 
 That stir rough spirits with a fiercer strain, — 
 He is my friend by sympathy, and may 
 Read them, perchance, for friendship's sake, again. 
 If not, — why here at once in peace we part — 
 I and the world— since, as I said, the lay 
 Was meant for what a friend might share in,— my 
 own heart. 
 
 LII. 
 
 (On the near prospect of revisiting my native Town.) 
 Garden of England, Devon ! once again* 
 With closer feelings and a nearer hope 
 I yearn towards thee, holding in the scope 
 Of the heart's optics thee and all thy train 
 Of loveliness and grandeur : — not in vain 
 Thought fondly dwells on old realities, 
 As on my sight my birth-place seems to rise ! 
 Hail to thee, Plymouth !— hail thy broad blue 
 
 main ! — 
 Welcome old haunts, where every side I trace 
 The steps of boyhood : — there 's the gray old tower 
 That tells me tales of many a happy hour : 
 And now I feel the sea-breeze on my face — 
 Oh, once more welcome ! welcome hill and vale — 
 Scenes of mine innocent days — once more, all hail ! 
 
 * Note 23. 
 G
 
 S2 UETROSPECTION, 
 
 STANZAS, 
 
 Written several years after the foregoing Sonnets had been 
 completed for publication. 
 
 Time passing on and on, still left confined 
 
 These homebred thoughts of many things (by distance, 
 
 That softening perspective of the mind, 
 
 More gently touched) — in yet unseen existence; 
 
 While, year by year, to the old scenes I came, 
 
 And found ray joys the same. 
 
 There was the grandeur of the wide-spread main ; 
 Kindred and friends, with all their social ties ; 
 The picture and the people ; — there again 
 The hills, the valleys, sweet varieties, 
 Pleasantly crowding on the heart and eye, 
 And nothing seemed to die.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 83 
 
 And Retrospection, in unheeded slumber, 
 Still kept its nook : there was no wak'ning change 
 In things that were— the Poet still could number 
 His lines, and smile to feel his bosom's range 
 As in his prime ; — with only this to rue — 
 That his own tale was true. 
 
 At length, I came again to the loved land 
 
 Of young enjoyments— and Time's touch had dealt 
 
 More visibly with things that might not stand 
 
 Its mouldering influence : — the change was felt — 
 
 Associations that long used to please 
 
 Were fading by degrees. 
 
 I too was changed ; for looking back to see 
 What were my feelings when the book was written, 
 I found that time had strangely dealt with me ; 
 For the wild fondness that my heart had smitten 
 In early days, had vanished — vanished quite 
 Before a steadier light. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 RETROSPECTION. 
 
 Some hearts perchance were not as they had been, 
 And many things had felt sophistication ; 
 The rough, iinpohshed nature of some scene 
 Longr-loved, had bowed to fashion's alteration : 
 Yet still, life's goodliest prize maintained for me 
 Its old integrity. 
 
 Again I touch my birth-soil — oh, to find 
 A dreary change press heavy on the soul ! — 
 The arch's keystone could no longer bind — 
 The fine completeness of the perfect whole 
 Is broken now, — since one — the first — the best — 
 Is gone into his rest ! 
 
 Alas, the void ! — where is the cherished place. 
 The home of many years of happiness ? 
 Fall'n with that fall ! — I look upon my race. 
 And see the widowed and the fatherless. — 
 Our world's chief charm — the glory and the pride- 
 Sunk low with him that died.
 
 OR NATALE SOLUM. 85 
 
 But, what in varying life might grow less dear 
 
 Mortality thus makes unchangeable : 
 
 The loved, the sacred relics resting here, 
 
 Bind round the heart of hearts a lasting spell ; — 
 
 Firm is the hold which now these precincts have — 
 
 Lo ! yonder hallowed grave.
 
 NOTES 
 
 FOR 
 
 RETROSPECTION. 
 
 Note 1, page 50. 
 
 Yea, e^eii yond lumpish Guildhall's lack of grace. 
 
 The Plymouthian reader must here give me credit for no 
 wilful plagiarism with respect to a bard whose strains whileome 
 managed to mingle the " bulky" beauties of this Guildhall with 
 the " divine perfume" of certain adjacent " kitchen gardens." 
 That force of local attachment which extracts fragrance from 
 cabbages, may with equal facility reform a wry feature into 
 grace : — mine can only do so by the dim influences of memory 
 and a softening distance ; i. e. seeing the thing through a fog. 
 
 Note 2, page 51. 
 The wish to be a very boy again. 
 " Claret for boys — port for men — brandy for heroes," said 
 Doctor Johnson : " Why then," exclaimed Burke, " hand me 
 the claret." 
 
 Note 3, page 53. 
 By Jove, /' // try my luck with stanza ten. 
 
 I hope my readers will not fail to observe the peculiarly ap- 
 posite propriety of this adjuration, "• liy Jove !" as it is not only
 
 88 NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 asking paternal permission for his (laughter's figuring away in 
 the fandango of the following stanza, but is made in something 
 like the privilege of relationship, — Retrospection being nearly- 
 allied to Memory, the reputed mama of these nine young ladies : 
 so that in leading down this dance, the assortment of partners 
 recommended by the jealous gentleman in the comedy is strictly 
 attended to. And the upshot of all is, that the author has a 
 natural right to be in the Muses' train. 
 
 Note 4, page 53. 
 
 Stanza the Tenth. 
 
 This sonnet, and that which precedes it, were written before»I 
 was aware of the epigram by Callimachus, published in the An- 
 thologia, and given with a translation in Burney's History of 
 Music. In it the names of the nine Muses are celebrated in as 
 many lines. 
 
 Note 5, page 55. 
 
 For ah, the sunshine of the stainless breast. 
 
 When all was sunshine in each little breast. 
 
 Rogers. 
 The tear forgot as soon as shed, 
 The sunshine of the breast. 
 
 Gray. 
 
 Note 6, page 56. 
 
 Oh, then all nature teems with eloquence. 
 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 
 
 As You Like It.
 
 NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 89 
 
 Note 7, page 58. 
 
 Smile — scorn the Muse^s plain morality. 
 And say. His trite. 
 
 Yevy true ; — and the good-natured reader may, if he likes, 
 smile at me with Cicero's Utitur in re non dubia testibus nan 
 necessariis. As, however, a truism will be despised only by those 
 who are out of its reach, I should be very glad to find, in the 
 wide-spreading of the said smile, reason good for ousting this 
 stanza from the nest XIX. editions of my book. Meantime, I 
 have Horace on my side: — 
 
 Non possidentem multa vocaveris 
 Recte beatum — rectius occupat 
 Nomen beati, qui deorum 
 Muneribus sapi enter uti 
 Duramque callet pauperiem pati, &c. 
 And what did He, " the best that e'er wore earth about him," 
 but sanction that which was already evident wlaen he said, 
 '^ ::Man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
 he possesseth," immediately preceding that expressive parable of 
 one who laid up treasiu-es for himself and was not rich towards 
 (iod. 
 
 Note 8, page 59. 
 That fruit with tempting rind, and ashes all within. 
 This emblematical sort of fruit is a staple commodity in Poet- 
 land See the White Devil of John Webster, qvioted in Lamb's 
 
 Specimens : — 
 
 You see, my lords, what goodly fruit she seems, 
 
 Yet, like the apples travellers report 
 
 To grow where Sodom and Gomorrah stood,
 
 90 NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 I will but touch her and you straight shall see 
 
 She 'U fall to soot and ashes. 
 Also, in the third canto of Childe Harold : — 
 
 Like to those apples on the Dead Sea's shore, 
 
 All ashes to the taste. 
 Cum multis aliis. 
 
 Note y, page 61. 
 
 Like the heart-echoed music of a lovely dream. 
 Like the faint exquisite music of a dream. 
 
 Lalla Rookh. 
 
 Note 10, page 62. 
 
 The sea-worn spot, as ancient stories tell — 
 
 Craggy, and stern, and wild, where that vast giant fell. 
 
 A tradition mentioned in some of the old Chronicles, that the 
 giant Gog-i\Iagog, or Goer-madog, was slain here in a wrestling 
 match with Corineus the fidus Achates of Brutus or Brute. The 
 Hoe at Plymouth and St. Michael's Blount in Cornwall contend 
 for the honour of this gymnastic of the olden time ; and I believe 
 some other places likewise, — perhaps as many as for the birth- 
 place of Homer. I have been baffled in my search to trace whether 
 records of this ancient and illustrious lesson in the Fancy have 
 been piously handed down from sire to son in any particular fa- 
 mily : but one thing is certain, that the lads of Devon and Corn- 
 wall have, from time immemorial, been most celebrated in the 
 art of Wrdstling. The hug of the latter professors is remarkably 
 dislocating ; — any thing but fraternal : but the kick of the former 
 being equally perilous, the claim of each county must remain an 
 historical doubt, till some musty record is brought to light, prov- 
 ing whether this son of Anak proceeded by kick or hug. 
 
 The story of Gogmagog and Corineus may after all be only a
 
 NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 91 
 
 fable, and mean something, or nothing, or any thing: — perhaps 
 the gigantic influence of aboriginal savagery fighting against and 
 subdued by civilization ; but that can hardly be it either : 'no 
 matter ! Whoever the gentleman was, I am beholden to him 
 for a sonnet. 
 
 Note 11, page 63. 
 the monument of Smeatou^s name. 
 
 The Edystone lighthouse, built on a rock in the sea, about 
 fourteen miles S. S. W. of Plymouth. It was begun in 1756, 
 and finished in 1759. A dreadful storm in 1762 was the first 
 decided test of its strength. One of the persons who doubted 
 the adequacy of any structure in so exposed a situation, said on 
 the morning after that storm — " If the Edystone lighthouse is 
 standing now — it will stand till the day of judgement." The 
 structure is so compact and admirably adapted for its purpose, 
 that in no storm is its stability now called in question more than 
 that of the rock on which it stands. 
 
 Before the present lighthouse, there had been two others — one 
 built by Mr. Henry Winstanley, of liittlebury, Essex, a man 
 remarkable for a curiouS ingenuity in mechanics, — and this was 
 blown down in 1703, Mr. Winstanley perishing with it. The 
 second, erected under the direction of IMr. J. Rudyerd, was be- 
 gun in 1706, finished in about three years, and burnt down in 
 1755. On this occasion, one of the men employed in the light- 
 house met his death in an extraordinary manner, hy hot lead 
 going down his throat while he was looking up to observe the 
 progress of the flames. He was ninety-four years of age, and as 
 he lived several days after the accident, the surgeons were incre- 
 dulous as to the fact of the molten lead having got into his 
 stomach ; but he persisted in his story, and after his death, be-
 
 92 NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 tween seven and eight ounces of lead were found as he had de- 
 scribed. 
 
 For the peculiarities in the formation of the present light- 
 house, see A narrative of the building, and a description of the 
 construction of the Edystone Lighthouse, with stone, ^c. by John 
 Smeaton, civil engineer, F. R. S. 
 
 Note 12, page 63. 
 
 Within the shelter of a wondrous pile 
 Of man''s vast workmanship, ^c. 
 
 The BaEAKWATEa in Plymouth Sound. A stupendous 
 undertaking, no less than the formation of what may fairly be 
 called an island, for the purpose of rendering the anchorage more 
 safe and commodious. It is formed of blocks of limestone vary- 
 ing in weight from ten tons downwards ; and the mode of pro- 
 curing this stone at the quarries (the right of which, for the time 
 being, is purchased of the Duke of Bedford) and its subsequent 
 application to the work, is at present one of the " lions" of Ply- 
 mouth. The first stone, weighing about eight tons, was dropped 
 into the sea, with some ceremony, on the 12th of August, 1812, 
 (the birthday of George the Fourth, then Prince Regent) — and 
 the quantity of stone used for the work, from that time to the 
 present, amounts to about two million four hundred thousand 
 tons. The first idea of such a protection for the harbour sug- 
 gested itself to, and was proposed by, Mr. Smith, formerly the 
 Master-Attendant of Plymouth Dock- Yard, though his plan dif- 
 fered from that recommended by the late Mr. Rennie and Mr. 
 Whidbey, which is that at present in operation, under the able 
 superintendence of the latter gentleman, who was mainly instru- 
 mental in its being undertaken where it now is. 
 
 The expression, " that marble isle,'^ is strictly true, the ma-
 
 NOTES FOR KETROSPECriON. 93; 
 
 terials being, I believe entirely, limestone. Polished specimens 
 of the beautifully veined marble, in the shape of small orna- 
 ments, may be purchased for a trifle on the spot. 
 
 Note 13, page 65. 
 
 ivild, craggy Dewerstone. 
 
 The Dewerstone Rock is a striking feature in the midst of 
 some of the most romantic scenery in which the neighbourhood 
 of Plymouth abounds. Strangers should visit it, as well for its 
 own wild magnificence, as that the road to it leads through an 
 almost vmparalleled variety of natural beauty and grandeur ; 
 from among which the eye can look abroad on no side -(^'ithout 
 resting on an exquisite picture. Besides the efforts of numerous 
 native artists (of whom, to avoid any accidental omission, the au- 
 thor does not mention the names, except, in the pride of long 
 intimacy, that of his old and dear companion Charles East- 
 i.ake) — we have of late years seen Turner and Coli-ins de- 
 lighted in transferring to canvass the natural beauties of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Note 14, page fi/- 
 
 That high-helped virtue, which from dawning youth 
 To full, time-honoured, reverend age hath striven 
 To make life'^s conduct beautiful as truth, 
 And its whole tenor like one hymn to heaven. 
 
 When this and the preceding stanza were written, the vene- 
 rable subject of their poor eulogy was yet alive. — Alas for us ! 
 he lives no more on earth. Time-honoured, indeed, and revered 
 by all, he died after the author had prepared this portion of his 
 volume for the press ; — it therefore remains as originally written. 
 It would not be easy, without too much extending the limits of a
 
 ai NOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 note, to speak adequately of the character thus faintly touched. 
 One word, as applying its influence to all the most delightful 
 qualities of the head and the heart, may suffice, — and that word 
 is Truth — truth beautifully operating upon a benign goodness 
 almost without parallel, and upon learning and wisdom that were 
 the objects of all reference. " His learning," (to quote from 
 Ben Jonson) — 
 
 His learning savoured not the school-like gloss 
 
 Which most consists in echoing words and terms, 
 
 And soonest wins a man an empty name ; 
 
 Nor any long and far-fetched circumstance 
 
 Wrapt in the curious gen'ralties of arts — 
 
 But a direct and analytic sum 
 
 Of all the worth and first effects of arts. 
 
 M'^ith respect to his public character as a minister of the gospel, 
 I may transcribe a few well-known lines from Chaucer, as not 
 inapplicable : — 
 
 He was a shepherd and no mercenarie — 
 And though he holy were and vertuous. 
 He was to sinful man not dispitous ; 
 Ne of his speche dangerous ne digne, 
 And in his teching discrete and benigne — 
 To drawen folk to heven with fairinesse 
 By good ensample was his besinesse ; 
 A better priest, I trow, ther nowher non is — 
 He waited after ne pompe ne reverence. 
 And maked him no spiced conscience — 
 But Christe's lore and his apostles twelve 
 He taught — but first he folwed it himselve. 
 These qualities shed their influence on all the relations of pri- 
 vate life, where the graces of charity, lovingkindness, and gene-
 
 NOTES FOR KETUOSPKCTION. 95 
 
 rosity combined, with the purest personal virtues, to complete 
 that noblest of characters — a Chkistian Gentlebian. His 
 memory is engraven on the hearts of all who knew him — and 
 deepest on the hearts of those who knew him best. Father and 
 friend — farewell ! 
 
 Note 15, page 70. 
 
 In sooth, mine hero loas a heedless wight. 
 Ah me, in sooth he was a shameless wight. 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 Note 16, page 75. 
 
 oh ! not one 
 
 E'er thrilled Us chords with such a spell of power. 
 
 We need not cite examples from " fair Verona" to show that, 
 in such respects, time in its round works many changes, and that 
 a " fond record" of early days stands its chance like other things 
 of being " wiped away" by other fonder records, that are destined 
 " alone to dwell within the book and vohime of the brain un- 
 mixed with baser matter," 
 
 Note 17, page 77. 
 
 Save only one — that I have lived too long. 
 
 Procrustes and Co. will be at me again here. — Well ! I can't 
 help it. The apology made in stanza XXXIX. for the excess of 
 stanza XXXVI. may be repeated for this — " It is the cause, my 
 soul — it is the cause !" 
 
 Note 18, page 78. 
 
 Ill bartered for the garishness of joy. 
 
 This line is a theft from IMr. Coleridge ; unless a prompt ac- 
 knowledgment and the sincere offering of admiration for that
 
 96 NOTES FOR RETROSPFXTION. 
 
 poet's works, help to acquit me — or at least allo\v me to " plead 
 to the minor offence" of borrowing. 
 
 Note 19, page "tS. 
 
 Plymouth — wherein from the remotest age 
 Which knew thee. Charity hath found her shrine. 
 
 This town has been, and still is, remarkable for its many cha- 
 ritable institutions for the alleviation of human wretchedness in 
 every shape in which it can claim commiseration. Here, as 
 every where else, none are so active and indefatigable in these 
 labours of love as that interesting half of human creation, whom 
 Burns in his natural admiration has considered as Nature's 
 finished work: 
 
 Her prentice han' she tried on man. 
 And then she made the lasses, O I 
 
 Note 20, page 79. 
 That dome with fadeless riches overspread. 
 
 The Public Library. 
 
 Note 21, page 79. 
 
 Or, decked with relics of the Phidian grace, 
 What bade yond Fane in Doric dignity 
 Spring up for them and their posterity. 
 
 The PljTnouth institution, called The Athenaeum, though 
 with an ob^nous tendency to foster a race of coxcomical smat- 
 terers (as already evident), is nevertheless capable (as is also 
 evident) of being made subservient to useful purposes, having 
 for its object the promotion of science, literature, and the fine 
 arts ; and boasts among its members (honorary and else) many
 
 NOTES FOR RETHOSPF.CTION'. 97 
 
 liistingTiished persons. In tlie lines they will recognize an al- 
 lusion to their motto — '■'• Tots vvv Kai tois eTreira." 
 
 His present Majesty, George IV., has given to this society 
 casts hy Westmacott, from the IMetopes and Panathenaic Pro- 
 cession, of what are called the " Elgin 3Iarbles." Poor Phidias ! 
 'tis hard enough that your name should be lost in that of one, 
 whose claim to the adjunct even of " Preserver," is scarcely yet 
 decided liy the opinion of the world. 
 
 Note 22, page 80. 
 
 There too, thou, waveborn goddess, that dost seem 
 The sweet fulfilment of a pnet\'i dream. 
 Hast found meet home. 
 
 Messieurs Thomson, Lord Byron, Croly, and Co. have all " had 
 at" the 3Iedicean Venus; — why may not I, having first duly 
 acknowledged my want of originality ? Of all the j)oetic offer- 
 ings laid at this shrine, I cannot but tliink Tliomsou's allusion 
 the best. His single line — 
 
 " So stands the statue that enchants the world," 
 says just enough to fill the mind with an imagination of 
 beauty. Lord Byron's stanzas, though very delightful, are l)ut 
 an elaborate attenuation of that one line. Should any object 
 to me, that I have not sufficiently indulged in the "jargon of 
 the marble mart" while speaking of this statue, I must answer 
 as West did his friend Gray — 
 
 Stultule I — marmorea quid mihi cum Venere ? 
 
 Hie verse — hie vivpe Veneres, et mille per urbem, 
 
 Quarnni nulla queat non placuisse Jovi. 
 
 Note 23, page 79- 
 Garden of England, Devon ! ^c. 
 
 Tlie rural beauties of Devonshire liave warmed manv of her 
 sons into jxteiry. 1 need not mention those wiio Imve written 
 
 Ji
 
 98 XOTES FOR RETROSPECTION. 
 
 in later years. In the olden time we rank among our eulogists, 
 Drayton, a stranger, in his Poly-olbion ; and William Brown, a 
 native, writer of Britannia's Pastorals. He thus speaks of 
 Devonshire : — 
 
 " Hail ! thou my native soil, — thou hlessed plot 
 Whose equall all the world aflfordeth not. 
 Show me, who can, so many cristal rils 
 Such sweet-clothed vallies, or aspiring hils, 
 Such wood-ground, pastures, quarries, wealthy mynes, 
 Such rocks, in whom the diamond fairely shines — 
 And, if the earth can show the like agen, 
 Yet will she fail in her sea-ruling men. 
 Time never can produce men to oretake 
 The fames of Greenvill, Davies, Gilbert, Drake, 
 Or worthy Hawkins — or a thousand more 
 That by their powre made the Devonian shore 
 Mock the proud Tagus — for whose richest spoyle 
 The boasting Spaniard left the Indian soyle, 
 Banckrupt of store, knowing it would quit cost 
 By winning this, though all the rest were lost."
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Me quoque musarum stadium sub nocte silenti 
 Artibus assnetis solicitare solet. 
 
 Cr.AUDIAX. 
 
 II 2
 
 P O E jNI S. 
 
 LINES 
 'Suggested hy a recullection of' Paradise Lost. 
 
 Hark ! was it fancy or a lingering sound 
 That stole upon the ear ? — Methought it came 
 Like holiest music heard in dreams by night, 
 Mingling all -wondrously a thousand strains 
 That vibrate on the heart ! It comes again, 
 And onward swells, — not faintly as before. 
 In sweet solemnity just motioning 
 The ambient air, — but hoarselier now it pours — 
 Rapid and loud, — full streams along— along — 
 In wild confusedness, — till sense is whelmed 
 Beneath the rush of congregated sounds ! 
 
 Come, Memory ! let us live o'er past delights 
 As, wave o'er wave, the sea of thought rolls on ; 
 Come, disentwine the complicated maze 
 Of this mixed melody :— and soft,— methinks
 
 102 POEMS, 
 
 The spell hath influence, for the tuneless clash 
 
 Obeys the potency, as though there were 
 
 For sound, as sight, some magic instrument* 
 
 To turn a shapeless chaos into grace. 
 
 Grace, not mere beauty, but propriety 
 
 Of many-varying sound ; for Horror's voice, 
 
 Striking on hearts congenial with itself, 
 
 Not less hath proper grace, than loveliness 
 
 Heard in the music of the mountain pipe : — 
 
 Tempests, and clouds, and thunderings — each and all — 
 
 Are they less graceful in sublimity 
 
 Than summer is in flowery joyousness? 
 
 And are the sighings of ^olian harps 
 
 More gracefully accordant with pure souls, 
 
 Than, when attuned to what is terrible, 
 
 The dizzy dash of cataracts, or the din 
 
 Of Satan's new-found thunder, 'mid the rout 
 
 Of spirits darkly gladdening in its roar ? 
 
 * Alluding, as no doubt the reader sees, to the cylindrical 
 mirror of the Anamorphosis. See a fine application of it in the 
 tragedy of Remorse ; — 
 
 In the future. 
 As in the optician's glassy cylinder, 
 The indistinguishable blots and colours 
 Of the dim past collect and form themselves, 
 Upstarting in their om'u completed image.
 
 P0EM9-. 103 
 
 But hush ! — what sounds dwell on my ravished ear — 
 For now in loftiest strains ascending high, 
 Exultingly the measure seems to mount 
 Like hymns of joy, when spirits disenthralled 
 Send praises forth in saintly orisons. 
 — Now, grating harsh, 'tis like the noise of strife, 
 With clank of war, and millions militant, 
 And shouts, and triumphings, and piercing shrieks 
 As of a falling myriad hurled from heaven ! 
 ***** 
 
 Oh, what a breathing of unmixed delight 
 Was in that note; as 'twere, in sooth, the breath 
 Of fresh-born Purity, ere Guilt and Shame 
 Had brought in Discord. — * * 
 
 * * * Sure nought less than heaven 
 
 Inspires that solemn rapture : hark! it quires 
 As though the opening gates above, let forth 
 Strains of that ever-during harmony 
 Which rises round the seraph-cinctured throne, f 
 And thrills the high-wrought soul to ecstasy. 
 
 -)- Aye rising round the sapphire-coloured throne 
 To Him that sits thereon. 
 
 Milton at a solemn music.
 
 104 i'()i:ms. 
 
 But ah ! a withering cry — awful and drear, 
 Whose sound is desolation, rises now, 
 Mixing its dismal music with a groan 
 From shuddering nature; — whilst dark forms of hell 
 Howl its black horrors, and, with fiendish laugh, 
 Enjoying Mischief's triumph, yell aloud 
 That Man, that Man hath fall'n ! Then throng amain 
 Heart-riving cries of Conscience — Terror's groan — 
 And next a starting from a well-known voice 
 That once brought joy : — then mingled wail and woe 
 And words of Wrath — that early child of Guilt, — 
 Sorrow, and suffering — and then, that xvoid — 
 Heard through a rushing like the mighty wings 
 Of parting cherubim — one fatal word — 
 At sound of which earth trembling to its base 
 Seems struck as with concentrate thunders — Death ! 
 ***** 
 
 Deep, desolate silence echoes that dread name, 
 
 And all seems lost, — save that amid the gloom 
 
 And that unnatural hush, — a still, small voice, 
 
 Just syllabling a distant conquering. 
 
 Floats like a song of mercy to the soul. 
 
 And whispers there is hope: — there is — there is — 
 
 And now a dying cadence closes all !
 
 POEMS. 105 
 
 But fancy's dim remembrancers are gone, 
 And pleasure grows substantial, as the eye 
 Scans every wonder in the glorious page, 
 And, glistening with delight, asserts its share 
 In the great testament which gives the world 
 Eternal heirship of a mighty mind !
 
 106 POEMS. 
 
 LIBERTY, 
 (from an niiptihlished poem.) 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; — 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 
 That for an hermitage. 
 
 Lovelace. 
 
 Hail, blessed Liberty ! — that art to those 
 
 Who know thee right, indeed a deity I 
 
 Hail, thou fine freedom of the mind, with whom 
 
 The strongest prison bars are but a mock 
 
 Of opposition to the unshackled soul ! 
 
 Thy magic touch, dear Liberty ! can charm 
 
 The noisome dungeon to a blest retreat ; — 
 
 By thee the dank and steamy air is turned 
 
 To sweet and balmy breathing : — thou canst make 
 
 The dreariest solitude grow populous — 
 
 And in the darksome vault no lack is found 
 
 Of the ever-cheering sun when thou art near. 
 
 — Blest with thy spirit's holy ministry, 
 
 Man has a sanctuary in his heart 
 
 That shuts him safe from human accidents : — 
 
 There he can bask in sunshine of his own —
 
 POEMS. 107 
 
 There he enjoys the sweetest fellowship — 
 
 There his frank thoughts can still retire and feel 
 
 Free as the breeze that fans the highest peak 
 
 Of his own native hills ; — there calm and pure 
 
 As dreams of infancy, ere yet a thought 
 
 Is caught from years to ruffle its young sleep, 
 
 He feels above his fate ; — there smiles at pain — 
 
 There finds in sorrow, joy — nay, life in death, — 
 
 For there content, and peace, and heaven are found 
 
 Dwelling with innocence. To this we come — 
 
 Virtue is Liberty, — there is none else. 
 
 — True Freedom is not Faction's demigod — 
 
 And lives not in that fever of the blood, 
 
 Which, madly raging for forbidden things, 
 
 Hurries its furious worshippers to hail 
 
 Him as a patriot, who is but a knave 
 
 Plotting to rise by wrong : — but when the heart, 
 
 As from a citadel of goodly thoughts, 
 
 Sends forth its deeds in noble championship. 
 
 Fetterless — fearless — habitless — like Truth — 
 
 That is true Liberty; — therefore I hail 
 
 Virtue as Liberty — there is none else !
 
 lOS POEMS. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 FOR AN ACTOR QUITTING THE STAGE. 
 
 Vilce .sitmma brevis spein nos vetat inchoare lonyam. 
 
 Hob. Lib. 1. On. iv. 
 
 'Tis closed ! the actor's mimic art is o'er, 
 And life's " unreal mockeries" are no more : — 
 Youth's wild, romantic joys have passed away, 
 And Time at length has brought me to decay. 
 
 Sure these worn limbs which scarce their weight 
 
 sustain — 
 This age, which turns ev'n duty here to pain. 
 Are warnings sent to bid me trim life's fire 
 Ere the pale flame that lingers shall expire ; 
 And blow the spark with all that 's left of breath 
 To light my steps the way to " dusky death." 
 
 But ere I go, one anxious task remains — 
 Pleasing, yet mournful, — healing while it pains, — - 
 'Tis on the treasured Past to fondly dwell, 
 Then sigh my latest thanks, and say — Farewell ! 
 To bend these grateful looks once more on you, 
 And breathe one lasting, evermore Adieu !
 
 POEMS. 109 
 
 Oh, if big words were made for thoughts like mine, 
 Here the fond Muse might swell the pompous line — 
 Here pour her strains on deeds of other days — 
 The thousand joys, the vanished dreams of praise; 
 The rushing memory of times gone by, 
 The inspiring hopes, the cherished flattery 
 Which fed my life through every changing stage 
 In youth — in manhood — even to old age : 
 — But, ah ! what pomp of woids, what poet's song, 
 Speaks like the sigh which struggles with the tongue, 
 When fond remembrance of departed years 
 Melts all our little eloquence to tears ? 
 
 Forgive this weakness : — 'tis a trying scene 
 Which shuts us out from all that we have been — 
 And tears which sometimes speak the boy again, 
 May, at an hour like this, confess the man. 
 Can I forget that " such things were most dear" — 
 To one who reaped his fairest harvest here ; 
 That here 1 oft have struck great Shakspeare's lyre — 
 Here fondly caught your bard's ethereal fire — 
 Here shadowed forms his magic pencil drew, — 
 And, when no more I spread his stores for you. 
 That 'tis from hence, at last, I cross the bourne 
 Of old endearments — never to return ?
 
 110 POEMS. 
 
 No — 'tis tor stoic-pride, not mine, to shun 
 The truest mark of man — to feel like one. 
 
 Ye generous friends ! whose names my latest breath 
 Shall utter still — still bless in strugojling death — 
 Oh, might I hope, when Time has closed the door 
 And drawn his curtain o'er my parting hour, 
 You 'd not forget me quite — I 'd ask no more. 
 — For me, where'er the Fates my path shall pave, 
 Whatever road leads me towards the grave, — 
 Thence grateful thoughts shall ofttimes wander here — 
 There Memory hallow still the parting tear; — 
 There shall remembrance of this hour impart 
 A gleam of evening sunshine to this heart.
 
 POEMS. Ill 
 
 THE GRANDMOTHER'S GRAVE. 
 
 CA mother to he?- valurnl child.) 
 
 Sleep on, dear offspring of unhallowed love — 
 
 This dreary bosom yet is warm for thee ; — 
 
 Sleep on, my baby, gently pillowed here. 
 
 No madd'ning memory — no chiding thoughts 
 
 Of wayward childhood — nor the dread array 
 
 Of faults and follies cherished into sin, — 
 
 Can mar the softness of thine innocent rest. 
 
 And when beneath the sod thy mother sleeps 
 
 That sound, sound sleep, when dreams shall scare no 
 
 more, 
 Lift up thy little hands for thankfulness 
 That she was lost to thee ere ripened years 
 Had taught thee how to sting a parent's life. 
 Oh ! when from mine, thy being's crime drew forth 
 One bland remonstrance — I, — foul parricide — * 
 
 * A parricide, strictly speaking, is the slayer of a fjither ; but 
 as precedent is not wanting for the use of the word indifferently
 
 112 POEMS. 
 
 Flung back, for all her care, a withering curse, 
 
 Which struck her aged sorrows to this grave. 
 
 Here — here she lies — Oh, God! I have no mother! 
 
 for either parent, I have preferred it here as more significant of 
 moral action than the otherwise equivalent word murderess — or 
 even matricide. 

 
 POKMS. lis 
 
 PARGA. 
 
 So lost to all the finest charities, — 
 
 Parga, it is not England that decrees 
 
 To cast thy children forth without a home ; — 
 
 It is not England that has sealed their doom 
 
 To wander countryless, or breathe as slaves 
 
 The air in which the Moslem standard waves : 
 
 No ; in her spirit never be it said 
 
 The holy cause of Freedom was betrayed — 
 
 She could not crush a nation's liberties ! 
 
 — But should there be nay, 'tis not for this age — 
 
 Our country surely reads not in her page 
 
 So base a name ; — yet, oh ! should there be one 
 
 Of soul too far aloof to catch the tone 
 
 Of Mercy pleading, — one whose heart all dead * 
 
 " The cession of Parga followed as an unhappy consequence 
 of that worst effect of war and human weakness conjoined, by 
 which policy is too readily admitted, among great nations, as 
 a palliation for trenching upon the natural rights of the less 
 powerful ; and really the expulsion (as it turned out) of the 
 Parganotes from their native soil was, at the best, a heartless 
 proceeding. A cause like their's might almost have sanctified a 
 war in their defence. The exhortations of Peter the Hermit, 
 rousing all Europe to the Crusades, might have been thought
 
 114 POEMS. 
 
 To virtue and great nature's sympathies, 
 Could glory in a baleful power — to brave 
 And tread down efforts that were made to save ; — 
 If such there be, ah ! let it not be said 
 A common curse repaid the injury ; 
 But, when the hour shall come — and it may come, — 
 That changeful Fate leaves him without a home — 
 Lost, abject, hopeless, friendless, in his turn. 
 Then for the curse of generosity, — 
 Then may some Parganote be near to show 
 Pity for Vengeance — uttering words that burn 
 With essence of the thunderbolt — " Thus didst not 
 Thou !" 
 
 weak compared with the humble voice of the sons of Parga (that 
 little oasis of Christians in the midst of idolatry), crying out for 
 the preseiT^ation of their integrity : — but they came unto their 
 own, and their own received them not. With respect to the de- 
 fence set up for this unhappy act, how much nobler would it 
 have been to stand on the high ground of a frank and hearty 
 acknowledgment of unforeseen error, than taking refuge in 
 a plea about some treaty, which could never, except by an un- 
 warrantable exercise of power, have implicated those in its con- 
 ditions who were not parties to its execution. The fate of Parga 
 casts a shadow on a very bright page of our history ; and for us 
 it is well sbe knows that the bulk of the English people sympa- 
 thized in her misfortunes — that " they could not crush a na- 
 tion's liberties /"
 
 POEMS. 115 
 
 LOVE'S DEFENCE. 
 
 Those eyes ! — ali, what a tale they tell ! 
 
 Those soft dove's eyes of thine ; 
 If in their beam reproaches dwell, 
 
 Oh, what a fault is mine ! 
 
 If on that face whose beauties melt, 
 
 Melt into harmony. 
 One fear — and I the cause — hath dwelt 
 
 To mar its melody ; — 
 
 If o'er that bosom's gentleness 
 
 One jarring thought of me 
 Hath passed, and taught thy heart distress, 
 
 Speak it, — but tenderly : 
 
 Oh, speak ! — if it be but to speak 
 When music breathes around ; — 
 
 Yes, chide me, Julia, with that meek, 
 Sweet voice's heavenly sound. 
 
 I 2
 
 116 POEMS. 
 
 Methinks 'twere bliss to be in fault 
 When chiding sounds so dear — 
 
 Come, sweetest, give thy bosom's thought 
 To Edgar's anxious ear. 
 
 So silent ? — then my fears mistook — 
 Thy cares spring not from me ; — 
 
 Yet, now I hear it in that look — 
 What I,— I false to thee? 
 
 That look of beautifuUest doubt, 
 Oh, how my heart might bless, — 
 
 It tells me some-one cares about 
 Her Edgar's faithfulness ! 
 
 It tells me all those dear eyes meant 
 
 In their averted beam, — 
 It calls me back from banishment ; — 
 
 I wake as from a dream. 
 
 Oh, by the hopes I dearest prize ! 
 
 Hush thy fond heart's alarms ; 
 Nor deem it falsehood that these eyes 
 
 Have gazed on meaner charms.
 
 POEMS. 1 I 7 
 
 Can such a fault (if 'tis one) break 
 
 My heart's firm truth to thee,— 
 Can poor, unraptured glances shake 
 
 A soul's fidelity ? 
 
 No, — falsehood lives not in my thought ; 
 
 And Julia's self shall own, 
 That what her fears have deemed my fault 
 
 Is love for her alone. 
 
 Who that admires the garden rose 
 
 E'er deems its perfume less, 
 Though round it many a flow'ret blows 
 
 In scented prettiness ? 
 
 For not a flower of daintiest dress 
 
 Or form, was ever seen 
 To vie in natural loveliness 
 
 With beauty's summer-queen. 
 
 And what though bright and sunny rays 
 
 In others please awhile — 
 Or pluck a momentary gaze, 
 
 Or steal perchance a smile ;—
 
 118 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Sure he whose heart the sun-rays warm 
 May sometimes please his sight, 
 
 By tracing all the hues which form 
 A perfect beam of light. 
 
 And thus these wandering looks of mine 
 
 Are but pure constancy, 
 Loving the various tints which shine 
 
 Concentred all in thee !
 
 roEMS. 119 
 
 BERTHA AND DURIMEL. 
 
 BERTHA, 
 
 And you know such an one? Oh, Durimel — 
 Sure it was fancy's sketch. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 I know him well ! 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 What is to come ? — You have not shadowed forth 
 This varied character for nought : — 'tis worth 
 A tale to follow it. Ay, let me see 
 What and how much I hold in memory. 
 Thus, as I think, it ran : — A wayward child — 
 Truant in youth — his manhood strange and wild — 
 Wilful by turns, and patient — stern and mild — 
 Changing from glee to gloom, and back again, 
 None guessing wherefore — haughty most with men 
 Who served him best, as though he feared to see 
 Himself acknowledged in dependency — 
 Proud ever as the proudest 'mid the great, 
 And humblest still with those whose low estate 
 Ranked them beneath him ; — now wrapped all in self- 
 Now seeming frank ; — one day absorbed by pelf —
 
 120 POEMS. 
 
 The next profuse to folly;— never fix'd 
 
 To any noble aim ; — at times a saint, 
 
 At times a scoffer : — sooth, love, 'tis a mix'd 
 
 Strange portrait for a hand like yours to paint. 
 
 And, then, the cunning virtue of his smile ! 
 
 What unsuspecting heart did it beguile? 
 
 Who sipped the honied cheat, and tasted gall ? — 
 
 And yet you say there ran a gleam through all — 
 
 A touch of gentleness, which, when his mood 
 
 Was harshest, seemed to show that something good 
 
 Lived 'mid a thousand fretful phantasies. 
 
 Ah, happier is my lot ! — you are not these. 
 
 My own — own Durimel — except the last. 
 
 — But now, what clouds your brow? 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Nothing, — 'tis past. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 And you know such an one ? 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 I know him well. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Tell me his name — what is it, Durimel ? 
 That I may warn all maidens of his smiles. 
 And bid my friends beware his cunning wiles. 
 Spite of that tenderness, ill must betide 
 The hapless one doomed to be that man's bride.
 
 POEMS. 121 
 
 DURIMEL, 
 
 True — sadly true ! — And what if 1 should speak 
 The name of one whose fate has made him seek, 
 And haply win, a lovely one — her heart 
 A very gem. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Alas, her fate ! — You start — 
 What ails my Durimel ? But is this so, 
 And could this strange and selfish being show 
 The truth of love ? 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Oh, yes. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 And did he wed 
 Her that he loved ? — Teach me what way he sped. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 No matter now. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Nay, you 7>iiist answer that ; 
 And then I '11 drive him from my thoughts. — How ? 
 
 what ? 
 That cloud again ? 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Sweet one, 'tis not for thee, 
 But on myself I frown : — it may not be
 
 122 POEMS. 
 
 That I should mask the truth — I '11 pour out all 
 
 I know — and that is much — though it may pall 
 
 Upon your gentle heart. I would it were 
 
 A worthier tale for such sweet listener. 
 
 Yet hear me, Bertha, hear me to the end, 
 
 Ev'n though you learn to scorn my wayward friend. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Call you him friend in sooth ?— and I, your more 
 Than friend so long, ne'er heard of him before. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 You, you have seen him oft ; — Bertha, to you 
 He has seemed fair : — but to my tale. 'Tis true. 
 Though his attendant virtue has been love. 
 And 'mid his fitful life ne'er failed to prove 
 Some harmony of soul ; — yet, even here 
 He was a changeling — some say not sincere. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 How could it be but so ? — Why, now you shrink 
 And draw your hand from mine ; — nay, I shall think — 
 Oh ! 'twas to hang my lute upon that bough. 
 This looks indeed like tarrying. Well, then,— now 
 Begin your strange friend's tale. The darkening west 
 No longer shows where the sun went to rest — 
 Twilight now steals the colour from each flower — 
 Shades all the prospect round, and makes this bower
 
 POEMS. 12,3 
 
 Dim and uncertain in its leafy green : 
 
 Surely this hour, when little may be seen 
 
 Of outward beauty — when the visual sense 
 
 Sleeps, and the undivided influence 
 
 Of thought is yielded to the listening ear, 
 
 Is the fit hour for tales. Come— sit down here : 
 
 So, thus — my hand in yours — how can I fail 
 
 To be too happy ? Now then for the tale. 
 
 Oh, I shall listen greedily: in sooth, 
 
 I love to hear a voice that sounds like truth. 
 
 Well, once upon a time — (word it as though 
 
 It passed at least a century ago, 
 
 And friendship will be saved) — it was before 
 
 Things were as things are now. In days of yore, 
 
 A man with strange and troubled visage, — there — 
 
 That's a beginning for you. — Oh, 'tis rare 
 
 To see such churls 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 What, banterer ? 
 
 BERTH.\. 
 
 — Tiuly drawn. 
 
 I) U III MEL. 
 
 I 'H paint him so. He had passed on and on 
 
 Life's busy pathroad,— and, from spring's light hours 
 
 Till riper summer, deemed that many flowers
 
 124 POEMS. 
 
 Chance-scattered there, were those whose sweets 
 
 among 
 'Twere good to dwell ; — yea, felt amid the throng 
 That one, far more than all the rest, could raise 
 Within his breast the incense of soft praise : 
 And lo, when youth's wild, idle game was played, 
 He saw the Past like transient visions fade ! 
 He had, I know, long clinging round his heart 
 A thought of love — or that which bore love's name ; — 
 That thought is fled — (tush, how unskilled to start !) 
 What though it lit existence with its flame, 
 
 Tis now extinct : — nay more — his earliest years 
 (I know him well) had felt a tale of tears 
 To be their own ; — 'twas of affection crossed — 
 The enchantment of a being — bright, but lost ! — 
 Of her whose name (and 'twas a gentle one. 
 Long breathed in sighs and fondly dwelt upon) 
 Now fills a niche within the Muses' shrine. 
 Meet offering to the tenderest of the Nine ! 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Ay ? and so gentle ? Come, the tale improves — 
 One has some hope when ev'n a savage loves. 
 Cymon himself was tamed and grew polite 
 When Iphigene first met his wondering sight.
 
 POEMS. 125 
 
 Your friend is full of contrariety — 
 A very riddle, — yet methinks I see 
 What bears the semblance of some constancy. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 No, ev'n that early vision of his breast, 
 Though long he deemed the boyish feeling sooth, 
 Has vanished into nothing, like the rest, 
 A brighter dawn — it seemed the dawn of truth — 
 Broke later on his heart ; for then came one 
 Whose presence spoke to him, oh ! with a tone 
 Such as none hear, save with the sympathy 
 Which tunes mere trifles till they seem to be 
 The music of love's sweet reality ! 
 And he replied in silence : — till at last 
 The pain — the ill-dissembled pain surpassed 
 Restraint with him — with her : their eyes confessed 
 A cherished feeling lingering in each breast. 
 But still no words — for what had words expressed 
 Compared with one dear glance from timid eyes, 
 A look of trust, bidding his hopes arise ? 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 And he deceived her too ? But pardon me 
 Breaking the story's thread. 'Twas strange that he. 
 This proud, this wilful, faithless one, thus quailed 
 Before his victim, that ev'n language failed, —
 
 1)26 POEMS. 
 
 For in the faltering tongue we best descry 
 The consciousness of love's fidelity. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 True ! what are words ? Could any words unfold 
 
 More truly thoughts which still remained untold, 
 
 Than that not-all-unconscious undisguise, 
 
 Which now would leave a white hand's precious prize 
 
 A moment longer linked in his than seems 
 
 Enough for friends' farewell, when day's bright beams 
 
 Are quenched by night ? Could language equal such 
 
 Soul-eloquence as that electric touch 
 
 Which says so nothing, and yet speaks —how much ! 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Well painted, sooth ! I wish that he — this friend — 
 May have been truly touched : but to the end. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Twas thus with them — a silence understood — 
 
 A dumb expression — was their hearts' best mood ; 
 
 Until one day, when anxious months had taught 
 
 That each was all to each, and the drear thought 
 
 Of a far separation had o'erwrought 
 
 Both hearts well-nigh to breaking — with the fear 
 
 That parting unassured by vows was near ; 
 
 Fancy his joy (a joy despite the sorrow, 
 
 Which could not choose but dwell upon the morrow) —
 
 por.Ms, 127 
 
 Fancy his thrill oi' inmost joy, to find 
 
 A gentle head upon his breast reclined; — 
 
 Her fair head on his breast, and that sweet face 
 
 Hiding its blushes in that resting-place 
 
 As a dear refuge. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Softly, Durimel, 
 The tale recalls a day, on which to dwell 
 Is oft my memory's fondness ; — 'twas that one 
 That made me — oh ! not lightly won — your own ! 
 A thought springs up —this story goes so near 
 To one I know full well— ah, me ! I fear — 
 My mind misgives me, — yet it cannot be— 
 And yet , Go on. 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 He gazed with ecstasy. 
 And as he gazed, what saw he ? — lo ! a clear 
 
 Bright diamond dropped from azure-mine — a tear 
 
 A tear for him ! What could he but rejoice — 
 Love that had found no words, here found a voice. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Haste ! tell me, Durimel, what followed this '( 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Why that which lifted him to joy— to pride 
 
 The pure high rapture of love's fervent kiss- 
 Not granted rpiite, iuid yet not nil denied :
 
 128 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 The sign, the gentle sign, at once revealing 
 
 All that remained of conscious hearts' conceahng— 
 
 A sweet relying pressure softly sealing 
 
 His everlasting truth for weal or woe ! 
 
 What words were then poured out they only know ; 
 
 But present, absent, wheresoe'er he go. 
 
 Let him be hovering near, or wandering far, 
 
 That gentle lady is his guiding star : 
 
 Her very name is with him as a spell 
 
 Of binding tenderness. 
 
 '5 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 Now, tell me — tell 
 Their names— his — hers ? 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Bertha and Durimel ! 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 And is it even so ! 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 'Tis even so. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 {repeating) 
 " His everlasting truth for weal or woe ?" 
 
 DURIMEL. 
 
 Yes, Bertha, yes ! Yet, if the past to thee 
 Seem a dark augury, hate me and flee.
 
 POEMS. i'ZU 
 
 Ah ! for your sake, why did I not withstand 
 
 The gentle pressure of that fair, soft hand ? — 
 
 Why did I seek to link a precious fate 
 
 Like yours, with one it were more safe to hate ? 
 
 I know, and yet there 's madness in the thought, 
 
 Your happiest, fairest lot, were that which taught 
 
 Your heart to free itself.. In me you see 
 
 That one whom now, albeit unwittingly, 
 
 You scorned ; — the wayward, haughty, wilful, wild, 
 
 Strange, selfish, changeful one, — now stern, now mild. 
 
 None guessing wherefore,^him whose mind's dominion 
 
 Ne'er holds him settled in a right opinion, — 
 
 Him — him — so light in love from boyhood's hour 
 
 It seldom swayed beyond the moment's power. 
 
 The treasure, which in thee I madly won, 
 
 I should have had the honesty to shun 
 
 Till you had known, by rote, the tale which now 
 
 Has set its seal of sadness on your brow. 
 
 In the wild whirl of love's sweet fear and doubt, 
 
 My thousand faults had vanished — and about 
 
 My heait a light sprang up, that shone above 
 
 The glare of self-reproaches : — it was love — 
 
 Love flattered me into forgetful ness 
 
 Of what I was — and am ; — for not the less, 
 
 K
 
 130 POEMS. 
 
 Though faithful, am I such as never durst 
 
 Have sought your love, had you but known the worst. 
 
 And now I tell the tale — albeit 'tis late — 
 
 That you may yet be saved from such a fate 
 
 As may be her's who trusts her life to one 
 
 With heart and thoughts like mine. The tale is done ! 
 
 I say 'twas told — yes, Bertha, for your sake — 
 
 To spare your heart — for mine, why let it break ! 
 
 Despise me, and yet pity me, — for then 
 
 The penalty will wound me deepest, when 
 
 I think of one so wronged — and yet so kind 
 
 That ev'n injustice could not sway her mind 
 
 From its own sweetness; — thus one thought unmixed 
 
 Within this heart for ever shall be fixed : 
 
 Her loss whose worst reproach was but a tear 
 
 Gentle as angels are — and oh, how dear ! 
 
 Now, speak my sentence — tenderly. 
 
 BERTHA. 
 
 {placing his hand at her heart.) 
 Tis here !
 
 POEMS. 131 
 
 SONNET, 
 
 On a changed lover. 
 
 And this is he whose heart long time had fed 
 
 Upon a thought of early boyish love, - 
 
 As though no later fondness might so move 
 
 The trembling chords : — yet, never be it said, 
 
 Though changed from what he was, that Love is dead- 
 
 For there are eyes whose beams (oh, far above 
 
 Earth's priceless gems !) outvying the meek dove 
 
 In tenderness, have a new being shed 
 
 With radiance all so gentle that it seems 
 
 Like moonlight after lightning. The wild dreams 
 
 Of a tumultuous memory are flown. 
 
 And all is quiet now. I heard him own 
 
 They were but visions that could vanish, — this 
 
 *' The sober certainty of waking bliss !" 
 
 K 2
 
 132 POEMS. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP'S VALENTINE. 
 
 TO VIOLA. 
 
 Maiden, in whom the spirit sweet 
 Of Shakspeare dwells as it were thine. 
 
 Oh, blame not one who comes to greet 
 Thy beauties with a Valentine ! 
 
 For know, fair child of minstrelsy. 
 That in the world's wide wilderness 
 
 There 's one, unknown, who watches thee 
 With all a brother's tenderness. 
 
 What though no dearer name he own 
 
 Than neighbour, yet that name may blend 
 
 With all that makes him, though unknown, 
 All that he feels himself — thy friend. 
 
 Then, fairest ! though unskilled his Muse 
 Who lays this verse on friendship's shrine, 
 
 Accept it kindly, nor refuse 
 
 To smile on friendship's Valentine.
 
 poems; i3S 
 
 If music's powers have oft-times warmed 
 
 Tlie coldest hearts to sympathy ; 
 If ev'n the savage breast is charmed 
 
 By fairy spells of melody ; 
 
 Ah, marvel not, sweet girl ! that one 
 
 Whose " heart of hearts" ne'er yet was chilled 
 
 Nor dead to music's meanest tone, 
 
 Should, when he hears thy voice, be thrilled. 
 
 Yet, 'tis not merely music's grace, 
 
 Though of thy soul it form a part, — 
 Tis not alone a lovely face 
 
 Gains thee the offerings of the heart : 
 
 But 'tis that guardian modesty's, 
 
 Fine self-respect's in-dwelling sense. 
 Shedding on opener qualities 
 
 A purer, deeper influence.
 
 134 POEMS. 
 
 Yes, more than all, that rarer feeling 
 Living around thee like a spell, 
 
 And o'er thy best endowments stealing. 
 Makes all who see thee— wish thee well. 
 
 Then, maiden, though unskilled his Muse, 
 Who lays this verse on friendship'^s shrine. 
 
 In friendship take it,— nor refuse 
 One smile to grace his Valentine.
 
 POEMS. 
 
 THE OLD HAT. 
 
 [ I HAVE been accused of borrowing ideas for the following 
 Poem from Lord Byron ; and I therefore owe it to my cha- 
 racter to declare, that as long ago as his Lordship was at Harrow 
 School, before he had written a line of poetry, I threw out in 
 his presence some suggestions as the groundwork of a Poem, 
 which would show a man, like my hero, abandoned by his friends 
 for pertinaciously wearing an old hat. Lord B.'s poem of 
 " Darkness," beginning, " I had a dream — it was not all a 
 dream," and also that other called " The Dream," were com- 
 posed long after I offered these hints. Let the world judge 
 between us where the imputation (if any) of wanting originality 
 properly lies. That mine is not a singular instance of placing 
 a guard before the door of one's literary reputation, the reader 
 may see, if he pleases to peruse passim a letter published in 
 the Courier and other newspapers, respecting Mr. Campbell's 
 " Last Man."] 
 
 I HAD a hat — it was not all a hat — 
 Part of the brim was gone, — yet still I wore 
 It on, and people wondered as I passed. 
 Some turned to gaze — others just cast an eye 
 And soon withdrew it, as 'twere in contempt.
 
 136" POEMS. 
 
 But still my hat, although so fashionless 
 In complement extern, had that within 
 Surpassing show — my head continued warm ; 
 Being sheltered from the weather, spite of all 
 The want (as has been said before) of brim. 
 
 A change came o'er the colour of my hat. — 
 
 That which was black grew brown — and then men 
 
 stared 
 With both their eyes (they stared with one before) — 
 — The wonder now was two-fold — and it seemed 
 Strange that a thing so torn and old should still 
 
 Be worn by one who might but let that pass ! 
 
 I had my reasons, which might be revealed 
 
 But for some counter-reasons, far more strong, 
 
 Which tied my tongue to silence. — Time passed on. — 
 
 Green Spring, and flowery Summer — Autumn brown, 
 
 And frosty Winter came, — and went, and came — 
 
 And still, through all the seasons of two years. 
 
 In park, in city, yea, at routs and balls 
 
 The hat was worn and borne. — Then folks grew wild 
 
 With curiosity, — and whispers rose, 
 
 And questions passed about — how one so trim 
 
 In coatS; boots, pumps, gloves, trowsers, could insconce 
 
 His caput in a covering so vile.
 
 POEMS. 137 
 
 A change came o'er the nature of my hat. — ■ 
 Grease-spots appeared — but still in silence, on 
 I wore it — and then family and friends 
 Glared madly at each other. — ^There was one 
 Who said — but hold — no matter what was said — 
 
 A time may come when I away — away — 
 
 Not till the season's ripe can I reveal 
 
 Thoughts that do lie too deep for common minds 
 
 Till then the world shall not pluck out the heart 
 
 Of this my mystery. When I will— I will ! — 
 
 The hat was now — greasy, and old, and torn — 
 But torn — old — greasy — still I wore it on. 
 
 A change came o'er the business of this hat. 
 
 Women, and men, and children, scowled on me 
 
 My company was shu^ined 1 was alone ! 
 
 None would associate with such a hat — 
 
 Friendship itself proved faithless for a hat 
 
 She that I loved, within whose gentle breast 
 I treasured up my heart, looked cold as death — 
 Love's fires went out — extinguished by a hat. 
 Of those that knew me best, some turned aside. 
 And scudded down dark lanes — one man did place 
 His finger on his nose's side, and jeered — 
 Others in horrid mockery laughed outright; — 
 Yea dogs, deceived by instinct's dubious ray,
 
 138 POEMS. 
 
 Fixing their swart glare on my ragged hat, 
 Mistook me for a beggar— and they barked. 
 Thus women, men, friends, strangers, lover, dogs- 
 One thought pervaded all— it was my hat. 
 
 A change— it was the last— came o'er this hat. 
 
 For lo ! at length, the circling months went round— 
 
 The period was accomplished — and one day 
 
 This tattered, brown, old, greasy coverture 
 
 (Time had endeared its vileness) was transferred 
 
 To the possession of a wandering son 
 
 Of Israel's fated race — and friends once more 
 
 Greeted my digits with the wonted squeeze :— 
 
 Once more I went my way — along— along — 
 
 And plucked no wondering gaze — the hand of scorn 
 
 With its annoying finger — men, and dogs, 
 
 Once more grew pointless, jokeless, laughless, growl - 
 
 less — 
 And last, not least of rescued blessings, love,-- 
 Love smiled on me again, when I assumed 
 A bran new beaver of the Andre mould ; 
 And then the laugh was mine, for then out came 
 The secret of this strangeness— 'twas a bet!
 
 POEMS. 139 
 
 TO B- 
 
 A SONNET. 
 
 On what sweet story — with what gentle Muse, 
 
 Well-nigh forgotten boy, art thou enjoying 
 
 Time, and thine own thoughts hindering from annoying, 
 
 Mid dreams so tender-true, they may not choose 
 
 But all love's softness o'er the heart diffuse — 
 
 Or else, reclining on some favourite spot 
 
 Of nature's loveliness — some daisied plot — 
 
 In waking bliss dost thou thyself amuse ; 
 
 Or art thou with the sistered Ch a rites 
 
 Daintily dallying ; while thy fond eyes, 
 
 Upturn'd to the white glorious galaxy. 
 
 Drink thoughts that, imp'd for flight on phiions silk. 
 
 Seek thhie own lacteal fount of poesy 
 
 To prove it — more than ever — now — skim-milk ?
 
 140 POEMS. 
 
 A WORD TO THE WISE. 
 
 Taught by experience of the mind's vexations, 
 
 I 've learnt at length to scorn vain speculations, 
 
 And hold the notion that, nine times in ten, 
 
 'Twere quite as well if some wise-acre men 
 
 In this short, pleasure-fleeting life of ours, 
 
 Would spare th' expense of half the precious hours 
 
 They waste in curiously enquiring why 
 
 There happens to be happiness in joy. 
 
 Out on the triflers, who in learning's guise 
 
 Of crack-jaw jargon, fancy 'tis most wise 
 
 To grovel through the dark in quest of stuff 
 
 Not worth, if ever found, a pinch of snufF. 
 
 Such whence and wherefore itchers analyze, 
 
 Until they manage quite to paralize 
 
 The zest of joyousness, — while coat from coat, 
 
 (An onion's — for I don't disdain, d'ye see, 
 
 To use a savoury kitchen simile) 
 
 I say, while coat from coat, one after t'other. 
 
 They peel and strip with lots of wordy pother,
 
 POEMS. 141 
 
 And not content to let their arbitress 
 
 Of culinary elegancies dress 
 
 The root (like folks who wisely take and eat, 
 
 And find a pleasant relish for their meat), 
 
 They put themselves, instead, into a stew, 
 
 Boiling away among the sapient (ew, 
 
 And lose in questions, value not a groat, 
 
 The comforts of reality — for what ?-^ 
 
 The vain attempt to solve a useless riddle — 
 
 The deuce a bit of kernel 's in the middle ! 
 
 C i bono ? then 's the question I would put 
 
 To those who all life long their hearts keep shut. 
 
 While the blind labyrinths through which they run, 
 
 Just lead and leave them where they first beo-un 
 
 With this sad difference, that the wasted hours 
 Have given time for all life's freshest flowers 
 To fade and die.— What profits it that thus, 
 Through many a tangled, uphill path they're led 
 Away from joy, till all its bloom is fled ? 
 Their only gain for all their sweat and fuss 
 Is that a crowd of wonderers, perchance, 
 (Those wide-mouthed children of sheer ignorance) 
 With gaping looks of most inane surprise. 
 Deem men, so useless, yet withal so wise, 
 Ought surely to be hailed as prodigies —
 
 142 POEMS. 
 
 Simply, forsooth ! because they cannot see 
 The depths of grave no-meaning's foolery : — 
 Oh ! there 's fine wisdom in obscurity ! 
 
 Sure, he best claims the palm of sapiency, 
 
 Who, knowing this our being's transiency, 
 
 By dint of practical enjoyment, smothers 
 
 Such nonsense at its birth, and never bothers 
 
 His vovi v/ith nice distinctions ; which, when made, 
 
 Leave him, perhaps, with muddled pate, a grade 
 
 Further from truth than ever : — he 's content 
 
 To take plain things as plainly as they 're meant — 
 
 To know the bounds which sever right from wrong. 
 
 And with unclouded spirit pass along 
 
 Buoyant of heart and open to the impression 
 
 ■Of pleasant things — blessing the bare possession. — 
 
 Yes, give me one who, on a sunny day, 
 
 Looks up and says, " This cheerfulness is mine," — 
 
 Nor thinks it worth the while to clear his way. 
 
 With abstract notions — what it is to shifie ; 
 
 He tastes — and that 's enough, — but need not measure 
 
 By mental gage, what is that thing called pleasure : 
 
 Or if his lot be pain, 'tis ten to one 
 
 Some generous friend's at hand to share his groan. 
 
 But why should either fall to reasoning, hoto 
 
 Friendship can chase dull Sorrow from the brow ;
 
 POEMS. J43 
 
 Why seek, so they hut feel true sympathy, 
 To comprehend the essence of a sigh ? — 
 One might as well and wisely go about 
 With algebra to calculate the gout — 
 Or try t' unwreathe by intellectual prism 
 The texture of a twinge of rheumatism — 
 Or, for some fancied truth's exalted sake, 
 Extract the cube-root of the stomach-ache. 
 
 No, no ! away — this life is far too short 
 To vex its hours in questions of this sort ; 
 But, if there 's joy, why let 's rejoice we 've won it, 
 And lose no time to lay our fingers on it : 
 And when at times our happier feelings leave us, 
 'Tis better bear our sorrows as we can, 
 Than lengthen them -by vain attempts to scan 
 The hidden properties of all that 's grievous. 
 * * * » 
 
 There was a time I suffered in this kind, 
 Holding, for instance, him the truly wise 
 Who, for some carking query of the mind. 
 Could not be satisfied that eyes were eyes ; 
 But scorned the clear fruition of heaven's li^ht. 
 Without some senseless quibbles about vision 
 And idle speculations upon sight, — 
 Which now, thanks be ! I hold in some derision.
 
 144 I'OKAIS. 
 
 Yea, the time was, when many a pleasant sound 
 Lost half its loveliness — for I had found 
 That sound, in fact, would be no sound at all, 
 Were there no tympanums on which to fall : 
 So music underwent a distillation, 
 And fumed away in mental perspiration. 
 But, hence ! begone ! — 1 care not now, not I, 
 How a tuned soul drinks in pure harmony — 
 The love of melody 's enough for me, 
 And music is a sweet reality. 
 
 But truth forbid, that any should decry 
 Tiiat heaven-descended, true philosophy, 
 Which, with the patience of investigation. 
 Would lead man back as near to his prime station 
 As man may go. — The labour of all learning 
 Now deemed abstruse, seems only a returning — 
 A struggling backward along vistas, dark 
 Or scantly lighted by a glimmering spark, — ■ 
 A weary searching after what hath not 
 Than truth already in our scope, one jot 
 Less of inherent simpleness ; — for what 
 Are all our tedious processes of knowledge. 
 The midnight waste of time and oil at college, 
 The fret, the wreck of health, — all that the wise 
 Have learned by poor comparison to prize,
 
 POEMS. 145 
 
 But lame attempts to scale, or to supply, 
 By art, the wings by which we fain would fly 
 At higher posts than man, in daily life. 
 Holds in possession — yet are not more rife 
 Than they in wonders : for, when one has passed 
 All common limits — lo, on what a vast 
 High pinnacle Sir Wisdom stands at last ! 
 The utmost that is done, is but to gain 
 A gleam to show the darkness — to obtain 
 A meagre hint of light, that scarce may give 
 Glimpses of things, which, if th' intuitive 
 Power of mind were in us, would but be 
 Ranked with each homelier, simple entity, 
 Since none can justly think, and not confess 
 That knowledge is but utter simpleness. 
 
 Thus, all the wisdom man has power to reach, 
 
 So next to nothing, ought methinks to teach 
 
 Humility — the rather that the fame 
 
 In all that gains a man a sounding name 
 
 For sciences and wisdom, is — to say 
 
 That he has striven in a certain way 
 
 To learn, with labour, things which haply are 
 
 Easy as eyesight in some brighter star 
 
 L
 
 146 POEMS. 
 
 Than this dim earth : — and even at the best, 
 
 When all that can be gathered is possessed, 
 
 Where and for what's the mighty ground of pride, 
 
 In ignorance so little modified 
 
 That he whom Delphi's oracle once named 
 
 The wisest of mankind, himself proclaimed 
 
 This, as the lesson which his wisdom taught, 
 
 That all his knowledge was — that he knew nought? 
 
 Yet, as is said before, when there are true, 
 Good, wise philosophers, who 're humble too — 
 Unswayed by prejudice — bent to unravel 
 Creation's mysteries, — yet not to travel 
 Through fanciful inclosures where they gain 
 Notions as proud and useless as they're vain, — , 
 I say that such, and only such enquirers 
 Deserve, in their minute research, admirers : 
 For only where minuteness strives to find 
 Some goodly relics of more perfect mind 
 Are metaphysics useful — so I rate 'em, 
 But for their strange conundrums — how I hate 'em ! 
 
 Voltaire, with his acutish cleverness, 
 Touches this matter off with much address.
 
 POEMS. 147 
 
 He who, to serve his turn, could either be 
 
 The joke or prop of false philosophy, 
 
 Once, in his humour to be quizzical, 
 
 Laughed out at all that 's metaphysical, 
 
 And from a minuet's mazy wanderings 
 
 A just comparison thus aptly brings. 
 
 *' Well done, good folks, you 've led a pretty dance, 
 
 And laboured hard your pleasures to enhance ; 
 
 But tell me, pray — and that 's the deuce of it, — 
 
 Now all is over — what 's the use of it ? 
 
 Bows — curt'sies — sinks — and slides, and dips, and 
 
 graces 
 Have brought ye all at last — back to your places, — 
 Your intricate meanderings are done, 
 And now I find ye — ^just where ye begun !" 
 
 Eagle and ape of Ferney ! — here I must 
 For once acknowledge that your quiz is just; 
 Then hence, for ever, bootless speculations, — 
 1 've had my quantum sujf. of such vexations !
 
 148 POEMS. 
 
 MAY-DAY SONG. 
 
 I 've heard that air before — Peakk. 
 
 See, lovely May resumes her reign, 
 The Graces follow in her train, — 
 Her breath of balm, her fragrant tread 
 Bring odours to each flowery bed. 
 
 The bells are ringing — 
 
 The birds are singing 
 To hail the dawn of lovely May ;— 
 Come mingle— mingle in the lay 
 That welcomes in our holiday ! 
 
 CHOIIUS. 
 
 We join, we join the grateful lay 
 That welcomes in the merry May ! 
 
 II. 
 
 In all her beauty see her rise — 
 Behold, her sun is in the skies — 
 On every side she greets the eye 
 With plenty's promise bounteously.
 
 POEMS. 140 
 
 The birds are singing 
 
 And bells are ringing — 
 Hark to the cheerful roundelay ! — 
 And light of heart, and blithe and gay 
 Let 's carol in the lovely May ! 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Hail, jocund season — happy day — 
 Oh, welcome merry, merry May!
 
 150 POEMS. 
 
 THE MAIDEN'S KNELL. 
 
 I. 
 
 One fresh and lovely morning, 
 
 A maiden sweet as May 
 
 Was singing like one who never 
 
 Might know a darker day : — 
 
 Yea, morns might break less brightly, 
 
 Black clouds might gather near, 
 
 Yet that bosom feel no darkness, 
 
 For still the sun shone there. 
 
 II. 
 But, ah ! life's darkest shadows 
 Soon fell on her young heart's pride — 
 For love's fair flower was blighted, 
 And the maiden drooped and died. 
 And, lastnight, as we pass'd along. 
 We heard the dismal bell 
 Send forth a dreary summons — 
 It tolled the Maiden's knell.* 
 
 * These lines were written for an Opera, with a view to their 
 adaptation to a fine piece of harmony, well known by the Indi- 
 crous name of the " Derbyshire Ram," a Glee. The adaptation 
 would ask the hand of a Bishop to bless a passage or two into 
 somewhat of a gentler grace.
 
 POEMS. in 
 
 A LAMENT. 
 (An old image in a new dress.)* 
 
 FROM A MUSICAL DRAMA WRITTEN SOME YEARS 
 
 AGO. 
 
 Ye woods that wail whenas the breeze 
 Of Autumn strews your leaves around ; 
 A few short months and ye '11 be seen 
 Smiling once more in leafy green — 
 But, lo ! yond aged forest-trees 
 That lie uprooted on the ground — 
 Their fate reminds me of my own — 
 For never more, — oh never — 
 That bosom feels returning spring. 
 Whose dearest hold of earth is gone— 
 And nought again can blitheness bring 
 To cheer my heart— for ever ! 
 
 • See Burns's Lament for James, Earl of Gleucaini.
 
 ]52 POEMS. 
 
 THE BROTHERS. 
 
 " For we were uurst upon the self-same hill." 
 
 Milton. 
 
 No garland now — no wreath of bay. 
 
 Freaked out with flaunting flowers 
 To shame the melancholy lay 
 
 That dwells on perished hours : 
 A chaplet green as lovely spring 
 Would mock the bosom's sorrowing ; 
 And ah, when eyes with grief are wet, 
 They seek not beauty's coronet. 
 Nor cypress, nor funereal yew 
 Be on my temples bound ; — 
 Alas ! I want their leaves to strew 
 
 With these sad hands the ground. 
 No wreaths ! — no garlands !— bright ones now 
 But ill would suit a gloomy brow, 
 And, Nature's dreary emblems, ye 
 Are fitliest scattered mournfully ! 
 
 * * * He stood btsidc 
 
 The grave of one who early died —
 
 POEMS. 158 
 
 His thoughts were with the silent dead, 
 And days for ever fled ! 
 
 In life's fair spring they two had strayed, — 
 Through frolic May together played, — 
 Together cropped the summer flowers, — 
 And, heart to heart, in riper hours. 
 Had shared each other's hopes and fears. 
 Each other's joys — each other's tears ; — 
 Their race, the same — their pride, to be 
 Two scions of an honoured tree — 
 The last, the nearest in their birth : — 
 But now one heart has ceased to beat — 
 The doom is sealed — and all is o'er — 
 The friends, the brothers — they must meet 
 Upon the glorious face of earth, 
 
 In mutual consciousness no more. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 He stood — he gazed : — his troubled brow 
 
 Was storied deep with thoughts ; and now 
 
 Strange wishes sprang to birth — he fain 
 
 Would cull the dead to life again — 
 
 If 'twere but for liis own sad sake. 
 
 Just that hi.s Icar-diinineil eyes miglil lake
 
 154 roEMs. 
 
 One look — one fond, short, parting look — 
 
 (It was denied, what time death shook 
 
 His dart, and dealt that fatal blow 
 
 Which laid a friend so low) — 
 
 He longed to whisper one poor word, 
 
 (Ah ! will it ever now be heard ?) 
 
 That, though far -off in Fate's dark hour, 
 
 •Space held o'er love no weakening power — 
 
 But that his early bosom-friend 
 
 So loved through life was cherished to the end ! 
 
 Alas ! he came too late to watch 
 
 The last dread struggles made with death — 
 
 And envious Fate let strangers catch 
 
 His own true friend's expiring breath. — 
 
 No solace had he — save that one, 
 
 With sorrow kindred to his own, 
 
 (But with a wisdom purged from leaven. 
 
 To teach how grief should look to heaven) 
 
 Was his fond partner in the last 
 
 Sad, solemn, close ! — and now, 'tis past — 
 
 His friend is laid in death's long sleep. 
 
 And he is left to weep. 
 
 There as he stood — he thought of times 
 When he could chase light griefs with rhymes :
 
 I'OEMS. 155 
 
 He deemed even now some solemn verse 
 Might fitly deck a sable herse : 
 But 'twas a moment's idle dream 
 That vanished like the lightning's gleam - 
 (A meteor-flit o'er darkness tnrown, 
 A less than instant — here — and gone ;) 
 For there are woes too deep to be 
 Soothed by an earthly minstrelsy ; 
 And, when he sought within, he found 
 No string to give a tuneful sound. 
 Sorrows that crush the heart are dumb — 
 And forth from his no words would come 
 But what seemed broken too, and fell 
 Dreary as any knell — 
 " My brother — friend — farewell — farewell 
 
 Thus lorn — his mind set all on death, 
 And those few gasps of struggling breath 
 By men called life ; (for now, alas ! 
 He had been taught how vain it was) — 
 With thoughts so drear — and in his eye 
 Graves with their cold reality, — 
 And round him stones on which he read 
 Memorials of the gathered dead —
 
 156 POEMS. 
 
 While not a spot whereon he trod 
 
 In that sepulchral resting-place 
 
 But seemed a relic — every sod 
 
 Some remnant of the human race ; 
 
 What marvel that his musings ran 
 
 Upon the common fate of man — 
 
 Musings shaped out in silent thought, 
 
 Which, now and then, from habit caught 
 
 Sensations of responsive sound : 
 
 Until at length his bosom found 
 
 A heavy birth of bitterness 
 
 Off-lifted thus in harsh, uncouth, 
 
 And rugged words, which not the less 
 
 Of want of tune were words of truth. 
 
 Doleful they were — and though they had 
 
 Their echo in a spirit sad. 
 
 They were not utterance of his own peculiar grief, 
 
 Yet still they brought relief. 
 
 Dwelling upon the share man-mortals have 
 
 In life, pain, death, and the insatiate grave, 
 
 And what might follow— which the soul descries 
 
 When brooding on its awful destinies. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Man lives the lord of all creation else ; 
 Yet with that sentient faculty of soul
 
 POEMS. 157 
 
 Which, joining mental to the corporal pang-, 
 
 In this most sad inheritance of woe, 
 
 But doubles misery ! Alas ! this life — 
 
 This passage onwards to the general doom 
 
 Of a great execution — this rough road 
 
 With, here and there, a flower to mock our hearts — 
 
 What were it, if no gracious hope were near 
 
 To whisper thus, and solve the mystery, — 
 
 That life below is but our being's morn, 
 
 A longer or a shorter wakening 
 
 Into eternity ? — Man sure would be 
 
 The wretched'st being of a wretched world, 
 
 Were all his prospects bounded by its span ; 
 
 Were there no intimations of a land 
 
 Springing with treasures of unmingled joy, 
 
 In realms beyond this desert and this grave. 
 
 Look round and see what, but for this, were man. 
 Sense's pale victim— or, in happiest state, 
 A pampered morsel for the monster earth 
 To feed upon.— Ev'n now my tread is on 
 The common glutting-place -.—behold— and read- 
 There, where the willow hangs its mournful head 
 Over a cherished spot, a tale is told 
 Of flowrcts withered in their budding spring.
 
 1j8 poems. 
 
 And here, how fond a grief records a son, 
 
 His parent's joy, the darling of all hearts, 
 
 In sumiTier's pride and lustihood struck down. 
 
 Yes, thus it is— this were a boasted life. 
 
 If this, indeed, were all. Here we behold— 
 
 Ev'n where no startling deed of fate displays 
 
 The sad reversal of a natural lot 
 
 In young, untimely death— here we behold 
 
 How generations push each other out 
 
 Into blank nothingness — if this were all. 
 
 Age follows age, in sighs, and moans, and tears, 
 
 To walk the appointed thorny path, that lies 
 
 Between the cradle and the sepulchre ; — 
 
 Each seeming born to dig the former's grave. 
 
 Then drop to graves that new ones dig for them. 
 
 Sons follow sons, in mournful right of birth, 
 
 To raise the tombs of those that gave them breath. 
 
 We only live to weep for severed loves — 
 
 Passing through many deaths in those that die ; 
 
 Then die, are mourned, and in our turns forgot. 
 
 "Why art thou proud, oh man — smce thou must be, 
 Ere long, the tenant of that narrow house^- 
 Where, all distinctions of this life being o'er. 
 High-crested glory sleeps upon a sod.
 
 POEMS. \')9 
 
 The neighbouring sod that pillows poverty. 
 Where now's the railing tongue — the heart of scorn 
 Which sovereign Reason's self could ne'er control ? 
 Stopped with one little, little clod of earth — 
 What here remains of pomp and pride and power ? 
 A mouldering mass of undistinguished dust. 
 
 Lo ! bitter mockery of human pride, 
 That nature holds no sympathy with woe — 
 On yonder grave of one who lately died, 
 Observe, already, how those daisies blow. 
 Corruption's semblance is no longer seen ; — 
 Above, the unchecked freshness of the spring 
 O'erspreads decay with loveliness and green, - 
 Beneath, the worms are busy banquettiug. 
 Yet read aright this lesson, and we see 
 A fair suggestion of our destiny- 
 Faith's finger pointing from the ghastly tomb 
 Towards the garden of a future bloom. 
 
 Yes, in the dark — oh ! in the dark, 
 There is a gleam of light, 
 And, on the world's rough waves, an ark 
 To bless tlio straining sight.
 
 160 POEMS. 
 
 And happy he, who still hath found 
 In every mouldering plot of ground 
 That hides a stranger or a friend, 
 A warning for his end ! 
 
 Enough ! enough ! it is enough to know 
 Pure bliss was ne'er a denizen below — 
 Man's worldly being, from his very birth, 
 Is sorrow — and he fain must kiss the rod. 
 Joy is but as a shadow cast on earth — 
 Its substance is in heaven— the light is God !
 
 I'UKMS. KJl 
 
 THE MONUMENT. 
 
 From Vincent Bourne's lines, ' In statuam sepulchralem infantis 
 dormientis,' beginning, 
 
 " Infans venuste — qui sacros dulces agens 
 In hoc sopores marmore — " 
 
 Beautiful child ! so free from fault and fear, 
 
 Lying in sweet sleep's quiet semblance here ; 
 
 Thy loveliness inspired the sculptor's hand 
 
 TO spread a living influence— to warm, 
 
 As with the power of the Promethean wand. 
 
 And vivify the stone's cold lifeless form 
 
 With thine own look of gently breathing sleep, 
 
 O'er which no evil thoughts their vigils keep. 
 
 Oh, may this imaged slumber be a token — 
 
 Balming our hearts— of that pure, calm, unbroken 
 
 And heavenly peace, never to be expressed 
 
 By art or artist, — that eternal rest 
 
 Of angel-innocence -the last — the best ! 
 
 M
 
 1(32 POEMS. 
 
 THE CAPTIVE USURPER. 
 
 (On Napoleou Buonaparte, as lie appeared on board his Majesty's 
 
 Ship the BeUerophon, in Plj-mouth Sound, before his 
 
 banishment to Saint Helena, in August 1815.) 
 
 " A cut-purse of the empire ■ 
 
 That from the shelf the precious diadem stole." 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Akd is it come to this ?— is this the man 
 Who through the earth war's lightning hurled ? 
 Is here his swoln ambition's widest span, 
 Whose nod could awe a trembling world ? 
 Lo ! here ye potentates of earth, 
 That crush by might or curb by birth- 
 Ambition's readiest tools— how tyrants end : — 
 Hemmed in by hated foes he stands forlorn. 
 Almost alone — too sure without a friend, — 
 Save such— so called — who sink to nought, if still 
 They be not minion-creatures of his will — 
 Yes, there Napoleon stands— the mark of scorn 
 To thousands as they gaze and cry 
 Behold the end of Tyranny !
 
 POEMS. 1C3 
 
 Within that breast what fiendish spirits dwell, 
 There all is joyless restlessness and care — 
 No jocund laugh — no look of peace may tell — 
 So fierce the tortures of an inward hell — 
 That aught of happiness is ever there. 
 The Desert blast, with hot and poisoned breath, 
 Shall cease to sear that bosom — never — never — 
 Gales of the wintered North, full-fraught with death 
 Shall blight with icy memory for ever ! — 
 Torn down from high unholy state, 
 Indignant nations spare his life. 
 That now the maddening whirl is o'er, 
 Tlie hurrying, thronging thoughts of strife. 
 He may in vacancy deplore 
 His evil deeds — and ruminate 
 Where he can vex the war-tired world no more. 
 There, round about his haunted bed, 
 In sad array his myriad-dead, 
 Breathing cold Moscow's storms and Jaffa's sighs, 
 Shall dimly stalk before his aching eyes — 
 
 While from the ground 
 Shrieks of pale Murder evermore shall sound, 
 And cries of severed loves — of friendships rent — 
 Scare him to keen, unpitied punishment ! 
 
 M 2
 
 164 POEMS. 
 
 Then Palm — D'Enghein Hah ! see — the murderer 
 
 smiles ! 
 And is that heart at rest — no fierce recoil 
 Of scorpion thoughts ? — so filled with fraud and guiles, 
 So slained with guiltless blood — can this man smile ? 
 
 Peace — peace ! — such smile shall never reach his eyes ; 
 'Tis but the cunning trick of falsest art — 
 That bids the mouth put on that look of lies 
 To hide the rankling tortures of his heart. 
 
 Yes, amid pangs that he must still endure — 
 Mid torturing thoughts that he can never cure — 
 With " none to bless him, none whom he can bless," 
 That smile is but a mock of happiness. 
 
 Ill man of blood — away ! — what dost thou here ? 
 Hence to thy lonely isle, and bear with thee 
 Horror and fang'd Remorse and pallid Fear, 
 Till Death's black hour shall set thy body free. 
 
 Yet ere the all-inevitable blow 
 
 Of human fate at length shall lay thee low — 
 
 Ere all that 's left of mad ambition's lust 
 
 Be — Earth to its Earth — Ashes — Dust to Dust ; 
 
 * " And none can trace that laughter to his eye." — Lara. 
 See Eastlake's picture, or the print taken from it.
 
 POEMS. 
 
 165 
 
 Still, if thou hop'st, even thou, to be forgiven, 
 
 Kneel in the dust — lift up thy hands and pray — 
 
 Weep with bowed heart in penitence to heaven, 
 
 And wash with bitterest tears thy stains away. 
 
 Think upon Him whose meekness, shaming pride. 
 
 Showed him the lowliest though of all the head ; — 
 
 Think upon Him— life's arbiter — who died 
 
 And made the blood of one for millions shed 
 
 A sacrifice sufficing to atone 
 
 Ev'n for the blood of millions shed for one ! 
 
 Lay hold on mercy's promise— it can bless 
 
 To balm each contrite tear-drop's bitterness. 
 
 Haply a pardon is in store for thee — 
 
 Sink, proud one, sink, and learn humility ! 
 
 ***** 
 He 's gone ! and lo ! fled with him ruthless War, — 
 With him dispersed the gloomy shades of night, 
 And at the setting of his bloody star 
 The Sun of Peace has risen upon our sight!
 
 166 POEMS. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 (Some of the following lines, written on a particular occasion, 
 have appeared elsewhere : the whole together forms aJi episo- 
 dical portion of an unpublished poem, the scene of which is 
 Britain in its early days.) 
 
 " The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with 
 the men of this generation." 
 
 Old Time, that speeds with never-halting pace, 
 
 Now led the dusky evening into night ; 
 
 Ev'n such a night of such pure loveliness, 
 
 Mingling ineffably with majesty, 
 
 As this wherein his soul who fondly chaunts 
 
 Tales of a far-gone day (following high thoughts 
 
 Which, born of beauty, sink into his heart 
 
 Each after each) now reels with gushing draughts 
 
 Of transport, — dumb, or only eloquent 
 
 In one word — beautiful ! Oh, I have gazed 
 
 On nature's graces with a panting breast 
 
 Which day by day ran o'er ; and I have stood 
 
 High in the mountain -air and hugged myself 
 
 To Freedom's freshest thoughts ; and I have loved 
 
 To mark where ocean's surges lash the shore,
 
 POEMS. 1G7 
 
 How the great voice of waters in the deep 
 
 Could thrill me into awe ; and I have felt 
 
 Tears which have failed to swell for tenderness 
 
 Gush at the grandeur of the storm. All these 
 
 Have been my deep delights ;— but now to walk 
 
 On such a night as this— to hear remote 
 
 The hum of busy cities — whilst around 
 
 Far, near, in sky, in earth, and every where 
 
 All that I see, or know, or feel, seems made 
 
 Of beauty, — oh ! the very inmost sense 
 
 Losing each varied feeling in the one, 
 
 One gentler ecstasy that kindles there. 
 
 Is tuned to such delicious sympathy 
 
 With thoughts of love and heaven, that every sound 
 
 Breathing from out the hill, the grove, the plain, 
 
 The waters bubbling, and the voice of trees, 
 
 Sink with a holier softness on the soul 
 
 Like music with an emphasis of God ! 
 
 And oh ! how beautiful it is to gaze 
 Upon the blaze of rolling worlds on high — 
 To view the countless company of stars. 
 As night advances, gleam with all their fires — 
 Studding the wide-spread curtain of the sky 
 Far as the eye can reach with sprinkled gold
 
 168 POEMS. 
 
 And living gems in various figures wrought. 
 
 Here is a sight might teach the earth's proud fool 
 
 To search within, — and 'mid this infinite 
 
 Of starry worlds, shrink at his littleness ; 
 
 Here is a sight to soothe the humble heart 
 
 Into a peaceful awe of mightiness, 
 
 And 'mid this infinite of starry worlds 
 
 Exalt his soul to that pervading power 
 
 Which sees and knows and regulates the whole.* 
 
 Behold, thou blind of soul, this glorious scene 
 
 With contemplation's eye : — hear, oh ye deaf ! 
 
 On whom the wonders of the day are lost, 
 
 The grand, the silent eloquence of night. 
 
 Draw near, ye proud ! whose hearts a plant — a flower- 
 
 An insect's form — man's body — or man's mind. 
 
 With all earth's miracles have never taught 
 
 To bow before the blessings of that One 
 
 Whose gifts exuberant ye taste yet scorn ; — 
 
 Cold, apathetic Pyrrhos of our day — 
 
 Morbid excrescences on beauty's cheek — 
 
 Come now and view yond heaven's resplendent host 
 
 Fulfilling all their settled course and motion, — 
 
 " " That pois'd, impels, and rules the steady whole." 
 
 Thomson.
 
 POEMS. 169 
 
 Held in unbuoyant space by His great laws 
 
 Of counter yet co-operant gravitation 
 
 With admirablest government. Approach ! — 
 
 Enter the temple of the silent night, 
 
 Whose shrine is glorious nature, — and bend low — 
 
 While the bright myriad of consenting suns 
 
 That light the fields of ether, write the name 
 
 Of God — Majestic — Vast — Magnificent — 
 
 In radiant characters along the sky ! 
 
 Or, if a milder spell may charm — behold, 
 Where from the shade of yonder fleecy cloud 
 (Whose feathery whiteness on the blue expanse 
 Rests, not a blemish but a loveliness, 
 Even as that " mole cinque-spotted" on the breast 
 Of beauty, sung by Nature's darling child * ) 
 The Queen of Night, unveiling her bright face, 
 Has dimm'd the starry lights, and wins her way 
 In quiet grace along the trackless skies. 
 Pale, fair, and silently she spreads her light. 
 Silvering the ground -with ineffectual beams ; 
 
 • Oil licr left breast 
 
 A mole ciiKiue-spotted — like the crimson drops 
 I' til' liottoin of a cowsli]). 
 
 Cymiikline.
 
 170 POEMS. 
 
 Or, shining through the opening foliature 
 Of darksome woods, enlivens half the gloom 
 That reigned with melancholy silence there. 
 
 Oh, 'tis among the thrilling things of life- 
 One of the highest feastings of the soul — 
 To feel our rising thoughts o'erleap themselves. 
 Breathless with reaching at immensity ! 
 Or, when all sounds of day have died away, 
 To listen at the silence dizzily, 
 Till the rapt fancy tunes the very hush 
 Into mysterious voices whispering round 
 Through all his wondrous works — The Deity ! 
 
 o 
 
 But this is fond. — Long centuries have passed- 
 Ages that plead in wonders have rolled by. 
 And yet there are who triumph in their scorn. 
 
 My call is vain! Spikit of other days! 
 
 Upon my sight ev'n now thine awful form 
 Doth seem to rise, and that dim majesty 
 Finds thee a name — Spirit of other days ! 
 Thou passest on before me, and thine hand 
 Bears the historic scroll of ages past —
 
 poi:ms. 171 
 
 Ages whose unpioxed darkncus pitieth those 
 To whom the heavenly choir in Bethlehem, 
 Chaunting glad tidings in the Highest name, 
 Unveil'd a purer light : — yet even now. 
 Thence, where that finger points, — a glorious ray, 
 A gleam of brightness from the nighted page 
 Bursts on the sense — and with a beam so clear 
 As well may turn our splendours into shade ! 
 I see thy silent triumphing — that smile 
 Retorting pity — might T hear a voice 
 
 Beyond that speaking look — some solemn 'host ? 
 
 Away — the vision 's past — 'twas but a thought. 
 Yet were that shadowy form more palpable — 
 
 Had it a tongue, and voice, and eloquence 
 
 How might it cry — '* Woe, woe to proud mankind ! 
 List, son of earth ! and hearing, shrink for shame. 
 That in your blazon of celestial light 
 Lurk darker souls than darker ages knew. 
 Claims he your pity, and is nighted more 
 Who in dusk twilight hails the coming dawn 
 And hastens to the rising — or that fool, 
 Who owning brighter radiance than the sun'.s 
 Yet blinds himself to stuml)lc in the dark,
 
 172 POEMS. 
 
 And grovelling lower than a heathen did 
 In his unlighten'd day of ignorance, 
 Feels less of God than pagan Socrates !" * 
 
 Oh, sage of Athens ! mankind's, virtue's friend — 
 Faint shadower out of holier things to come, — 
 Thy bright exemplar might instruct our hearts 
 In more than thine intelligence of God ! 
 Might we but mark thy mild demeanour now. 
 As when the scurrile scoffings of the crowd 
 Called up one smile in pity — and no more, — 
 Or see thy gracious figure bent with age,t 
 Ev'n as thou stood'st before the accuser's bar — 
 Meekly yet firm — modest yet unabashed — 
 
 * I allow the Spirit of other days to call this shade from The 
 Clouds, the rather that it has been the fashion of late to throw 
 dirt on the memory of this illustrious sage. After all that has 
 been said against him, I must confess that my heart still clings 
 fondly to the first pure notion it conceived of his character ; a 
 notion so agreeable, that I am willing to retain it for (as I would 
 fain think) a real, or, at the worst, an imaginary example of 
 goodness in a dark age. 
 
 -)- Socrates, as the reader knows, was rather of the ugliest — 
 for a philosopher ; but n'importe — mens cuJusauE, says 
 Cicero, is est quisque. We see " Othello's visage in his 
 mind."
 
 POEMS. 173 
 
 Truth's dauntless champion though condemned to 
 
 die — 
 Then follow thee to prison, and behold 
 The calm and beautiful magnificence 
 Of chainless mind — the almost Christian grace 
 With which, forgiving all thine enemies. 
 Thou drank'st the cup of bane and bitterness 
 To fall a martyr of a new-born faith 
 Whose infant whispers had aroused thy soul ; 
 How might the lesson shame us ! —But no more — 
 Fain I resume the shell whose sounds may waft 
 My willing spirit o'er the lapse of years 
 To Britain's ancient scenes, — to image there 
 A night of loveliness — a night like this !
 
 174 POEMS. 
 
 THE PENITENT. 
 
 A Scene. 
 
 THE PASTOR MULLER — ALBERT. 
 ALBERT. 
 
 True, good old man, I feel that you are right. 
 
 O, my father ! — for so I may call one 
 
 Whose creed gives life — your's is no rugged, steep, 
 
 And rough theology : there 's comfort in it — 
 
 Comfort for him who can be comforted : 
 
 And my heart thanks you for such gentle words 
 
 With all the fervor that one dying can. 
 
 And yet — for me — 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 Say on, my son, say on— 
 'Twill ease your heart to speak contrition's words, 
 If, as I deem, you are a penitent. 
 Turning to him who will not cast thee out. 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 Yes ; but my life— my life ; — each thought of that 
 Rebukes the very hope of penitence.
 
 POEMS. 175 
 
 That man twice lives his time, whose retrospect 
 
 Of other days is on a well-spent life :* 
 
 Yea ; the pure memory of hours gone by, 
 
 Even mid the racking tortures of disease. 
 
 Is present joy. It is not so with me : — 
 
 To me, remembrance is a gloomy tale 
 
 Of wasted talents and perverted sense. 
 
 My life hath darkly passed. From my youth up, 
 
 Cursed with a questioning and doubting spirit, 
 
 I deemed my thoughts could fathom every thing ; 
 
 And, wanting that humility of soul 
 
 Which knows how nothing man is of himself, 
 
 With overweening pride I laughed to scorn 
 
 Doctrines which shrunk my wisdom into nought : 
 
 Yea — spurned what now I feel was sent from heaven ; — 
 
 Spurned it — because I hated humbleness. 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 But that is past, and better is behind — 
 
 Since now, at length, your heart accepts the truth, 
 
 And feels 'twas sent from heaven, 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 It does ; and yet. 
 Father, for almost five and thirty years. 
 
 -lioc est 
 
 Viverc liis, vit/l jjosse prif)re frui. — Martial.
 
 I7(i POEMS 
 
 Since I knew reason first, my heart hath been 
 Harden'd in pride : the pride that harden'd me 
 Made sport of crime — and now 'tis terrible 
 To think — weak as I am — thought maddens me. 
 What ruined angels once, thus ruined me — 
 Pride that at first unlocked the doors of hell — 
 Pride was the syren song which lured me on. 
 And drew me to my fate. When Satan fell — 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 Fond man, forbear ; there 's folly in the heart 
 Which loves to dally with a thought like this, 
 Giving it breath because it is eloquent. 
 Last night I warned you — prithee, then, forbear. 
 
 , ALBERT. 
 
 Nay, let me speak : a dying man tells truth ; 
 
 And the few hours before 1 pass away 
 
 To the dark silent grave, I fain would make — 
 
 But what avails it now ? I say again. 
 
 To such a pitch of reasoning pride I soared. 
 
 In impious scoffs at wisdom infinite. 
 
 That had it been my fate to dwell in heaven 
 
 What time those spirits fell — there had I striven 
 
 Among the ranks of darkened Seraphim 
 
 To be what ever I have been on earth.
 
 POEMS. 177 
 
 Not second, but the first in liaughtiness. 
 
 O, I could tell a tale ; — and yet I will not 
 
 Do your meek faith that violence— but this 
 
 I '11 speak— and, as I speak it, tremble 
 
 To think 1 speak but truth— that had it been 
 
 Ev'n as I said, my fate to dwell in heaven 
 
 What time those spirits fell, there had I striven 
 
 First in the ranks of darkened Seraphim : 
 
 Not Lucifer, but I had led them on. 
 
 And Albert clean o'ertopped the Prince of those 
 
 Who sought to shake The Highest on his throne ! — 
 
 And now — what am I ? — lost, for ever lost 
 
 Unless He pardon — whom I dare not name. 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 You " dare not name"— there 's comfort in that fear. 
 To feel the want of help— and, feeling that. 
 To know ourselves unworthy utterly 
 
 Save for the sake of One trust me, such fear 
 
 Partakes the nature of a blessed hope. 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 Ah ! reverend man, you bear your faculties 
 So meekly that you cannot choose but comfort : 
 Not like too many of your holy calling, 
 Who throw a gulf impassable between 
 
 N
 
 178 POEMS. 
 
 Wretches like me and heaven — a fearful gulf — 
 
 A dreadful gulf— the gulf of destiny ; 
 
 Which not to credit seems impossible, 
 
 Yet to believe is to surrender hope — 
 
 And with that loss of hope to shift the charge 
 
 Of vice from ofF ourselves, yet still to feel 
 
 A whirl of vague conjectures — till the mind, 
 
 Unequal to resolve its questionings 
 
 Of power that seems both weak and infinite, 
 
 Is lost within a labyrinthine maze 
 
 And takes its last blank refuge in despair. 
 
 Omnipotence urging a puny war 
 
 With creatures of its will !— foredooming all, 
 
 And yet not all to good !— Omnipotence 
 
 Submitting to be thwarted by weak man ! 
 
 Omnipotence — and yet allowing ill ! 
 
 Partial Omnipotence ! 'tis that astounds 
 
 The faculties ; so did it mine for years. 
 
 I thought— and thought — and thought it o'er and o'er 
 
 Thought drove out thought unsatisfied, until 
 
 A cold, uninterested, cheerless doubt 
 
 Benumbed the senses into apathy 
 
 And utter recklessness of every thing. — 
 
 And this the close — it can't be, yet it must !
 
 I'OEMS. 179 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 And who may fathom it ? Reason hath bounds ; — 
 
 And surelier might we think with human strength 
 
 To do a giant's work — better aspire 
 
 To grasp the farthest stars — likeUer expect 
 
 Success in tasking our dull limited sight 
 
 To pierce beyond its ken, than build our hope 
 
 On Reason's finding out what 's Infinite. 
 
 It is enough to know that Evil is — 
 
 Our inmost hearts bear witness to that truth — 
 
 But ■wherefore 'tis not ours to understand, 
 
 Till the Unerring vindicates Himself. 
 
 My son, 'tis dangerous in man to meddle 
 
 With such high subjects as that evil thrives 
 
 Against foreknowing Power, or why that Power 
 
 Permits distinction ; yet the messengers 
 
 (^f Truth are charged to give it utterance. 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 Then prithee speak of it ; methinks, from you 
 It might come softened. I am humbled now — 
 Nor would I cope in wordy argument 
 With purer knowledge : speak of it, I pray; 
 It may be comfort to my passing soul. 
 
 N 2
 
 180 POEMS. 
 
 MULLEU. 
 
 Man's duty and the purposes of heaven 
 
 Are each from each distinct : one is all plain ; 
 
 The other is for faith, not fathoming. 
 
 It cannot be, my son, it cannot be 
 
 But that in God's all-knowledge we are born 
 
 Each with a changeless lot, and yet with wills 
 
 Acting in ways past human finding out, 
 
 Free to discriminate what 's right— what 's wrong : 
 
 How otherwise could judgment e'er be just; 
 
 Since virtue were not virtue, vice not vice, 
 
 If but the effects of fixed necessity. 
 
 The rock that 's oftenest split upon is this — 
 
 That man, with his proud mind, would rather be 
 
 Shocked and confounded into faithlessness 
 
 Than, what were fittest— own humility. 
 
 We set an idol up, and call it Thought, 
 
 Which our fond notions fancy limitless. 
 
 Only because, not being limitless. 
 
 It fails to judge beyond its pigmy range. 
 
 Must every thing that seems impossible 
 
 Be therefore so ? 'Tis better to believe 
 
 That divine purpose and contingency 
 
 Are not irreconcilable, than feel
 
 i'OLMS. ISl 
 
 Obdurate in what derogates from God. 
 
 We trust in error as a perfect guide ; 
 
 We make our folly wisdom's measurement, 
 
 And calculate eternity by time. 
 
 The child to whom all things seem wonderful 
 
 Dreams not that years will make the wonders cease. 
 
 Then why not so in what relates to time ? — 
 
 Time is the childhood of Eternity. 
 
 But, for this doctrine which you touched upon 
 
 As others ficive done — take thus much from me — 
 
 The humbly righteous cannot but be safe.- 
 
 And trust me, son, 'tis pregnant with most sweet 
 
 Comfort to holiness — its firmest prop : — 
 Ev'n thus. — I deem the Great Omniscient 
 Predestines all things ; — therefore, lu obey 
 Must also be one link of many links 
 In the vast chain of never-changed decrees ; 
 And virtue, flowing from his love, the test. 
 The evidence of trust within ourselves. 
 When our predestination is for heaven. 
 
 ALBEUT. 
 
 Alas! then, wlicre am i, who ne'er could feel 
 Such evidence of love — such holy trust ?
 
 182 POEMS. 
 
 • « 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 It were presumptuous to limit mercy — 
 
 Presumptuous to say 't is not for thee. 
 
 O, 'twere presumption to the very height 
 
 To measure mercy by our earthly span 
 
 Of minutes, hours, years, or centuries — 
 
 For who may say, that Being in whose sight 
 
 Ten thousand ages are as yesterday. 
 
 May not, within the everlasting scope 
 
 Of His eternal Eye, read graciously, 
 
 In one brief moment of sincerity. 
 
 What might be from what is. All is a gift — 
 
 Not less to those who toil throughout the day. 
 
 Than for the labourer of the eleventh hour. 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 Ah, father — 't is the midnight hour with me * — 
 
 An hour of darkness past the hours of work. 
 
 I know it, and I speak it — yet can feel 
 
 Only that I Ve a soul insensible 
 
 To aught but bare acknowledgment : dark words 
 
 Just frown as they pass by— they pierce it not — 
 
 " I am aware of the different mode of reckoning the hours by 
 us now and by the Jews of old, but was unwilling to lose the 
 allusion to our midnight hour as next to the eleventh. The 
 eleventh hour was the same as our five in the afternoon.
 
 POEMS. 183 
 
 And yet I marvel not that truth should find 
 A heart, so long impenetrable, — tougli. 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 Be comforted, my son : — 1 have marked well 
 For many days, since sickness fell upon thee, 
 The workings of your soul ; and now I dare, 
 In all the humbleness of one entrusted 
 To bear good tidings, whisper peace to thee : — 
 For many days I 've marked in many tears 
 That fell upon that Book beneath your pillow. 
 More gratefulness than terror, when the page 
 Told how the King of Israel, when he fell 
 And felt the depth of sin, was raised again — 
 That showed the Prodigal in his new robes 
 Of righteousness — that spoke of Mary's fault 
 And its forgiveness — that offered pardon 
 To chief of sinners — 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 I am the chief 
 Of all that ever sinned. 
 
 MULLER. 
 
 All men are guilty. 
 The purest man that lives, or ever lived 
 Simply as man, like thee rccjuires pardon —
 
 184 POEMSr. 
 
 Or else what needed such a sacrifice 
 As His who made atonement for mankind ? 
 O, think of that, my son, — and above all 
 Remember — He who made that sacrifice 
 Had love enough to make that sacrifice ! — 
 Is there no comfort in a thought of love 
 Which surely could not lightly hold a race 
 Deemed not unworthy of so vast a price ? 
 Son, there 's no peril that can equal his 
 Who sinks his soul in terrors that absorb 
 The hope of that great record " God is Love/' 
 'Tis perilous beyond all else to hold 
 Notions unworthy of the Deity. 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 But they are passed away : I hold not such, 
 
 I am content to think that such things are 
 
 Beyond our scrutiny — to yield my thought 
 
 That I could paint a heaven of mine own 
 
 Fairer than that is taught us — it is gone ; 
 
 And I am numbered with the humble ones 
 
 Who wait, unquestioning, the day to come. 
 
 Bear with me — yes, you will, you do. Perchance 
 
 'Twas foolish thus in my extremity 
 
 To start a school-ponit. What is it to me ?
 
 POEMS. 185 
 
 Destiny — destiny — what is 't to me ? 
 For not the dread of pain — body, or soul, or both— 
 The worst of what may come, wrings me with half 
 The pangs which rankle here. Love— love despised — 
 Makes all my weight of grief. If I have wept, — 
 If I have groaned, — no craven fear did prompt 
 The tear, the utterance; — but that love so great 
 As that your charity hath taught my heart — 
 That love so vast has been rejected, — scorned. 
 Oh, if such grief, mixed with one fluttering thought 
 
 Which lights even now, be penitence Speak to me, 
 
 Speak — 'tis gone — and 'twas a vision — gone. 
 
 MULLEK. 
 
 Alas ! he changes fast : that look — that look — 
 I know it well ; 'tis death. Peace to his soul ! 
 Ah ! he revives ! — Look up, my son, look up ! 
 
 ALBERT. 
 
 Where am I ? methought, strange voices — no, no ! 
 
 'Twas that kind voice : oh ! many thanks. Tluit pang 
 
 Was deep indeed — 'tis past, and now all 's rest — 
 
 Quiet, cold quiet ; the last dreadful pang 
 
 Hath left me easy : with the body's pain, 
 
 Clouds move from off my heart. I see it now, 
 
 A ray shines through the gloom of night — ev'n now 
 
 The light breaks in upon my soul — 'tis like. 
 
 Day newly risen : love and truth arc met —
 
 186 POEMS. 
 
 And mercy— here— here. O, my kind pastor, 
 
 Come nearer — nearer still. My senses fail ; 
 
 I feel that I am going where ? Father 
 
 Of Mercy, into thy hands 
 
 Be near me still- 
 
 Speak to me, venerable man. -I see 
 
 Thee not : speak to me 
 
 Whisper— still whisper in my dying ear 
 The name of Him who died — yes, died for me 
 In my last moment, whisper but that name. 
 And 'twill be peace • 
 
 MULliER. 
 
 He 's parting now. 
 
 I '11 do his bidding, so that blessed name 
 May mix itself with his expiring breath — 
 
 — He 's gone, and gone in peace. 
 
 * 
 
 If this dialogue had been altogether imaginary, the argu- 
 nients on both sides would have taken a wider range: as it is, the 
 subject is confined to the limits which belonged to the circum- 
 stances from which it took its rise.
 
 POEMS. 187 
 
 A PROPHECY. 
 
 'Tis coming: now ! it rises on the 
 
 '» 
 
 eye 
 
 Which Poesy puts on of Prophecy — 
 
 The time is terribly approaching, when 
 
 On earth its reign — Diabolism's reign 
 
 Shall be resumed ! — Abhorred hour, ' 
 
 By whose swart lamp methinks 1 see 
 
 The fiend, in all his potency, 
 
 Shaking the sceptre of his power 
 
 Over a blinded world. His dreadful robe 
 
 Of sovereignty shall overshade the globe 
 
 With thrice Cimmerian gloom — which for a while 
 
 Fool man shall love like light, hailing it with a smile. 
 
 But lo, the beam of the poet's eye 
 
 Rests with a brighter propnecy 
 
 On the not then far future — for even now 
 
 The seeds are sown of promise that shall grow 
 
 Anon to ripeness — yea, a glorious ray, 
 
 Cloud-covered now, shall brighten into day.
 
 188 POEMS. 
 
 Hope looks through darkness — for the shroud of night, 
 
 When stars are gone, 
 
 And the moon is down, 
 
 Is blackest just before the morning's light. 
 
 Ho— every near and distant laud — 
 
 A crisis is at hand ! 
 
 And the day will come — 
 
 The day of Evil's doom ; 
 
 When, with its dark security high-blown, 
 
 The baleful Power shall mount its transient throne, — 
 
 Just to be briefly seen, and felt, and cursed, and gone! 
 
 Of its own fulness shall the Evil die ; 
 Its own infernal fulness shall o'erbloat 
 Its vileness ev'n to bursting ;* and the eye 
 Of man, shut up so long, shall lose the mote 
 When the consummate glare of banefulness 
 Shall force the senseless orb to vision. — Yes, 
 
 " To those who are in the habit of marking the signs of the 
 times, evil principle never perhaps appeared with so threatening ' 
 an aspect as it does in the present day. It seems, in spite of 
 the good which is actively stirring, as if it would rapidly attain 
 that height above which it cannot go, aiid where therefore to 
 move at all must be to fall. Like a bubble of foul smoke, whose 
 inward filth imparts its colour to the surface, it takes the un-
 
 roi MS. 189 
 
 A crisis is at hand : 
 
 The deeds a-doing now shall show the world 
 
 That dreadful spirit, deep fathoms down «7Ahurled 
 
 From its fell domination — there to lie 
 
 A suicidal scarecrow to impiety, 
 
 Never to rise again — oh ! never, never ! 
 
 Beautiful moment ! this the long vexed earth 
 
 Shall see at length — moment of heavenly birth, 
 
 When Virtue, robed in loveliness again, 
 
 With shouts of triumph shall resume her reign ; 
 
 When grateful man, the victim then no more 
 
 Of devilish phantasy, 
 
 Shall strive not how " to question, but adore ;" 
 
 And all the meek in all the earth shall be 
 
 Held with a band of love which nought can sever. 
 
 And radiant Truth shine forth forever and forever! 
 
 wary eye by a smooth and glossy outside. As it distends, how- 
 ever, the film, growing thiimer and thinner, betrays the impurity 
 within : — by and by it will liurst only to stink in the nostrils 
 of those who have been deceived by its speciousness. I will not 
 mention by name those instruments of evil which abound in our 
 times — this allusion being direct enough for all to whom it need 
 be intelligible.
 
 190 POEMS. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 TO , A YOUNG AVIDOW, MOURNING AMID 
 
 ACCUMULATED AFFLICTIONS WITH A BEAUTIFUL 
 RESIGNATION. 
 
 More sweet than health's fresh bloom the wan hue seemed 
 That sat upon her cheek. »Irs. Tighe's Psyche. 
 
 The storm hath been with thee, thou desolate one ! 
 
 We saw the murky clouds of sorrow lower, 
 
 And the best brightness of the happiest hour 
 
 That ever sparkled in life's orient sun 
 
 Quenched in thy heart, thou sweet and desolate one ! 
 
 Yet mid the crush of joys new-found and dearest — 
 
 The wreck of kindred love to thee the nearest — 
 
 No sigh but tempered with " Thy will be done," 
 
 Spake, mid the woes with which thy breast was riven, 
 
 Aught but the gentlest confidence in heaven ; — 
 
 And though thy share in sad humanity 
 
 Taught thee to feel affliction like a rod, 
 
 'Twas lovely in thy deepest misery 
 
 To see thee meekly bend and own the hand of God !
 
 I'OEMS. 191 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Though from the fountain of thy bruised heart 
 A silent tear will steal, it leaves no stain 
 Along the patient cheek : there is no vain 
 Loud utterance, which oft-times plays a part 
 In mourning's pomp of woe — without the smart: 
 And but for that pale face o'er which are thrown 
 Thy many sorrows darkened into one 
 Deep thought of what thou wert— and what thou art,- 
 The world — yea even the few who know thee best- 
 Might deem thee, if not happy, yet at rest- 
 So touched by Heaven, that mid thy bosom's blight, 
 In all thy sweet and sorrowing loveliness, 
 To all around thee thou art as a light 
 Shedding abroad the rays of happiness.
 
 19S POEMS. 
 
 LOVE'S LANGUAGE. 
 
 DOUBLE SONNET. 
 
 I. 
 
 Words oft-times, in their pomp of language, do 
 
 But clog the incense of the offered heart : 
 
 Yea some, like scenic actors, play a part 
 
 In showy unreality — some too 
 
 Can syllable affection forth as true, 
 
 Though but mere semblance ; and full oft a token, 
 
 Shaped like an honest oath, first made, then broken. 
 
 May cheat, and cheat, yet please us till we rue 
 
 Our foolish faithful trustiness, and find 
 
 Such oath (Jove's laughter) was not made to bind. 
 
 I would not garner up this heart of mine 
 
 There where, forsooth, lip-love must say " I 'm thine ;" 
 
 But rather read in sweet affection's book 
 
 That silent language of a trusting look.
 
 POE.MS. 
 
 193 
 
 II. 
 
 True love hath wordless language aJl its own, 
 
 Heard in the heart ; — and yet there 's eloquence 
 
 Beyond their meaning — yea, a thrilling sense 
 
 Oft-times in words, — when a kind voice hath grown 
 
 (By sweet thoughts fed) into a tremulous tone 
 
 Of dear emotion, which may haply seem 
 
 To others nothing — and yet shed a gleam 
 
 Along an anxious heart — for then alone 
 
 That under-breathe'd, affection-touched power 
 
 Out-thrills a thousand doubts. O, peerless hour — 
 
 When, from one word thus uttered falteringly. 
 
 Within the heart there springs up suddenly 
 
 A feeling far from earthly things removed — 
 
 The first young feeling that we are not all ?/7j-loved. —
 
 194 POEMS. 
 
 HOLY AGE. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 How beautiful is virtuous old age, 
 
 When every feeling, every thought 's imbued 
 
 With what makes all seem heavenlier. — 'Tis good, 
 
 Good to the soul, — and medicine fit to assuasre 
 
 The sharpest ills of life, to hear a page 
 
 Read from the Book of Books, by one whose still 
 
 Assured voice turns all to oracle.— 
 
 Yes, there 's a virtuous and gracious age, 
 
 (Such as full well I know,) whose words we hear 
 
 And feel them benisons — whose every prayer. 
 
 Poured from a trusting heart, seems to have caught 
 
 Its tone from heaven, which hallows it to less 
 
 A dubious hope of what 'tis heard to express 
 
 Than consummation of the good that 's sought ! —
 
 POiiiMS. 195 
 
 THE LAST HOPE. 
 
 SOKNET, 
 
 (written under a sense of utter misfortune. J 
 
 Well, it is past — and I have had my dream 
 Of happiness, like many another son 
 Of frail mortality — and now 'tis gone ! — 
 Its joys and splendour were but as a beam 
 Of the sun's brightness on yx)n dancing stream, 
 The which a cloud now shadows into gloom. 
 But t/iis no passing veil : — my earthly doom 
 Is darkness, — all around the heavens seem 
 To have clothed their arc, ev'n to the farthest ken 
 Of jjiy horizon, with one sunless cloud — 
 No ray shall break to cheer this heart again 
 Through all the woes with whicli it must be riven — 
 No hope is left save one — that Mercy's God 
 May pour his blessed balm to heal its wounds in 
 heaven. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 MAN AND THE SEASONS.* 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 In verdant Spring, the breeze which gently blew 
 Woke in the heart blithe echoes as it passed — 
 Young Hope's fond flatteries, whispering all would 
 
 last ; — 
 But winged with pleasures, fresh, and fair, and new, 
 And bright, and lovely,— oh, how spring-time flew ! 
 Then, like full manhood bursting from a boy, 
 Summer shone out, — so rife in flowery joy. 
 That scarce the bosom owned, what well it knew, 
 How soon pale Autumn,^ like a dying friend. 
 Engendering solemn thoughts of life's decay, 
 Would come, and withering — withering day by day — 
 
 Bring dark December on and lo, the end ! — 
 
 Leafless, and fruitless, the year's pride is gone — 
 And wintry man looks round — and finds himself alone! 
 
 * This sonnet appears in the Literary Souvenir for the present 
 year. 
 
 1
 
 197 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Farewell ! — a word that must l)e, and liatli been — 
 A sound which makes us linger — yet — farewell ! 
 
 Childe Harot.d. 
 
 The book is closed— and seeing that it is 
 
 Wrought out of many contrarieties, 
 
 Haply some wise, consistent souls may sneer 
 
 And cry — " Why, what a mixture 's lent us here !" 
 
 Yet he that wrote it need not be at issue 
 
 With them and their opinions, — 'tis a tissue 
 
 Where bright and dark together seem at strife, 
 
 And bears a near resemblance to liis life. 
 
 Let those objectors pass — each one may have 
 
 Unquestioned, his own taste for gay or grave : — 
 
 The author's parting word is meant for such 
 
 As (when his name creeps out) may marvel much 
 
 How one whose common show is mirth and gladness 
 
 Hath in his strains so many chords of sadness.
 
 198 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Few know him well — still fewer know him all. 
 There are who mark in him the boisterous glee 
 Of a most dominant mirth, which ne'er can fall 
 Away, while food is left for revelry. 
 
 His common friends, the world, take him on trust, 
 Ev'n as he stands among them — there he 's found 
 One of a million — something — nothing — just 
 As custom rules it in her various round. 
 
 And they who see him merely as he forms 
 
 Part of the social circle, well may deem 
 
 His bosom all-unvisited by storms 
 
 Which darken round the heart : — they only dream. 
 
 For there are feelings none can penetrate, 
 Lying far deeper than his outward guise — 
 Thoughts of himself, not others, — that best sate 
 Themselves in nooks remotest from men's eyes. 
 
 And though at times his lonely hours exhibit 
 Much that sets marks upon his opener mood, 
 Much that the world sees of his out-door spirit, 
 None but himself knows all his solitude.
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 199 
 
 There oft the inly girding of sad thought 
 Strives to o'ermaster with a curbing sense 
 His spirit of natural joy, till it is taught 
 At times to bend before its influence. 
 
 p 
 
 Best so, perchance,— else the blithe hours might run 
 In all-too-smooth a current of heart's glee, 
 And th' unvexed mind, because it wanted none, 
 Would make no springing efforts to be free. 
 
 'Tis quick vicissitude — 'tis want of rest — 
 
 'Tis thought expelling thought from which we find 
 
 The soul of feeling in its sharpest zest, 
 
 And all the elasticity of mind. 
 
 Enough of this : — yet ere that vioxiii farewell 
 
 Be spoken, for a brief space let liini dwell 
 
 On this his heart's unconscious solacer, 
 
 His book,— which still hath had the power to cheer 
 
 Some vacant moments, making pleasantly 
 
 His veriest solitude — society. 
 
 Not with its close may such a solace end, 
 
 And yet he parts with it as with a friend 
 
 Tliat flattered not, -bidding him st.ind ronfest
 
 200 CONCLUSION. 
 
 To his own heart — in his own trappings drest, — 
 
 Better than worst opinion — worse than best. 
 
 It bears his stamp ; who cons it o'er will find 
 
 Little but takes some colour from his mind ; — 
 
 Its faults and virtues— great and small — the same — 
 
 With something to commend — though much to blame. 
 
 Farewell, at length ! and if to meet again 
 
 Some not far future hour, perchance ere then 
 
 He may have taught his harp to pour a loftier strain. 
 
 TilE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY S. AND R. BENTLEY, DORSET STREET.
 
 LATELY PUBLISHED, 
 
 By the same Author, 
 C A S W A L L O N, 
 
 KING OF BRITAIN ; 
 A TRAGEUy. 
 
 Where be the temples which in Britain's isle 
 For his paternal gods the Trojan raised ? 
 Gone like a morning dream, or like a pile 
 Of clouds that in cerulean ether blazed ! 
 
 Wordsivorth. 
 
 AND 
 
 LORENZO, 
 
 THE' OUTCAST SON; 
 A TRAGIC DRAMA, 
 
 Fomided on ScMller^s Robbers. 
 
 And there are hues not always faded. 
 Which speak a mind not all degraded 
 E'en by the crimes through which it waded. 
 
 Giaour.
 
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