EDWARD COATES PINKNEY. 1802-1828. A HEALTH. I FILL this cup to one made up A woman, of her gentle sex And kindly stars have given Her every tone is music's own, Like those of morning birds, Affections are as thoughts to her, The image of themselves by turns, Of her bright face one glance will trace And of her voice in echoing hearts When death is nigh my latest sigh I fill this cup to one made up A woman, of her gentle sex The seeming paragon; Her health! and would on earth there stood Some more of such a frame, That life might be all poetry, And weariness a name. GEORGE DARLEY. 1785-1849. SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers, Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above; O that, in tears, from my rocky prison streaming, I, too, could glide to the bower of my love! Ah! where the woodbines, with sleepy arms, have wound her, Opes she eyelids at the dream of my lay, Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, To her lost mate's call in the forests far away! Come, then, my bird! for the peace thou ever bearest, Still heaven's messenger of comfort to me; Come! this fond bosom, my faithfullest, my fairest, 417 ALFRED TENNYSON. 1810. ["Poems." 1832.] LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. LADY Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown; At me you smiled, but unbeguiled Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name; Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake. A heart that dotes on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love, The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown, Since I beheld young Laurence dead. O your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed, I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. |