STANZAS.-APRIL, 1814.

AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even :
'Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights

of heaven.

Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle

mood:

Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat

thy stay:

Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth ;

Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around

thine head:

The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy

feet:

But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead,

Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace may meet.

The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the

deep:

Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.

Thou in the grave shalt rest - yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear

to thee erewhile,

Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free

From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.

MUTABILITY.

WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon ;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.-One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep ;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same ! — For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow ;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER

THOU GOEST.

Ecclesiastes.

THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul

Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,

This world is the mother of all we feel,

And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel; When all that we know, or feel, or see,

Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

TO WORDSWORTH.

POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return :

Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel.

One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose Eight did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar :
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honored poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,—
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.