She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love, and virgin shame; And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stept aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'dThen suddenly, win timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

She half inclosed me with her arms,
She press'd me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look'd up,
And gazed upon my face.

"Twas partly Love, and partly Fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE,

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE.

A SOLILOQUY.

UNCHANGED within to see all changed without,
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' warnings shouldst thou fret?
Then only mightst thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou mayest--shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light
Return thy radiance or absorb it quite;
And though thou notest from thy safe recess

Old Friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are: nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

PHANTOM OR FACT?

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.

AUTHOR.

A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed,
And such a feeding calm its presence shed,
A tender love so pure from earthly leaven
That I unnethe the fancy might control,
"T was my own spirit newly come from heaven
Wooing its gentle way into my soul !

But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet-
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing Look!
"T was all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew it was the same!

FRIEND.

This riddling tale, to what does it belong? Is't history? vision? or an idle song?

Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR.

Call it a moment's work (and such it seems), This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams; But say, that years matured the silent strife, And 'tis a record from the dream of Life.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827.

ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair--
The bees are stirring-Birds are on the wing-
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.

YOUTH AND AGE.

VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee-
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!
When I was young?-Ah, woful when!
Ah for the change 'twixt now and then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands,
How lightly then it flash'd along:-
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like,
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet,
"Tis known, that thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on.
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this alter'd size:

223

But springtide blossoms on thy lips,

And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That youth and I are house-mates still.

What outward form and feature are

He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.

A DAY DREAM.

My eyes make pictures, when they are shut:-
I see a fountain, large and fair,

A willow and a ruin'd hut,

And thee, and me, and Mary there. O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow!

Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow!

A wild-rose roofs the ruin'd shed,
And that and summer well agree:
And lo! where Mary leans her head,

Two dear names carved upon the tree!
And Mary's tears, they are not tears of sorrow:
Our sister and our friend will both be here to-morrow.

"T was day! But now few, large, and bright, The stars are round the crescent moon! And now it is a dark warm night,

The balmiest of the month of June!

A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain.

O ever-ever be thou blest!

For dearly, Asra! love I thee! This brooding warmth across my breast, This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me! Fount, tree and shed are gone, I know not whither, But in one quiet room we three are still together.

The shadows dance upon the wall,

By the still dancing fire-flames made;
And now they slumber, moveless all!

And now they melt to one deep shade!
But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee:
I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel

thee!

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play-
"Tis Mary's hand upon my brow!
But let me check this tender lay,

Which none may hear but she and thou! Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming, Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS.

OB. ANNO DOM. 1088.

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope,
Soon shall I now before my God appear,
By him to be acquitted, as I hope;
By him to be condemned, as I fear,

REFLECTIONS ON THE ABOVE.

Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed,
Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said.
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.
All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What though dread of threaten'd
death

And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath
Inconstant to the truth within thy heart?

That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,

Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:

And myriads had reach'd Heaven, who never knew
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye who, secure 'mid trophies not your own,
Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
And proudly talk of recreant BERENGARE-
O first the age, and then the man compare!
That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn'
No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
He only disenchanted from the spell,
Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:
And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending Day-star with a bolder eye
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, will we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid DAWN!
Lest so we tempt th' approaching Noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapors of our MORN.

TO A LADY,

THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS

HAVE NO SOULS.

NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave?
I said, you had no soul, 'tis true!

For what you are you cannot have:

"Tis I, that have one since I first had you!

I HAVE heard of reasons manifold Why Love must needs be blind, But this the best of all I holdHis eyes are in his mind

A-walking the DEVIL is gone,

To visit his little snug farm of the earth,

And see how his stock went on.

Over the hill and over the dale,

And he went over the plain,

And backwards and forwards he swish'd his long tail As a gentleman swishes his cane.

And how then was the Devil drest?

Oh! he was in his Sunday's best:

His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,

And there was a hole where the tail came through

He saw a LAWYER killing a Viper

On a dung-heap beside his stable,

And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel.

A POTHECARY on a white horse

Rode by on his vocations,

And the Devil thought of his old Friend DEATH in the Revelations.

He saw a cottage with a double coach-house,
A cottage of gentility!

And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.

He went into a rich bookseller's shop, Quoth he! we are both of one college; For I myself sate like a cormorant once Fast by the tree of knowledge.*

Down the river there plied with wind and tide,
A pig, with vast celerity;

And the Devil look'd wise as he saw how the while,
It cut its own throat. There! quoth he, with a smile,
Goes "England's commercial prosperity."

As he went through Cold-Bath Fields, he saw
A solitary cell,

And the Devil was pleased, for it gave him a hint
For improving his prisons in Hell.

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT.
SINCE all, that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish, why shouldst thou remain
The only constant in a world of change-
O yearning THOUGHT, that livest but in the brain?
Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play,
The fairy people of the future day-

Fond THOUGHT! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,
Still, still as though some dear embodied good,
Some living love before my eyes there stood,
With answering look a ready ear to lend,

I mourn to thee and say-" Ah! loveliest friend!
That this the meed of all my toils might be,
To have a home, an English home and thee!
Vain repetition! Home and thou art one.
The peacefull'st cot the moon shall shine upon,
Lull'd by the thrush and waken'd by the lark,
Without thee were but a becalmed Bark,

Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
An imaget with a glory round its head;
The enamour'd rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows, he makes the shadow he pursues!

So clomb this first grand thief

Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life
Sat like a cormorant.-Par. Lost, IV.

The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "Life" Cod. quid habent, Trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called, Kar' oxny, may be regarded as Life sansu eminentiori: a suggestion, which I owe to a young retailer in the hosiery line, who on hearing a description of the net profits, dinner parties, country houses, etc. of the trade, exclaimed, "Ay! that's what I call Life now!"-This "Life, our Death," is thus happily contrasted with the fruits of Authorship.-Sic nos non nobis mellificamus Apes.

Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stanzas, which are worth all the rest, and the ninth, were dictated by Mr. Southey. Between the ninth and the concluding stanza, two or three are omitted as grounded on subjects that have lost their interest-and for better reasons.

If any one should ask, who General meant, the Author begs leave to inform him, that he did once see a red-faced person in a dream whom by the dress he took for a General; but

THE SUICIDE'S ARGUMENT.

ERE the birth of my life, if I wish'd it or no
No question was ask'd me--it could not be so!
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try,
And to live on be YES; what can No be? to die.

NATURE'S ANSWER.

Is 't return'd as 't was sent? Is 't no worse for the wear? Think first, what you ARE! Call to mind what you

WERE!

I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope.
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?
Make out the Invent'ry; inspect, compare!
Then die-if die
you dare!

he might have been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names mentioned. In simple verity, the Author never meant any one, or indeed any thing but to put a concluding stanza to his doggerel.

†This phenomenon, which the Author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively in the following passage of the Aids to Reflection:

"Pindar's fine remark respecting the different effects of music on different characters, holds equally true of Genius: as many The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre."-Aids to Reflection, p. 20

In every heart (quoth he) since Adam's sin,
Two Founts there are, of suffering and of cheer!
That to let forth, and this to keep within!
But she, whose aspect I find imaged here,

Of Pleasure only will to all dispense,
That Fount alone unlock'd, by no distress
Choked or turn'd inward, but still issue thence
Unconquer'd cheer, persistent loveliness.

As on the driving cloud the shiny Bow,

That gracious thing made up of tears and light, 'Mid the wild rack and rain that slants below Stands smiling forth, unmoved and freshly bright:

As though the spirits of all lovely flowers, Inweaving each its wreath and dewy crown, Or ere they sank to earth in vernal showers, Had built a bridge to tempt the angels down.

Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine,
On that benignant face, whose look alone

Her father's love she bade me gain;

I went and shook like any reed!

I strove to act the man-in vain!

We had exchanged our hearts indeed.

SONNET,

COMPOSED BY THE SEASIDE, OCTOBER 1817.

OH! it is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,
To make the shifting clouds be what you please;
Or yield the easily persuaded eyes

To each quaint image issuing from the mould
Of a friend's fancy; or with head bent low,
And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold
"Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go

Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own.

A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing,
But with a silent charm compels the stern
And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring
To shrink aback, and cower upon his urn.

Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found
In passion, spleen, or strife) the FOUNT OF PAIN
O'erflowing beats against its lovely mound,
And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain?

Sleep, and the Dwarf with that unsteady gleam
On his raised lip, that aped a critic smile,
Had pass'd yet I, my sad thoughts to beguile,
Lay weaving on the tissue of my dream:

Till audibly at length I cried, as though
Thou hadst indeed been present to my eyes,
O sweet, sweet sufferer! if the case be so,
I pray thee, be less good, less sweet, less wise!

In every look a barbed arrow send,
On these soft lips let scorn and anger live!
Do any thing, rather than thus, sweet friend!
Hoard for thyself the pain thou wilt not give!

WHAT IS LIFE?

RESEMBLES life what once was held of light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute self? an element ungrounded?
All that we see, all colors of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?

Is very life by consciousness unbounded?

And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath, A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?

Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand,
By those deep sounds possess'd, with inward light
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea!

THE EXCHANGE.

WE pledged our hearts, my love and I,

I in my arms the maiden clasping;

I could not tell the reason why,
But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.