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in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them?

3.

Hope, Imagination, honourable Aims,
Free Commune with the choir that cannot die,
Science and Song, delight in little things,
The buoyant child surviving in the man,
Fields, forests, ancient mountains, ocean, sky,
With all their voices mute-O dare I accuse
My earthly lot as guilty of my spleen,
Or call my niggard destiny! No! no!
It is her largeness, and her overflow,
Which being incomplete, disquieteth me so !

4.

For never touch of gladness stirs my heart,
But tim'rously beginning to rejoice
Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start
In lonesome tent, I listen for thy voice.
Beloved! 'tis not thine; thou art not there!
Then melts the bubble into idle air,

And wishing without hope I restlessly despair.

5

The mother with anticipated glee

Smiles o'er the child, that standing by her chair

And flatt'ning its round cheek upon her knee
Looks up, and doth its rosy lips prepare

To mock the coming sounds. At that sweet sight
She hears her own voice with a new delight;

And if the babe perchance should lisp the notes

aright,

6

Then is she tenfold gladder than before!
But should disease or chance the darling take,

What then avails those songs, which sweet of yore

Were only sweet for their sweet echo's sake ?
Dear maid! no prattler at a mother's knee
Was e'er so dearly prized as I prize thee :
Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?

FANCY IN NUBIBUS,

OR THE POET IN THE CLOUDS.

O! 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 let the easily persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness 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 From mount to mount through CLOUDLAND, gor

geous land!

Or list'ning to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard, who on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light Beheld the ILIAD and the ODYSSEE

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

THE TWO FOUNTS.

STANZAS ADDRESSED TO A LADY ON HER RECOVERY WITH

UNBLEMISHED LOOKS, FROM A SEVERE

ATTACK OF PAIN.

'Twas my last waking thought, how it could be,

That thou, sweet friend, such anguish should'st

endure :

When straight from Dreamland came a Dwarf, and he Could tell the cause, forsooth, and knew the cure.

Methought he fronted me with peering look
Fix'd on my heart; and read aloud in game
The loves and griefs therein, as from a book;
And uttered praise like one who wished to blame.

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, by no distress
Choked or turned inward; but still issue thence
Unconquered 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.

Ev'n so, Eliza! on that face of thine,
On that benignant face, whose look alone
('The soul's translucence through her chrystal shrine!)
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.

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