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 stepp'd aside, As conscious of my look she stepp'dThen suddenly, with timorous eye

She fled to me and wept.

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

'T was 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' wanings 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 mayst-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 't is a record from the dream of life.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827. ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lairThe bees are stirring-birds are on the wingAnd 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 aery 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,
"T is 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:

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.

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:

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:

thee!

Thine eyelash on my cheek doth play-
'T is 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!

TO A LADY, *

OFFENDED BY A SPORTIVE OBSERVATION THAT WOMEN

HAVE NO SOULS.

NAY, dearest Anna! why so grave?

I said, you had no soul, 't is 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 hold-
His
eyes are in his mind.

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 vapours of our MORN.

THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS.

FROM his brimstone bed at break of day
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.

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 changeO yearning THOUGHT, that livest but in the brain? Call to the HOURS, that in the distance play, The faery 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 are one. S 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, Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And all amid them stood the TREE OF LIFE
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold (query paper money?); and next to Life
Our Death, the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE, grew fast by.-

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 x may be regarded as LIFE sensu 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 melliticamus Apes.

Of this poem, with which the Fire, Famine and Slaughter first appeared in the Morning Post, the three first stan.as, 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 he might have

been mistaken, and most certainly he did not hear any names men. tioned. 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 as are not delighted by it are disturbed, perplexed, irritated. The beholder either recognizes it as a projected form of his own Being, that moves before him with a Glory round its head, or recoils from it as a spectre.-Aids to Reflection, p. 220.