[Miss not the occasion; by the forelock take That subtile Power, the never-halting Time, Lest a mere moment's putting off should make Mischance almost as heavy as a crime.] 'WAIT, prithee, wait!" this answer Lesbia threw

Forth to her Dove, and took no further heed. Her eye was busy, while her fingers flew Across the harp, with soul-engrossing speed; But from that bondage when her thoughts were freed

She rose, and toward the close-shut casement drew,

Whence the poor unregarded Favourite, true To old affections, had been heard to plead With flapping wing for entrance. What a shriek

Forced from that voice so lately tuned to a strain

Of harmony!-a shriek of terror, pain,
And self-reproach! for, from aloft, a Kite
Pounced, and the Dove, which from its ruth-
less beak

She could not rescue, perished in her sight!

XVI.

HE INFANT MM-.

UNQUIET Childhood here by special grace
Forgets her nature, opening like a flower
That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power
In painful struggles. Months each other chase,
And nought untunes that Infant's voice; no

trace

Of fretful temper sullies her pure cheek; Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek That one enrapt with gazing on her face (Which even the placid innocence of death Could scarcely make more placid, heaven more bright)

Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith, The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light; A nursling couched upon her mother's knee, Beneath some shady palm of Galilee.

XVII.

TO, IN HER SEVENTIETH YEAR. SUCH age how beautful! O Lady bright, Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind To something purer and more exquisite Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'st my sight,

When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek, Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white,

And head that droops because the soul is meek,
Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare:
That child of winter, prompting thoughts that
climb

From desolation toward the genial prime;
Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air,
And filling more and more with crystal light.
As pensive Evening deepens into night.

A GRAVE-STONE UPON THE FLOOR IN THE
CLOISTERS OF WORCESTER CATHEDRAL.
"MISERRIMUS!" and neither name nor date,
Prayer, text, or symbol, graven upon the stone;
Nought but that word assigned to the unknown,
That solitary word-to separate

Of him who lies beneath. Most wretched one,
From all, and cast a cloud around the fate
Who chose his epitaph?-Himself alone
Could thus have dared the grave to agitate,
And claim, among the dead, this awful crown,
Nor doubt that He marked also for his own.
Close to these cloistral steps a burial-place,
That every foot might fall with heavier tread,
Trampling upon his vileness. Stranger, pass
Softly!-To save the contrite, Jesus bled.

A TRADITION OF OKER HILL IN DARLEY DALE, DERBYSHIRE.

'Tis said that to the brow of yon fair hill
Two Brothers clomb, and, turning face from
face,

Nor one look more exchanging, grief to still
Or feed, each planted on that lofty place
A chosen Tree: then, eager to fulfil
Their courses, like two new-born rivers, they
In opposite directions urged their way
Down from the far-seen mount. No blast
might kill

Or blight that fond memorial;-the trees grew,
And now entwine their arms; but ne'er again
Embraced those. Brothers upon Earth's wide
plain;

Nor aught of mutual joy or sorrow knew
Until their spirits mingled in the sea
That to itself takes all, Eternity.

XXIII.

LIAL PIETY.

(ON THE WAYSIDE BETWEEN PRESTON AND LIVERPOOL.)

UNTOUCHED through all severity of cold;
Inviolate, whate'er the cottage hearth
Might need for comfort, or for festal mirth;
That Pile of Turf is half a century old:
Yes, Traveller! fifty winters have been told
Since suddenly the dart of death went forth
'Gainst him who raised it,-his last work on
earth:

Thence has it, with the Son, so strong a hold
Upon his Father's memory, that his hands,
Through reverence, touch it only to repair
Its waste. Though crumbling with each
breath of air,

In annual renovation thus it stands-
Rude Mausoleum! but wrens nestle there,
And red-breasts warble when sweet sounds are

Unrecognised through many a household tear More prompt, more glad, to fall than drops of dew

By morning shed around a flower half-blown ;
Tears of delight, that testified how true
To life thou art, and, in thy truth, how dear!

XXV.

WHY art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
of such weak fibre that the treacherous air

Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant ?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak-though this soft warm heart, once free
to hold

A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow
'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may
know!

XXVI.

TO B. R. HAYDON, ON SEEING HIS PICTURE OF
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE ON THE ISLAND OF
ST HELENA.

HAYDON! let worthier judges praise the skill
Here by thy pencil shown in truth of lines
And charm of colours; I applaud those signs
Of thought, that give the true poetic thrill ;
That unencumbered whole of blank and still,
Sky without cloud-ocean without a wave;
And the one Man that laboured to enslave
The World, sole-standing high on the bare hill-
Back turned, arms folded, the unapparent face
Tinged, we may fancy, in this dreary place
With light reflected from the invisible sun
Set, like his fortunes; but not set for aye
Like them. The unguilty Power pursues his

A POET! He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which Art hath lodged within his hand-must
laugh

By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff,
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its own divine vitality.

XXVIII.

THE most alluring clouds that mount the sky
Owe to a troubled element their forms,
Their hues to sunset. If with raptured eye
We watch their splendour, shall we covet storms,
And wish the Lord of day his slow decline
Would hasten, that such pomp may float on
high?

Behold, already they forget to shine,
Dissolve-and leave to him who gazed a sigh.
Not loth to thank each moment for its boon

Of pure delight, come whencesoe'er it may,
Peace let us seek, to stedfast things attune
Calm expectations: leaving to the gay
And volatile their love of transient bowers,
The house that cannot pass away be ours.

XXIX.

Who, yielding not to changes Time has made, By the habitual light of memory see

Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade, And smiles that from their birth-place ne'er shall flee

UPON THE FIELD OF WATERLOO, BY HAYDON.

By Art's bold privilege Warrior and War-horse stand

On ground yet strewn with their last battle s wreck;

Let the Steed glory while his Master's hand
Lies fixed for ages on his conscious neck;

But by the Chieftain's look, though at his side Hangs that day's treasured sword, how firm a check

Is given to triumph and all human pride!
Yon trophied Mound shrinks to a shadowy speck
In his calm presence! Him the mighty deed
Elates not, brought far nearer the grave's rest,
As shows that time-worn face, for he such seed
Has sown as yields, we trust, the fruit of fame
In Heaven; hence no one blushes for thy name,
Conqueror, mid some sad thoughts, divinely

blest!

eye,

Then, and then only, Painter! could thy Art
The visual powers of Nature satisfy,
Which hold, whate'er to common sight appears,
Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart.

XXXIII.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT. THOUGH I beheld at first with blank surprise This Work, I now have gazed on it so long I see its truth with unreluctant eyes; O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong, Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung, Ever too heedless, as I now perceive: Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, And the old day was welcome as the young, As welcome, and as beautiful-in sooth More beautiful, as being a thing more holy: Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth Of all thy goodness, never melancholy; To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast Into one vision, future, present, past.

XXXIV.

HARK! 'tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest,
Nor does that roaring wind deaden his strain
By twilight premature of cloud and rain;"
Who carols thinking of his Love and nest,
And seems, as more incited, still more blest.
Thanks; thou hast snapped a fire-side Prisoner's
chain,

Exulting Warbler! eased a fretted brain,
And in a moment charmed my cares to rest.
Yes, I will forth, bold Bird! and front the blast
That we may sing together, if thou wilt,

So loud, so clear, my Partner through life's day,
Mute in her nest love-chosen, if not love-built
Like thine, shall gladden, as in seasons past,
Thrilled by loose snatches of the social Lay.
Rydal Mount, 1838.

XXXV.

'TIS He whose yester-evening's high disdain
Beat back the roaring storm-but how subdued
His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!
Does the hour's drowsy weight his glee restrain?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein
Pleased to renounce, does this dear Thrush

attune

His voice to suit the temper of yon Moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy Sun! and let the Songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn
No longer) with what ecstasy upborne
He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true glad-

ness

Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

XXXVI.

OH what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech!

Yet-though dread Powers, that work in mystery, spin

Deep in the vale a little rural Town*

Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own, That mounts not toward the radiant morning sky,

But, with a less ambitious sympathy,

Hangs o'er its Parent waking to the cares,
Troubles and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet's eye,
Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her
sway

Like influence never may my soul reject)
If the calm Heaven, now to its zenith decked
With glorious forms in numberless array,
To the lone shepherd on the hills disclose
Gleams from a world in which the saints repose.
Jan. 1, 1843.

Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,

That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star, Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,

And clear way made for her triumphal car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked Train

Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? Yes, ye were startled-and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain.

XI VII.

AT FURNESS ABBEY.

HERE, where, of havoc tired and rash undoing,
Man left this Structure to become Time's prey
A soothing Spirit follows in the way
That Nature takes, her counter-work pursuing.
See how her Ivy clasps the sacred Ruin,
Fall to prevent or beautify decay;

And, on the mouldered walls, how bright, how gay,

The flowers in pearly dews their bloom renewing!

Thanks to the place, blessings upon the hour; Even as I speak the rising Sun's first smile Gleams on the grass-crowned top of yon tall

WELL have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground

Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk

Among the Ruins, but no idle talk

Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound:
And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound
Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire
And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around.
Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire
That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was
raised,

To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace:
All seem to feel the spirit of the place,
And by the general reverence God is praised:
Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved,
While thus these simple-hearted men
moved?

June 21st, 1845

are