JUAN IN LOVE.

Young Juan wander'd by the glassy brooks,
Thinking unutterable things; he threw
Himself at length within the leafy nooks

Where the wild branch of the cork forest grew; There poets find material for their books,

And every now and then we read them through,
So that their plan and prosody are eligible,
Unless, like Wordsworth, they prove unintelligible.

He (Juan, and not Wordsworth) so pursued
His self-communion with his own high soul,
Until his mighty heart, in its great mood,
Had mitigated part, though not the whole
Of its disease; he did the best he could

With things not very subject to control,
And turn'd, without perceiving his condition,
Like Coleridge, into a metaphysician.

He thought about himself, and the whole earth,
Of man the wonderful, and of the stars,
And how the deuce they ever could have birth;
And then he thought of earthquakes, and of wars,
How many miles the moon might have in girth,
Of air-balloons, and of the many bars

To perfect knowledge of the boundless skies ;-
And then he thought of Donna Julia's eyes.

In thoughts like these true wisdom may discern
Longings sublime, and aspirations high,

Which some are born with, but the most part learn
To plague themselves withal, they know not why:
'Twas strange that one so young should thus concern
His brain about the action of the sky;

If you think 'twas philosophy that this did,
I can't help thinking puberty assisted.

He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
And heard a voice in all the winds; and then
He thought of wood-nymphs and immortal bowers,
And how the goddesses came down to men:
He missed the pathway, he forgot the hours,
And when he look'd upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner-
He also found that he had lost his dinner.

Sometimes he turn'd to gaze upon his book,
Boscan, or Garcilasso;-by the wind
Even as the page is rustled while we look,
So by the poesy of his own mind
Over the mystic leaf his soul was shook,

As if 'twere one whereon magicians bind
Their spells, and give them to the passing gale,
According to some good old woman's tale.

A SCENE IN GREECE.

And further on a troop of Grecian girls,

The first and tallest her white kerchief waving, Were strung together like a row of pearls,

Link'd hand in hand, and dancing; each, too, having
Down her white neck long floating auburn curls-
(The least of which would set ten poets raving);
Their leader sang-and bounded to her song,
With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.

And here, assembled cross-legg'd round their trays,
Small social parties just begun to dine;
Pilaus and meats of all sorts met the gaze,
And flasks of Samian and of Chian wine,
And sherbet cooling in the porous vase;

Above them their dessert grew on its vine;
The orange and pomegranate nodding o'er
Dropp'd in their laps, scarce pluck'd, their mellow store.

A band of children, round a snow-white ram,
There wreathe his venerable horns with flowers;
While peaceful, as if still an unwean'd lamb,
The patriarch of the flock all gently cowers
His sober head, majestically tame,

Or eats from out the palm, or playful lowers
His brow, as if in act to butt, and then
Yielding to their small hands, draws back again.

Their classical profiles, and glittering dresses,

Their large black eyes, and soft seraphic cheeks, Crimson as cleft pomegranates, their long tresses, The gesture which enchants, the eye that speaks, The innocence which happy childhood blesses,

Made quite a picture of these little Greeks; So that the philosophical beholder

Sigh'd for their sakes-that they should e'er grow older.

Afar, a dwarf buffoon stood telling tales

To a sedate grey circle of old smokers,

Of secret treasures found in hidden vales,

Of wonderful replies from Arab jokers,

Of charms to make good gold and cure bad ails,
Of rocks bewitch'd that open to the knockers,

Of magic ladies, who by one sole act,

Transform'd their lords to beasts (but that's a fact).

TWILIGHT.

Sweet hour of twilight!-in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,

To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,

Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee !

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng
Which learn'd from this example not to fly
From a true lover-shadow'd my mind's eye.

O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things-
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearth-stone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

Soft hour! which wakos the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;

Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?

Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,

Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb : Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void Of feeling for some kindness done, when power Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

A GROUP OF BEAUTIES.

Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka, and Dudu; in short,

(To save description) fair as fair can be Were they according to the best report, Though differing in stature and degree,

And clime and time, and country and complexion: They all alike admired their new connexion.

Lolah was dusk as India, and as warm ;

Katinka was a Georgian, white and red, With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,

And feet so small they scarce seem'd made to tread But rather skim the earth; while Dudu's form Look'd more adapted to be put to bed,

Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy,
Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy.

A kind of sleepy Venus seem'd Dudu,

Yet very fit to "murder sleep" in those Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue, Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose: Few angles were there in her form, 'tis true,

Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose; Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say where

It would not spoil some separate charm to pare.

She was not violently lively, but

Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,
They put beholders in a tender taking;
She look'd (this simile's quite new) just cut
From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,
The mortal and the marble still at strife,
And timidly expanding into life.

Lolah demanded the new damsel's name-
"Juanna."-Well, a pretty name enough.
Katinka ask'd her also whence she came-
"From Spain."-"But where is Spain ?"-"Don't
ask such stuff,

Nor show your Georgian ignorance-for shame!"
Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough,
To poor Katinka: "Spain's an island near
Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier."

A PICTURE.

She stood a moment as a Pythoness
Stands on her tripod, agonised, and full
Of inspiration gather'd from distress,

When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull

The heart asunder;-then, as more or less

Their speed abated or their strength grew dull,
She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees,

And bow'd her throbbing head o'er trembling knees,
Her face declined and was unseen; her hair
Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow,
Sweeping the marble underneath her chair,
Or rather sofa, (for it was all pillow,

A low, soft ottoman,) and black despair

Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow,
Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check
Its further course, but must receive its wreck.

Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping
Conceal'd her features better than a veil :
And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping,
White, waxen, and as alabaster pale:
Would that I were a painter! to be grouping
All that a poet drags into detail!

Oh that my words were colours! but their tints
May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints.

WAR.

All was prepared-the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.

The army,

like a lion from his den,

March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slayA human Hydra, issuing from its fen

To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain, Immediately in others grew again.

History can only take things in the gross;

But could we know them in detail, perchance

In balancing the profit and the loss,

War's merit it by no means might enhance, To waste so much gold for a little dross,

As hath been done, were conquest to advance. The drying up a single tear has more

Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

And why? because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,
A higher title, or a loftier station,

Though they may make Corruption gape or stare, Yet in the end, except in Freedom's battles,

Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.

And such they are,-and such they will be found
Not so Leonidas and Washington,

Whose every battle-field is holy ground,

Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undong How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound! While the mere victor's may appal or stun The servile and the vain, such names will be A watchword till the future shall be free.