Sway'd to and fro by every wind and tide ?
Of as uncertain speed
As blow-ball from the mead?

I know it - and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny!
Whose heart goes flutt'ring for you every where,

Nor, when away you roam,
Dare keep its wretched home,

Love, love alone, his pains severe and many:

Then, loveliest! keep me free,
From torturing jealousy.

Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above

The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour;

Let none profane my Holy See of love,

Or with a rude hand break

The sacrainental cake:

Let none else touch the just new-budded flower;

If not

may my eyes close,

Love! on their lost repose.

SONNETS.

I.

H! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,
When streams of light pour down the golden
west,

And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, - far, far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
From little cares; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest,
And there into delight my soul deceive.
There warm my breast with patriotic lore,
Musing on Milton's fate - on Sydney's bier
Till their stern forms before my mind arise :

Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,
When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

II.

TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME À LAUREL

F

CROWN.

RESH morning gusts have blown away all fear now from gloominess

From my glad bosom
I mount forever

not an atom less

Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.
No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press

Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

Lo! who dares say, "Do this?”

down

Who dares call

Who say,

My will from its high purpose?

"Stand,"

Or "Go?"

This mighty moment I would frown

On abject Cæsars

not the stoutest band Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:

Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

AFFOR

FTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle south, and clears away

From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious mouth, relieved from its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May,
The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains.
And calmest thoughts come round us - as, of leaves
Budding, - fruit ripening in stillness, - autumn

suns

Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,

Sweet Sappho's cheek, - a sleeping infant's

breath,

The gradual sand that through an hour-glass

runs,

A woodland rivulet, - a Poet's death.

Jan. 1817.

IV.

WRITTEN ON THE BLANK SPACE OF A LEAF AT THE END OF CHAUCER'S TALE OF "THE FLOWRE AND THE LEFE."

T

HIS pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honeyed lines so freshly interlace,

To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops

Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And, by the wandering melody, may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power has white simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story !
I, that do ever feel athirst for glory,
Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

Feb. 1817