X.

TO J. H. REYNOLds.

0

THAT a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week; Then one poor year a thousand years would be, The flush of welcome ever on the cheek: So could we live long life in little space, So time itself would be annihilate, So a day's journey in oblivious haze

To serve our joys would lengthen and dilate. O to arrive each Monday morn from Ind!

To land each Tuesday from the rich Levant! In little time a host of joys to bind,

And keep our souls in one eternal pant! This morn, my friend, and yester-evening taught Me how to harbor such a happy thought.

TH

IME'S sea hath been five years at its low ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web, And snared by the ungloving of thine hand. And yet I never look on midnight sky,

But I behold thine eyes' well-memoried light; I cannot look upon the rose's dye,

But to thy cheek my soul doth take its flight; I cannot look on any budding flower,

But my fond ear, in fancy at thy lips, And hearkening for a love-sound, doth devour Its sweets in the wrong sense:- Thou dost

eclipse

Every delight with sweet remembering,
And grief unto my darling joys dost bring.

* A lady whom he saw for some moments at Vauxhall.

XII.

23

TO SLEEP.

SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the
light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;

Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

1819.

XIII.

ON FAME.

F

AME, like a wayward girl, will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees, But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy, And dotes the more upon a heart at ease. She is a Gipsey, -- will not speak to those

;

Who have not learnt to be content without her A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,

Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;

A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,

Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar,

Ye lovesick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are !
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

XIV.

ON FAME.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too." — Proverb.

H

OW fever'd is the man, who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood: It is as if the rose should pluck herself,

Or the ripe plum finger its misty bloom; As if a Naiad, like a meddling elf,

Should darken her pure grot with muddy gloom, But the rose leaves herself upon the brier,

For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed, And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire, The undisturbed lake has crystal space : Why then should man, teasing the world for

grace,

Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?

1819.