INDIAN.

And thou lovest not? If so Young as thou art, thou canst afford to weep.

LADY.

Oh! would that I could claim exemption
From all the bitterness of that sweet name.
I loved, I love, and when I love no more
Let joys and grief perish, and leave despair
To ring the knell of youth. He stood beside me,
The embodied vision of the brightest dream,
Which like a dawn heralds the day of life;
The shadow of his presence made my world
A paradise. All familiar things he touched,
All common words he spoke, became to me
Like forms and sounds of a diviner world.
He was as is the sun in his fierce youth,
As terrible and lovely as a tempest ;
He came, and went, and left me what I am.
Alas! Why must I think how oft we two
Have sat together near the river springs,
Under the green pavilion which the willow
Spreads on the floor of the unbroken fountain,
Strewn by the nurslings that linger there,
Over that islet paved with flowers and moss,
While the musk-rose leaves, like flakes of crimson
snow,

Showered on us, and the dove mourned in the pine,
Sad prophetess of sorrows not her own.

INDIAN.

Your breath is like soft music, your words are The echoes of a voice which on my heart

Sleeps like a melody of early days. But as you said—

LADY.

He was so awful, yet

So beautiful in mystery and terror,
Calming me as the loveliness of heaven
Soothes the unquiet sea :-and yet not so,
For he seemed stormy, and would often seem
A quenchless sun masked in portentous clouds;
For such his thoughts, and even his actions were;
But he was not of them, nor they of him,
But as they hid his splendour from the earth.
Some said he was a man of blood and peril,
And steeped in bitter infamy to the lips.
More need was there I should be innocent,
More need that I should be most true and kind,
And much more need that there should be found one
To share remorse, and scorn, and solitude,
And all the ills that wait on those who do
The tasks of ruin in the world of life.
He fled, and I have followed him.

ΤΟ

THE INVITATION.

BEST and brightest, come away,
Fairer far than this fair day,
Which like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.

The brightest hour of unborn spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found it seems the halcyon morn,
To hoar February born;

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May,
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downsTo the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress

Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor :-
"I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields ;-
Reflection, you may come to-morrow,
Sit by the fireside of Sorrow.-
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,
I will pay you in the grave,
Death will listen to your stave.—
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough;
Hope in pity mock not woe

With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment good
After long pain-with all your love,
This you never told me of."

Radiant Sister of the Day,

Awake! arise! and come away

!

To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea.
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,

Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one,
In the universal sun.

THE RECOLLECTION.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise !
Up to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory dead,

For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

1.

We wandered to the pine Forest That skirts the Ocean foam, The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep,
The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

II.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced.

And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.

III.

How calm it was !-the silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy wood-pecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,

A spirit interfused around

A thrilling silent life,

To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;-
And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there,

Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast,
Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest,
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye

Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in S's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

February 2, 1822.

A SONG.

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute :No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possest.

O, Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier!

Its passions will rock thee,

As the storms rock the ravens on high:
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

LINES.

WHEN the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

THE ISLE.

THERE was a little lawny islet
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven :

And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer's breath enweaves,
Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,

Each a gem engraven.

Girt by many an azure wave

With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm.

THIRD SPEAKER (a youth).

Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden

By God or man ;-'tis like the bright procession
Of skiey visions in a solemn dream

From which men wake as from a paradise,
And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life.
If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?
And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw
Unseasonable poison from the flowers
Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?

Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the

And open-eyed conspiracy, lie sleeping
As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts
Waken to worship him who giveth joys
With his own gift.

SECOND SPEAKER.

How young art thou in this old age of time!
How green in this grey world! Canst thou not think
Of change in that low scene, in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor?

The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,
Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done;
Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found
My inn of lasting rest, but thou must still
Be journeying on in this inclement air.

*

*

*

*

FIRST SPEAKER.

That

Is the Archbishop.

SECOND SPEAKER.

*

Rather say the Pope.

London will be soon his Rome : he walks

As if he trod upon the heads of men.

He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold ;-
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman

Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,

Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

Aye, there they are

Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows.
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin,-unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to its cold hard bosom. Here is health
Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold

QUEEN.

And, gentlemen, Your quaint

Call your poor Queen your debtor.

pageant
Rose on me like the figures of past years,
Treading their still path back to infancy,
More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer
The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept
To think I was in Paris, where these shows
Are well devised-such as I was ere yet
My young heart shared with [

] the task,
The careful weight of this great monarchy.
There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure
And that which it regards, no clamour lifts
Its proud interposition.