Yet though, alas! the gifts that shone Who does not feel, while thus his eyes Grand, from the Truth that reigns o'er all; The unshrinking Truth, that lets her light Through Life's low, dark, interior fall, Opening the whole, severely bright: Yet softening, as she frowns along, O'er scenes which angels weep to see— Where Truth herself half veils the Wrong, In pity of the Misery. True bard!—and simple, as the race Of true-born poets ever are, When, stooping from their starry place, They're children, near, though gods, afar. How freshly doth my mind recall, 'Mong the few days I've known with thee, One that, most buoyantly of all, Floats in the wake of memory*; When he, the poet, doubly graced, Who in his page will leave behind, Where Sense o'er all holds mastery :— Friend of long years! of friendship tried * The lines that follow allude to a day passed in company with Mr. Crabbe, many years since, when a party, consisting only of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Crabbe, and the author of these verses, had the pleasure of dining with Mr. Thomas Campbell, at his house at Sydenham. He, too, was of our feast that day, And all were guests of one, whose hand Hath shed a new and deathless ray Around the lyre of this great land; In whose sea-odes—as in those shells Such was our host; and though, since then, Slight clouds have ris'n twixt him and me, Who would not grasp such hand again, Stretch'd forth again in amity? Who can, in this short life, afford Bright was our board that day—though one Unworthy brother there had place; As 'mong the horses of the Sun, One was, they say, of earthly race. Yet, next to Genius is the power Of feeling where true Genius lies; And there was light around that hour Such as, in memory, never dies; Light which comes o'er me, as I gaze, Thou Relic of the Dead, on thee, Like all such dreams of vanish'd days, Brightly, indeed—but mournfully! ΤΟ CAROLINE, VISCOUNTESS VALLETORT. WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832. WHEN I would sing thy beauty's light, When I would paint thee, as thou art, |