Paulo,—who from a window seeing her Go straight across the lawn, and guessing where,
Had thought she was in tears, and found that day
His usual efforts vain to keep away. May I come in?" said he:-it made her start,
That smiling voice;-she coloured, pressed her heart
A moment, as for breath, and then with free And usual tone said: "O yes, certainly."
There's apt to be, at conscious times like these,
An affectation of a bright-eyed case,
An air of something quite serene and sure,
As if to seem so, was to be secure:
With this the lovers met, with this they
spoke,
With this they sat down to the self-same book,
And Paulo, by degrees, gently embraced With one permitted arm her lovely waist; And both their cheeks, like peaches on a
Leaned with a touch together thrillingly; And o'er the book they hung, and nothing said,
And every lingering page grew longer as they read.
As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart Their colour change, they came upon the part Where fond Genevra, with her flame long nurst,
Smiled upon Launcelot when he kissed her first:
That touch, at last, through every fibre slid; And Paulo turned,scarce knowing what he did, Only he felt he could no more dissemble, And kissed her, mouth to mouth, all in a tremble.
Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long kiss:
Sacred be love from sight, whate'er it is. The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er, Desperate the joy.-That day they read no
WHEN maidens such as Hester die, Their place ye may not well supply, Though ye among a thousand try, With vain endeavour.
A month or more hath she been dead,
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.
A springy motion in her gait,
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flush'd her spirit.
I know not by what name beside
I shall it call:—if 'twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.
Her parents held the Quaker-rule, Which doth the human feeling cool, But she was train'd in Nature's school, Nature had blest her.
A waking eye, a prying mind,
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.
My sprightly neighbour, gone before To that unknown and silent shore, Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer-morning,
When from thy chearful eyes a ray
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?
I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful schooldays,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom-
cronies,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women! Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood; Earth seemed a desart I was bound to traverse,
Socking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a | That but by reflex canst shew
Why wert not thou born in my father's
What his deity can do,
As the false Egyptian spell
Aped the true Hebrew miracle?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces-Some few vapours thou mayst raise,
MAY the Babylonish curse
Strait confound my stammering verse,
If I can a passage see
In this word-perplexity,
Or a fit expression find,
Or a language to my mind,
(Still the phrase is wide or scant)
To take leave of thee, great plant!
Or in any terms relate
Half my love, or half my hate:
For I hate, yet love, thee so,
That, whichever thing I shew,
The plain truth will seem to be
A constrain'd hyperbole,
And the passion to proceed
More for a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine,
Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;
Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon
Thy begrimed complexion,
And, for thy pernicious sake,
More and greater oaths to break
Than reclaimed lovers take
'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay Much too in the female way,
While thou suckst the lab'ring breath Faster than kisses or than death.
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us, That our worst foes cannot find us, And ill fortune, that would thwart us, Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;
The weak brain may serve to amaze, But to the reins and nobler heart Canst nor life nor heat impart.
Brother of Bacchus, later born,
The old world was sure forlorn,
Wanting thee, that aidest more
The god's victories than before
All his panthers, and the brawls
Of his piping Bacchanals.
These, as stale, we disallow,
Or judge of thee meant: only thou
His true Indian conquest art;
And, for ivy round his dart,
The reformed god now weaves
A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume
Chemic art did ne'er presume
Through her quaint alembic strain,
None so sov'reign to the brain.
Nature, that did in thee excel,
Fram'd again no second smell.
Roses, violets, but toys
For the smaller sort of boys,
Or for greener damsels meant ;
Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking kind,
Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind.
Africa, that brags her foyson,
Breeds no such prodigious poison,
Henbane, nightshade, both together,
Hemlock, aconite-Nay, rather,
Plant divine, of rarest virtue;
Blisters on the tongue would hurt you
"Twas but in a sort I blam'd thee;
None e'er prosper'd who defam'd thee;
Irony all, and feign'd abuse,
Such as perplext lovers use,
At a need, when, in despair
To paint forth their fairest fair,
Or in part but to express
That exceeding comeliness
While each man, thro' thy height'ning steam, Which their fancies doth so strike,
Does like a smoking Etna seem,
And all about us does express
(Fancy and wit in richest dress)
A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist dost shew us,
That our best friends do not know us,
And, for those allowed features,
Due to reasonable creatures,
Likenst us to fell chimeras,
Monsters that, who see us, fear us;
Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,
Or, who first lov'd a cloud, Ixion.
Bacchus we know, and we allow
His tipsy rites. But what art thou,
They borrow language of dislike;
And, instead of Dearest Miss,
Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,
And those forms of old adıniring,
Call her Cockatrice and Siren,
Basilisk, and all that's evil,
Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,
Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor,
Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;
Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe,-
Not that she is truly so,
But no other way they know
A contentment to express,
Borders so upon excess,
That they do not rightly wo
Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain'd to part
With what's nearest to their heart,
While their sorrow's at the height,
Lose discrimination quite,
And their hasty wrath let fall,
To appease their frantic gall,
On the darling thing whatever,
Whence they feel it death to sever,
Though it be, as they, perforce,
Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it grieve thee,
Soon shall arrive the rescuing hour,
That yields thee up to Nature's power.
Nature, that so late doth greet thee,
Shall in o'er-flowing measure meet thee,
She shall recompense with cost
For every lesson thou hast lost.
Then wandering up thy sire's lov'd hill,
Thou shalt take thy airy fill
Of health and pastime. Birds shall sing
For thy delight each May-morning.
'Mid new-yean'd lambkins thou shalt play,
Hardly less a lamb than they.
Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. Then thy prison's lengthened bound
For thy sake, Tobacco, I
Would do any thing but die,
And but seek to extend my days
Long enough to sing thy praise.
But, as she, who once hath been
A king's consort, is a queen
Ever after, nor will bate
Any tittle of her state,
Though a widow, or divorced,
So I, from thy converse forced,
The old name and style retain,
A right Katherine of Spain;
And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys
Of the blest Tobacco-Boys;
Where though I, by sour physician,
Am debarr'd the full fruition
Of thy favours, I may catch
Some collateral sweets, and snatch
Sidelong odours, that give life
Like glances from a neighbour's wife;
And still live in the by-places
And the suburbs of thy graces;
And in thy borders take delight,
An unconquer'd Canaanite.
MODEL of thy parent dear,
Serious infant worth a fear:
In thy unfaultering visage well
Picturing forth the son of Tell,
When on his forehead, firm and good,
Motionless mark, the apple stood;
Guileless traitor, rebel mild,
Convict unconscious, culprit-child!
Gates that close with iron roar
Have been to thee thy nursery-door;
Chains that chink in cheerless cells
Have been thy rattles and thy bells;
Walls contrived for giant sin
Have hemmed thy faultless weakness in;
Near thy sinless bed black guilt
Her discordant house hath built,
And filled it with her monstrous brood-
Sights, by thee not understood-
Sights of fear, and of distress,
That pass a harmless infant's guess!
But the clouds, that overcast
Thy young morning, may not last.
Shall be the horizon skirting round.
And while thou fillest thy lap with flowers,
To make amends for wintery hours,
The breeze, the sunshine, and the place,
Shall from thy tender brow efface
Each vestige of untimely care,
That sour restraint had graven there;
And on thy every look impress
A more excelling childishness.
So shall be thy days beguil'd,
Thornton Hunt, my favourite child.
TO MISS KELLY.
You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honor down
To please that many-headed beast the town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for
gain;
By fortune thrown amid the actors' train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot
trace,
That vanish and return we know not how-
And please the better from a pensive face,
A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
THE FAMILY NAME.
What reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire,
Without reproach? we trace our stream no
higher;
And I, a childless man, may end the same.
Perchance some shepherd onLincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received thee first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow-swains.
Perchance from Salem's holier fields returned,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took his meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd.
Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings
No deed of mine shall shame thee,gentle name.
Yet seeks it not, nay, turns with stern dista On its own weakness that can wear a chât Still wrestling with the angel, till its pre Feels all the strength departed from its Then join'd, and join'd for ever, loving, le Life's darkest hours are met, and met usme Hand link'd in hand, the wedded pair pas
FROM A PICTURE BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE. Thro' the world's changes, still unchangin one;
Ir was a land, unmarred by art,
To please the eye and cheer the heart:
The natives' simple huts were seen
Peeping their palmy groves between.—
Groves, where each dome of sweepy leas
In air of morning gently heaves,
And, as the deep vans fall and rise,
Changes its richly verdant dyes;
A land whose simple sons till now
Had scarcely seen a careful brow;
They spent at will each passing day
In lightsome toil or active play.
Some their light canoes were guiding,
Along the shore's sweet margin gliding;
Some in the sunny sea were swimming.
The bright waves o'er their dark form
gleaming;
Some on the beach for shellfish stooping.
Or on the smooth sand gaily trooping;
Or in link'd circles featly dancing
With golden braid and bracelet glancing-
By shelter'd door were infants creeping,
Or on the shaded herbage sleeping:
Gay-feather'd birds the air were winging
And parrots on their high perch swinging
While humming-birds, like sparks of ligh
Twinkled and vanish'd from the sight
No fish stir in our heaving net,
And the sky is dark, and the night is v
And we must ply the lusty oar,
For the tide is ebbing from the shore;
And sad are they whose faggots burn,
So kindly stor❜d for our return.
A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks,
As may be read of in Arcadian books;
Such as sat listening round Apollo's pipe,
When the great deity, for earth too ripe,
Let his divinity o'erflowing die
In music, through the vales of Thessaly: Some idly trail'd their sheep-hooks on the ground,
And some kept up a shrilly-mellow sound
With ebon-tipped fintes: close after these,
Now coming from beneath the forest-trees,
A venerable priest full soberly,
Begirt with ministering looks: always his
Stedfast upon the matted turf he kept, And after him his sacred vestments swept. From his right hand there swung a vase, milk-white, Of mingled wine, out-sparkling generous light;
And in his left he held a basket full
Of all sweet herbs that searching eye could
cull :
Wild thyme, and valley-lilies whiter still
Than Leda's love, and cresses from the rill.
His aged head, crowned with beechen wreath,
Seem'd like a poll of ivy in the teeth
Of winter hoar. Then came another crowd
Of shepherds, lifting in due time aloud
Their share of the ditty. After them appear'd,
Up-follow'd by a multitude that rear'd
Their voices to the clouds, a fair-wrought
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A chieftain-king's: beneath his breast, half bare,
Was hung a silver bugle, and between
His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen.
A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd,
To common lookers-on, like one who dream'd
Of idleness in groves Elysian :
But there were some who feelingly could scan
A lurking trouble in his nether-lip,
And see that oftentimes the reins would slip
Through his forgotten hands: then would
they sigh,
And think of yellow leaves, of owlet's cry,
Of logs piled solemnly.-Ah, well-a-day,
Why should our young Endymion pine away!
Soon the assembly, in a circle rang'd, Stood silent round the shrine: each look was changed
To sudden veneration: women meek Beckon'd their sons to silence; while each cheek
Of virgin-bloom paled gently for slight fear; Endymion too, without a forest-peer,
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