TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

I.

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it,

The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it

Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thou delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,

And the winds are loose, we must not stay,
Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II.

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.

To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,

And they will curse my name and thee

Because we are fearless and free.

III.

Come thou, beloved as thou art;

Another sleepeth still

Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart,

Which thou with joy shalt fill,

With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be

The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV.

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

V.

Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?-
There sit between us two, thou dearest
Me and thy mother-well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves
Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

VI.

This hour will in thy memory

Be a dream of days forgotten long, We soon shall dwell by the azure sea Of serene and golden Italy,

Or Greece, the Mother of the free;

And I will teach thine infant tongue To call upon those heroes old In their own language, and will mould Thy growing spirit in the flame Of Grecian lore, that by such name A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim !

LINES TO A CRITIC.

I.

HONEY from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather

As soon as hate in me.

II.

Hate men who cant, and men who pray,

And men who rail like thee;

Or seek some slave of power and gold,
To be thy dear heart's mate,

Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me thy hate.

IV.

A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love—
How should I then hate thee?

TO MARY

O MARY dear, that you were here
With your brown eyes bright and clear,
And your sweet voice, like a bird
Singing love to its lone mate

In the ivy bower disconsolate;
Voice the sweetest ever heard !
And your brow more ...

Mary dear, come to me soon,
I am not well whilst thou art far;
As sunset to the sphered moon,
As twilight to the western star,
Thou, beloved, art to me.

O Mary dear, that you were here ;
The Castle echo whispers "Here !"

SONNET.

LIFT not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread, — behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it - he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas ! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.