And shouldst thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;
But live-until I cease to be.

REMEMBER HIM WHOM PASSION'S

POWER.

REMEMBER him whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,

When neither fell, though both were loved. That yielding breast, that melting eye,

Too much invited to be bless'd;
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repress'd.
Oh! let me feel that all I lost

But saved thee all that conscience fears; And blush for every pang it cost

To spare the vain remorse of years. Yet think of this when many a tongue,

Whose busy accents whisper blame, Would do the heart that loved thee wrong, And brand a nearly blighted name. Think that, whate'er to others, thou

Hast seen each selfish thought subdued: I bless thy purer soul even now, Even now, in midnight solitude.

Oh, God! that we had met in time,

Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free; When thou hadst loved without a crime, And I been less unworthy thee! Far may thy days, as heretofore, From this our gaudy world be past! And that too bitter moment o'er,

Oh! may such trial be thy last. This heart, alas! perverted long,

Itself destroy'd might thee destroy; To meet thee in the glittering throng,

Would wake Presumption's hope of joy. Then to the things whose bliss or woe,

Like mine, is wild and worthless all, That world resign-such scenes forego, Where those who feel must surely fall. Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness,

Thy soul from long seclusion pure; From what even here hath pass'd, may guess What there thy bosom must endure. Oh! pardon that imploring tear, Since not by Virtue shed in vain, My frenzy drew from eyes so dear; For me they shall not weep again. Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still, had I loved thee less,

y heart

Had then less sacrificed to thine; It felt not half so much to part

As if its guilt had made thee mine.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.
WHEN, from the heart where sorrow sits,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;

Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink;
My thoughts their dungeon know too well:
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,
And droop within their silent cell,

SONNETS TO GENEVRA.

1.

THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair And the wan lustre of thy features-caught From contemplation where serenely wrought,

Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair

Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air, That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless

thought

I should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly

care.

With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born (Except that thou hast nothing to repent),

The Magdalen of Guido saw the mornSuch seem'st thou-but how much more excellent!

With nought Remorse can claim-nor Virtue

scorn.

II.

THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,

And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush

Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush, My heart would wish away that ruder glow: And dazzle not thy deep blue eyes-but, oh!

While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush, And into mine my mother's weakness rush, Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow. For, through thy long dark lashes low depending, The soul of melancholy Gentleness Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending, Above all pain, yet pitying all distress; At once such majesty with sweetness blending, I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.
"TU MI CHAMAS."

IN moments to delight devoted,
"My life! with tenderest tone, you cry;
Dear words! on which my heart had doted,
If youth could neither fade nor die.
To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change "my life!" into "my soul!"
Which, like my love, exists for ever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your life.-Oh! change the word

Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh: Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name, For, like the soul, my love can never die.

WINDSOR POETICS. LINES COMPOSED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE REGENT BEING SEEN STANDING BETWEEN THE COFFINS OF HENRY VIII. AND CHARLES I. IN THE ROYAL VAULT AT WINDSOR,

FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties, By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies;

The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse: She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise The tearful eye in melancholy gaze; Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose, The Highland seer's anticipated woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form, Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; While sad she chants the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries longFor him, whose distant relics vainly crave The cronach's wild requiem to the brave! 'Tis heaven-not man-must charm away the

woe,

Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow,

Yet tenderness and time may rob the tear
Of half its bitterness, for one so dear;
A nation's gratitude perchance may spread
A thornless pillow for the widow's head;

Were those hours-can their joy or their

ness cease?

We repent, we abjure, we will break from our

chain,

We will part, we will fly to-unite it again !
Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt!
Forgive me, adored one !-forsake, if thou wilt;
But the heart which is thine shall expire un-
debased,

And man shall not break it-whatever thou may'st.

And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, This soul in its bitterest blackness shall be; And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,

With thee by my side, than with worlds at my feet.

One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love, Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove; And the heartless may wonder at all I resignThy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.

And wean from penury the soldier's heir.

CONDOLATORY ADDRESS.

TO SARAH COUNTESS OF JERSEY, ON THE PRINCE
REGENT'S RETURNING HER PICTURE TO MRS
MEE.

WHEN the vain triumph of the imperial lord,
Whom servile Rome obey'd, and yet abhorr'd,
That left a likeness of the brave or just;
Gave to the vulgar gaze each glorious bust,
What most admired each scrutinizing eye
Of all that deck'd that passing pageantry?
What spread from face to face that wondering
air?

The thought of Brutus-for his was not there! That absence proved his worth,-that absence fix'd

His memory on the longing mind, unmix'd;
And more decreed his glory to endure,
Than all a gold Colossus could secure.

If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze
Search for thy form, in vain and mute amaze,
Amidst those pictured charms, whose loveliness,
Bright though they be, thine own had render'

less:

If he, that vain old man, whom truth admits
Heir of his father's crown, and of his wits,
If his corrupted eye, and wither'd heart,
Could with thy gentle image bear depart;
That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief
To gaze on Beauty's band without its chief:
Yet comfort still one selfish thought imparts,
We lose the portrait, but preserve our hearts.

What can his vaulted gallery now disclose?
A garden with all flowers-except the rose ;-
A fount that only wants its living stream;
A night, with every star, save Dian's beam.
That turn from tracing them to dream of thee:
Lost to our eyes the present forms shall be,
And more on that recall'd resemblance pause,
Than all he shall not force on our applause.

With all that Virtue asks of Homage thine :
Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine,
The symmetry of youth, the grace of mien,
The eye that gladdens, and the brow serene;
The glossy darkness of that clustering hair,
Which shades, yet shows that forehead more
than fair!

Each 'glance that wins us, and the life that throws

A spell which will not let our looks repose,
But turn to gaze again, and find anew
Some charm that well rewards another view.
These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;
And those must wait till every charm is gone,
To please the paltry heart that pleases none;—
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye
In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by;
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, bart. THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry,

And triumph weeps above the brave.
For them is Sorrow's purest sigh

O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,
All earth becomes their monument !
A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue :
The present hours, the future age,

For them bewail, to them belong.
For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?
And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined

Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be And early valour, glowing find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherish'd name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame. Alas! for them, though not for thee,

They cannot choose but weep the more; Deep for the dead the grief must be, Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

TO BELSHAZZAR.
BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-
Is it not written, thou must die?
Go! dash the roses from thy brow-

Grey hairs but poorly wreath with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem :-
Then throw the worthless bauble by,
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn:
And learn like better men to die!
Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,

And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that ever thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem'd dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,

As an infant's asleep :
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee:
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."
GRAY'S Poemata.

THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of

The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing
homes

To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contained;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash- and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and
smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild
birds shriek'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again :-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom : no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was
death

The birds and beasts and famish❜d men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no
food,

But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton

hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and
died-

Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was
void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless,
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they
dropp'd,

They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their

MONODY ON THE DEATH
OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.
SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower!
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where
Time

Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak
but weep,

A holy concord, and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
"Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness, but full and clear,
A sweet dejection, a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame, and secret without pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes,
When all of Genius which can perish dies.
A mighty spirit is eclipsed-a power

Of light no likeness is bequeathed-no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame !
The flash of Wit, the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song, the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun, but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced, and lighten'd over all,
To cheer, to pierce, to please, or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised, the proud, who made his praise
their pride.

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,
His was the thunder, his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God!
Which shook the nations through his lips, and

blazed

Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised. And here, oh! here, where yet all young and

warm,

The gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue, the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they
spring;

These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,

Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.

But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause-ah! little do they know
That what to them seemed Vice might be but
Woe.

Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel, accuser, judge, and spy;
The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain,
The envious, who but breathe in others' pain-
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of glory to the grave,
Waen every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of Calumny!
These are his portion-but if join'd to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease;
If the high Spirit must forget to soar,
And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,
To soothe Indignity-and face to face
Meet sordid rage, and wrestle with Disgrace;
To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness:
If such may be the ills which men assail

What marvel if at last the mightiest fail? Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling's given

Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from heaven,

Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne, Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder--scorch, and burst.

But far from us and from our mimic scene, Such things should be-if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanish'd beam, and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight. Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three, Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your master-emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence! He was your brother-bear his ashes hence! While powers of mind almost of boundless range, Complete in kind, as various in their change; While Eloquence, Wit, Poesy, and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls-while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness, long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Signing that Nature form'd but one such man, And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE.

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed

With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd

The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd,

Through the thick deaths of half a century? And thus he answer'd: "Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so: He died before my day of Sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought-and do we rip
The vale of Immortality, and crave

I know not what of honour and of light.
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight,
So soon, and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's
thought,

Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers ;-as he caught
As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he: "I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,-and myself whate'er