A low, soft ottoman,) and black despair Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow, Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping Oh that my words were colours! but their tints WAR. All was prepared-the fire, the sword, the men The army, like a lion from his den, March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slag A human Hydra, issuing from its fen To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain, Immediately in others grew again. History can only take things in the gross; But could we know them in detail, perchance In balancing the profit and the loss, War's merit it by no means might enhance, To waste so much gold for a little dross, As hath been done, mere conquest to advance. The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore. And why? because it brings self-approbation; Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation, Though they may make Corruption gape or stare, Yet in the end, except in Freedom's battles, Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles. And such they are,-and such they will be found Whose every battle-field is holy ground, Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undongHow sweetly on the ear such echoes sound! While the mere victor's may appal or stun The servile and the vain, such names will be A watchword till the future shall be free. CONTEMPORARY POETS. Sir Walter reign'd before me; Moore and Campbell With poets almost Clergymen, or wholly; Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley, Still he excels that artificial hard Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vine Vields him but vinegar for his reward, That neutralized dull Dorus of the Nine ; That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line :- Then there's my gentle Euphues; who, they say, To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouth'd Boeotian "Savage Landor" Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander. John Keats, who was kill'd off by one critique, Contrived to talk about the gods of late, The list grows long of live and dead pretenders Their chances ;-they're too numerous, like the thirty • "Divince particulum auræ." WORLDLY WEALTH. Why call the miser miserable? as The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities! Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial; Then there's more merit in his self-denial. He is your only poet;-passion, pure, And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure : On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze; While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dyes Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes. T'he lands on either side are his: the ship From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads For him the fragrant produce of each trip; Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads, And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip; His very cellars might be kings' abodes; While he, despising every sensual call, Commands-the intellectual lord of all. Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind, Even with the very ore which makes them base; But whether all, or each, or none of these What is his own? Go-look at each transaction, Wars, revels, love-do these bring men more ease Than the mere plodding through each "vulgar fraction?" Or do they benefit mankind? Lean miser! Let spendthrifts' heirs inquire of yours-who's wiser ! How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins (Not of old victors, all whose heads and crests Weigh not the thin ore where their visage sinon, But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines, Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp :-Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp. "Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,-for love Is heaven, and heaven is love :"-so sings the bard; Which it were rather difficult to prove, (A thing with poetry in general hard). Perhaps there may be something in "the grove," At least it rhymes to "love:" but I'm prepared To doubt (no less than landlords of their rental) If "courts" and "camps" be quite so sentimental. MATCH-MAKING. How all the needy honourable misters, Nay, married dames will now and then discover I've known them court an heiress for their lover. "Tantæne!" Such the virtues of high station, Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet's "Dover!" While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares, Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs. Bome are soon bagg'd, and some reject three dozen. "Tis fine to see them scattering refusals And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin, "Why?-Why? Besides, Fred really was attach'd; Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets Are spurn'd in turn, until her turn arrives, Some gentleman, who fights, or writes, or drives, QUIXOTISM. 19 Rough Johnson, the great moralist, profess'd, But neither love nor hate in much excess; Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer sometimes, It is because I cannot well do less, And now and then it also suits my rhymes. I should be very willing to redress Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes, Had not Cervantes, in that too true tale Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail. Of all tales 'tis the saddest-and more sad, Rodressing injury, revenging wrong, To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff; Opposing singly the united strong, From foreign yoke to free the helpless native :-Alas! must noblest views, like an old song, Be for mere fancy's sport a theme creative, A jest, a riddle, Fame through thick and thin sought! And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote? Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolish'd the right arm Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm, |