LINES

Written on visiting the Rooms once inhabited by Henry Kirke White, in St John's College, Cambridge.

BY MRS M. H. HAY.

How awful! how impressive is the gloom,
How sacred is the silence that prevails
'Mid these lone walls where Henry met his doom.
My heart is full, my recollection fails;

Earth, and all earthly things, fade from my sight;
My friends, so loved around me, disappear;

I almost see a dawn of heavenly light,

And Henry's angel voice I seem to hear, Saying, "Poor Sister, dry the mortal tear,

"Nor let thy bosom swell with grief for me; "Learn first the bleeding cross on earth to bear, "And then the bliss, now mine, shall gladden thee. "Mid scenes celestial e'en my soul can glow, "And heavenly harmony can with me sing, "To think these poor "Remains" I left below "Shall kindred spirits to my pleasures bring. "But, oh! could I send down the faintest gleam, "To wipe the earthy vapours from thine eyes, "All human wisdom would appear a dream, "And inspiration lead thee to the skies."

A REFLECTION

On the Early Death of HENRY KIRKE WHITE,

BY A LADY.

THE pensive snow-drop lifts her modest head,
While yet stern winter binds the icy stream,
On chilling snow her taper leaves are spread,
Uncheer'd by balmy dew and summer's beam.

Sweet flower! not long thy spotless heart will fear
The cruel blast that bows thy slender form:
Thou wert not made for winter's frown severe;
Soon wilt thou droop, unconscious of the storm.

Thus genius springs, and thus the storms of earth Nip the young bud, just opening to the day: Awhile it blooms, to prove its heavenly birth,

Awhile it charms, then withers,—dies away.

Thus Henry graced the world-Too soon the power
Of stern Affliction seized his youthful breast;

He saw the clouds arise, the tempest low'r,
He bowed his head, and meekly sunk to rest.

EXTRACT

FROM A POEM RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

BY GEORGE, LORD BYRON.

UNHAPPY White!* while life was in its spring,
And thy young Muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science' self destroyed her favourite son!
Yes! she too much indulg'd thy fond pursuit ;
She sowed the seeds, but Death has reaped the fruit.
'Twas thine own Genius gave the final blow,
And helped to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quivered in his heart:
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nurs'd the pinion which impell'd the steel,
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest,
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.

• Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge, in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret, that so short a period was allotted to talents which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume.

MONODY

ΤΟ

THE MEMORY OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

BY JOSEPH BLACKETT. *

"No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
"But living statues there are seen to weep;
"Affliction's semblage bends not o'er thy tomb,
"Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom!"

То

yon streamlet's rippling flow,

LORD BYRON.

Through the grove meand'ring slow, Heart-heaving sighs of sorrow let me pour, And those "living statues" join,

For no "marble" grief is mine,

Mine is Sympathy's true tear,
Love and Pity's sigh sincere,

And to "Affliction's self" I give the mournful hour!

What means yon new-rais'd mould beneath the yew?
And why scoop'd out the coffin's narrow cell,
Fashion'd, alas! to human shape and size?

Why crawls that earth-worm from the dazzling ray
Of day's unwelcome orb? And why, at length,
Lingering, advances, with grief-measur❜d pace,
The sable hearse, in raven plumes array'd?

* Vide his Poems recently published,

And, hark! oh, hark! the deep-toned funeral knell
Breathes, audible, a sad and sullen sound!

Alas, poor youth! for THEE this robe of death!
Ye Nine, that lave in the Castalian spring,
Whose full-toned waves, responsive to the strain
Of your Parnassian harps, with solemn flow,
Peal the deep dirge around,-pluck each a wreath
Of baneful yew, and twine it round your lyres,
For your own HENRY sleeps to wake no more!

Alas! alas! immortal youth!

Thine the richly varied song,
Simple, clear, sublime, and strong;

Thy sunny eye beam'd on the page of Truth,
Thy God ador'd, and, fraught with cherub fire,
'Twas thine to strike, on earth, a heavenly lyre !
Ah! lost too soon! through tangled groves,

'Midst the fresh dews no more

He pensive roves

The varied Passions to explore.

Silent, silent, is his tongue,

Whose notes so powerful through the woodlands rung,

When on the wing of hoary Time,

With energy sublime,

He soar'd, and left this lessening world below :→

Hark! hark! methinks, e'en now, I hear his numbers flow!

-Ah! no,

-he sings no more.

* One of Kirke White's most animated and beautiful Poems, entitled "Time."