Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away

All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII.

"Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace.

Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn :
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born."

HUMAN LIFE,

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY.

Ir dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the breath
Be life itself, and not its task and tent,
If even a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes!
Surplus of nature's dread activity,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,

She formed with restless hands unconsciously!
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly !

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create,

And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,

That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold

These costly shadows of thy shadowy self?
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou can'st have none;
Thy being's being is contradiction.

MOLES.

-THEY shrink in, as Moles

(Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground) Creep back from Light-then listen for its sound ;– See but to dread, and dread they know not whyThe natural alien of their negative eye.

THE VISIT OF THE GODS.

IMITATED FROM SCHILLER.

NEVER, believe me,

Appear the Immortals,

Never alone :

Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler,
Iacchus but in came boy Cupid the smiler;
Lo! Phœbus the glorious descends from his throne !
They advance, they float in, the Olympians all!
With divinities fills my
Terrestrial hall!

How shall I yield you

Due entertainment,

Celestial quire?

Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of up-buoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre!

Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul ! O give me the nectar!

O fill me the bowl!
Give him the nectar!
Pour out for the poet,
Hebe! pour free!

Quicken his eyes with celestial dew,

That Styx the detested no more he

may view,
And like one of us Gods may conceit him to be!
Thanks, Hebe! I quaff it! Io Pæan, I cry!
The wine of the Immortals
Forbids me to die!

ELEGY,

IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKENSIDE'S BLANK-VERSE INSCRIPTIONS.

NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread,

Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound,
Where" sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bed—
O humbly press that consecrated ground!

For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain!
And there his spirit most delights to rove:
Young Edmund! famed for each harmonious strain,
And the sore wounds of ill-requited love.

Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide,
And loads the west-wind with its soft perfume,
His manhood blossomed till the faithless pride
Of fair Matilda sank him to the tomb.

But soon did righteous Heaven her guilt pursue !
Where'er with wildered step she wandered pale,
Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view,

Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale.

With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms,
Amid the pomp of affluence she pined;
Nor all that lured her faith from Edmund's arms
Could lull the wakeful horror of her mind.

Go, Traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught:
Some tearful maid perchance, or blooming youth,
May hold it in remembrance; and be taught
That riches can not pay for Love or Truth.

SEPARATION.

A SWORDED man whose trade is blood,
In grief, in anger, and in fear,

Thro' jungle, swamp, and torrent flood,
I seek the wealth you hold so dear!

The dazzling charm of outward form,

The power of gold, the pride of birth,
Have taken Woman's heart by storm-
Usurped the place of inward worth.

Is not true Love of higher price

Than outward Form, tho' fair to see,
Wealth's glittering fairy-dome of ice,
Or echo of proud ancestry?—

O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see ·
Into the bottom of my heart,

There's such a mine of Love for thee,
As almost might supply desert!

(This separation is, alas!

Too great a punishment to bear;
O take my life, or let me pass
That life, that happy life, with her!)

The perils, erst with steadfast eye
Encounter'd, now I shrink to see-
Oh! I have heart enough to die—
Not half enough to part from Thee!

To know, to esteem, to love-and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!

O for some dear abiding-place of Love,
O'er which my spirit, like the mother dove,

Might brood with warming wings!-O fair as kind,
Were but one sisterhood with you combined,
(Your very image they in shape and mind)

Far rather would I sit in solitude,

The forms of memory all my mental food,

And dream of you, sweet sisters, (ah, not mine!)
And only dream of you (ah dream and pine!)
Than have the presence, and partake the pride,
And shine in the eye of all the world beside!

THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL.

AN ALLEGORY.

I.

HE too has flitted from his secret nest,

Hope's last and dearest Child without a name !—
Has flitted from me, like the warmthless flame,
That makes false promise of a place of rest
To the tir'd Pilgrim's still believing mind ;-
Or like some Elfin Knight in kingly court,
Who having won all guerdons in his sport,
Glides out of view, and whither none can find!

II.

Yes! He hath flitted from me-with what aim,
Or why, I know not! 'Twas a home of bliss,
And He was innocent, as the pretty shame

Of babe, that tempts and shuns the menaced kiss,
From its twy-cluster'd hiding-place of snow!

Pure as the babe, I ween, and all aglow

As the dear hopes, that swell the mother's breast-
Her eyes down gazing o'er her clasped charge ;-
Yet gay as that twice happy father's kiss,
That well might glance aside, yet never miss,
Where the sweet mark emboss'd so sweet a targe―
Twice wretched he who hath been doubly blest!

III.

Like a loose blossom on a gusty night

He flitted from me-and has left behind

(As if to them his faith he ne'er did plight). Of either sex and answerable mind