TO A YOUNG LADY.

ON HER RECOVERY FROM A FEVER.

WHY need I say, Louisa dear!
How glad I am to see you here,

A lovely convalescent;

Risen from the bed of pain and fear,
And feverish heat incessant.

The sunny showers, the dappled sky
The little birds that warble high,
Their vernal loves commencing,
Will better welcome you than I
With their sweet influencing.

Believe me, while in bed you lay,
Your danger taught us all to pray :
You made us grow devouter!
Each eye looked up and seemed to say,
How can we do without her?

Besides, what vexed us worse, we knew,
They have no need of such as you

In the place where you were going:
This World has angels all too few,
And Heaven is overflowing!

SOMETHING CHILDISH, BUT VERY NATURAL

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

IF I had but two little wings,

And were a little feathery bird,

To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.

But in my sleep to you I fly :

I'm always with you in my sleep!

The world is all one's own.

But then one wakes, and where am I?
All, all alone.

Sleep stays not, though a monarch bids:
So I love to wake ere break of day:
For though my sleep be gone,

Yet while 'tis dark, one shuts one's lids,
And still dreams on.

HOME-SICK.

WRITTEN IN GERMANY.

'Tis sweet to him, who all the week
Through city-crowds must push his way,
To stroll alone through fields and woods,
And hallow thus the Sabbath-day.

And sweet it is, in summer bower,
Sincere, affectionate and gay,
One's own dear children feasting round,
To celebrate one's marriage-day.

But what is all, to his delight,

Who having long been doomed to roam,
Throws off the bundle from his back,
Before the door of his own home?

Home-sickness is a wasting pang;

This feel I hourly more and more:
There's healing only in thy wings,

Thou Breeze that play'st on Albion's shore!

ANSWER TO A CHILD'S QUESTION.

Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove, The linnet and thrush say,

I love and I love!"

In the winter they're silent-the wind is so strong:
What it says, I don't know, but it sings a loud song.
But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,
And singing, and loving-all come back together.

But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,
The green fields below him, the blue sky above,

That he sings, and he sings; and forever sings he

"I love my Love, and my Love loves me!"

A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER.

ERE on my bed my limbs I lay,

God grant me grace my prayers to say:
O God! preserve my mother dear

In strength and health for many a year;
And, O! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due ;
And may I my best thoughts employ
To be my parents' hope and joy;
And, O preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other,
Our friends, our father, and our mother:
And still, O Lord, to me impart,
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my last sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day!

Amen.

THE VISIONARY HOPE.

SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly kneeling
He fain would frame a prayer within his breast,
Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing,
That his sick body might have ease and rest;

He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,

Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest,
Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling:

Though obscure pangs måde curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain,
Each night was scattered by its own loud screams:
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he wouldFor Love's despair is but Hope's pining ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan,

He wishes and can wish for this alone!

Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems)

Disease would vanish, like a summer shower,

Whose dews fling sunshine from the noontide bower!
Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give
Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.

THE HAPPY HUSBAND.

OFT, oft methinks, the while with Thee
I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear
And dedicated name, I hear

A promise and a mystery,

A pledge of more than passing life,
Yea, in that very name of Wife!

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep!
A feeling that upbraids the heart
With happiness beyond desert,
That gladness half requests to weep!
Nor bless I not the keener sense
And unalarming turbulence

Of transient joys that ask no sting

From jealous fears, or coy denying;

But born beneath Love's brooding wing,

And into tenderness soon dying,

Wheel out their giddy moment, then
Resign the soul to love again ;-

A more precipitated vein,

Of notes, that eddy in the flow

Of smoothest song, they come, they go,

And leave their sweeter understrain
Its own sweet self-a love of Thee
That seems, yet can not greater be!

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE

I.

How warm this woodland wild Recess !
Love surely hath been breathing here;
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
As if to have you yet more near.

II.

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
On seaward Quantock's heathy hills,
Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float here and there, like things astray,
And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

III.

No voice as yet had made the air

Be music with your name; yet why That asking look? that yearning sigh? That sense of promise everywhere? Beloved! flew your spirit by?

IV.

As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild !
As whom I long had loved before-
So deeply, had I been beguiled

V.

You stood before me like a thought,

A dream remembered in a dream.
But when those meek eyes first did seem

To tell me, Love within you wrought-
O Greta, dear domestic stream!

VI.

Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep, Has not Love's whisper evermore