Though my many faults defaced me, Could no other arm be found, Than the one which once embraced me,

To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not: Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;

And the undying thought which paineth

Is that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow Than the wail above the dead; Both shall live, but every morrow Wake us from a widowed bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather, When our child's first accents flow,

Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!" Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee, When her lip to thine is pressed, Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,

Think of him thy love had blessed!

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more mayst see, Then thy heart will softly tremble With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,

All my madness none can know; All my hopes, where'er thou goest, Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken; Pride, which not a world could bow,

Bows to thee by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 'tis done all words are idle Words from me are vainer still; But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way without the will.

Fare thee well!- thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Seared in heart, and lone and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

SONNET ON CHILLON.

ETERNAL spirit of the chainless

mind!

Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,

For there thy habitation is the heart

The heart which love of thee alone can bind;

And when thy sons to fetters are consigned

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,

Their country conquers with their And Freedom's fame finds wings on martyrdom, every wind.

Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar- for 'twas trod,

Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement

were a sod,

By Bonnivard! - May none those marks efface;

For they appeal from tyranny to God.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright

Meets in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless

grace,

Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet ex-
press,

How pure, how dear their dwellingplace.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on- -it honors none you wish to mourn;

To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one and here he lies.

INSCRIPTION

ON THE MONUMENT OF THE AUTHOR'S DOG BOATSWAIN.

WHEN some proud son of man returns to earth,

Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,

The sculptor's art exalts the pomp of woe,

And storied urns record who rests below;

When all is done, upon the tomb is

seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been.

But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his master's own, Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth;

While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.

O man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

The gift,

like thee.

HE who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled, The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, (Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers),

And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there,
The fixed yet tender traits that
streak

The languor of the placid cheek,
And

but for that sad shrouded eye, That fires not, wins not, weeps not now,

And but for that chill changeless
brow,

Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous
hour,

He still might doubt the tyrant's power;

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first last look by death revealed!

[From The Dream.] SLEEP.

OUR life is twofold! Sleep hath its own world,

A boundary between the things misnamed

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,

And a wide realm of wild reality, And dreams in their development have breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,

They take a weight from off our waking toils,

They do divide our being; they be