1819.

VIII.

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone!
Thy form is here indeed-a lovely one-
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,
That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,
Where

For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.

IX.

WHEN a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair-her epitaph!

When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusty Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day-
She remains,-it fades away.

X.

ONE sung of thee who left the tale untold,

Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting:

Like empty cups of wrought and dædal gold,

Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

XI.

AND where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart-and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year-
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

XII.

IN the cave which wild weeds cover

Wait for thine ethereal lover;

For the pallid moon is waning,
O'er the spiral cypress hanging
And the moon no cloud is staining.

It was once a Roman's chamber,
Where he kept his darkest revels,
And the wild weeds twine and clamber;
It was then a chasin for devils.

TT

XIII.

THERE is a warm and gentle atmosphere
About the form of one we love, and thus
As in a tender mist our spirits are

Wrapt in the

of that which is to us

The health of life's own life.

XIV.

How sweet it is to sit and read the talea

Of mighty poets, and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause-

XV.

WHAT men gain fairly-that they should possESS
And children may inherit idleness,

From him who earns it-This is understood;
Private injustice may be general good.
But he who gains by base and armed wrong,
Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,
May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress
Is stript from a convicted thief, and he
Left in the nakedness of infamy.

XVI.

WAKE the serpent not-lest he
Should not know the way to go,—
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping

Through the deep grass of the meadow !

Not a bee shall hear him creeping,

Not a May-fly shall awaken,

From its cradling blue-bell shaken,

Not the starlight as he's sliding

Through the grass with silent gliding.

XVII.

ROME has fallen, ye see it lying
Heaped in undistinguished ruin :
Nature is alone undying.

XVIII

THE fitful alternations of the rain,

When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there

Drives through the grey and beamless atmosphere.

ΧΙΧ.

I WOULD not be a king-enough

Of woe it is to love!

The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.

I would not climb the imperial throne;
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away
Keeping flocks on Himelay!

XX.

O THOU immortal deity

Whose throue is in the depth of human thought,
I do adjure thy power and thee

By all that man may be, by all that he is not,
By all that he has been and yet must be !

XXI.

HE wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind;
Through desert woods and tracts, which seem
Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

XXII.

ON KEATS,

WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED

"Here lieth One whose name was writ on water!"

But ere the breath that could erase it blew,

Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,

Death, the immortalising winter flew,

Athwart the stream, and time's monthless torrent grew A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name

Of Adonais !

XXIII.

THE rude wind is singing
The dirge of the music dead,
The cold worms are clinging
Where kisses were lately fed.

XXIV.

WHAT art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest
The wreath to mighty poets only due,
Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest?
Touch not those leaves which for the eternal few,
Who wander o'er the paradise of fame,

In sacred dedication ever grew,—

One of the crowd thou art without a name.
Ah, friend, 'tis the false laurel that I wear;
Bright though it seem, it is not the same
As that which bound Milton's immortal hair;
Its dew is poison and the hopes that quicken
Under its chilling shade, though seeming fair,
Are flowers which die almost before they sicken.

XXV.

WHEN soft winds and sunny skies
With the green earth harmonise,
And the young and dewy dawn,
Bold as an unhunted fawn,

Up the windless heaven is gone-
Laugh-for ambushed in the day,
Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.

XXVI.

THE babe is at peace within the womb,
The corpse is at rest within the tomb,
We begin in what we end.

XXVII.

EPITAPH.

THESE are two friends whose lives were undivided; So let their memory be, now they have glided Under their grave; let not their bones be parted, For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.

TRANSLATIONS.

HYMNS OF HOMER.

HYMN TO MERCURY.

I.

SING, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,

The Herald-child, king of Arcadia

And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love
Having been interwoven, modest May
Bore Heaven's dread Supreme-an antique grove
Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay
In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,
And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.

II.

Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,
And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief,
She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,
A schemer subtle beyond all belief;

A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,
A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief,
Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve,
And other glorious actions to achieve.

III.

The babe was born at the first peep of day;
He began playing on the lyre at noon,

And the same evening did he steal away
Apollo's herds;—the fourth day of the moon

On which him bore the venerable May,

From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon,

Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep,
But out to seek Apollo's herds would creep.

IV.

Out of the lofty cavern wandering

He found a tortoise, and cried out-"A treasure "

(For Mercury first made the tortoise sing)

The beast before the portal at his leisure