As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute:
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possest.
O, Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee,

As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

A DIRGE.

ROUGH wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song ;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;

Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,

Wail, for the world's wrong.

CHARLES THE FIRST.

A FRAGMENT.

ACT I.

SCENE. I.-The Pageant to celebrate the arrival of the Queen.

A PURSUIVANT.

PLACE for the Marshal of the Masque !

FIRST SPEAKER.

What thinkest thou of this quaint masque, which

turns

Like morning from the shadow of the night,
The night to day, and London to a place
Of peace and joy?

SECOND SPEAKER.

And Hell to Heaven.

Eight years are gone,

And they seem hours, since in this populous street
I trod on grass made green by summer's rain,
For the red plague kept state within that palace
Where now reigns vanity-in nine years more
The roots will be refreshed with civil blood;
And thank the mercy of insulted Heaven

That sin and wrongs wound as an orphan's cry, The patience of the great Avenger's ear.

THIRD SPEAKER (a youth.)

Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden

By God or man ;-'tis like the bright possession
Of skyey visions in a solemn dream

From which men wake as from a paradise,

And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life. If God be good, wherefore should this be evil? And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw Unseasonable poison from the flowers

Which bloom so rarely in this barren world? Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the present

When avarice and tyranny, vigilant fear,
And open-eyed conspiracy, lie sleeping

As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts
Waken to worship him who giveth joys
With his own gift.

SECOND SPEAKER.

How young art thou in this old age of time! green in this gray world!

How

think

Canst thou not

Of change in that low scene, in which thou art
Not a spectator, but an actor?

e;

The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,
Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done
Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found
My inn of lasting rest, but thou must still
Be journeying on in this inclement air.

FIRST SPEAKER.

Is the Archbishop.

That

SECOND SPEAKER.

Rather say the Pope.

London will be soon his Rome: he walks
As if he trod upon the heads of men.

He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold;-
Beside him moves the Babylonian woman
Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,
Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,

Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

ANOTHER CITIZEN (lifting up his eyes.)

Good Lord! rain it down upon him.

Amid her ladies walks the papist queen

As if her nice feet scorned our English earth. There's old Sir Henry Vane, the Earl of Pembroke,

Lord Essex, and Lord Keeper Coventry,

And others who made base their English breed By vile participation of their honours