IMPROMPTU. THE sun has long been set, The stars are out by twos and threes, The little birds are piping yet Among the bushes and the trees; There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes, And a far-off wind that rushes, And a sound of water that gushes, And the cuckoo's sovereign cry Fills all the hollow of the sky. Who would go parading' In London, and masquerading,' On such a night of June With that beautiful half-moon, And all these innocent blisses? On such a night as this is! SONNET. I WATCH, and long have watched, with calm regret Yon slowly-sinking star-immortal Sire (So might he seem) of all the glittering quire! Blue ether still surrounds him-yet-and yet; But now the horizon's rocky parapet Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire, He burns-transmuted to a dusky fireThen pays submissively the appointed debt To the flying moments, and is seen no more. Angels and gods! we struggle with our fate, While health, power, glory, from their height decline, Depressed; and then extinguished: and our state, In this, how different, lost Star, from thine, That no to-morrow shall our beams restore! ELEGIAC PIECES. TO LAMB. To a good Man of most dear memory Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread, Wherever Christian altars have been raised, Still, at the centre of his being, lodged O, he was good, if e'er a good Man lived! The imperfect record, there may stand unblamed [air As long as verse of mine shall breathe the Of memory, or see the light of love. Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend! [the fields, But more in show than truth; and from And from the mountains, to thy rural grave Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o'er Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers; [still And taking up a voice shall speak (though Awed by the theme's peculiar sanctity Which words less free presumed not even to touch) Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp From infancy, through manhood to the last Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined Within thy bosom. "Wonderful" hath been The love established between man and man, now Passing the love of women;" and between Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined [of love Through God, is raised a spirit and soul Without whose blissful influence Paradise Had been no Paradise; and earth were [form, A waste where creatures bearing human Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, [on; Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve [Vine, That he hath been an Eln without his And her bright dower of clustering charities, [have clung That, round his trunk and branches might Enriching and adorning. Unto thee Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee Was given (say rather thou of later birth Wert given to her) a Sister-'tis a word Timidly uttered, for she lives, the meek, The self-restraining, and the ever-kind; In whom thy reason and intelligent heart Found-for all interests, hopes, and tender [powers, All softening, humanizing, hallowing, Whether withheld, or or her sake unsoughtMore than sufficient ompense! cares, Her love (What weal:ness prompts the voice to tell Did they together testify of time Such were they-such thro' life they might From the same beach one ocean to explore With mutual help, and sailing-to their league True, as inexorable winds, or bars But turn we rather, let my spirit turn With thine, O silent and invisible Friend! To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief, When reunited, and by choice withdrawn From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught That the remembrance of foregone distress, And the worse fear of future ill (which oft Doth hang around it, as a sickly child Upon its mother) may be both alike Disarmed of power to unsettle present good So prized, and things inward and outward held In such an even balance, that the heart Acknowledges God's grace, his mercy feels, And in its depth of gratitude is still. O gift divine of quiet sequestration! A thousand times more beautiful appeared His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH WHEN first descending from the moorlands, When last along its banks I wandered, The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer, Nor has the rolling year twice measured, The 'rapt One, of the godlike forehead, Like clouds that rake the mountain-sum mits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From sunshine to the sunless land! Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers Were earlier raised, remain to hear A timid voice, that asks in whispers, Who next will drop and disappear?" Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, Like London with its own black wreath, On which with thee, O Crabbe! forthlooking, I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath. As if but yesterday departed, Mourn rather for that holy Spirit, No more of old romantic sorrows, And Ettrick mourns with her their poet dead. TRUE is it that Ambrosio Salinero Of racking malady. And true it is Mounts to pellucid Hippocrene, but he Had traced its windings.-This Savona knows, Yet no sepulchral honours to her Son That an exceeding love hath dazzled me; No-he was One whose memory ought to spread Where'er Permessus bears an honoured To fair Aglaia; by what envy moved, Lelius! has death cut short thy brilliant day In its sweet opening? and what dire mishap Who saw thee, on his margin, yield to death, In the chaste arms of thy beloved Love! That every gentle Spirit hither led tears. |