POEMS. TO HARRIET *****. WHOSE is the love that, gleaming through the world, Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? Virtue's most sweet reward? Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul Harriet! on thine :-thou wert my purer mind; Thou wert the inspiration of my song; Thine are these early wilding flowers, Then press into thy breast this pledge of love, And know, though time may change and years may roll, Each flow'ret gathered in my heart It consecrates to thine. QUEEN MAB. I. How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! The other, rosy as the morn Yet both so passing wonderful! Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres Seized on her sinless soul? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction's breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning Chaseth into darkness? Will Tanthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture, from her smile? Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, And silent those sweet lips, Once breathing eloquence That might have soothed a tiger's rage, Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed, And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed. Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. Hark! whence that rushing sound? 'Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore, |