And such a brightness in his eye,
As if the ocean and the sky
Within him had lit up and nurst
A soul God gave him not at first,
To comprehend their majesty.

IV.

We were not cruel, yet did sunder
His white wing from the blue waves under
And bound it, while his fearless eyes
Shone up to ours in calm surprise,
As deeming us some ocean wonder!

V.

We bore our ocean bird unto
A grassy place, where he might view
The flowers that curtsey to the bees,
The waving of the tall green trees,
The falling of the silver dew.

VI.

But flowers of earth were pale to him
Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim;
And when earth's dew around him lay
He thought of ocean's wingéd spray,
And his eye waxéd sad and dim.

VII.

The green trees round him only made
A prison with their darksome shade;
And drooped his wing, and mournéd he
For his own boundless glittering sea—
Albeit he knew not they could fade.

VIII.

Then One her gladsome face did bring,
Her gentle voice's murmuring,

In ocean's stead his heart to move

And teach him what was human love-
He thought it a strange, mournful thing.

IX.

He lay down in his grief to die,
(First looking to the sea-like sky
That hath no waves!) because, alas!
Our human touch did on him pass,
And with our touch, our agony.

FELICIA HEMANS.

TO L. E. L., REFERRING TO HER MONODY ON THE POETESS.

I.

THOU bay-crowned living One that o'er the baycrowned Dead art bowing,

And o'er the shadeless moveless brow the vital shadow throwing,

And o'er the sighless songless lips the wail and music wedding,

And dropping o'er the tranquil eyes, the tears not of their shedding!—

II.

Take music from the silent Dead, whose meaning is completer,

Reserve thy tears for living brows, where all such tears are meeter,

VOL. II.-5

And leave the violets in the grass to brighten where thou treadest!

No flowers for her! no need of flowers-albeit 'bring flowers,' thou saidest.

III.

Yes, flowers, to crown the 'cup and lute!' since both may come to breaking.

Or flowers, to greet the 'bride!' the heart's own beating works its aching.

Or flowers, to soothe the 'captive's' sight, from earth's free bosom gathered,

Reminding of his earthly hope, then withering as it withered.

IV.

But bring not near the solemn corse, a type of human seeming.

Lay only dust's stern verity upon the dust undreaming.

And while the calm perpetual stars shall look upon it solely,

Her sphered soul shall look on them, with eyes more bright and holy.

V.

Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning.

Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning?

The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the afflated

Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it shone dilated?

VI.

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was wreathing,

But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing,

Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving,

Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving.

VII.

Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour she descrieth,

And little recks who wreathed the brow which on His bosom lieth.

The whiteness of His innocence o'er all her garments flowing,

There, learneth she the sweet 'new song,' she will not mourn in knowing.

VIII.

Be happy, crowned and living One! and, as thy dust decayeth,

May thine own England say for thee, what now for Her it sayeth

'Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was ringing, The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than her singing!'

L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION.

'Do you think of me as I think of you?'

From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape.

I.

'Do you think of me as I think of you,

My friends, my friends?'-She said it from the sea,
The English minstrel in her minstrelsy,

While, under brighter skies than erst she knew,
Her heart grew dark, and groped there, as the blind,
To reach across the waves friends left behind-
'Do you think of me as I think of you?'

II.

It seemed not much to ask-as I of you?
We all do ask the same. No eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes, that question over.
And little in the world the Loving do
But sit (among the rocks?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore-
'Do you think of me as I think of you?'

III.

Love-learned she had sung of love and love,-
And like a child that, sleeping with dropt head
Upon the fairy-book he lately read,

Whatever household noises round him move,
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence,-
Even so, suggestive to her inward sense,
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love.