SONNET XXXIII..

THE Vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
Green Ida never deem'd the nurse of Jove;
Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
Had idly murmured to the idle air;
The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
In Delphi's cell, and old Trophonius' cave,
And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
Had never blended with the sweet despair
Of Sappho's death-song: if the sight inspired,
Saw only what the visual organs shew,

If heaven-born phantasy no more required,
Than what within the sphere of sense may grow;
The beauty to perceive of earthly things,

The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.

SONNET XXXIV.

TO A LOFTY BEAUTY,

FROM HER POOR KINSMAN.

FAIR maid, had I not heard thy baby cries,
Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude,
Thy mazy motions, striving to elude,
Yet wooing still a parent's watchful eyes,
Thy humours, many as the opal's dies,
And lovely all;-methinks thy scornful mood,
And bearing high of stately womanhood,—
Thy brow, where Beauty sits to tyrannize
O'er humble love, had made me sadly fear thee;
For never sure was seen a royal bride,
Whose gentleness gave grace to so much pride-
My very thoughts would tremble to be near thee;
But when I see thee at thy father's side,

Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.

THOUGHTS AND FANCIES.

A TASK AD LIBITUM.

TO A LADY.

You bid me write, and yet propose no theme.
Must I then shoot my shafts of poesy
At the vast, void, invulnerable air?
Or lead my Pegasus a steeple-hunting?
Or issue forth with chiming hue and cry,
With trampling feet of thorough-paced blank verse
And winding horn of long-drawn melody
In chace of butterflies? Or shall I rather,
In gentler figure, make believe to hang
My careless harp upon a willow tree,

That every gale may prattle with its strings?
'Tis strange that any bard should lack a theme
In such a world of wonders. Look abroad,
Around you, and above you, and within you:
The stars of heaven (as elder sages told).
Roll on from age to age their lonely way
To their own music. So the humbler spirit
Hears in the daily round of household things
A low sweet melody, inaudible

To the gross sense of worldlings.-Aye, I grant
That earth and sky are cunning instruments;