TO E**

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me Sweet basil and mignionette?

Embleming love and health, which never yet In the same wreath might be.

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?

For never rain or dew

Such flagrance drew

From plant or flower-the very doubt endears My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

March, 1821.

ΤΟ

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Thou needest not fear mine; Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

LINES.

WHEN the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead-
When the cloud is scattered

The rainbow's glory is shed. ·
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

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 the naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

(With what truth I may say—
Roma! Roma! Roma!

Non è più come era prima!)

My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, and did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid,
Here its ashes find a tomb,

But beneath this pyramid

Thou art not-if a thing divine
Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine
Is thy mother's grief and mine.

Where art thou, my gentle child?
Let me think thy spirit feeds,
Within its life intense and mild,

The love of living leaves and weeds,
Among these tombs and ruins wild;--

Let me think that through low seeds
Of the sweet flowers and sunny grass,
Into their hues and scents may pass
A portion-

June, 1819.