Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor :-
"I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields ;-
Reflection, you may come to-morrow,
Sit by the fireside of Sorrow.-
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,
I will pay you in the grave,
Death will listen to your stave.-
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough;
Hope in pity mock not woe

With smiles, nor follow where I go ;
Long having lived on thy sweet food,
At length I find one moment good
After long pain-with all your love,
This you never told me of."

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea.
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new ;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one,
In the universal sun.

THE RECOLLECTION.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory dead,

For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

I.

We wandered to the pine Forest That skirts the Ocean foam, The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep,

The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

II.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced.

And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.

III.

How calm it was !-the silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy wood-pecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste,

To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around

A thrilling silent life,

To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;-
And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there,

Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

Like one beloved the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast, Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest, Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye

Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,

The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in S―'s mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

February 2, 1822.

A SONG.

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above,

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

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 thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

LINES.

WHEN the lamp is shattered, The light in the dust lies deadWhen 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.

THE ISLE.

THERE was a little lawny islet
By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven :

And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer's breath enweaves,
Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,

Each a gem engraven.

Girt by many an azure wave

With which the clouds and mountains pave A lake's blue chasm.

THIRD SPEAKER (a youth).

Yet, father, 'tis a happy sight to see,
Beautiful, innocent, and unforbidden

By God or man ;-'tis like the bright procession
Of skiey visions in a solemn dream

From which men wake as from a paradise,
And draw new strength to tread the thorns of life.
If God be good, wherefore should this be evil?
And if this be not evil, dost thou not draw
Unseasonable poison from the flowers
Which bloom so rarely in this barren world?
Oh, kill these bitter thoughts which make the

And open-eyed conspiracy, lie sleeping
As on Hell's threshold; and all gentle thoughts
Waken to worship him who giveth joys
With his own gift.

SECOND SPEAKER.

How young art thou in this old age of time!
How green in this grey world! Canst thou not think
Of change in that low scene, in which thou art
Not a spectator but an actor?

The day that dawns in fire will die in storms,
Even though the noon be calm. My travel's done;
Before the whirlwind wakes I shall have found
My inn of lasting rest, but thou must still
Be journeying on in this inclement air.

*

*

*

*

FIRST SPEAKER.

Is the Archbishop.

SECOND SPEAKER.

*

That

Rather say the Pope.

London will be soon his Rome: he walks

As if he trod upon the heads of men.

He looks elate, drunken with blood and gold ;Beside him moves the Babylonian woman

Invisibly, and with her as with his shadow,

Mitred adulterer! he is joined in sin,

Which turns Heaven's milk of mercy to revenge.

Aye, there they are

Nobles, and sons of nobles, patentees,
Monopolists, and stewards of this poor farm,
On whose lean sheep sit the prophetic crows.
Here is the pomp that strips the houseless orphan,
Here is the pride that breaks the desolate heart.
These are the lilies glorious as Solomon,
Who toil not, neither do they spin,-unless
It be the webs they catch poor rogues withal.
Here is the surfeit which to them who earn
The niggard wages of the earth, scarce leaves
The tithe that will support them till they crawl
Back to its cold hard bosom. Here is health
Followed by grim disease, glory by shame,
Waste by lame famine, wealth by squalid want,
And England's sin by England's punishment.
And, as the effect pursues the cause foregone,
Lo, giving substance to my words, behold

At once the sign and the thing signified-
A troop of cripples, beggars, and lean outcasts,
Horsed upon stumbling shapes, carted with dung,
Dragged for a day from cellars and low cabins
And rotten hiding-holes, to point the moral
Of this presentiment, and bring up the rear
Of painted pomp with misery!

SPEAKER.

"Tis but

The anti-masque, and serves as discords do
In sweetest music. Who would love May flowers
If they succeeded not to Winter's flaw;
Or day unchanged by night; or joy itself
Without the touch of sorrow?

*

SCENE II.

A Chamber in Whitehall.

Enter the KING, QUEEN, LAUD, WENTWORTH, and ARCHY,

KING.

Thanks, gentlemen. I heartily accept
This token of your service: your gay masque
Was performed gallantly.

QUEEN.

And, gentlemen, Your quaint

Call your poor Queen your debtor.

pageant
Rose on me like the figures of past years,
Treading their still path back to infancy,
More beautiful and mild as they draw nearer
The quiet cradle. I could have almost wept
To think I was in Paris, where these shows
Are well devised-such as I was ere yet
My young heart shared with [

] the task,
The careful weight of this great monarchy.
There, gentlemen, between the sovereign's pleasure
And that which it regards, no clamour lifts
Its proud interposition.

Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou hadst still remained
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer;
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,
Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,
And be that tempered as the Ebro's steel;
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,
And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels,
Who think that she is fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle

In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream
Out of our worshipped state.

*

LAUD.

And if this suffice not,
Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst
They may lick up that scum of schismatics.
I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring
What we possess, still prate of christian peace,
As if those dreadful messengers of wrath,
Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong,
Should be let loose against innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields,
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride,
Where indeed it were christian charity

To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand :
And when our great Redeemer, when our God
Is scorned in his immediate ministers,
They talk of peace!

Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now.

Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts.

Come, I will sing to you; let us go try
These airs from Italy, and you shall see
A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,
Stamped on the heart by never-erring love;
Liker than any Vandyke ever made,

A pattern to the unborn age of thee,
Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy
A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,
Did I not think that after we were dead
Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that
The cares we waste upon our heavy crown
Would make it light and glorious as a wreath
Of heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

Dear Henrietta!

*

KING.

SCENE III.

HAMPDEN, PYM, CROMWELL, and the younger VANE.

HAMPDEN.

England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave!

I held what I inherited in thee

As pawn for that inheritance of freedom
Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile :—
How can I call thee England, or my country?
Does the wind hold?

VANE.

The vanes sit steady Upon the Abbey-towers. The silver lightnings Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke, Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. Mark too that flock of fleecy-winged clouds Sailing athwart St. Margaret's.

HAMPDEN.

Hail, fleet herald Of tempest! that wild pilot who shall guide Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,