Mean but themselves, each fittest to create, And to repay the other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? MOLES. -THEY shrink in, as moles (Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground) Creep back from light-then listen for its sound ;See but to dread, and dread they know not whyThe natural alien of their negative eye. THE VISIT OF THE GODS. IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. NEVER, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came boy Cupid the smiler; Lo! Phœbus the glorious descends from his throne! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! With divinities fills my Terrestrial hall! How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joy ance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the nectar! O fill me the bowl! Pour out for the poet, Hebe! pour free! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, Forbids me to die! ELEGY, IMITATED FROM ONE OF AKINSIDE'S BLANK-VERSE INSCRIPTIONS. NEAR the lone pile with ivy overspread, Fast by the rivulet's sleep-persuading sound, Where "sleeps the moonlight" on yon verdant bedO humbly press that consecrated ground! For there does Edmund rest, the learned swain! Like some tall tree that spreads its branches wide, But soon did righteous heaven her guilt pursue! Where'er with wildered step she wandered pale, Still Edmund's image rose to blast her view, Still Edmund's voice accused her in each gale. With keen regret, and conscious guilt's alarms, Go, traveller! tell the tale with sorrow fraught: SEPARATION. A SWORDED man whose trade is blood, Through jungle, swamp, and torrent flood, The dazzling charm of outward form, Is not true love of higher price Than outward form, though fair to see, O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see (This separation is, alas! Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass That life, that happy life, with her!) The perils, erst with steadfast eye Not half enough to part from thee! ON TAKING LEAVE OF 1817. To know, to esteem, to love—and then to part, The forms of memory all my mental food, THE PANG MORE SHARP THAN ALL. AN ALLEGORY. I. He too has flitted from his secret nest, Hope's last and dearest child without a name !— |