Yet though, alas! the gifts that shone
Around that pen's exploring track,
Be now, with its great master, gone,
Nor living hand can call them back ;

Who does not feel, while thus his eyes
Rest on the enchanter's broken wand,
Each earth-born spell it work'd arise
Before him in succession grand?

Grand, from the Truth that reigns o'er all;

The unshrinking Truth, that lets her light Through Life's low, dark, interior fall, Opening the whole, severely bright:

Yet softening, as she frowns along,

O'er scenes which angels weep to see— Where Truth herself half veils the Wrong, In pity of the Misery.

True bard!—and simple, as the race

Of true-born poets ever are,

When, stooping from their starry place,

They're children, near, though gods, afar.

How freshly doth my mind recall,

'Mong the few days I've known with thee, One that, most buoyantly of all,

Floats in the wake of memory*;

When he, the poet, doubly graced,
In life, as in his perfect strain,
With that pure, mellowing power of Taste,
Without which Fancy shines in vain;

Who in his page will leave behind,
Pregnant with genius though it be,
But half the treasures of a mind,

Where Sense o'er all holds mastery :—

Friend of long years! of friendship tried
Through many a bright and dark event;
In doubts, my judge-in taste, my guide—
In all, my stay and ornament!

* The lines that follow allude to a day passed in company with Mr. Crabbe, many years since, when a party, consisting only of Mr. Rogers, Mr. Crabbe, and the author of these verses, had the pleasure of dining with Mr. Thomas Campbell, at his house at Sydenham.

He, too, was of our feast that day,

And all were guests of one, whose hand Hath shed a new and deathless ray

Around the lyre of this great land;

In whose sea-odes—as in those shells
Where Ocean's voice of majesty
Seems still to sound-immortal dwells
Old Albion's Spirit of the Sea.

Such was our host; and though, since then, Slight clouds have ris'n twixt him and me, Who would not grasp such hand again, Stretch'd forth again in amity?

Who can, in this short life, afford
To let such mists a moment stay,
When thus one frank, atoning word,
Like sunshine, melts them all away?

Bright was our board that day—though one Unworthy brother there had place;

As 'mong the horses of the Sun,

One was, they say, of earthly race.

Yet, next to Genius is the power

Of feeling where true Genius lies; And there was light around that hour

Such as, in memory, never dies;

Light which comes o'er

me, as I

gaze,

Thou Relic of the Dead, on thee, Like all such dreams of vanish'd days, Brightly, indeed—but mournfully!

ΤΟ

CAROLINE, VISCOUNTESS VALLETORT.

WRITTEN AT LACOCK ABBEY, JANUARY, 1832.

WHEN I would sing thy beauty's light,
Such various forms, and all so bright,
I've seen thee, from thy childhood, wear,
I know not which to call most fair,
Nor 'mong the countless charms that spring
For ever round thee, which to sing.

When I would paint thee, as thou art,
Then all thou wert comes o'er my heart—
The graceful child, in beauty's dawn,
Within the nursery's shade withdrawn,
Or peeping out—like a young moon
Upon a world 'twill brighten soon.
Then next, in girlhood's blushing hour,
As from thy own lov'd Abbey-tower
I've seen thee look, all radiant, down,
With smiles that to the hoary frown