ON THE DEATH OF A LADY. Sweet spirit ! if thy airy sleep

Nor sees my tears, nor hears my sighs, Oh! I will weep, in luxury weep,

Till the last heart's-drop fills mine eyes.
But if thy sainted soul can feel,

And mingles in our misery;
Then, then, my breaking heart I'll seal-

Thou shalt not hear one sigh from me!
The beam of morn was on the stream,

But sullen clouds the day deform: Thou wert, indeed, that morning beam,

And death, alas! that sullen storm. Thou wert not formed for living here,

For thou wert kindred with the sky; Yet, yet we held thee all so dear

We thought thou wert not formed to die!

WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAF

OF A LADY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK.
Here is one leaf reserved for me,
From all thy sweet memorials free;'
And here my simple song might tell
The feelings thou must guess so well.
But could I thus, within thy mind,
One little vacant corner find,
Where no impression yet is seen,
Where no memorial yet has been,
Oh! it should be my sweetest care
To write my name for ever there!

TO ROSA.
LIKE who trusts to summer skies,

And puts his little bark to sea,
Is he who, lured by smiling eyes,

Consigns his simple heart to thee.
For fickle is the summer wind,

And sadly may the bark be tost ;
For thou art sure to change thy mind,

And then the wretched heart is lost !

TO ROSA.
OH! why should the girl of my soul be in tears

At a meeting of rapture like this,
When the glooms of the past and the sorrow of years

Have been paid by a moment of bliss?

For though the flower's decayed,

Its fragrance is not o'er;
But once when love's betrayed,

The heart can bloom no more !

CHARITY. “Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more !"

St. John, chap. viii O WOMAN! if by simple wile

Thy soul has strayed from honour's track, 'Tis mercy only can beguile,

By gentle ways, the wanderer back. The stain that on thy virtue lies,

Washed by thy tears, may yet decay ; As clouds that sully morning skies

May all be wept in showers away. Go, go—be innocent, and live

The tongues of men may wound thee sore; But Heaven in pity can forgive,

And bids thee "go, and sin no more !”

LOVE AND MARRIAGE.
Eque brevi verbo ferre perenne malum.

Secundus, eleg, vis
Still the question I must parry,

Still a wayward truant prove :
Where I love, I must not marry ;

Where I marry, cannot love.
Were she fairest of creation,

With the least presuming mind :
Learned without affectation;

Not deceitful, yet refined ;
Wise enough, but never rigid ;

Gay, but not too lightly free ;
Chaste as snow, and yet not frigid ;

Warm, yet satisfied with me:
Were she all this ten times over,

All that Heaven to earth allows,
I should be too much her lover

Ever to become her spouse.
Love will never bear enslaving ;

Summer garments suit him best •
Bliss itself is not worth having,

If we're by compulsion blest.

TO MISS

ON HER ASKING THE AUTHOR WHY SHE HAD SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

I'll ask the sylph who round thee flies,

And in thy breath his pinion dips,
Who suns him in thy lucent eyes,

And faints upon thy sighing lips :
I'll ask him where's the veil of sleep

That used to shade thy looks of light;
And why those eyes their vigil keep,

When other suns are sunk in night.
And I will say—“Her angel breast

Has never ihrobbed with guilty sting ;
Her bosom is the sweetest nest

Where Slumber could repose his wing!"
And I will say—“ Her cheeks of flame,

Which glow like roses in the sun,
Have never felt a blush of shame,

Except for what her eyes have done !
“ Then tell me, why, thou child of air !

Does slumber from her eyelids rove?
What is her heart's impassioned care?

Perhaps, O sylph ! perhaps 'uis love!”

NONSENSE.
Good reader ! if you e'er have seen,

When Phæbus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,

Dancing upon the western billow :
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn

Floats wild along the winding shore :
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green :-

If you have seen all this, and more,
God bless me! what a deal you've seen!

TO JULIA.

ON HER BIRTH-DAY.
WHEN Time was entwining the garland of years

Which to crown my beloved was given,
Though some of the leaves might be sullied with tears,

Yet the flowers were all gathered in heaven!

Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they loved such follies dearly!
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penned by female hands :
The rest,-alas ! I own the truth, -
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a withering look,
Disdainful flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there
Have oft been stained with blots of care ;
And sometimes hours of peace, I own,
Upon some fairer leaves have shown
White as the snowings of that heaven
By which those hours of peace were given.
But now no longer-such, oh! such
The blast of Disappointment's touch!..-
No longer now those hours appear ;
Each leaf is sullied by a tear :
Blank, blank, is every page with care,
Not e'en a folly brightens there.
Will they yet brighten ?- Never, never !
Then shut the book, O God ! for ever!

THE TEAR
ON beds of snow the moonbeam slept,

And chilly was the midnight gloom,
When by the damp grave Ellen wept---

Sweet maid ! it was her Lindor's tomb!

A warm tear gushed, the wintry air

Congealed it as it flowed away:
All night it lay an ice-drop there,

At morn it glittered in the ray!
An angel, wandering from her sphere,

Who saw this bright, this frozen gem
To dew-eyed Pity brought the tear,

And hung it on her diadem !

TO JULIA, WEEPING.
Oh! if your tears are given to care.,

If real woe disturbs your peace,
Come to my bosom, weeping fair !

And I will bid your weeping cease.

But if with Fancy's visioned fears,

With dreams of woe, your bosom thrill, You look so lovely in your tears

That I must bid you drop them still !

SONG.
HAVE you not seen the timid tear

Steal trembling from mine eye?
Have you not marked the flush fear,

Or caught the murmured sigh?
And can you think my love is chill,

Nor fixed on you alone ?
And can you rend, by doubting still,

A heart so much your own?
To you my soul's affections move

Devoutly, warmly true;
My life has been a task of love,

One long, long thought of you.
If all your tender faith is o'er,

If still my truth you'll try;
Alas ! I know but one proof more, -

I'll bless your name, and die !

THE SHIELD.
Oh! did you not hear a voice of death?

And did you not mark the paly form
Which rode on the silver mist of the heath,

And sung a ghostly dirge in the storm? Was it a wailing bird of the gloom,

Which shrieks on the house of woe all night? Or a shivering fiend that flew to a tomb,

To howl and to feed till the glance of light? 'Twas not the death-bird's cry from the wood,

Nor shivering fiend that hung in the blast ; "Twas the shade of Helderic- man of blood

It screams for the guilt of days that are past ! See! how the red, red lightning strays,

And scares the gliding ghosts of the heath! Now on the leafless yew it plays,

Where hangs the shield of this son of death! That shield is blushing with murderous stains;

Long has it hung from the cold yew's spray; It is blown by storms and washed by rains,

But neither can take the blood away!