FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY.
No popular respect will I omit
To do thee honour on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun
All calendars with Love's,-whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun,-
For with thy favour was my life begun;
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles :
Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine.
OH, 'tis a touching thing to make one weep,-
A tender infant with its curtain'd eye,
Breathing as it would neither live nor die
With that unchanging countenance of sleep!
As if its silent dream, serene and deep,
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky,
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie
With no more life than roses-just to keep
The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath.
O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose,
So sweet a compromise of life and death,
'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose
For memory to stain their inward leaf,
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.
THINE eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd
No eyes could wake so beautiful as they :
Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay,
I loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd
Of dimples; for those parted lips so seem'd,
I never thought a smile could sweetlier play,
Nor that so graceful life could chase away
Thy graceful death, till those blue eyes upbeam'd
Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd,
And roses bloom more rosily for joy,
And odorous silence ripens into sound,
And fingers move to sound,—All-beauteous boy!
How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove,
If not more lovely, thou art more like Love!
THE World is with me, and its many cares,
Its woes-its wants-the anxious hopes and fears
That wait on all terrestrial affairs-
The shades of former and of future years—
Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate.
Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of
But no-a laugh of innocence and joy
Resounds, like music of the fairy race,
And, gladly turning from the world's annoy,
I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place."
WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEARE.
How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!
Hues of all flow'rs that in their ashes lie,
Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed,
Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red,—
Like exhalations from the leafy mould,
Look here how honour glorifies the dead,
And warms their scutcheons with a glance of
gold!-
Such is the memory of poets old,
Who on Parnassus' hill have bloom'd elate;
Now they are laid under their marbles cold,
And turn'd to clay, whereof they were create;
But God Apollo hath them all enroll'd,
And blazon'd on the very clouds of fate!
MOST delicate Ariel! submissive thing,
Won by the mind's high magic to its hest,----
Invisible embassy, or secret guest,-
Weighing the light air on a lighter wing;-
Whether into the midnight moon, to bring
Illuminate visions to the eye of rest,-
Or rich romances from the florid West,-
Or to the sea, for mystic whispering,-
Still by thy charm'd allegiance to the will,
The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain,
As by the fingering of fairy skill,-
Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain,
Odours, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile,
Making this dull world an enchanted isle.
YOUNG ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth,
Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind,
And still a large late love of all thy kind,
Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth,
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth,
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind
Thine eyes with tears,-that thou hast not resign'd
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth:
For as the current of thy life shall flow,
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd,
Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen,
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe
Thrice cursed of thy race,-thou art ordain'd
To share beyond the lot of common men.
It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal spright
Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this, but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,-and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.
By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts,
Graven by Time, in love with his own lore;
By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts,
Wherein Love died to be alive the more;
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore,
Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear
That coast forever, where the billow's roar
Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear;
By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear
That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall;
By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear
That sigh'd around her flight; I swear by all,
The world shall find such pattern in my act,
As if Love's great examples still were lack'd.
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