492

Hunt.-Pierpont. - Marcy.

LEIGH HUNT. 1784-1859.

ABOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.

Abou Ben Adhem.

And lo! BEN ADHEM'S name led all the rest.

Ibid.

O for a seat in some poetic nook,
Just hid with trees and sparkling with a brook.

Politics and Poetics.

With spots of sunny openings, and with nooks To lie and read in, sloping into brooks.

The Story of Rimini.

JOHN PIERPONT. 1785-1866.

A weapon that comes down as still
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,

As lightning does the will of God;
And from its force, nor doors nor locks
Can shield you ;- 't is the ballot-box.
A Word from a Petitioner.

WILLIAM L. MARCY. 1786-1857.

They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.

Speech in the United States Senate, January, 1832.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

1792-1822.

How wonderful is Death!

Death and his brother Sleep.

Queen Mab. i.

Power, like a desolating pestilence,

Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame A mechanized automaton.

Heaven's ebon vault,

Studded with stars unutterably bright,

Ibid. iii.

Thro' which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,

Seems like a canopy which love has spread

To curtain her sleeping world.

Ibid. iv.

Then black despair,

The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.

The Revolt of Islam. Dedication. St. vi.

With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and

1 Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, but no

rest. Bacon, Essay xx. Empire.

Given or returned.

All love is sweet,

Common as light is love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still.'

Prometheus Unbound. Act ii. Sc. 5.

Those who inflict must suffer, for they see

The work of their own hearts, and that must be

Our chastisement or recompense.

Julian and Maddalo.

Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong;

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

I could lie down like a tired child,

Ibid.

And weep away the life of care Which I have borne, and yet must bear. Stanzas, written in Dejection, near Naples.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,

Whom mortals call the moon.

The Cloud. iv.

A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.

Adonais xxxii.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity. Ibid. lii.

1 The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we excite. - Rochefoucauld, Maxim 78.

Shelley continued.]

Music, when soft voices die

Vibrates in the memory

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Poems written in 1821. To

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow!
Poems written in 1821. To

EATON STANNARD BARRETT.
1785-1820.

Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.
Woman. Part i. Ed. 1822.1

MISS FANNY STEERS.

The last link is broken

That bound me to thee,

And the words thou hast spoken

Have rendered me free.

1 Not she with trait'rous kiss her Master stung,
Not she denied him with unfaithful tongue;
She, when apostles fled, could danger brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.

Song.

From the original edition of 1810.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

1795-1820.

When Freedom from her mountain height

Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given;
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet !

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

The American Flag.

FELICIA HEMANS. 1794 – 1835.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath, And stars to set; - but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

The Hour of Death.

Alas! for love, if thou art all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!

The Graves of a Household.