TO JULIET.

A THOUGHT AT NIGHT.

IN yonder taper's waning light,
An image of my heart I see;
It burns amid a lonely night-
Its life the love of thee-
The steadfast light its passion takes,
But slowly wastes while it illumes;
And while my very life it makes,
My life itself consumes.

TO JULIET.

THE summer-the summer hath come, my love,
And the ringdove found his bride-
Not a flower below, not a beam above,
But doth thy coyness chide.

I have loved thee well-I have loved thee long-
I have loved thyself alone;

There lived not a thought in my burning song,
That my heart did not more than own.

Be mine-be mine while the Hours allow
My life to be vowed to Thee?

For the leaves of my youth are round me now-
But the worm is in the tree.

And the time, sweet love, is speeding fast,
When the vow shall be ever o'er-
When thy faithful Fountain, dried at last,
Shall leap to the Breeze no more.
Be mine-be mine, ere hath pass'd away
The scent from Life's closing flowers;
And sometime hence it will soothe to say-
"I blest his latest hours!"

LOVE'S WATCH.

TO JULIET SLEEPING.

THE Moonbeams thro' the lattice fall;
They silver o'er thy blushing cheek;
And still I wake to feed on all

The love I could not speak.

And thou art mine-all mine at last!
Our world can be earth's world no more,
A gulf between this life hath pass'd,
And that we knew before.

How rushed the swelling tides of thought-
All round grows hallowed ground to me!
How tender silence seems! how fraught-
The loving air-with THEE! ·

I ever thought till now, the light

Of Heaven's sweet stars was mixed with sadness; Now they now all-drink in my sight,

A glory and a gladness!

Sweet love, I bend to kiss thy brow

I grow enamoured of thy rest;

What dreams of heaven shall haunt me, now

My pillow is thy breast!

ON THE IMITATORS OF BYRON.

A FABLE.

A SWAN hymn'd music on the Muses' waves,
And Song's sweet daughters wept within their caves;
It chanced the Bird had something then deemed new,
Not in the music only-but the hue-

Black were his plumes;-the Rooks that heard on high,
Came envying round, and darkened all the sky;

Each Rook, ambitious of a like applause,

Clapped his grave wings-and Pierus rung with caws. What of the Swan's attraction could they lack,

Their noise as mournful, and their wings as black? In vain we cry-the secret you mistook,

And grief is dd discordant in a Rook!

ON THE WANT OF SYMPATHY WE EXPERIENCE IN THE WORLD.

"OH for one breast to image ours!"
Youth in its earliest vision sighs;
And age the same desire devours,
Until the dreamer dies.

Vain shadows from the friend-the wife-
Thou seek'st, how loved soe'er thou art,
The brightest stream that glads thy life,
Can never glass thy heart.

I grant thee, home's endearing sounds,
I

I grant thee, love's first whispered tone;
But where the breast from which rebounds
The echo to thine own?

Mad are we all,-who hath not pined

For something kindred from his birth?

And lost earth's solid joys to find
What is not of the earth?

Ah! could we to ourselves betroth
One breast, a very shade of ours;
Would time alone not alter both

The creatures of the hours?
Go back into thy lonely soul,
And with a calm and chasten'd eye
Survey thy tether, and control

The dreams that seek the sky;—
And for ideal shapes, would melt
All life into one vague desire;
In that far air wherein thou hast dwelt,
Hope's mortal ends expire.

Go-seek for joys amid thy kind!
How much has life itself to bless
The one whose wise and healthful mind
Seeks what it can possess.
Ourself may in ourself create

A tie beyond the dreamer's art;
No bond is made that mocks at Fate,
Like Man's with his own heart.

THE RATS AND THE MICE;

A FABLE

OF THE DAYS OF KING ARTHUR.

ADDRESSED TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

THERE was a time when Rats and Mice combined

To form one state against the feline kind;

Tho' few the Rats, and many were the Mice,

The State was governed by the Rats' advice;

Strong were their teeth, and dangerous were their claws, And most severe upon the Cats their laws.

Well sped our Aristocracy of Rats,

They laughed at snares, and triumphed o'er the Cats;
They warr'd with glory, and they lived in ease,
And filled the Treasury with a world of cheese.
The stotes-the weasels with admiring gaze
Beheld, and lavished on our State their praise:
Oft would they cry-" No Commonwealth is great
"Where Rats and Freedom govern not the State!"
And for the Rats, we must in truth confess,
That vulgar Fame outstripped not their success:
Their sage control-their plump conditions speak-
Their sides how covered, and their skins how sleek!

They knew no toil-the Mice their burrows made,
For the Rat's pleasure was the Mouse's trade.
His moral duty was-the cheese to find,
And the Rat spared the little wretch-the rind;
But if the Mouse should chance, unbid, to sup→→
They called a jury, and they ate him up.

So far so good-the Mice, an humble race,
Worked on, and owned the justice of the case.
Inured to toil they only asked to earn
Plain food and holes to live in-in return!
By slow degrees, howe'er, and times of peace,
Both Rats and Mice too numerously increase;
The general commerce not increasing too,
The Mice seem hungry, and the Rats look blue:
The Mice in truth grew lamentably thinner,

And Rats-poor creatures-miss'd their cream at dinner.

Persius hath told us how the dullest brute

Is made by hunger, knowing and acute.

And a pinched stomach best-we must admit-
Gives voice to parrots, and to lawyers wit:

Ev'n thus our Mice grew reasoners with their state,
And want of dining brought about debate.

"We found the cheeses which our Rulers carve,
"We filled the state with plenty-yet we starve !
Why this?"

66

"Hush, babbler!" quoth an ancient Mouse, "The Rats are sitting, let us ask the House." They reached the Senate, where the Rats were met, To see what cheeses should be soonest eat;

The tempting piles the lesser vermin saw,

And their mouths watering washed away their awe. "Behold!" they cried, "how fleshless we have grown, "And be that cheese-that Gloucester cheese-our own!"

"Base Levellers!" cried a Rat; "ungrateful ones, "That cheese is destined for our younger sons."