lar writers; and also because he might feel shackled in the free expression of his opinions, if any friends were to be compromised. By those opinions, carried even to their utmost extent, he wished to live and die, as being in his conviction not only true, but such as alone would conduce to the moral improvement and happiness of mankind. The sale of the work might, meanwhile, either really or supposedly, be injured by the free expression of his thoughts; and this evil he resolved to avoid.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822.

THE MAGNETIC LADY TO HER PATIENT.

I.

"SLEEP, sleep on! forget thy pain.

My hand is on thy brow,

My spirit on thy brain,

My pity on thy heart, poor friend;
And from my fingers flow

The powers of life, and, like a sign,
Seal thee from thine hour of woe,
And brood on thee, but may not blend
With thine.

II.

"Sleep, sleep on!-I love thee not;
But when I think that he

Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds

Might have been lost like thee,
And that a hand which was not mine
Might then have charmed his agony,
As I another's-my heart bleeds

For thine.

III.

"Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of
The dead and the unborn.

Forget thy life and love;

Forget that thou must wake; for ever

Forget the world's dull scorn;

Forget lost health, and the divine

Feelings which died in youth's brief morn;

And forget me, for I can never

Be thine.

IV.

"Like a cloud big with a May shower,
My soul weeps healing rain

On thee, thou withered flower.
It breathes mute music on thy sleep;
Its odour calms thy brain;
Its light within thy gloomy breast
Spreads like a second youth again.
By mine thy being is to its deep

You good, when suffering and awake?

What cure your head and side?"

"What would cure, that would kill me, Jane: And, as I must on earth abide

Awhile, yet tempt me not to break

My chain."

LINES.

I.

WHEN the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet notes are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

II.

As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute:-
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind in a ruined cell,

Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

III.

When hearts have once mingled,

Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possessed.

O, Love, who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,

Why chose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

IV.

Its passions will rock thee,

As the storms rock the ravens on high:

Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

TO JANE-THE INVITATION.

BEST and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow

To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.

The brightest hour of unborn Spring,

Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born.

Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth;
And smiled upon the silent sea;
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains;
And breathed upon the frozen mountains;
And like a prophetess of May

Strewed flowers upon the barren way,

Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs-
To the silent wilderness

Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.

I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:-
"I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields.
Reflection, you may come to-morrow;
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,-
You tiresome verse-reciter, Care,-
I will pay you in the grave,—
Death will listen to your stave.
Expectation too, be off!

To-day is for itself enough.
Hope, in pity, mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on your sweet food,
At length I find one moment's good
After long pain: with all your love,
This you never told me of."

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains;
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves;
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;-
When the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets

Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind

In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,

And the multitudinous

Billows murmur at our feet

Where the earth and ocean meet,

And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.

Pisa, February 1822.

TO JANE-THE RECOLLECTION.

L

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,

The loveliest and the last, is dead.
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up-to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,—

For now the earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the heaven's brow.

II.

We wandered to the pine forest

That skirts the ocean's foam;

The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,

And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one

Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of paradise.

III.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,