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In which the warm current of love never freezes,
As it rises unmingled with selfishness there,
Which, untainted by pride, unpolluted by care,
Might dissolve the dim icedrop, might bid it arise,
Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies.

II.

Or where the stern warrior, his country defending,
Dares fearless the dark-rolling battle to pour,-
Or o'er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending,
Where Patriotism, red with his guilt-reeking gore,
Plants liberty's flag on the slave-peopled shore,-
With victory's cry, with the shout of the free,
Let it fly, taintless Spirit, to mingle with thee!

III.

For I found the pure gem when the daybeam returning
Ineffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain,
When to others the wished-for arrival of morning
Brings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain.
But regret is an insult-to grieve is in vain :
And why should we grieve that a Spirit so fair
Seeks heaven to mix with its own kindred there?

IV.

But still 'twas some Spirit of kindness, descending
To share in the load of mortality's woe,
Who over thy lowly-built sepulchre bending,
Bade sympathy's tenderest tear-drop to flow.
Not for thee soft compassion celestials did know:
But, if angels can weep, sure man may repine-
May weep in mute grief o'er thy low-laid shrine.

V.

And did I then say for the altar of Glory

That the earliest, the loveliest, of flowers I'd entwine, Though with millions of blood-reeking victims 'twas gory, Though the tears of the widow polluted its shrine, Though around it the orphans, the fatherless, pine?

O Fame! all thy glories I'd yield for a tear To shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. January 1811.

LOVE.

WHY is it said thou canst not live
In a youthful breast and fair,
Since thou eternal life canst give-

Canst bloom for ever there

Since withering pain no power possessed,
Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,
Nor Time's dread victor, Death, confessed,
Though bathed with his poison-dew?
Still thou retain'st unchanging bloom,
Fixed, tranquil, even in the tomb.

And oh when on the blessed, reviving,
The day-star dawns of Love,

Each energy of soulsurviving

More vivid soars above,

Hast thou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill,

Like June's warm breath athwart thee fly,
O'er each idea then to steal,

When other passions die?—

Felt it in some wild noonday dream,
When sitting by the lonely stream
Where Silence says "Mine is the dell,"

And not a murmur from the plain,

And not an echo from the fell,

Disputes her silent reign.

April 1811.

BIGOTRY'S VICTIM.

I.

DARES the llama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches, can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air!

No! abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair:
The monster transfixes his prey:

On the sand flows his life-blood away,

Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.

II.

Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches,
Dares fearless to perish, defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches,
Thirsting-ay, thirsting-for blood,

And demands, like mankind, his brother for food:-
Yet more lenient, more gentle, than they,—
For hunger, not glory, the prey

Must perish. Revenge does not howl o'er the dead,
Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer's head.

III.

Though weak as the llama that bounds on the mountains,
And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air,
Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,
Though a fiercer than tiger is there;

Though more dreadful than death it scatters despair,
Though its shadow eclipses the day,
And the darkness of deepest dismay

Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,
And lours on the corpses that rot on the ground.

IV.

They came to the fountain, to draw from its stream
Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;
They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam,

Then perished—and perished like me.
For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee:
The most tenderly loved of my soul

Are slaves to his hated control.

He pursues me-he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly! What remains but to curse him-to curse him, and die? 28 April, 1811.

TO THE MOONBEAM.

MOONBEAM, leave the shadowy vale,
To bathe this burning brow!
Moonbeam, why art thou so pale,
As thou walkest o'er the dewy dale

Where humble wildflowers grow?

Is it to mimic me?

But that can never be,

For thine orb is bright,

And the clouds are light

That at intervals show the star-studded night.

Now all is deathy still on earth,
Nature's tired frame reposes;

And, ere the golden morning's birth

Its radiant hues discloses,

Flies forth its balmy breath.

But mine is the midnight of death;

And Nature's morn

To my bosom forlorn

Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn!

Wretch suppress the glare of madness

Struggling in thine haggard eye!
For the keenest throb of sadness,

Pale despair's most sickening sigh,
Is but to mimic me.

And this must ever be

When the twilight of care

And the night of despair

Seem in my breast but joys, to the pangs that wake there!

May 1811.

ON A FÊTE AT CARLTON HOUSE.

(FRAGMENT).

By the mossy brink,

With me the Prince shall sit and think';

Shall muse in visioned Regency,

Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.

1811.

ΤΟ

Ο THOU

Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path
Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold

1811.

But swiftly leading to those awful limits
Which mark the bounds of time, and of the space
When time shall be no more,-wilt thou not turn
Those spirit-beaming eyes, and look on me,
Until I be assured that earth is heaven,

And heaven is earth?

1811.

TO A STAR.

SWEET star which, gleaming o'er the darksome scene,
Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance fliest!
Spanglet of light on evening's shadowy veil

Which shrouds the daybeam from the waveless lake,
Lighting the hour of sacred love, more sweet
Than the expiring morn-star's paly fires!
Sweet star! when wearied nature sinks to sleep,
And all is hushed-all save the voice of love,
Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy blast
Of soft Favonius, which at intervals

Sighs in the ear of Stillness-art thou aught but
Lulling the slaves of interest to repose,

With that mild pitying gaze?—Oh! I would look
In thy dear beam till every bond of sense
Became enamoured!

LOVE'S ROSE.

HOPES that swell in youthful breasts,
Live they this, the waste of time?
Love's rose a host of thorns invests:
Cold, ungenial, is the clime

Where its honours blow.

Youth says: "The purple flowers are mine"

Which die the while they glow.

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