LINES TO A CRITIC.

HONEY from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?

The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.

Hate men who cant, and men who pray,
And men who rail like thee;

An equal passion to repay

They are not coy like me.

Or seek some slave of power and gold,
To be thy dear heart's mate;
Thy love will move that bigot cold,
Sooner than me thy hate.

A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love-
How should I then hate thee?

LINES.

THAT time is dead for ever, child,
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past,

And stare aghast

At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast,
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life's dark river.

The stream we gazed on then rolled by;
Its waves are unreturning;

But we yet stand

In a lone land,

Like tombs to mark the memory

Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee
In the light of life's dim morning.

сс

ON F. G.

HER voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery-O Misery,

This world is all too wide for thee.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO ROSALIND AND HELEN, AND LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE
EUGANEAN HILLS.

NAPLES, Dec. 20, 1818.

THE story of ROSALIND and HELEN is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in the highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular, inasmuch as it corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which inspire it.

I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will be selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One, which I sent from Italy, was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn, on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.

ROSALIND AND HELEN.

SCENE.-The Shore of the Lake of Como
ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.

HELEN.

Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
'Tis long since thou and I have met:
And yet methinks it were unkind
Those moments to forget.

Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
By this lone lake, in this far land,
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven.
Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
And be as thou wert wont to be
Ere we were disunited?

None doth behold us now: the power
That led us forth at this lone hour
Will be but ill requited

If thou depart in scorn: oh! come
And talk of our abandoned home.
Remember, this is Italy,

And we are exiles. Talk with me

Of that our land, whose wilds and floods.
Barren and dark although they be,
Were dearer than these chesnut woods;
Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream:
Which that we have abandoned now,
Weighs on the heart like that remorse
Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
No more our youthful intercourse.
That cannot be ! Rosalind, speak,
Speak to me. Leave me not.

When morn did come,

When evening fell upon our common home,
When for one hour we parted,-do not frown;
I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;

But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token

Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
Turn, as 'twere but the memory of me,
And not my scorned self who prayed to thee.
ROSALIND.

Is it a dream, or do I see

And hear frail Helen? I would flee
Thy tainting touch; but former years
Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
And my o'erburthened memory
Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.

I share thy crime. I cannot choose
But weep for thee: mine own strange grief
But seldom stoops to such relief;

Nor ever did I love thee less,

Though mourning o'er thy wickedness
Even with a sister's woe. I knew
What to the evil world is due,
And therefore sternly did refuse
To link me with the infamy
Of one so lost as Helen. Now
Bewildered by my dire despair,
Wondering I blush and weep that thou
Shouldst love me still,-thou only !-There,

Let us sit on that grey stone,

Till our mournful talk be done.

HELEN.

Alas! not there; I cannot bear
The murmur of this lake to hear.
A sound from thee, Rosalind dear,
Which never yet I heard elsewhere
But in our native land, recurs,

Even here where now we meet. It stirs
Too much of suffocating sorrow!
In the dell of yon dark chesnut wood
Is a stone seat, a solitude

Less like our own. The ghost of peace
Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
If thy kind feelings should not cease,
We may sit here.

And I will follow.

ROSALIND.

Thou lead, my sweet,

HENRY.

"Tis Fenici's seat

Where you are going?-This is not the way Mama; it leads behind those trees that grow Close to the little river.

HELEN.

Yes; I know;

I was bewildered. Kiss me, and be gay,
Dear boy, why do you sob?

HENRY.

I do not know: But it might break any one's heart to see You and the lady cry so bitterly.

HELEN.

It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,
Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.
We only cried with joy to see each other;
We are quite merry now-Good night.

The boy

Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,
And in the gleam of forced and hollow joy

Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee
Of light and unsuspecting infancy,

And whispered in her car, "Bring home with you
That sweet, strange lady-friend." Then off he flew,
But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,
Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,
Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

In silence then they took the way
Beneath the forest's solitude.
It was a vast and antique wood,
Through which they took their way;
And the grey shades of evening
O'er that green wilderness did fling
Still deeper solitude.

Pursuing still the path that wound

The vast and knotted trees around,

Through which slow shades were wandering,

To a deep lawny dell they came,

To a stone seat beside a spring,

O'er which the columned wood did frame

A roofless temple, like the fane

Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
Man's early race once knelt beneath

The overhanging deity.

O'er this fair fountain hung the sky,

Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,
The pale snake, that with eager breath
Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,
Is beaming with many a mingled hue,
Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,
When he floats on that dark and lucid flood
In the light of his own loveliness;
And the birds that in the fountain dip
Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
Above and round him wheel and hover.