Flags wearily through darkness and despair-
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,

A hooded eagle among blinking owls.

You will see Hunt one of those happy souls
Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom
This world would smell like what it is a tomb;
Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt
Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout,
With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;
And coronals of bay from ribbons hung,
And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;
The gifts of the most learn'd among some dozens
Of female friends, sisters-in-law and cousins.
And there is he with his eternal puns,

Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns
Thundering for money at a poet's door;
Alas! it is no use to say, "I'm poor!".
Or oft in graver mood, when he will look
Things wiser than were ever read in book,
Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness.
You will see Hogg, and I cannot express
His virtues, though I know that they are great,
Because he locks, then barricades the gate
Within which they inhabit; - of his wit
And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit.
He is a pearl within an oyster-shell,

210

215

220

225

230

One of the richest of the deep; — and there
Is English Peacock with his mountain fair
Turned into a Flamingo; — that shy bird
That gleams i' the Indian air - have you not heard, 235
When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
His best friends hear no more of him?
Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,
With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope

but you

Matched with this cameleopard: - his fine wit
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;
A strain too learnèd for a shallow age,
Too wise for selfish bigots, let his page,
Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,
Fold itself up for the serener clime

Of

240

245

years to come, and find its recompense
In that just expectation.— Wit and sense,
Virtue and human knowledge, all that might
Make this dull world a business of delight,

Are all combined in Horace Smith. - And these,

250

With some exceptions, which I need not tease
Your patience by descanting on, are all
You and I know in London.

I recall

My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight
Fills the void, hollow, universal air:

What see you? unpavilioned heaven is fair
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan
Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep;

255

260

Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep,

Piloted by the many-wandering blast,

And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:
All this is beautiful in every land.

But what see you beside? a shabby stand

265

Of Hackney coaches a brick house or wall
Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl
Of our unhappy politics; or worse

A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse
Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade,
You must accept in place of serenade;
Or yellow-haired Pollonia, murmuring

270

To Henry some unutterable thing.

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit
But round dark caverns, even to the root

Of the living stems that feed them—in whose bowers
There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and, borne
In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance,
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,
Pale in the open moonshine; but each one
Under the dark trees seems a little sun,
A meteor tamed, a fixed star gone astray
From the silver regions of the milky way;-

Afar the Contadino's song is heard,

Rude, but made sweet by distance — and a bird
Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet

I know none else that sings so sweet as it

290

At this late hour; — and then all is still
Now Italy or London, which you will!

Next winter you must pass with me; I'll have
My house by that time turned into a grave
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,

And all the dreams which our tormentors are;

295

Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock and Smith were there,

With every thing belonging to them fair! —

We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;
And ask one week to make another week
As like his father as I'm unlike mine,
Which is not his fault, as you may divine.
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let's be merry: we 'll have tea and toast,
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,

300

305

And other such lady-like luxuries, —

Feasting on which we will philosophize!

And we 'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,
To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.

And then we'll talk ; — what shall we talk about?

310

Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout
Of thought-entangled descant;

as to nerves

With cones and parallelograms and curves

I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare
To bother me when you are with me there.
And they shall never more sip laudanum,
From Helicon or Himeros ; – well, come;
And, in despite of God and of the devil,
We'll make our friendly philosophic revel

315

Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers
Warn the obscure inevitable hours,

320

Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;
"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

ODE TO NAPLES.

EPODE I. a.

I STOOD within the city disinterred,

And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets, and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless halls;

The oracular thunder penetrating shook

The listening soul in my suspended blood;

I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke —

I felt, but heard not: -- through white columns glowed

The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood,

5

ΙΟ

A plane of light between two Heavens of azure:
Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
But every living lineament was clear
As in the sculptor's thought; and there
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,
Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,
Seemed only not to move and grow
Because the crystal silence of the air

Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine
Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.

EPODE II. a.

Then gentle winds arose

With many a mingled close

Of wild Æolian sound and mountain-odour keen ;
And where the Baian ocean

Welters with air-like motion,

Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere
Floats o'er the Elysian realm,

It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air
No storm can overwhelm;

I sailed, where ever flows
Under the calm Serene

A spirit of deep emotion
From the unknown graves

Of the dead kings of Melody.

Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm
The horizontal æther; heaven stripped bare
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow