It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou'rt nothing-all are nothing now.
In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!

The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill:

Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart, the heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night

It sooth'd to gaze upon the sky; For then I deem'd the heavenly light Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye: And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,

When sailing o'er the Egean wave, "Now Thyrza gazes on that moon"Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,

And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, ""Tis comfort still," I faintly said,

"That Thyrza cannot know my pains:" Like freedom to the time-worn slave,

A boon 't is idle then to give, Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza's pledge in better days,

When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet'st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow's hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee
Is silent-ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.
Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou 'rt press'd.
Time tempers love, but not removes,
More hallow'd when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which cannot quit the dead?

EUTHANASIA.

WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring
The dreamless sleep that luils the dead,
Oblivion may thy languid wing
Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,

To weep, or wish, the coming blow: No maiden, with dishevelled hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to earth,

With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a tear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour

Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives, and him who dies.

'T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish-for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And women's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan?

For thousands Death hath ceas'd to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. "Ay, but to die, and go," alas!

Where all have gone, and all must go!

To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
'Tis something better not to be.

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR.

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse !"

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,

"Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,.

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.
The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,

Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine,

That all those charms have pass'd away;
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief

To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

February, 1812.

IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF
MEN.

IP sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,
The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:

And now that sad and silent hour
Thus much of thee can still restore,
And sorrow unobserved may pour

The plaint she dare not speak before. Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile

I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And self-condemn'd, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy memory:

Nor deem that memory less dear,
That then I seem not to repine;

I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.
If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,
It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl

That drown'd a single thought of thee. For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,

Where could my vacant bosom turn? And who would then remain behind To honour thine abandon'd Urn? No, no-it is my sorrow's pride That last dear duty to fulfil : Though all the world forget beside, "Tis meet that I remember still.

For well I know, that such had been Thy gentle care for him, who now Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene, Where none regarded him, but thou: And, oh! I feel in that was given

A blessing never meant for me; Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven For earthly Love to merit thee.

March 14, 1812.

FROM THE FRENCH.

ÆGLE, beauty and poet, has two little crimes; She makes her own face, and does not make her rhymes.

ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS BROKEN.

ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be,

That thou should'st thus be rent in twain ? Have years of care for thine and thee Alike been all employ'd in vain ? Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, And every fragment dearer grown, Since he who wears thee feels thou art A fitter emblem of his own.

March 16, 1812.

LINES TO A LADY WEEPING. WEEP, daughter of a royal line,

A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; Ah! happy if each tear of thine Could wash a father's fault away!

Weep-for thy tears are Virtue's tears-
Auspicious to these suffering isles;
And be each drop in future years
Repaid thee by thy people's smiles!

March, 1812.

THE CHAIN I GAVE.

FROM THE TURKISH.

THE chain I gave was fair to view,
The lute I added sweet in sound;
The heart that offer'd both was true,
And ill deserved the fate it found.
These gifts were charm'd by secret spell,
Thy truth in absence to divine;
And they have done their duty well,-
Alas! they could not teach thee thine.
That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch;
That lute was sweet-till thou could'st think
In other hands its notes were such.
Let him who from thy neck unbound
The chain which shiver'd in his grasp,
Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp. When thou wert changed, they alter'd too; The chain is broke, the music mute. "Tis past-to them and thee adieu— False heart, frail chain, and silent lute.

LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF "THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY."

ABSENT or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong! As all can tell, who share, like me, In turn thy converse and thy song. But when the dreaded hour shall come By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh, And "MEMORY" o'er her Druid's tomb Shall weep that aught of thee can die,

How fondly will she then repay

Thy homage offer'd at her shrine, And blend, while ages roll away, Her name immortally with thine!

April 19, 1812.

ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.

IN one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd,
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride;
In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.

Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!) Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven;

Saw the long column of revolving flames
Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,
While thousands, throng'd around the burning
dome,

Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home,
As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone
The skies, with lightnings awful as their own,
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall
Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall;
Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile,
Rear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle,
Know the same favour which the former knew,
A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you?
Yes-it shall be-the magic of that name
Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame;
On the same spot still consecrates the scene,
And bids the Drama be where she hath been:
This fabric's birth attests the potent spell-
Indulge our honest pride, and say, How well!

As soars this fane to emulate the last,
Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast
Names such as hallow still the dome we lost.
On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art [heart.
O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew;
Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,
Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu:
But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom,
That only waste their odours o'er the tomb.
Such Drury claim'd and claims-nor you refuse
One tribute to revive his slumbering muse;
With garlands deck your own Menander's head,
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead.
Dear are the days which made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write.
Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,
Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs;
While thus Remembrance borrows Banquo's glass
To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass,
And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine
Immortal names, emblazon'd on our line,
Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn,
Reflect how hard the task to rival them!

[Plays

Friends of the stage! to whom both Players and
Must sue alike for pardon or for praise,
Whose judging voice and eye alone direct
The boundless power to cherish or reject;
If e'er frivolity has led to fame,

And made us blush that you forbore to blame;
If e'er the sinking stage could condescend
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend,
All past reproach may present scenes refute,
And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute!
Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;
So pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
And reason's voice be echo'd back by ours!

This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd,
The Drama's homage by her herald paid,
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone [own.
Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your

The curtain rises-may our stage unfold
Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old!
Britons our judges, Nature for our guide,
Still may we please-long, long may you preside.

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS.

BY DR. PLAGIARY.

Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master P. at the opening of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation-thus "",

"WHEN energising objects men pursue,"

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. "A modest monologue you here survey,' Hiss'd from the theatre the "other day," As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse, And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse. "Yet at the thing you 'd never be amazed," Knew you the rumpus which the author raised, "Nor even here your smiles would be represt," Knew you these lines-the badness of the best, "Flame! fire! and flame!" (words borrowed from Lucretius,) [issues! "Dread metaphors which open wounds" like "And sleeping pangs awake-and-but away" (Confound me if I know what next to say). "Lo Hope reviving re-expands her wings," And Master G-recites what Dr. Busby sings!"If mighty things with small we may compare," (Translated from the grammar for the fair!). Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering car," And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar." "This spirit Wellington has shown in Spain," To furnish melodrames for Drury Lane.. "Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's And George and I will dramatise it for ye.

[story,"

"In arts and sciences our isle hath shone"

(This deep discovery is mine alone). "Oh British poesy, whose powers inspire" My verse or I'm a fool-and Fame 's a liar, "Thee we invoke, your sister arts implore" With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much more.

These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too! "inseparable train!" [Cupid" "Three who have stolen their witching airs from (You all know what I mean, unless you 're stupid): "Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, 'Sustains her part" in all the " upper" boxes! "Thus lifted gloriously, you'll soar along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday).

"

'Old Drury never, never soar'd so high,"

So says the manager, and so say I.

"But hold, you say, this self-complacent boast;" Is this the poem which the public lost? [pride;" "True-true-that lowers at once our mounting But lo:-the papers print what you deride.

"

WHEN Dryden's fool," unknowing what he sought,"
His hours in whistling spent," for want of thought,'
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence:
Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,
Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see
These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas!

When vice and folly mark them as they pass.
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they
crawl.

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE!

REMEMBER thee! remember thec!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not.

Thy husband too shall think of thee! By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

TO TIME.

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing

The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die-

Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee, since thou could'st spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven.
To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief,
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.

In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark

To prove thee-not Eternity.

That beam hath sunk, and now thou art
A blank; a thing to count and curse,
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform;
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed:
And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon-a nameless stone.

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE
SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.
Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows well I knew ;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Ór, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing
Was I through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!

And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?
Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.

My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain;
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults-while mine is breaking.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day.
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART
FICKLE.

THOU art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;

The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
"T is this which breaks the heart thou grieves
Too well thou lov'st-too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition;

As if a dream alone had charm'd?
Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming,
And all thy change can be but dreaming!

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE."

THE "Origin of Love!"-Ah, why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou may'st read in many an eye

He starts to life on seeing thee?

And should'st thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;

But live-until I cease to be.

REMEMBER HIM WHOM PASSION'S
POWER.

REMEMBER him whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,
When neither fell, though both were loved.
That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be bless'd:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,

The wilder wish reproved, repress'd.