ANGEL HELP.*
THIS rare tablet doth include Poverty with Sanctitude.
Past midnight this poor maid hath spun, And yet the work is not half done, Which must supply from earnings scant A feeble bed-rid parent's want. Her sleep-charged eyes exemption ask, And Holy hands take up the task; Unseen the rock and spindle ply, And do her earthly drudgery. Sleep, saintly poor one! sleep, sleep on; And, waking, find thy labours done. Perchance she knows it by her dreams; Her eye hath caught the golden gleams, Angelic presence testifying,
That round her everywhere are flying; Ostents from which she may presume, That much of heaven is in the room. Skirting her own bright hair they run, And to the sunny add more sun : Now on that aged face they fix, Streaming from the Crucifix; The flesh-clogg'd spirit disabusing, Death-disarming sleeps infusing, Prelibations, foretastes high, And equal thoughts to live or die. Gardener bright from Eden's bower, Tend with care that lily flower. To its leaves and root infuse Heaven's sunshine, Heaven's dews. "Tis a type, and 'tis a pledge, Of a crowning privilege. Careful as that lily flower,
This Maid must keep her precious dower; Live a sainted Maid, or die Martyr to virginity.
Was in her cradle-coffin lying;
Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: So soon to exchange the imprisoning womb For darker closets of the tomb ! She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut For the long dark: ne'er more to see Through glasses of mortality.
Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below?
Shall we say, that Nature blind
Check'd her hand, and changed her mind, Just when she had exactly wrought A finish'd pattern without fault? Could she flag, or could she tire, Or lack'd she the Promethean fire
(With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe, or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock,
And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life! The economy of Heaven is dark;
And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark, Why Human Buds, like this, should fall, More brief than fly ephemeral, That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Stiffen with age to stocks and stones; And crabbed use the conscience sears In sinners of an hundred years. Mother's prattle, mother's kiss, Baby fond, thou ne'er wilt miss. Rites, which custom does impose, Silver bells and baby clothes; Coral redder than those lips, Which pale death did late eclipse; Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee;
Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, Loving hearts were they which gave them
Let not one be missing; nurse, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. Why should kings and nobles have Pictured trophies to their grave; And we, churls, to thee deny Thy pretty toys with thee to lie, A more harmless vanity?
ARRAY'D-a half-angelic sight- In vests of pure Baptismal white, The Mother to the Font doth bring The little helpless nameless thing, With hushes soft and mild caressing, At once to get a name and blessing. Close by the babe the Priest doth stand, The Cleansing Water at his hand, Which must assoil the soul within From every stain of Adam's sin. The Infant eyes the mystic scenes, Nor knows what all this wonder means; And now he smiles, as if to say "I am a Christian made this day;" Now frighted clings to Nurse's hold, Shrinking from the water cold,
Whose virtues, rightly understood,
To me thy girlish times, a woman grown Beneath my heedless eyes! in vain I rack My fancy to believe the almanac,
That speaks thee Twenty-One. Thou shouldst have still
Strange words-The World, The Flesh, The Remain'd a child, and at thy sovereign will
Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.
Poor Babe, what can it know of Evil?
But we must silently adore
Mysterious truths, and not explore. Enough for him, in after-times,
When he shall read these artless rhymes,
If, looking back upon this day With quiet conscience, he can say— "I have in part redeem'd the pledge
Of my Baptismal privilege;
And more and more will strive to flee
All which my Sponsors kind did then renounce for me."
THE YOUNG CATECHIST.* WHILE this tawny Ethiop prayeth, Painter, who is she that stayeth By, with skin of whitest lustre, Sunny locks, a shining cluster,
A picture by Henry Meyer, Esq.
Gambol'd about our house, as in times past.
Ungrateful Emma, to grow up so fast,
Hastening to leave thy friends! - for which
Fond Runagate, be this thy punishment: After some thirty years, spent in such bliss
As this earth can afford, where still we miss Something of joy entire, may'st thou grow old As we whom thou hast left! That wish was cold.
O far more aged and wrinkled, till folks say, Looking upon thee reverend in decay,
"This Dame, for length of days, and virtues
With her respected Grandsire may compare." Grandchild of that respected Isola, Thou shouldst have had about thee on this day Kind looks of Parents, to congratulate
Their Pride grown up to woman's grave estate. But they have died, and left thee, to advance Thy fortunes how thou may'st, and owe to chance The friends which nature grudged. And thou wilt find,
Or make such, Emma, if I am not blind
HARMONY IN UNLIKENESS.
BY Enfield lanes, and Winchmore's verdant hill, Two lovely damsels cheer my lonely walk: The fair Maria, as a vestal, still; And Emma brown, exuberant in talk. With soft and Lady speech the first applies The mild correctives that to grace belong To her redundant friend, who her defies With jest, and mad discourse, and bursts of song. O differing Pair, yet sweetly thus agreeing, What music from your happy discord rises, While your companion hearing each, and seeing, Nor this, nor that, but both together, prizes; This lesson teaching, which our souls may strike,
That harmonies may be in things unlike !
TO A CELEBRATED FEMALE PERFORMER IN THE "BLIND BOY."
RARE artist! who with half thy tools, or none, Canst execute with ease thy curious art, And press thy powerful'st meanings on the heart,
Unaided by the eye, expression's throne ! While each blind sense, intelligential grown Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight: Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might, All motionless and silent seem to moan The unseemly negligence of nature's hand, That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine, O mistress of the passions; artist fine! Who dost our souls against our sense command, Plucking the horror from a sightless face, Lending to blank deformity a grace.
WRITTEN AT CAMBRIDGE.
I was not train'd in Academic bowers, And to those learned streams I nothing owe Which copious from those twin fair founts do flow; Mine have been anything but studious hours. Yet can I fancy, wandering mid thy towers, Myself a nursling, Granta, of thy lap;
WHO first invented work, and bound the free And holyday-rejoicing spirit down To the ever-haunting importunity
Of business in the green fields, and the town— To plough, loom, anvil, spade-and oh! most sad,
My brow seems tightening with the Doctor's cap, To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood?
And I walk gowned; feel unusual powers.
Strange forms of logic clothe my admiring speech,
Old Ramus' ghost is busy at my brain; And my skull teems with notions infinite. Be still, ye reeds of Camus, while I teach
Who but the Being unblest, alien from good. Sabbathless Satan! he who his unglad Task ever plies 'mid rotatory burnings, That round and round incalculably reel— For wrath divine hath made him like a wheel-
Truths, which transcend the searching School-In that red realm from which are no returnings:
And half had stagger'd that stout Stagirite!
Where toiling, and turmoiling, ever and aye He, and his thoughts, keep pensive working day.
THEY talk of time, and of time's galling yoke, That like a mill-stone on man's mind doth
Which only works and business can redress: Of divine Leisure such foul lies are spoke, Wounding her fair gifts with calumnious stroke. But might I, fed with silent meditation, Assoiled live from that fiend Occupation- Improbus Labor, which my spirits hath broke- I'd drink of time's rich cup, and never surfeit : Fling in more days than went to make the gem
That crown'd the white top of Methusalem: Yea on my weak neck take, and never forfeit. Like Atlas bearing up the dainty sky, The heaven-sweet burthen of eternity.
DEUS NOBIS HÆC OTIA FECIT.
TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. ROGERS, of all the men that I have known
But slightly, who have died, your Brother's loss
Touch'd me most sensibly. There came across My mind an image of the cordial tone Of your fraternal meetings, where a guest I more than once have sat; and grieve to think,
That of that threefold cord one precious link By Death's rude hand is sever'd from the rest.
Of our old gentry he appear'd a stem- A Magistrate who, while the evil-doer He kept in terror, could respect the Poor, And not for every trifle harass them, As some, divine and laic, too oft do. This man's a private loss, and public too
THE GIPSY'S MALISON.
"SUCK, baby, suck! mother's love grows by giving;
Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting;
Black manhood comes, when riotous guilty living Hands thee the cup that shall be death in tasting.
Kiss, baby, kiss! mother's lips shine by kisses; Choke the warm breath that else would fall in blessings;
Black manhood comes, when turbulent guilty blisses
Tend thee the kiss that poisons 'mid caressings.
Hang, baby, hang! mother's love loves such forces,
Strain the fond neck that bends still to thy clinging;
Black manhood comes, when violent lawless
Leave thee a spectacle in rude air swinging."
So sang a wither'd Beldam energetical,
And bann'd the ungiving door with lips prophetical.
TWELVE years ago I knew thee, Knowles, and Passes of pathos: with such fence-like art
Esteemed you a perfect specimen
Of those fine spirits warm-soul'd Ireland sends, To teach us colder English how a friend's Quick pulse should beat. I knew you brave, and plain,
Strong-sensed, rough-witted, above fear or gain; But nothing further had the gift to espy. Sudden you re-appear. With wonder I
Ere we can see the steel, 'tis in our heart. Almost without the aid language affords, Your piece seems wrought. That huffing medium, words,
(Which in the modern Tamburlaines quite sway Our shamed souls from their bias) in your
We scarce attend to. Hastier passion drawe Our tears on credit: and we find the cause
Some two hours after, spelling o'er again Those strange few words at ease, that wrought
Proceed, old friend; and, as the year returns, Still snatch some new old story from the urns Of long-dead virtue. We, that knew before Your worth, may admire, we cannot love you
PUBLISHED UNDER THE NAME OF BARRY CORNWALL.
LET hate, or grosser heats, their foulness mask Under the vizor of a borrow'd name;
Let things eschew the light deserving blame : No cause hast thou to blush for thy sweet task. "Marcian Colonna" is a dainty book; And thy "Sicilian Tale" may boldly pass;
Verse-honouring Phoeous, Father of bright Days, Must needs bestow on you both good and many,
Who, building trophies of his Children's praise, Run their rich Zodiac through, not missing any.
Dan Phoebus loves your book-trust me, friend Hone-
The title only errs, he bids me say: For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown, He swears, 'tis not a work of every day.
TO T. STOTHARD, ESQ.
ON HIS ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE POEMS OF MR. ROGERS.
CONSUMMATE Artist, whose undying name With classic Rogers shall go down to fame, Be this thy crowning work! In my young days
Thy "Dream 'bove all, in which, as in a How often have I, with a child's fond gaze,
Pored on the pictur'd wonders* thou hadst done:
On the great world's antique glories we may Clarissa mournful, and prim Grandison! look.
No longer then, as "lowly substitute, Factor, or PROCTER, for another's gains," Suffer the admiring world to be deceived; Lest thou thyself, by self of fame bereaved, Lament too late the lost prize of thy pains, And heavenly tunes piped through an alien flute.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK."
I LIKE you, and your book, ingenuous Hone! In whose capacious all-embracing leaves The very marrow of tradition's shown; And all that history-much that fiction-
By every sort of taste your work is graced. Vast stores of modern anecdote we find, With good old story quaintly interlaced-
The theme as various as the reader's mind.
Rome's lie-fraught legends you so truly paint- Yet kindly, that the half-turn'd Catholic Scarcely forbears to smile at his own saint, And cannot curse the candid heretic.
All Fielding's, Smollett's heroes, rose to view;
I saw, and I believed the phantoms true. But, above all, that most romantic tale + Did o'er my raw credulity prevail, Where Glums and Gawries wear mysterious things, That serve at once for jackets and for wings. Age, that enfeebles other men's designs, But heightens thine, and thy free draught refines. In several ways distinct you make us feel- Graceful as Raphael, as Watteau genteel. Your lights and shades, as Titianesque, we praise; And warmly wish you Titian's length of days.
TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE. WHAT makes a happy wedlock? What has fate Not given to thee in thy well-chosen mate? Good sense-good humour;-these are trivial things,
Dear M, that each trite encomiast sings. But she hath these, and more. A mind exempt From every low-bred passion, where contempt, Nor envy, nor detraction, ever found A harbour yet; an understanding sound; Just views of right and wrong; perception full Of the deform'd, and of the beautiful, In life and manners; wit above her sex, Which, as a gem, her sprightly converse decks;
Rags, relics, witches, ghosts, fiends, crowd your Exuberant fancies, prodigal of mirth, page;
To gladden woodland walk, or winter hearth;
Our fathers' mummeries we well-pleased be- A noble nature, conqueror in the strife hold,
And, proudly conscious of a purer age,
Forgive some fopperies in the times of old.
Of conflict with a hard discouraging life,
* Illustrations of the British Novelists, Peter Wilkins.
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