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THE lady Blanch, regardless of all her lover's fears, To the Urs'line convent hastens, and long the Abbess hears,

LINES

ON THE CELEBRATED FICTURE BY LIONARDO DA VINCI,
CALLED THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS.

WHILE young John runs to greet
The greater Infant's feet,

"O Blanch, my child, repent ye of the courtly The Mother standing by, with trembling life ye lead."

passion

Blanch look'd on a rose-bud and little seem'd to Of devout admiration,

heed.

She look'd on the rose-bud, she look'd round, and thought

Beholds the engaging mystic play, and pretty

adoration;

Nor knows as yet the full event

On all her heart had whisper'd, and all the Nun Of those so low beginnings, had taught.

From whence we date our winnings,

"I am worshipp'd by lovers, and brightly shines But wonders at the intent my fame,

"All Christendom resoundeth the noble Blanch's

name.

"Nor shall I quickly wither like the rose-bud from the tree,

"My queen-like graces shining when my beauty's gone from me.

Of those new rites, and what that strange childworship meant.

But at her side

An angel doth abide, With such a perfect joy As no dim doubts alloy, An intuition,

"But when the sculptured marble is rais'd o'er A glory, an amenity, my head,

Passing the dark condition

"And the matchless Blanch lies lifeless among Of blind humanity, the noble dead,

As if he surely knew

"This saintly lady Abbess hath made me justly All the blest wonder should ensue,
Or he had lately left the upper sphere,

fear,

"It nothing will avail me that I were worshipp'd And had read all the sovran schemes and divine here."

riddles there.

LINES

ON THE SAME PICTURE BEING REMOVED TO MAKE PLACE
FOR A PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY TITIAN.

WHO art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place
Of Blanch, the lady of the matchless grace?
Come, fair and pretty, tell to me,
Who, in thy life-time, thou might'st be.

ON THE SAME.

MATERNAL lady with the virgin grace,
Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth sure,
And thou a virgin pure.

Lady most perfect, when thy sinless face
Men look upon, they wish to be

A Catholic, Madonna fair, to worship thee.

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SONNETS.

u are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honour down
To please that many-headed beast the town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain;
By fortune thrown amid the actors' train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot
trace,

That vanish and return we know not how-
And please the better from a pensive face,
A thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.

II.

ON THE SIGHT OF SWANS IN KENSINGTON
GARDEN.

QUEEN-BIRD that sittest on thy shining-nest,
And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest,
And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest
Lest the white mother wandering feet molest:
Shrined are your offspring in a crystal cradle,
Brighter than Helen's ere she yet had burst
Her shelly prison. They shall be born at first
Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able
To tread the land or waters with security.
Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin,
In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in
Confessing weakness, error, and impurity.
Did heavenly creatures own succession's line,
The births of heaven like to yours would shine.

III.

Was it some sweet device of Faery
That mock'd my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlighted up the semblance of a smile

In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while
Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While I forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.

IV.

METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclined
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid!
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.

v.

WHEN last Iroved these winding wood-walks green,
Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet,
Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandering, where in happier days
I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid.
I pass'd the little cottage which she loved,
The cottage which did once my all contain;
It spake of days which ne'er must come again,
Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved.
"Now fair befall thee, gentle maid !" said I,
And from the cottage turn'd me with a sigh.

VI.

THE FAMILY NAME.

WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire,
Without reproach? we trace our stream no
higher;

And I, a childless man, may end the same.
Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received thee first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains.
Perchance from Salem's holier fields return'd,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd,
Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came,
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.

VII.

IF from my lips some angry accents fell,

Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,

'Twas but the error of a sickly mind

Betwixt our ages, which then seem'd so great-
And still by rightful custom you retain
Much of the old authoritative strain,
And keep the elder brother up in state.

O! you do well in this. "Tis man's worst deed

And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well, To let the "things that have been" run to waste,
And waters clear, of Reason; and for me
Let this my verse the poor atonement be—

My verse, which thou to praise wert ever inclined
Too highly, and with a partial eye to see
No blemish. Thou to me didst ever show
Kindest affection; and would oft-times lend
An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.

VIII.

A TIMID grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loath to meet the rudeness of men's sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light,
That steeps in kind oblivious ecstacy
The care-crazed mind, like some still melody:
Speaking most plain the thoughts which do

possess

Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,
And innocent loves, and maiden purity:
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind;
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him who hates his brethren of mankind.

Turn'd are those lights from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

IX.

TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE SOUTH-SEA-
HOUSE.

JOHN, you were figuring in the gay career
Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy,
When I was yet a little peevish boy-
Though time has made the difference disappear

And in the unmeaning present sink the past:
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read
Old buried forms, and faces long ago,
Which you, and I, and one more, only know.

X.

O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind,
That, rushing on its way with careless sweep,
Scatters the ocean waves. And I could weep
Like to a child. For now to my raised mind
On wings of winds comes wild-eyed Phantasy,
And her rude visions give severe delight.
O winged bark! how swift along the night
Pass'd thy proud keel! nor shall I let go by
Lightly of that drear hour the memory,
When wet and chilly on thy deck I stood,
Unbonnetted, and gazed upon the flood,
Even till it seem'd a pleasant thing to die,—
To be resolv'd into th' elemental wave,
Or take my portion with the winds that rave.

ΧΙ.

We were two pretty babes, the youngest she,
The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween,
And INNOCENCE her name.
We two did love each other's company;
The time has been,
Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when by show of seeming good beguiled,

I left the garb and manners of a child,
And my first love for man's society,
Defiling with the world my virgin heart—
My loved companion dropp'd a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head.
Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-
In what delicious Eden to be found-
That I may seek thee the wide world around!

CHILDHOOD.

BLANK VERSE.

In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse
Upon the days gone by; to act in thought
Past seasons o'er, and be again a child;
To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope,

That reverend form bent down with age and

pain,

And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew
Her trust in him, her faith, an humble hope-
So meekly had she learn'd to bear her cross-

Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay For she had studied patience in the school
flowers,

Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand
(Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled),
Would throw away, and straight take up again,
Then fling them to the winds, and o'er the lawn
Bound with so playful and so light a foot,
That the press'd daisy scarce declined her head.

THE GRANDAME.

On the green hill top,
Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
And not distinguish'd from its neighbour-barn,
Save by a slender tapering length of spire,
The Grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells
The name and date to the chance passenger.
For lowly born was she, and long had eat,

Of Christ; much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the NAZARENE.

THE SABBATH BELLS.

THE cheerful sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion: chiefly when
Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear
Of the contemplant, solitary man,

Whom thoughts abstruse or high have chanced
to lure

Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft,
And oft again, hard matter, which eludes
And baffles his pursuit-thought-sick and tired

Well-earn'd, the bread of service :-hers was else Of controversy, where no end appears,

A mountain spirit, one that entertain'd
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly. I remember well
Her reverend image; I remember, too,

With what a zeal she served her master's house;
And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age
Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was,
And wondrous skill'd in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and intermarriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin;
Of friends offended, family disgraced-
Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying
Parental strict injunction, and regardless
Of unmix'd blood, and ancestry remote,
Stooping to wed with one of low degree.
But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
Thy honour'd memory, recording chiefly
Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell
How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love,
She served her heavenly Master. I have seen

No clue to his research, the lonely man
Half wishes for society again.

Him, thus engaged, the sabbath bells salute
Sudden his heart awakes, his ears drink in
The cheering music; his relenting soul
Yearns after all the joys of social life,
And softens with the love of human kind.

FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE SUBJECTS.
THE truant Fancy was a wanderer ever,
A lone enthusiast maid. She loves to walk
In the bright visions of empyreal light,
By the green pastures, and the fragrant meads,
Where the perpetual flowers of Eden blow;
By crystal streams, and by the living waters,
Along whose margin grows the wondrous tree
Whose leaves shall heal the nations; underneath
Whose holy shade a refuge shall be found
From pain and want, and all the ills that wait
On mortal life, from sin and death for ever.

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'Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry
Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise
Of revel reeling home from midnight cups.
Those are the moanings of the dying man,
Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans,
And interrupted only by a cough
Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs.
So in the bitterness of death he lies,
And waits in anguish for the morning's light.
What can that do for him, or what restore?
Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices,
And little images of pleasures past,

Of health, and active life-health not yet slain,
Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold
For sin's black wages. On his tedious bed
He writhes, and turns him from the accusing
light,

And finds no comfort in the sun,
but says
"When night comes I shall get a little rest."
Some few groans more, death comes, and there
an end.

"Tis darkness and conjecture all beyond;
Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope,
And Fancy, most licentious on such themes
Where decent reverence well had kept her

mute,

Hath o'er-stock'd hell with devils, and brought

down

By her enormous fablings and mad lies,
Discredit on the gospel's serious truths
And salutary fears. The man of parts,
Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch
Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates

A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he,
Their heads encompassed with crowns, their

heels

With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far re

moved

From damned spirits, and the torturing cries
Of men, his breth'ren, fashion'd of the earth,
As he was, nourish'd with the self-same bread,
Belike his kindred or companions once-
Through everlasting ages now divorced,
In chains and savage torments to repent
Short years of folly on earth. Their groans

unheard

In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care,
For those thus sentenced-pity might disturb
The delicate sense and most divine repose
Of spirits angelical. Blessed be God,
The measure of his judgments is not fix'd
By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with him,
No man on earth is holy call'd: they best
Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield
To him of his own works the praise, his due.

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