One hope is too like despair
for prudence to smother,
and Pity from thee more dear
than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
but wilt thou accept not

the worship the heart lifts above
and the heavens reject not;
the desire of the moth for the star,
of the night for the morrow,
the devotion to something afar
from the sphere of our sorrow?

P. B. SHELLEY

501 THERE is a shadow for each bough

502

that bends across the lake;

an answering echo for each sound
that mountain-travellers wake;
another star in yon still stream
for each star that doth shine;
and somewhere in the world I know
a heart that beats with mine.

If that frail bough should broken be,
the shadow with it flies;

and when the voice has passed away
how soon sweet echo dies!

The stream once dried, yon star in heaven
finds none on earth to love;

but should that heart be taken from me,
'twould beat with mine above.

A BACCHANALIAN SONG

TREW the roses, raise the song;

STR

see the master comes along: lusty Revel joined with Laughter, Whim and Frolic follow after:

the Fauns around the vats remain

to show the work and share the gain.

All around and all around

they sit to riot on the ground;

a vessel stands amidst the ring,

and here they laugh, and there they sing;

or rise a jolly, jolly band,

and dance about it hand in hand;

ANON

503

504

dance about and shout amain,
then sit to laugh and sing again;
thus they drink and thus they play
the sun and all their wits away.

WON

THE BETROTHED

WOMAN'S faith and woman's trust;
write the characters in dust:

stamp them on the running stream;
print them on the moonlight's beam:
and each evanescent letter

shall be clearer, firmer, better,
and more permanent, I ween,
than the thing those letters mean:
I have strained the spider's thread
'gainst the promise of a maid:
I have weighed a grain of sand
'gainst her plight of heart and hand:

I told my true love of the token,

how her faith proved light and her word was broken; again her word and truth she plight,

and I believed them again ere night.

Y

FULVIA

ES; Fulvia is like Venus fair;

SIR W. SCOTT

has all her bloom and shape and air:

but still, to perfect every grace,

she wants-the smile upon her face.

The crown majestic Juno wore,
and Cynthia's brow the crescent bore,
an helmet masked Minerva's mien,
but smiles distinguished Beauty's queen.
Her train was formed of smiles and loves,
her chariot drawn by gentlest doves;
and from her zone the nymph may find,
'tis Beauty's province to be kind.

Then smile, my fair; and all, whose aim
aspires to paint the Cyprian dame
or bid her breathe in living stone,
shall take their forms from you alone.

W. SHENSTONE

505

506

HENE'ER I see those smiling eyes,

WHE

so full of hope and joy and light,
as if no cloud could ever rise

to dim a heaven so purely bright—
I sigh to think how soon that brow
in grief may lose its every ray,
and that light heart, so joyous now,
almost forget it once was gay.

:

For time will come with all its blights,
the ruined hope, the friend unkind,
and love, that leaves, where'er it lights,
a chilled or burning heart behind :—
while youth, that now like snow appears
ere sullied by the darkening rain,
when once 'tis touched by sorrow's tears,
can never shine so bright again.

THE EXEQUIES

DRAW near,

you Lovers that complain

of Fortune or Disdain,

and to my ashes lend a tear;

melt the hard marble with your groans,
and soften the relentless stones,

whose cold embraces the sad subject hide
of all Love's cruelties and Beauty's pride.

No verse,

no epicedium bring,

nor peaceful requiem sing,

to charm the terrours of my hearse;
no profane numbers must flow near

the sacred silence that dwells here.

T. MOORE

Vast griefs are dumb; softly, oh! softly mourn,
lest you disturb the peace attends my urn.

Yet strew

upon my dismal grave

such offerings as you have, forsaken cypress and sad yew:

507

for kinder flowers can take no birth

or growth from such unhappy earth.
Weep only o'er my dust, and say 'Here lies
to Love and Fate an equal sacrifice.'

T. STANLEY

THE SUNBEAM

508

TH

HOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall-
a joy thou art and a wealth to all!

a bearer of hope unto land and sea;
sunbeam, what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles;
thou hast touched with glory his thousand isles;
thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,
and gladdened the sailor, like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest shades

thou art streaming on through their green arcades;
and the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow
like fire-flies dance to the pools below.

I looked on the mountains-a vapour lay
folding their heights in its dark array:
thou brakest forth, and the mist became
a crown and a mantle of living flame.

WILL WITH THE WISP

F. HEMANS

AH, luckless swain, o'er all unblest indeed,

whom late bewildered in the dank dark fen
far from his flocks and smoking hamlet then!
to that sad spot where hums the sedgy weed:
on him enraged the fiend in angry mood,
shall never look with pity's kind concern,

but instant furious raise the whelming flood
o'er its drowned banks, forbidding all return!
Or, if he meditate his wish'd escape
to some dim hill that seems uprising near,
to his faint eye the grim and grisly shape
in all its terrors clad shall wild appear.

Meantime the watery surge shall round him rise, pour'd sudden forth from every swelling source!

what now remains but tears and hopeless sighs? His fear-shook limbs have lost their youthly force, and down the waves he floats, a pale and breathless corse!

W. COLLINS

509

THE INHABITANTS OF ST KILDA

OUT O, o'er all forget not Kilda's race,

Bun who bleak forks, which brave the wasting tides,

fair Nature's daughter Virtue yet abides.
Go! just, as they, their blameless manners trace!
then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain,
their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
and all their prospect but the wintry main.
with sparing temperance, at the needful time,
they drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
along the Atlantic rock undreading climb,
and of its eggs despoil the solan's nest.

Thus blest in primal innocence they live
sufficed and happy with that frugal fare
which tasteful toil and hourly danger give:
hard is their shallow soil and bleak and bare;
nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!
W. COLLINS

LIF

so dark as sages say;

oft a little morning rain

foretells a pleasant day.

Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,

but these are transient all;

if the showers will make the roses bloom,

O why lament its fall?

Rapidly, merrily,

life's sunny hours flit by,

gratefully, cheerily,

enjoy them as they fly.