STANZAS TO MISS WYLIE.

I.

O COME Georgiana! the rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
The West is resplendently clothed in beams.

2.

O come! let us haste to the freshening shades,
The quaintly carv'd seats, and the opening glades;
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sun-beam the sylph lightly swims.

3.

And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed,
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head:
And there Georgiana I'll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptur'd repeat.

4.

So fondly I'll breathe, and so softly I'll sigh,

Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh: Yet no-as I breathe I will press thy fair knee,

And then thou wilt know that the sigh comes from me.

5.

Ah! why dearest girl should we lose all these blisses?
That mortal's a fool who such happiness misses:
So smile acquiescence, and give me thy hand,
With love-looking eyes, and with voice sweetly bland.

SONNET.

Он!

H! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,

When streams of light pour down the golden west, And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest The silver clouds, far-far away to leave All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve From little cares; to find, with easy quest, A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest, And there into delight my soul deceive. There warm my breast with patriotic lore, Musing on Milton's fate-on Sydney's bierTill their stern forms before my mind arise:

Perhaps on wing of Poesy upsoar,

Full often dropping a delicious tear,

When some melodious sorrow spells mine eyes.

SONNET.

To a Young Lady who sent me a Laurel Crown.

FRESH morning gusts have blown away all fear

From my glad bosom,-now from gloominess
I mount for ever-not an atom less

Than the proud laurel shall content my bier.

No! by the eternal stars! or why sit here

In the Sun's eye, and 'gainst my temples press
Apollo's very leaves, woven to bless

By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear.

Lo! who dares say, "Do this?" Who dares call down
My will from its high purpose? Who say, "Stand,"
Or "Go?" This mighty moment I would frown

On abject Cæsars-not the stoutest band
Of mailed heroes should tear off my crown:
Yet would I kneel and kiss thy gentle hand!

SONNET.

Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition.

THE church bells toll a melancholy round,

Calling the people to some other prayers,
Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,
More hearkening to the sermon's horrid sound.
Surely the mind of man is closely bound

In some black spell; seeing that each one tears
Himself from fireside joys, and Lydian airs,
And converse high of those with glory crown'd.
Still, still they toll, and I should feel a damp,-
A chill as from a tomb, did I not know
That they are dying like an outburnt lamp;
That 'tis their sighing, wailing ere they go
Into oblivion;-that fresh flowers will grow,
And many glories of immortal stamp.

SONNET.

AFTER dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts come round us; as of leaves
Budding-fruit ripening in stillness-Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves-

Sweet Sappho's cheek-a smiling infant's breathThe gradual sand that through an hour-glass runsA woodland rivulet—a Poet's death.

SONNET.

Written on a Blank Space at the end of Chaucer's Tale of "The Floure and the Lefe."

THIS
HIS pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines so freshly interlace
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full-hearted stops;

And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops
Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And by the wandering melody may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! what a power has white Simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I that do ever feel a thirst for glory,
Could at this moment be content to lie

Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robins.

TWO SONNETS.

I.

To Haydon, with a Sonnet written on seeing the Elgin Marbles.

HAYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak
Definitively on these mighty things;

Forgive me that I have not Eagle's wings-
That what I want I know not where to seek:
And think that I would not be over meek

In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings, Even to the steep of Heliconian springs, Were I of ample strength for such a freakThink too, that all those numbers should be thine;

Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's hem? For when men star'd at what was most divine

With browless idiotism-o'erwise phlegmThou hadst beheld the Hesperean shine

Of their star in the East, and gone to worship them.