LINES

UNFELT, unheard, unseen,

I've left my little queen,

Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,

Who - who could tell how much
There is for madness-cruel, or complying?

Those faery lids how sleek!

Those lips how moist! - they speak, In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds: Into my fancy's ear

Melting a burden dear,

How 'Love doth know no fulness, and no bounds."

True!-tender monitors !

I bend unto your laws :

This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,

I'll feel my heaven anew,

For all the blushing of the hasty morn.

ON

THINK not of it, sweet one, so ;

Give it not a tear;

Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go

Any-any where.

Do not look so sad, sweet one,
Sad and fadingly;

Shed one drop, then it is gone,

Oh! 't was born to die!

Still so pale? then dearest weep;
Weep, I'll count the tears,

For each will I invent a bliss
For thee in after years.

Brighter has it left thine eyes
Than a sunny rill;

And thy whispering melodies
Are more tender still.

Yet

as all things mourn awhile

At fleeting blisses;

E'en let us too; but be our dirge
A dirge of kisses.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER

COME hither, all sweet maidens soberly,
Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,

Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea:
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death;
Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.
O horrid dream! see how his body dips

Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!\

ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, 'THE STORY OF RIMINI'

WHO loves to peer up at the morning sun,
With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek
For meadows where the little rivers run;

Who loves to linger with that brightest one

Of Heaven - Hesperus - let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. He who knows these delights, and too is prone To moralize upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,

A bower for his spirit, and will steer
To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone,
Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.

SONNET

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, > Before high pilèd books, in charactry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
1 And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

ON SEEING A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR

CHIEF of organic numbers!
Old Scholar of the Spheres !

Thy spirit never slumbers,
But rolls about our ears,
For ever and for ever!

O what a mad endeavour

Worketh he,

Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse
And melody.

How heavenward thou soundest,
Live Temple of sweet noise,
And Discord unconfoundest,
Giving Delight new joys,
And Pleasure nobler pinions!
O, where are thy dominions?
Lend thine ear

To a young Delian oath, -ay, by thy soul,
By all that from thy mortal lips did roll,
And by the kernel of thine earthly love,
Beauty, in things on earth, and things above,
I swear!

When every childish fashion

Has vanish'd from my rhyme,
Will I, grey-gone in passion,
Leave to an after-time,

Hymning and harmony

Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life;
But vain is now the burning and the strife,
Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife
With old Philosophy,

And mad with glimpses of futurity !

For many years my offering must be hush'd;
When I do speak, I'll think upon this hour,
Because I feel my forehead hot and flush'd.
Even at the simplest vassal of thy power, -
A lock of thy bright hair
Sudden it came,

And I was startled, when I caught thy name Coupled so unaware;

Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood. I thought I had beheld it from the flood.

ON SITTING DOWN TO READ KING LEAR' ONCE AGAIN

O GOLDEN-TONGUED Romance, with serene lute!
Fair plumèd Syren, Queen of far away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay,
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter sweet of this Shakespearean fruit:
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,

Begetters of our deep eternal theme!
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
Let me not wander in a barren dream,

But when I am consumèd in the Fire,

Give me new Phoenix-wings to fly at my desire.

LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN

SOULS of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,

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