No; but it is that on this very day,

And upon Shakspeare's stream, a little lower,
Where drunk with Delphic air, it comes away
Dancing in perfume by the Peary Shore,
Was born the lass that I love more and more;
A fruit as fine as in the Hesperian store,
Smooth, roundly smiling, noble to the core;
An eye for art; a nature, that of yore

Mothers and daughters, wives and sisters wore,
When in the golden age one tune they bore;
Marian, who makes my heart and very rhymes
run o'er.

Its very hush and creeping

Seem whispering us a smile:-
Something divine and dim
Seems going by one's ear,

Like parting wings of Cherubim,
Who say, "We've finished here."

SONG.

WRITTEN TO BE SET TO MUSIC BY VINCENT
NOVELLO.

When lovely sounds about my ears
Like winds in Eden's tree-tops rise,
And make me, though my spirit hears,
For every luxury close my eyes,
Let none but friends be round about
Who love the smoothing joy like me,
That so the charm be felt throughout,
And all be harmony.

And when we reach the close divine,
Then let the hand of her I love
Come with its gentle palm on mine

As soft as snow or lighting dove;
And let, by stealth, that more than friend
Look sweetness in my opening eyes,
For only so such dreams should end,
Or wake in Paradise.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD BYRON,

ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR ITALY AND GREECE.
Dio ti dia, baron, ventura.-PULCI.
Since you resolve, dear Byron, once again
To taste the far-eyed freedom of the main,
And as the coolness lessens in the breeze,
Strike for warm shores that bathe in classic seas,-
May all that hastens, pleases, and secures,
Fair winds and skies, and a swift ship, be yours,
Whose sidelong deck affords, as it cuts on,
An airy slope to lounge and read upon;

And may the sun, cooled only by white clouds,
Make constant shadows of the sails and shrouds ;
And may there be sweet, watching moons at night,
Or shows, upon the sea, of curious light;
And morning wake with happy-blushing mouth,
As though her husband still had " eyes of youth;"
While fancy, just as you discern from far
The coasts of Virgil and of Sannazzar,
May see the nymphs emerging, here and there,
To tie up at the light their rolling hair.

I see you now, half eagerness, half ease,
Ride o'er the dancing freshness of the seas;
I see you now (with fancy's eyesight too)
Find, with a start, that lovely vision true,
While on a sudden, o'er the horizon's line
Phœbus looks forth with his long glance divine,
At which old ocean's white and shapely daughters
Crowd in the golden ferment of the waters,
And halcyons brood, and there's a glistering show

Of harps, midst bosoms and long arms of snow;
And from the breathing sea, in the God's eye,
A gush of voices breaks up to the sky

To hail the laurelled bard, that goes careering by.

And who, thus gifted, but must hear and see
Wonders like these, approaching Italy?—
Enchantress Italy,-who born again

In Gothic fires, woke to a sphery strain,
And rose and smiled, far lovelier than before,
Copier of Greece, and Amazon no more,
But altogether a diviner thing,

Fit for the Queen of Europe's second spring,
With fancies of her own, and finer powers
Not to enslave these mere outsides of ours, [flowers.
But bend the godlike mind, and crown it with her

[fac'd,

Thus did she reign, bright-eyed, with that sweet
Long in her ears; and right before her throne [tone
Have sat the intellectual Graces three,
Music, and Painting, and wing'd Poetry,
Of whom were born those great ones, thoughtful-
That led the hierarchy of modern taste;—
Heavenly composers, that with bow symphonious
Drew out, at last, music's whole soul harmonious;
Poets, that knew how Nature should be wooed,
With frank address, and terms heart-understood;
And Painters, worthy to be friends of theirs,
Hands that could catch the very finest airs
Of natural minds, and all that soul express
Of ready concord, which was made to bless,
And forms the secret of true amorousness.

Not that our English clime, how sharp soe'er,
Yields in ripe genius to the warmest sphere;
For what we want in sunshine out of doors,
And the long leisure of abundant shores,
By freedom, nay by sufferance, is supplied,
And each man's sacred sunshine, his fire-side.
But all the four great Masters of our Song,
Stars that shine out amidst a starry throng,
Have turned to Italy for added light,

As earth is kissed by the sweet moon at night;-
Milton for half his style, Chaucer for tales,
Spenser for flowers to fill his isles and vales,
And Shakspeare's self for frames already done
To build his everlasting piles upon.
Her genius is more soft, harmonious, fine;
Our's bolder, deeper, and more masculine :
In short, as woman's sweetness to man's force,
Less grand, but softening by the intercourse,
So the two countries are,-so may they be,-
England the high-souled man, the charmer Italy.

But I must finish, and shall chatter less
On Greece, for reasons which yourself may guess.
Only remember what you promised me
About the flask from dark-welled Castaly,-
A draught, which but to think of, as I sit,
Makes the room round me almost turn with wit.
Gods! What may not come true, what dream divine,
If thus we are to drink the Delphic wine!

Remember too elsewhere a certain town,
Whose fame, you know, Cæsar will not hand down.

And pray, my Lord, in Italy take care,
You that are poet, and have pains to bear,
Of lovely girls, that step across the sight,
Like Houris in a heaven of warmth and light,
With rosy-cushioned mouths, in dimples set,
And ripe dark tresses and glib eyes of jet.
The very language, from a woman's tongue,
Is worth the finest of all others sung.

And so adieu, dear Byron,—dear to me
For many a cause, disinterestedly;—
First, for unconscious sympathy, when boys,
In friendship, and the Muse's trying joys;—
Next for that frank surprise, when Moore and you
Came to my cage, like warblers kind and true,
And told me, with your arts of cordial lying,
How well I look'd, when you both thought me dy-
Next for a rank worn simply, and the scorn [ing;-
Of those who trifle with an age free-born;—-
For early storms, on Fortune's basking shore,
That cut precocious ripeness to the core;-
For faults unhidden, other's virtues owned;
Nay, unless Cant's to be at once enthroned,
For virtues too, with whatsoever blended,
Ande'en were none possessed, for none pretended;-
Lastly, for older friends,-fine hearts, held fast
Through every dash of chance, from first to last;-
For taking spirit as it means to be,-

For a stretched hand, ever the same to me,—
And total, glorious want of vile hypocrisy.
Adieu, adieu:—I say no more.—God speed you!
Remember what we all expect, who read you.

SONNETS.

TO KOSCIUSKO,

Who never fought either for Buonaparte or the Allies. 'Tis like thy patient valour thus to keep, Great Kosciusko, to the rural shade, While Freedom's ill-found amulet still is made Pretence for old aggression, and a heap Of selfish mockeries. There, as in the sweep Of stormier fields, thou, earnest with thy blade, Transformed, not inly altered, to the spade, Thy never-yielding right to a calm sleep. Nature, 'twould seem, would leave to man's worse The small and noisier parts of this world's frame, And keep the calm green amplitudes of it Sacred from fopperies and inconstant blame. Cities may change, and sovereigns; but 'tis fit, Thou, and the country old, be still the same. 12th November, 1816.

TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET.

[wit

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass;

And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
One to the fields, the other to the hearth, [strong
Both have your sunshine; both though small are
At your clear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,-
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.
30th December, 1816.

#

WRITTEN UNDER THE ENGRAVING OF A PORTRAIT OF RAFAEL, PAINTED BY HIMSELF WHEN HE WAS YOUNG.

Rafael! It must be he; we only miss

Something which manhood gave him, and the fair;
A look still sweeter and more thoughtful air;
But for the rest, 'tis every feature his,
The oval cheek, clear eye, mouth made to kiss,
Terse lightsome chin, and flush of gentle hair
Clipped ere it loitered into ringlets there,-
The beauty, the benignity, the bliss.
How sweetly sure he looks! how unforlorn!
There is but one such visage at a time;
Tis like the budding of an age new born,
Remembered youth, the cuckoo in the prime,
The maid's first kiss, or any other thing
Most lovely, and alone, and promising.

TO BENJAMIN ROBERT HAYDON.

Haydon, whom now the conquered toil confesses Painter indeed, gifted, laborious, true, Fit to be numbered in succession due With Michael, whose idea austerely presses, And sweet-soul'd Raphael with his amorous tresses; Well hast thou urged thy radiant passage through - A host of clouds; and he who with thee grew, The bard and friend, congratulates and blesses. 'Tis glorious thus to have one's own proud will, And see the crown acknowledged that we earn; But nobler yet, and nearer to the skies, To feel one's-self, in hours serene and still, One of the spirits chosen by heaven to turn The sunny side of things to human eyes.

1816.

THE NILE.

It flows through old hushed Ægypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,—
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory

extreme

Of high Sesostris, and that Southern beam, The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong, As of a world left empty of its throng,

And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,

And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along Twixt villages, and think how we shall take Our own calm journey on for human sake.

TO THE EVENING STAR. (ATTRIBUTED BY SOME TO MOSCHUS, AND BY OTHERS TO BION.)

Hesper, dear Hesper, golden lovely light,
Of Venus, presence in the dark blue night,—
Only less lovely than the moon as far
As thou art bright to every other star;
Hail, loved one; and as she begins to-day
To go down early, hold me from above
Thy light, and let me be supplied by thee:
I come not forth to steal or to way-lay;

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales, that mourn in the thick leaves,
Tell the Sicilian streams of Arethuse,
Bion the shepherd's dead; and that with him
Melody's dead, and gone the Dorian song.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Weep on the waters, ye Strymonian swans,
And utter forth a melancholy song,
Tender as his whose voice was like your own;
And say to the Oeagrian girls, and say
To all the nymphs haunting in Bistony,
The Doric Orpheus is departed from us.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
No longer pipes he to the charmed herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks,
And sings; but to the ears of Pluto now
Tunes his Lethean verse; and so the hills
Are voiceless; and the cows, that follow still
Beside the bulls, low and will not be fed.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Apollo, Bion, wept thy sudden fate:
The Satyrs too, and the Priapuses

Dark-veiled, and for that song of thine the Pans,
Groaned; and the fountain-nymphs within the woods
Mourned for thee, melting into tearful waters;
Echo too mourned among the rocks that she
Must hush, and imitate thy lips no longer;
The trees and flowers put off their loveliness;

Milk flows not as 'twas used; and in the hive
The honey moulders, for there is no need,
Now that thy honey's gone, to look for other.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Not so the dolphins mourned by the salt sea,
Not so the nightingale among the rocks,
Not so the swallow over the far downs,
Not so Ceyx called for his Halcyone,
Not so in the eastern vallies Memnon's bird
Screamed o'er his sepulchre for the morning's son,
As all have mourned for the departed Bion.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Ye nightingales and swallows every one,
Whom he once charmed and taught to sing at will,
Plain to each other midst the green tree boughs,
With other birds o'erhead. Mourn too, ye doves.
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.

Who now shall play thy pipe, oh most desired one!
Who lay his lip against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.
Pan's be they; and ev'n he shall fear perhaps
To sound them, lest he be not first hereafter.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
And Galatea weeps, who loved to hear thee,
Sitting beside thee on the calm sea-shore;
For thou did'st play far better than the Cyclops,
And him the fair one shunned: but thee, but thee,
She used to look at sweetly from the water.
But now, forgetful of the deep, she sits

On the lone sands, and feeds thy herd for thee.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.

The Muse's gifts all died with thee, O shepherd,
Men's admiration, and sweet women's kisses.
The loves about thy sepulchre weep sadly,

For Venus loved thee, much more than the kiss
With which of late she kissed Adonis, dying.
Thou too, O Meles, sweetest-voiced of rivers,
Thou too hast undergone a second grief;
For Homer first, that sweet mouth of Calliope,
Was taken from thee; and they say thou mourned'st
For thy great son with many-sobbing streams,
Filling the far-seen ocean with a voice.
And now, again, thou weepest for a son,
Melting away in misery. Both of them

Were favorites of the fountain-nymphs; one drank
The Pegasean fount, and one his cup
Filled out of Arethuse; the former sang
The bright Tyndarid lass, and the great son
Of Thetis, and Atrides Menelaus;

But he, the other, not of wars or tears
Told us, but intermixed the pipe he played
With songs of herds, and as he sung he fed them;
And he made pipes, and milked the gentle heifer,
And taught us how to kiss, and cherished love
Within his bosom, and was worthy of Venus.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Every renowned city and every town

Mourns for thee, Bion;-Ascra weeps thee more
Than her own Hesiod; the Baotian woods
Ask not for Pindar so; nor patriot Lesbos
For her Alcæus; nor th' Egean isle
Her poet; nor does Paros so wish back
Archilocus; and Mitylene now,
Instead of Sappho's verses, rings with thine.
All the sweet pastoral poets, who of late
Carried such happy looks, are sad for thee,-
Sicelidas the Samian, Lycidas

With his sweet lip, and frank Theocritus,
All in their several dialects: and I,
I too, no stranger to the pastoral song,
Sing thee a dirge Ausonian, such as thou
Taughtest thy scholars, honouring us as all
Heirs of the Dorian Muse. Thou didst bequeath
Thy store to others, but to me thy song.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
Alas, when mallows in the garden die,
Green parsley, or the crisp luxuriant dill,
They live again, and flower another year;
But we,
how
great soe'er, or strong, or wise,
When once we die, sleep in the senseless earth
A long, an endless, unawakeable sleep.
Thou too in earth must be laid silently:
But the nymphs please to let the frog sing on;
Nor envy I, for what he sings is worthless.

Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.
There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth,
Thou did'st feel poison; how could it approach
Those lips of thine, and not be turned to sweet!
Who could be so delightless as to mix it,
Or bid be mixed, and turn him from thy song!
Raise, raise the dirge, Muses of Sicily.

I

But justice reaches all;—and thus, meanwhile,
weep thy fate. And would I could descend
Like Orpheus to the shades, or like Ulysses,
Or Hercules before him, I would go

To Pluto's house, and see if you sang there,
And hark to what you sang. Play to Proserpina
Something Sicilian, some delightful pastoral,
For she once played on the Sicilian shores,
The shores of Etna, and sung Dorian songs,
And so thou would'st be honoured; and as Orpheus,
For his sweet harping, had his love again,
She would restore thee to our mountains, Bion.
Oh, had I but the power, I, I would do it.

THE STORY OF RIMINI. CANTO III.

THE FATAL PASSION.

Now why must I disturb a dream of bliss,
Or bring cold sorrow 'twixt the wedded kiss?
Sad is the strain with which I cheer my long
And caged hours, and try my native tongue;
Now too, while rains autumnal, as I sing,
Wash the dull bars, chilling my sicklied wing,
And all the climate presses on my sense;
But thoughts it furnishes of things far hence,

And leafy dreams affords me, and a feeling [ing;
Which I should else disdain, tear-dipped and heal-
And shews me, more than what it first designed,—
How little upon earth our home we find,
Or close the intended course of erring human-kind.

Enough of this. Yet how shall I disclose
The weeping days that with the morning rose,
How bring the bitter disappointment in,-
The holy cheat, the virtue-binding sin,-
The shock, that told this lovely, trusting heart,
That she had given, beyond all power to part,
Her hope, belief, love, passion, to one brother,
Possession (oh, the misery!) to another!

Some likeness was there 'twixt the two,-an air
At times, a cheek, a colour of the hair,
A tone, when speaking of indifferent things;
Nor, by the scale of common measurings,
Would you say more perhaps, than that the one
Was more robust, the other finelier spun;
That of the two, Giovanni was the graver,
Paulo the livelier, and the more in favour.

Some tastes there were indeed, that would prefer
Giovanni's countenance as the martialler;
And 'twas a soldier's truly, if an eye
Ardent and cool at once, drawn-back and high,
An eagle's nose, and a determined lip,
Were the best marks of manly soldiership.
Paulo's was fashioned in a different mould,
And finer still, I think; for though 'twas bold,
When boldness was required, and could put on
A glowing frown, as if an angel shone,
Yet there was nothing in it one might call
A stamp exclusive, or professional,—

No courtier's face, and yet its smile was ready,—
No scholar's, yet its look was deep and steady,-
No soldier's, for its power was all of mind,
Too true for violence, and too refined.
A graceful nose was his, lightsomely brought
Down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought;
Wisdom looked sweet and inward from his
And round his mouth was sensibility:
It was a face, in short, seemed made to shew
How far the genuine flesh and blood could go;—
A morning glass of unaffected nature,
Something, that baffled every pompous feature,-
The visage of a glorious human creature.

eye;

If any points there were, at which they came
Nearer together, 'twas in knightly fame,
And all accomplishments that art may know,—
Hunting, and princely hawking, and the bow,
The rush together in the bright-eyed list,
Fore-thoughted chess, the riddle rarely missed,
And the decision of still knottier points,
With knife in hand, of boar and peacock joints,-
Things, that might shake the fame that Tristan got,
And bring a doubt on perfect Launcelot.
But leave we knighthood to the former part;
The tale I tell is of the human heart.

The worst of Prince Giovanni, as his bride
Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride.
Bold, handsome, able if he chose to please,
Punctual and right in common offices,
He lost the sight of conduct's only worth,
The scattering smiles on this uneasy earth;
And, on the strength of virtues of small weight,
Claimed tow'rds himself the exercise of great.
He kept no reckoning with his sweets and sours;-
He'd hold a sullen countenance for hours,
And then, if pleased to cheer himself a space,
Look for the immediate rapture in your face,
And wonder that a cloud could still be there,
How small soever, when his own was fair.
Yet such is conscience, so designed to keep
Stern, central watch, though all things else go sleep,
And so much knowledge of one's self there lies
Cored, after all, in our complacencies,
That no suspicion would have touched him more,
Than that of wanting on the generous score:
He would have whelmed you with a weight of scorn,
Been proud at eve, inflexible at morn,
In short, ill-tempered for a week to come,
And all to strike that desperate error dumb.
Taste had he, in a word, for high-turned merit,
But not the patience or the genial spirit;
And so he made, 'twixt virtue and defect,
A sort of fierce demand on your respect,
Which, if assisted by his high degree,
It gave him in some eyes a dignity,
And struck a meaner deference in the many,
Left him, at last, unloveable with any.

From this complexion in the reigning brother
His younger birth perhaps had saved the other.
Born to a homage less gratuitous,

He learned to win a nobler for his house;
And both from habit and a genial heart,
Without much trouble of the reasoning art,
Found this the wisdom and the sovereign good,-
To be, and make, as happy as he could.
Not that he saw, or thought he saw, beyond
His general age, and could not be as fond
Of wars and creeds as any of his race,-
But most he loved a happy human face;
And wheresoe'er his fine, frank eyes were thrown,
He struck the looks he wished for with his own.
His danger was, lest, feeling as he did,
Too lightly he might leap o'er means forbid,
And in some tempting hour lose sight of crime
O'er some sweet face too happy for the time;
But fears like these he never entertained, [dained.
And had they crossed him, would have been dis-
Warm was his youth, 'tis true,-nor had been free
From lighter loves, but virtue reverenced he,
And had been kept from men of pleasure's cares
By dint of feelings still more warm than theirs.
So what but service leaped where'er he went!
Was there a tilt-day or a tournament,—
For welcome grace there rode not such another,
Nor yet for strength, except his lordly brother.
Was there a court-day, or a sparkling feast,