another, and from the whole strain; and finally, the strain itself, winding up in the Alexandrine with a cadence of particular repetitions, which constitutes nevertheless a new difference on that account, and by the prolongation of the tone. "It gives a very echo to the seat Where love is throned." There is another passage of Shakspeare which it more particularly calls to mind;-the Ditties highly penu'd, Sung by a fair queen in a summer bower With ravishing division to her lute. But as Shakspeare was not writing lyrically in this passage, nor desirous to fill it with so much love and sentiment, it is no irreverence to say that the modern excels it. The music is carried on into the first two lines of the next stanza : Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew; a melody as happy in its alliteration as in what may be termed its counterpoint. And the colouring of this stanza is as beautiful as the music. 3" Thou scorner of the ground."-A most noble and emphatic close of the stanza. Not that the lark, in any vulgar sense of the word, "scorns" the ground, for he dwells upon it: but that, like the poet, nobody can take leave of common-places with more heavenly triumph. A GARISH DAY. (SAID BY A POTENT RUFFIAN.) The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear I see the bright sky through the window-paues : Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears; Is penetrated with the insolent light. CONTEMPLATION OF VIOLENCE. (BY A MAN NOT BAD.) Spare me now. I am as one lost in a midnight wood, A ROCK AND A CHASM. I remember, Two miles on this side of the fort, the road Which has, from unimaginable years, Sustain'd itself with terror and with toil Over a gulf, and with the agony With which it clings seems slowly coming down; The melancholy mountain yawns. Below By the dark ivy's twine. At noon-day here LOVELINESS INEXPRESSIBLE. Sweet lamp! my moth-like muse has burnt its wings; Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, Young Love should teach Time in his own gray style All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile; A lovely soul form'd to be blest and bless? A well of seal'd and secret happiness, Whose waters like blithe light and music are, A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight? A lute, which those whom love has taught to play, And lull fond grief asleep?—a buried treasure? EXISTENCE IN SPACE. Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, DEVOTEDNESS UNREQUIRING. One word is too often profaned One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, I can give not what men call love; From the sphere of our sorrow. TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR. Ariel to Miranda:-Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him who is the slave of thee; In which thou canst, and only thou, And, too intense, is turned to pain. To the throne of Naples he Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel : When you live again on earth, |