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TO THE SKY-LARK: A SONNET.

O earliest singer! O care-charming bird!
Married to morning, by a sweeter hymn
Than priest e'er chanted from his cloister dim,
At midnight, or veil'd virgin's holier word
At sunrise or the paler evening heard;

To which of all Heaven's young and lovely hours,
Who wreathe soft light in hyacinthine bowers,
Beautiful spirit, is thy suit preferr'd?

-Unlike the creatures of this low dull earth,
Still dost thou woo, although thy suit be won;
And thus thy mistress bright is pleased ever.
Oh! lose not thou this mark of finer birth;-
So may'st thou yet live on, from sun to sun,
Thy joy uncheck'd, thy sweet song silent never.

SONG.

His eye like the mid-day sun was bright,
Her's had a proud but milder light,
Clear and sweet like the cloudless moon:
Alas! and must it fade as soon?

His voice was like the breath of war,

But her's was fainter, softer far;

And yet when he of his long love sigh'd,

She laugh'd in scorn-he fled, and died.

They said he died upon the wave,

And his bed was the wild and bounding billow: Her bed shall be a dry earth grave:

Prepare it quick, for she wants her pillow.

From Amelia Wentworth,

THE WIFE OF CANDAULES,

Candaules king of Lydia had a wife,
Beautiful Lais: she was such as I

(Had she not ta'en her silly husband's life,
Which shows a certain taste for cruelty)

Could love ;-but no! we might have had some strife, And she was rather cold and somewhat "high,"

And I detest that stalking marble grace,
Which makes one think the heart has left its place.
She had the stature of a queen: her eyes

Were bright and large, but all too proud to rove,
And black, which I have heard some people prize;
Lightly along the ground she deign'd to move,
Gazed at and woo'd by every wind that flies,

And her deep bosom seem'd the throne of love:
And yet she was, for my poor taste, too grand,
And likely for "obey" to read "command."

Give me less faultless woman, so she might
Be all my own, trusted at home and far,
With whom the world might be forgotten quite,
The country's scandal, and the city's jar,
And in whose deep blue eyes Love's tenderest light
Should rise in beauty, like a vesper star,

On my return at evening, aye, and shine

On hearts I prized. By Jove! 'twould be divine.

From Gyges.

THE DELUGE.

Higher and higher fled the wasted throngs,
And still they hoped for life, and still they died,
One after one, some worn, some hunger-mad;
Here lay a giant's limbs sodden and shrunk,
And there an infant's, white like wax, and close
A matron with grey hairs, all dumb and dead:-
Meanwhile, upon the loftiest summit safe,
Deucalion labour'd through the dusky day,
Completing as he might his floating raft,
And Pyrrha, shelter'd in a cave, bewail'd
Her child which perish'd.-

Still the ruin fell:

No pity, no relapse, no hope:-The world

Was vanishing like a dream. Lightning and storm,
Thunder and deluging rain, now vex'd the air
To madness, and the riotous winds laugh'd out
Like Bacchanals, whose cups some god has charm'd.
Beneath the headlong torrents towns and towers
Fell down, temples all stone, and brazen shrines;
And piles of marble, palace and pyramid

(Kings' homes or towering graves) in a breath were swept

Crumbling away.

Masses of ground and trees
Uptorn and floating, hollow rocks, brute cramm'd,
Vast herds, and bleating flocks, reptiles, and beasts
Bellowing, and vainly with the choking waves
Struggling, were hurried out,—but none return'd:
All on the altar of the giant sea

Offer'd, like twice ten thousand hecatombs,
Whose blood allays the burning wrath of gods.
-Day after day the busy death pass'd on
Full, and by night return'd hungering anew;
And still the new morn fill'd his horrid maw
With flocks, and herds, a city, a tribe, a town,
One after one borne out, and far from land
Dying in whirlpools or the sullen deeps.
All perish'd then: -The last who lived was one
Who clung to life, because a frail child lay
Upon her heart: weary, and gaunt, and worn,
From point to point she sped, with mangled feet,
Bearing for aye her little load of love :-
Both died,-last martyrs of a mother's sins,
Last children they of Earth's sad family.

From the Flood of Thessaly.

EFFECT OF SUBLIME SCENERY UPON THE HUMAN
CHARACTER.

I have seen the Alpine sun-set:-oh! how weak
My verse to tell what flash'd across my sight.
Green, blue, and burning red, was every streak:
Like rainbow beams, but trebly, trebly bright;
The earth, the air, the heavens, were living light:
My vision was absorb'd. I trembled-then
Softening his glance, and sinking in his might,
The sun slow faded from the eyes of men,
And died away. Ne'er have I seen the like again.

Yet have I lain in many a leafy nook
Sequester'd, hiding from the summer beam,
Idling, or haply with that charmed book
Writ by the Avon side; and loved to dream
Of pale Cordelia, gentle Imogen:

Or, on some brook that slid, like guilt, away
Hurrying the pilfer'd mosses down its stream,
Ponder'd, and often at the close of day

Gazed on the coming moon, and felt, perhaps, her sway.

It is in high, remoter scenes, that we
Become sublimed, yet humble: there we learn
That still beyond us spreads-infinity,
And we, still clay: or, all admiring, turn
To where those characters of beauty burn,
Which God hath printed on the starry skies:
And haply guess why we alone may learn
The world's vast wonders: why alone our eyes
See far: why we alone have such proud sympathies.
For with creation and its marvels none

Save we, can hold communion. On the earth
Are many stately footsteps, and the sun

Shines on eyes bright as ours: yet hath our birth
(Holy) shed round us an immortal worth,
Beyond the rest: though with the rest we fade,
And are encircled by as frail a girth

To life, as they: and in the deadly shade

Wither as quick, and are as loathsome when decay'd.

But while we live, the air, the fruit, the flower, Doth own to us a high, superior charm: And the soul's radiance in our wintry hour Flings a sweet summer halo round us, warm; And then, the multitudinous things that swarm From the brain's secret cells, and never die (Though mortal born),-Oh! for that boasted balm Of life, to raise the mighty when they lie Wrecks, both in frame and mind-common mortality.

WOMAN.

Gone from her cheek is the summer bloom,
And her lip has lost all its faint perfume:
And the gloss has dropp'd from her golden hair,
And her cheek is pale, but no longer fair.

And the spirit that sate on her soft blue eye,
Is struck with cold mortality;

And the smile that play'd round her lip has fled,
And every charm has now left the dead.

Like slaves they obey'd her in height of power,
But left her all in her wintry hour;

And the crowds that swore for her love to die,
Shrunk from the tone of her last faint sigh.
And this is man's fidelity!

"Tis Woman alone, with a purer heart,
Can see all these idols of life depart,

And love the more, and smile and bless
Man in his uttermost wretchedness.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

Over Babylon's sandy plains
Belshazzar the Assyrian reigns.
A thousand lords at his kingly call
Have met to feast in a spacious hall,
And all the imperial boards are spread,
With dainties whereon the monarch fed.-
Rich cates and floods of the purple grape :
And many a dancer's serpent shape
Steals slowly upon their amorous sights,
Or glances beneath the flaunting lights:
And fountains throw up their silver spray,-
And cymbals clash,-and the trumpets bray
Till the sounds in the arched roof are hung;
And words from the winding horn are flung:
And still the carved cups go round,

And revel and mirth and wine abound.

But night has o'ertaken the fading day;
And music has raged her soul away:
The light in the bacchanal's eye is dim;
And faint is the Georgian's wild love-hymn.
"Bring forth❞—(on a sudden spoke the king,
And hush'd were the lords, loud rioting,)—
"Bring forth the vessels of silver and gold,
Which Nebuchadnezzar, my sire, of old,
Ravish'd from proud Jerusalem;

And we and our queens will drink from them."
And the vessels are brought, of silver and gold,
Of stone, and of brass and of iron old,

And of wood, whose sides like a bright gem shine,
And their mouths are all fill'd with the sparkling wine,
Hark! the king has proclaim'd with a stately nod,
"Let a health be drunk out unto Baal, the god."-
They shout and they drink:-but the music moans,
And hush'd are the reveller's loudest tones:
For a hand comes forth, and 'tis seen by all
To write strange words on the plaster'd wall!
-The mirth is over;-the soft Greek flute
And the voices of women are low-are mute;
The bacchanal's eyes are all staring wide;
And, where's the Assyrian's pomp of pride?—
-That night the monarch was stung to pain:
That night Belshazzar, the king, was slain!—

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