in “high-born;" the difference of the a in "maiden " from that in "palace; " the strong opposition of maiden to tower (making the rhyme more vigorous in proportion to the general softness); then the new differences in soothing, love-laden, soul, and secret, all diverse from one 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 penn'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.

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 commonplaces with more heavenly triumph.

A GARISH DAY.

(SAID BY A POTENT RUFFIAN.)

The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear
A busy stir of men about the streets;

I see the bright sky through the window-panes:
It is a garish, broad, and peering day;
Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears :
And every little corner, nook, and hole,
Is penetrated with the insolent light.
Come, darkness!

CONTEMPLATION OF VIOLENCE.

(BY A MAN NOT BAD.)

Spare me now.

I am as one lost in a midnight wood,
Who dares not ask some harmless passenger
The path across the wilderness, lest he,
As my thoughts are, should be a murderer.

A ROCK AND A CHASM.

I remember,

Two miles on this side of the fort, the road
Crosses a deep ravine: 't is rough and narrow,
And winds with short turns down the precipice
And in its depth there is a mighty rock,
Which has, from unimaginable years,
Sustained itself with terror and with toil
Over a gulf, and with the agony

With which it clings seems slowly coming down,
Even as a wretched soul, hour after hour,
Clings to the mass of life; yet clinging leans,
And, leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag,
Huge as despair, as if in weariness,

The melancholy mountain yawns. Below
You hear, but see not, an impetuous torrent
Raging among the caverns; and a bridge
Crosses the chasm; and high above these grow,
With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,
Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair
Is matted in one solid roof of shade

By the dark ivy's twine. At noon-day here
'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night.

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,
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom ?—a star
Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone?
A smile amid dark frowns ?-a gentle tone
Amid rude voices?-a beloved sight?
A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?

A lute, which those whom love has taught to play,
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day,
And lull fond grief asleep?—a buried treasure?
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure?
A violet-shrouded grave of woe? I measure
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee,
And find-alas! mine own infirmity.

EXISTENCE IN SPACE.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

DEVOTEDNESS UNREQUIRING

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it;

One feeling too falsely disdain'd
For thee to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above,
And the Heavens reject not?
The desire of the moth for the star;
Of the night for the morrow;
The devotion to something afar

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;
And teach it all the harmony

In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own:
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor:

When you die, the silent moon,
In her interlunar swoon,
Is not sadder in her cell

Than deserted Ariel: