Are. Thy love; without which all the land
Discovered yet, will serve me for no use,
But to be buried in.
Are. With it, it were too little to bestow
On thee. Now, though thy breath do strike me dead, (Which, know, it may) I have unript my breast.
Phi. Madam, you are too full of noble thoughts,
To lay a train for this contemned life,
Which you may have for asking. To suspect
Were base, where I deserve no ill. Love you,
By all my hopes, I do, above my life :
But how this passion should proceed from you
So violently, would amaze a man
That would be jealous.
Are. Another soul, into my body shot,
Could not have fill'd me with more strength and spirit,
Than this thy breath. But spend not hasty time,
In seeking how I came thus. 'Tis the gods,
The gods, that make me so; and, sure, our love
Will be the nobler, and the better blest,
In that the secret justice of the gods
Is mingled with it. How shall we devise
To hold intelligence, that our true loves,
On any new occasion, may agree
What path is best to tread?
Sent by the gods, I hope, to this intent,
Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain's side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself,
Of many several flowers, bred in the bay,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me: but ever when he turn'd
His tender eyes upon 'em he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I ask'd him all his story.
He told me, that his parents gentle died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,
Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,
Which still, he thank'd him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did shew
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, order'd thus,
Express'd his grief: and, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country_art
That could be wish'd: so that, methought, I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertain'd him,
Who was as glad to follow; and have got
The trustiest, loving'st, and the gentlest boy,
That ever master kept. Him will I send
To wait on you, and bear our hidden love.
Are. "Tis well. No more.
By Mr. T. IRWIN, an Irish poet.
AMID the nut-grove, still and brown,
The Fairies' Child is walking,
List, list, as the leaves come down,
To the sprites, around her talking.
Along the windy, waving grass
Their evening whispers breathe and pass:
From yon aged bending bough
Their leafy language floats below;
And now o'erhead in the air 'tis streaming.
Oh, who can tell what things she hears-
What secrets of the fairy spheres,
That fill her eyes with silent tears!
Sweet wandering fancy charmed the child,
With cheek so pale, and eyes so wild.
Oh, what shall come of this dreaming!
Down by the sun-dry harvest road,
Through quiet evening hours,
paces with her scented load
Of late year moss and flowers.
Blooms from the wood of every hue,
Moon, pale, purple, jet and blue.
Woven in bunches and lightly pressed
Upon her simple, snowy breast,
And through the brown locks lightly tressed Nodding in crownlets o'er her.
And lo! as the cloud on ocean's brim,
With moonlight has enriched its rim;
A quaint wild shape with kindly eyes,
And a smile like a star of the distant skies,
Goes tripping the path before her.
Now by her pillow, small and white,
'Mid faded leaflets lying,
An eager star, like a taper light,
O'er the curtain's edge is spying.
The scent of the broom-buds fills the room;
The window is full of the bare blue gloom,
And by the low hearth ashily sinking,
Half asleep, is a fairy winking.
Out in the air there comes a sound
Of music eddying round and round
The ivied chimneys-swooning near
The glassy pave, and streaming clear
As moonlight into the little ear,
Like a shell in brown weed gleaming;
And just as the first bird mounted high,
On the sycamore's tinkling canopy,
Sings to the first red streak of day,
Her soul with the Fairies speeds away,
O'er field, and stream, and hamlet gray.
Where the weary folk are dreaming.
CHILDE HAROLD'S LAST PILGRIMAGE.
By the Rev. W. LISLE BOWLES.
So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage!
Above the Malian surge he stood, and cried,
Liberty! and the shores, from age to age
Renowned, and Sparta's woods and rocks, replied,
Liberty! But a spectre at his side
Stood mocking, and its dart uplifting high
Smote him! he sank to earth in life's fair pride:
Sparta! thy rocks echoed another cry,
And old Ilissus sighed, Die, generous exile, die!
I will not ask sad pity to deplore
His wayward errors, who thus early died;
Still less, Childe Harold, now thou art no more,
Will I say aught of genius misapplied:
Of the past shadows of thy spleen or pride.
But I will bid the Arcadian cypress wave,
Pluck the green laurel from Peneus' side,
And pray thy spirit may such quiet have,
That not one thought unkind be murmured o'er thy grave.
So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage!
Ends in that region, in that land renowned,
Whose mighty genius lives in glory's page,
And on the muses' consecrated ground;
His pale cheek fading where his brows were bound
With their unfading wreath! I will not call
The nymphs from Pindus' piny shades profound,
But strew some flowers upon thy sable pall,
And follow to the grave a Briton's funeral.
Slow move the plumed hearse, the mourning train,
I mark the long procession with a sigh,
Silently passing to that village fane
Where, Harold, thy forefathers mouldering lie;
Where sleeps the mother, who with tearful eye
Pondering the fortunes of thy onward road,
Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy;
Who here, released from every human load,
Receives her long-lost child to the same calm abode.
Bursting death's silence, could that mother speak,
When first the earth is beaped upon thy head,
In thrilling, but with hollow, accent weak,
She thus might give the welcome of the dead:
Here rest, my son, with me—the dream is fled-
The motley mask and the great coil are o'er;
Welcome to me, and to this wormy bed,
Where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar
Of earth, and fretting passions waste the heart no more.
Here rest!-on all thy wanderings peace repose, Atter the fever of thy toilsome way; No interruption this long silence knows; Here no vain phantoms lead the soul astray; The earthworm feeds on his unconscious prey: Here both shall sleep in peace till earth and sea Give up their dead, at that last awful day, King, Lord, Almighty Judge! remember me; And may Heaven's mercy rest, my erring child, on thee!
By DYER, one of our elder poets.
Ан, my Clio, every day
Some sweet image dies away:
All my songs, and all my joys,
Cruel absence all destroys.
Cruel absence and his train,
Strife, and envy, care, and pain,
Toil, and trouble,-Oh! for love,
Gentle Clio, these remove!
Speed, O speed the song away,
Say the sweet things love can say,
Speed the beams of wit and sense,
Speed thy doves, and draw me hence.
So be the urn, among the vines,
Which my pencil now designs,
With its ashes, lost in air,
Lost, with every idle care.
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