ADDRESSED TO HAYDON.

Sigh-mindedness, a jealousy for good,

A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, Dwells here and there with people of no name,

In noisome alley, and in pathless wood:

And where we think the truth least understood.
Oft may be found a " singleness of aim,"
That ought to frighten into hooded shame

A money-mongering, pitiable brood.

How glorious this affection for the cause
Of steadfast genius, toiling gallantly!

What when a stout unbending champion awes
Envy, and malice to their native sty?

Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause,
Proud to behold him in his country's eye.

ADDRESSED TO THE SAME.

Great spirits now on earth are sojourning:
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake.
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,

Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:

He of the rose, the violet, the spring,

The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake: And lo! whose steadfastness would never take

A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.

And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;

These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum

Of mighty workings?

Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead:

That is the grasshopper's—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun,

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills.

December 30, 1816.

TO KOSCIUSKO.

Good Kosciusko! thy great name alone

Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing

Of the wide spheres—an everlasting tone.

And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown,

The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing, Are changed to harmonies, for ever stealing

Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.

It tells me too, that on a happy day,

When some good spirit walks upon the earth,

Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore,
Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth

To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away

To where the great God lives for evermore.

Happy is England! I could be content

To see no other verdure than its own;

To feel no other breezes than are blown Through its tall woods with high romances blent; Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment

For skies Italian, and an inward groan

To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;

Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging

Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,

And float with them about the summer waters.

THE HUMAN SEASONS.

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close ; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature. ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER.

Come hither, all sweet maidens soberly,

Down-looking aye, and with a chasten'd light,
Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,
And meekly let your fair hands joined be,
As if so gentle that ye could not see,

Untouch'd, a victim of your beauty bright,
Sinking away to his young spirit's night,
Sinking bewilder'd 'mid the dreary sea:
'Tis young Leander toiling to his death;

Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips
For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.

O horrid dream! see how his body dips Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile: He 's gone ; up bubbles all his amorous breath!

TO AILSA ItOCK.

Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!

Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams!

When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams!
When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid?
How long is 't since the mighty power bid

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?

Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams, Or when grey clouds are thy cold cover-lid l Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep!

Thy life is but two dead eternities— The last in air, the former in the deep;

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies— Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,

Another cannot wake thy giant size.

S

EPISTLES.

Among the rest a shepherd (though but young
Yet hartncd to his pipe) with all the skill
His few yeeres could, began to fill his quill.

Britannia's Pastorals—Browne.

TO GEORGE FELTON MATHEW.

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,

And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;

Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view

A fate more pleasing, a delight more true

Than that in which the brother poets joy'd,

Who, with combined powers, their wit employ'd

To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.

The thought of this great partnership diffuses

Over the genius-loving heart, a feeling

Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.

Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee

Past each horizon of fine poesy;

Fain would I echo back each pleasant note

As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float

'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,

Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:

But 'tis impossible; far different cares

Beckon me sternly from soft " Lydian airs,"

And hold my faculties so long in thrall,

That I am oft in doubt whether at all

I shall again see Phoebus in the morning:

Or flush'd Aurora in the roseate dawning!