TO THOMAS MOORE.

WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS VISIT TO MR. LEIGH HUNT
IN HORSEMONGER LANE GAOL, MAY 19, 1813.

Oн you, who in all names can tickle the town,
Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,-
For hang me if I know of which you may most brag,
Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Two-penny Post Bag;

But now to my letter-to yours 'tis an answer—
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir,
All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on
(According to compact) the wit in the dungeon-
Pray Phoebus at length our political malice

May not get us lodgings within the same palace!

I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some codgers,
And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted Sam Rogers;
And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got,
Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote;
But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scurra,
And you'll be Catullus, the Regent Mamurra.55

[First published in 1830.]

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.

WHEN, from the heart where Sorrow sits,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;
Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink:
My thoughts their dungeon know too well;
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,

And droop within their silent cell.56

September, 1813.

SONNET, TO GENEVRA.

THINE eyes blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, And the wan lustre of thy features-caught From contemplation--where serenely wrought, Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despairHave thrown such speaking sadness in thine air, That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thoughtI should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent) The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn

Such seem'st thou-but how much more excellent! With nought Remorse can claim-nor Virtue scorn. December 17, 1813.57

SONNET, TO THE SAME.

THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow:
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes-but, oh!
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy Gentleness

Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;
At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

December 17, 1813.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE

"TU MI CHAMAS."

IN moments to delight devoted,

"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die.

To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change "my life!" into "my soul !"
Which, like my love, exists for ever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your life.-Oh! change the word-
Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh:
Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name,
For, like the soul, my love can never die.

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE;

AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY.58

THE Devil return'd to hell by two,
And he stay'd at home till five;

When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew-
And bethought himself what next to do,
"And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.
I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favourites thrive.

"And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer then"If I follow'd my taste, indeed,

I should mount in a wagon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnish'd again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed;
To see my manor as much as I may,

And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away.

"I have a state-coach at Carlton House,

A chariot in Seymour Place;

But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends, By driving my favourite pace :

And they handle their reins with such a grace,

I have something for both at the end of their race.

"So now for the earth to take my chance:"
Then up to the earth sprung he;

And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepp'd across the sea,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,

No very great way from a bishop's abode.

But first as he flew, I forgot to say,
That he hover'd a moment upon his way,
To look upon Leipsic plain;

And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,
That he perch'd on a mountain of slain;

And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,

Nor his work done half as well:

For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That it blush'd like the waves of hell !

Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he:
"Methinks they have here little need of me!"

But the softest note that soothed his ear
Was the sound of a widow sighing;
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying—
As round her fell her long fair hair;

And she look'd to heaven with that frenzied air,
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there!

And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut,
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying:

And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,
And the fall of the vainly flying!

But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs so white,
And what did he there, I pray?

If his eyes were good, he but saw by night
What we see every day:

But he made a tour, and kept a journal

Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal,

And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,

Who bid pretty well-but they cheated him, though!

The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,
Its coachman and his coat;

So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail,
And seized him by the throat:
"Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here?
'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer!"

So he sat him on his box again,

And bade him have no fear,

But be true to his club, and stanch to his rein,

His brothel, and his beer;

"Next to seeing a lord at the council board,

I would rather see him here."

勞

*

The Devil gat next to Westminster,

*

And he turn'd to "the room" of the Commons; But he heard, as he purposed to enter in there, That "the Lords" had received a summons;

And he thought, as a "quondam aristocrat,"

He might peep at the peers, though to hear them were flat;
And he walk'd up the house so like one of our own,
That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.

He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise,

The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly,