Hopes that within the Father's heart prevail,
Are in the experienced Grandsire's slow to fail;
And if the harp pleased his gay youth, it rings
To his grave touch with no unready strings,
While thoughts press on, and feelings overflow,
And quick words round him fall like flakes of snow.

Thanks to the Powers that yet maintain their sway,
And have renewed the tributary Lay.
Truths of the heart flock in with eager pace,
And FANCY greets them with a fond embrace;
Swift as the rising sun his beams extends
She shoots the tidings forth to distant friends;
Their gifts she hails (deemed precious, as they prove
For the unconscious Babe an unbelated love!)
But from this peaceful centre of delight
Vague sympathies have urged her to take flight.
She rivals the fleet Swallow, making rings
In the smooth Lake where'er he dips his wings:
- Rapt into upper regions, like the Bee
That sucks from mountain heath her honey fee;
Or, like the warbling Lark intent to shroud
His head in sunbeams or a bowery cloud,
She soars
- and here and there her pinions rest
On proud towers, like this humble cottage, blest
With a new visitant, an infant guest-
Towers where red streamers flout the breezy sky
In pomp foreseen by her creative eye,

When feasts shall crowd the Hall, and steeple bells
Glad proclamation make, and heights and dells
Catch the blithe music, as it sinks or swells;
And harboured ships, whose pride is on the sca,
Shall hoist their topmast flags in sign of glee,
Honouring the hope of noble ancestry.
But who, (though neither reckoning ills assigned
By Nature, nor reviewing in the mind

The track that was, and is, and must be, worn
With weary feet by all of woman born) —
Shall now by such a gift with joy be moved,
Nor feel the fulness of that joy reproved?
Not He, whose last faint memory will command
The truth that Britain was his native land;
Whose infant soul was tutored to confide

In the cleansed faith for which her martyrs died;
Whose boyish ear the voice of her renown

To see presumption, turning pale, refram
From further havoc, but repent in vain, -
Good aims lie down, and perish in the road
Where guilt had urged them on, with ceaseless goad,
Till undiscriminating Ruin swept

The Land, and Wrong perpetual vigils kept:
With proof before her that on public ends
Domestic virtue vitally depends.

Can such a one, dear Babe! though glad and proud
To welcome Thee, repel the fears that crowd
Into his English breast, and spare to quake
Not for his own, but for thy innocent sake?
Too lateor, should the providence of God
Lead, through blind ways by sin and sorrow trod,
Justice and peace to a secure abode,

Too soon -thou com'st into this breathing world;
Ensigns of mimic outrage are unfurled.

Who shall preserve or prop the tottering Realm?
What hand suffice to govern the state-helm?
If, in the aims of men, the surest test
Of good or bad (whate'er be sought for or profest)
Lie in the means required, or ways ordained,
For compassing the end, else never gained;
Yet governors and governed both are blind
To this plain truth, or fling it to the wind;
If to expedience principle must bow;

Past, future, shrinking up beneath the incumbent Now
If cowardly concession still must feed

The thirst for power in men who ne'er concede;

If generous Loyalty must stand in awe
Of subtle Treason, with his mask of law;
Or with bravado insolent and hard,
Provoking punishment, to win reward;
If office help the factious to conspire,
And they who should extinguish, fan the fire-
Then, will the sceptre be a straw, the crown
Sit loosely, like the thistle's crest of down;
To be blown off at will, by Power that spares it
In cunning patience, from the head that wears it.
Lost people, trained to theoretic feud ;
Lost, above all, ye labouring multitude!
Bewildered whether ye, by slanderous tongues
Deceived, mistake calamities for wrongs;
And over fancied usurpations brood,

With rapture thrilled; whose Youth revered the crown Oft snapping at revenge in sullen mood;

Of Saxon liberty that Alfred wore,

Alfred, dear Babe, thy great Progenitor!
-Not He, who from her mellowed practice drew
His social sense of just, and fair, and true;
And saw, thereafter, on the soil of France
Rash Polity begin her maniac dance,
Foundations broken up, the deeps run wild,
Nor grieved to see, (himself not unbeguiled) —*
Woke from the dream, the dreamer to upbraid,
And learn how sanguine expectations fade
When novel trusts by folly are betrayed, -

*See "FRENCH REVOLUTION," p. 188.

Or, from long stress of real injuries, fly
To desperation for a remedy:

In bursts of outrage spread your judgments wide,
And to your wrath cry out, "Be thou our guide;"
Or, bound by oaths, come forth to tread earth's floor
In marshalled thousands, darkening strect and moor
With the worst shape mock-patience ever wore;
Or, to the giddy top of self-esteem

By Flatterers carried, mount into a dream
Of boundless suffrage, at whose sage behest
Justice shall rule, disorder be supprest,
And every man sit down as Plenty's Guest!

-O for a bridle bitted with remorse

To stop your Leaders in their headstrong course!
Oh may the Almighty scatter with his grace
These mists, and lead you to a safer place,
By paths no human wisdom can foretrace!
May He pur round you, from worlds far above
Man's feverish passions, his pure light of love,
That quietly restores the natural mien

To hope, and makes truth willing to be seen
Else shall your blood-stained hands in frenzy reap
Fields gaily sown when promises were cheap.
Why is the Past belied with wicked art,
The Future made to play so false a part,
Among a people famed for strength of mind,
Foremost in freedom, noblest of mankind?
We act as if we joyed in the sad tune
Storms make in rising, valued in the moon

Nought but her changes. Thus, ungrateful Nation!

If thou persist, and, scorning moderation,
Spread for thyself the snares of tribulation,

Or at a doubting Judge's stern command,
Before the STONE OF POWER no longer stand
To take his sentence from the balanced Block,
As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock;*
Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more
The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore;
Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees
Do still perform mysterious offices!

And still in beast and bird a function dwells,
That, while we look and listen, sometimes tells
Upon the heart, in more authentic guise
Than Oracles, or winged Auguries,
Spake to the Science of the ancient wise.
Not uninspired appear their simplest ways;
Their voices mount symbolical of praise-
To mix with hymns that Spirits make and hear;
And to fallen Man their innocence is dear.
Enraptured Art draws from those sacred springs
Streams that reflect the poetry of things!
Where Christian Martyrs stand in hues portrayed,

Whom, then, shall meekness guard? What saving That, might a wish avail, would never fade,

skill

Lie in forbearance, strength in standing still?

- Soon shall the Widow (for the speed of Time
Nought equals when the hours are winged with crime)
Widow, or Wife, implore on tremulous knee,
From him who judged her Lord, a like decree;
The skies will weep o'er old men desolate:
Ye Little-ones! Earth shudders at your fate,
Outcasts and homeless orphans -

But turn, my soul, and from the sleeping Pair
Learn thou the beauty of omniscient care!
Be strong in faith, bid anxious thoughts lie still;
Seek for the good and cherish it- the ill
Oppose, or bear with a submissive will.

In this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;

If Freedom, set, will rise again,

And Virtue, flown, come back; Woe to the purblind crew who fill The heart with each day's care; Nor gain, from past or future, skill To bear, and to forbear!

HUMANITY.

(WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1829.)

Not from his fellows only man may learn
Rights to compare and duties to discern:
All creatures and all objects, in degree,
Are friends and patrons of humanity. - MS.

WHAT though the Accused, upon his own appeal
To righteous Gods when Man has ceased to feel,

Borne in their hands the Lily and the Palm
Shed round the Altar a celestial calm;
There, too, behold the Lamb and guileless Dove
Prest in the tenderness of virgin love
To saintly bosoms! - Glorious is the blending
Of right Affections, climbing or descending
Along a scale of light and life, with cares
Alternate; carrying holy thoughts and prayers
Up to the sovereign seat of the Most High;
Descending to the worm in charity;
Like those good Angels whom a dream of night
Gave, in the Field of Luz, to Jacob's sight;
All, while he slept, treading the pendent stairs
Earthward or heavenward, radiant Messengers,
That, with a perfect will in one accord
Of strict obedience, served the Almighty Lord;
And with untired humility forbore

The ready service of the wings they wore.

What a fair World were ours for Verse to paint,
If Power could live at ease with self-restraint!
Opinion bow before the naked sense

Of the great Vision, — faith in Providence;
Merciful over all existence, just

To the least particle of sentient dust;
And, fixing, by immutable decrees,
Seedtime and harvest for his purposes!
Then would be closed the restless oblique eye
That looks for evil like a treacherous spy;
Disputes would then relax, like stormy winds
That into breezes sink; impetuous minds

*The Rocking-Stones, alluded to, are supposed to have been used, by our British ancestors, both for judicial and religious pur. poses. Such stones are not uncommonly found, at this day, both in Great Britain and in Ireland.

The author is indebted, here, to a passage in one of Mr. Dig. by's valuable works.

BEGUILED into forgetfulness of care

Due to the day's unfinished task, of pen
Or book regardless, and of that fair scene
In Nature's prodigality displayed
Before my window, oftentimes and long
I gaze upon a portrait whose mild gleam
Of beauty never ceases to enrich

The common light; whose stillness charms the air,
Or seems to charm it, into like repose
Whose silence, for the pleasure of the ear,
Surpasses sweetest music. There she sits
With emblematic purity attired

In a white vest, white as her marble neck
Is, and the pillar of the throat would be
But for the shadow by the drooping chin
Cast into that recess -the tender shade,
The shade and light, both there and every where,
And through the very atmosphere she breathes,
Broad, clear, and toned harmoniously, with skill
That might from nature have been learnt in the hour
When the lone Shepherd sees the morning spread
Upon the mountains. Look at her, whoe'er
Thou be, that kindling with a poet's soul
Hast loved the painter's true Promethean craft
Intensely from Imagination take

THE FOREGOING SUBJECT RESUMED
AMONG a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill,
Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong
And dissolution and decny, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty; and graced

Stretched forth with trembling hope? In every realm, With no mean earnest of a heritage
From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains,
Thousands, in each variety of tongue