Yet never, Scadbury! to forget,

The dearest spot I 've looked on yet,
Thy venerable grove ;

Where I have spent, in weal or woe,
Those choicest hours that mortals know,
And spent with those I love.

"HERSELF A FAIRER FLOWER."

Written for a Friend, who had some difficulty in expressing his mind to a Lady: the Lines were presented, and understood.

SHE planted me that lovely flower,

She watched it day by day,
She fed it with the kindly shower,

She kept the blast away.

And now the Summer season's come,
The lovely flower is full in bloom.

"Tis full in bloom, and all for me,
And for my gay parterre;

Come Autumn, and I'll take the tree,

And gently plant it there:

And oh, the joy, to watch it grow,
And think, Before, she watch'd it so!

She watch'd it so, the lovely maid,
"Herself a fairer flower,"
Blooming beneath the quiet shade
Of that dear parent bower;
Blooming, oh, might I say for me,
In unambitious privacy!

Oh, might I say it! might I too,
Like that, transplant thee hither
Have thee for ever in my view,

To bloom when that shall wither!
As thou hast watch'd o'er that for me,
Oh, so might I watch over thee!

TO HIS WIFE.

IN SICKNESS.

I SAID, I would love thee in want or in wealth,
Thro' cloud and thro' sunshine, in sickness, in health:
And fear not, my love, when thy spirits are weak,—

The troth I have plighted I never may break.

Aye, sickness;-I know it, long day upon day,

But the sun must come through, and the clouds melt away;
Melt away every vapour, and leave upon high
Not a spot, not a speck, in the Midsummer sky.

Aye, sickness;-but sickness, it touches the heart
With a feeling, where how many feelings have part!
There's a magic in soothing the wearisome hour;
Pity rears up the stem, and Hope looks for the flower.

The rose smells as sweetly in sunshine and air,
But the green-house has all our affection and care:
The lark sings as nobly, while soaring above,
But the bird that we nurse is the bird that we love.

I have loved thee in sickness; I'll love thee in health;
And, if want be our portion, why love be our wealth:
Thy comfort in sorrow, thy stay when most weak,
The troth I have plighted I never will break.

THE GARDEN'S REFUSE.

TO THE SAME.

THOU askest a nosegay: the garden is reft;
The choice of the flowers, the prime of the trees
All rifled; not one have the pilferers left;

They have pilfer'd these ages past, all at their ease.

The poets have stolen the lily and rose

For the cheeks of their mistresses, time out of mind; And the bay and the laurel, as every one knows,

Are theirs round their own flowing tresses to bind.

The myrtle ('twas Venus's shrub) gives its leaves,
Its leaves and its buds to the breast of the lover :
And the vine-leaf and ivy the Bacchanal weaves
In a chaplet his rosy-red temples to cover.

The holly and mistletoe's dark glossy sheen

We place in our halls in the cold Christmas tide;
To shelter the spirits, that sport in their green,
But the keen cutting blasts may no longer abide.

;

The maid that 's forsaken must crown her with willow
For remembrance there's rosemary, daisies for thought;

We scatter the poppy on sickness's pillow;
And the wreath of the hopeless, of cypress is wrought.

A chaplet of oak is the meed of the chief,

Who hath rescued his fellow in battle and blood;
And the robin hath hallow'd the strawberry-leaf
To the poor little babies that died in the wood.

Then, ask for a nosegay! the garden is reft;

The choice of the flowers, the prime of the trees All rifled no! yet there's a floweret left,

May I gather it for thee?-the gentle heart's-ease.

ON THE BIRTH OF HIS SISTER'S INFANT.

COULD I, like gifted seer, turn

At will from things that are,

And through the mist of years discern
The future as it were;

I would not know an empire's date,
A monarch's short career;

But I would learn thy humbler fate,
Thy noiseless fortunes here.

And yet, thou may'st be mark'd by Heaven For deeds of deathless fame;

And I, a worthless bard, be given

To sanctify thy name.

Perchance, in after years, thine eye
Shall wake to watch the realm;
And our good ship ride merrily,
Thou, baby, at the helm.

Perchance the field shall be thy care;

And, in the day of woe,

Thou 'It bid thy shouting myriads spare

The remnant of the foe.

Yet far more happy, as I deem,
More happy and more wise,
Content with conscious self-esteem,
And Heaven's approving eyes.

Let others emulate at will

The torrent's wasting force;

Be thou the fertilizing rill,

Whose soft, and silent course

Leaves nothing for the traveller's eye
To mark where it hath been,
But, mid the meadows summer-dry,
A tract of darkest green.

He died at the age of two years.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT NEPHEW.

TO HIS SISTER.

(MS.)

"WHILES there was hope, I wept and pray'd; For, weeping, praying, still I said,

Who knows if He above may spare
The child of tears and bitter prayer?

The child is dead. How short an hour
Hath dimm'd the radiance of that flower!
In vain I wept, in vain I pray'd ;-
The child, the dearly lov'd, is dead."

In vain thy weeping, praying?—No ;
It is thy Father; say not so:
That prayer, that silent agony,
If not for him, was heard for thee.

Is there not virtue in this hour?
Affliction hath a holy power:

'Tis then that faith best shows its worth,

As the bruis'd leaf breathes fragrance forth.