LINES

I.

UNFELT, unheard, unseen,
I've left my little queen,

Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who-who could tell how much
There is for madness-cruel, or complying?

II.

Those faery lids how sleek!

Those lips how moist!-they speak, In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds: Into my fancy's ear

Melting a burden dear,

How "Love doth know no fullness nor no bounds."

III.

True!-tender monitors!

I bend unto your laws:

This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,

I'll feel my heaven anew,

For all the blushing of the hasty morn.

SONNET

ON THE SEA

Ir keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be mov'd for days from where it sometime fell, When last the winds of Heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;

Oh ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody

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Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd!

SONNET

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ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM THE STORY OF RIMINI

WHO loves to peer up at the morning sun,
With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,
Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek
For meadows where the little rivers run;
Who loves to linger with that brightest one

Of Heaven-Hesperus-let him lowly speak These numbers to the night, and starlight meek, Or moon, if that her hunting be begun. He who knows these delights, and too is prone To moralize upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,

A bower for his spirit, and will steer
To alleys where the fir-tree drops its cone,
Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.

ON OXFORD

A PARODY

I.

THE Gothic looks solemn,
The plain Doric column
Supports an old Bishop and Crosier;

The mouldering arch,

Shaded o'er by a larch

Stands next door to Wilson the Hosier.

II.

Vice-that is, by turns,

O'er pale faces mourns

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The black tassell'd trencher and common hat;

The Chantry boy sings,

The Steeple-bell rings,

And as for the Chancellor-dominat.

III.

There are plenty of trees,

And plenty of ease,

And plenty of fat deer for Parsons;
And when it is venison,

Short is the benison,

Then each on a leg or thigh fastens.

THE POET

A FRAGMENT

WHERE's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him!
"Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan,
Or any other wondrous thing

A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
"Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to

All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell

Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother-tongue.

MODERN LOVE

AND what is love? It is a doll dress'd up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on

Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss's comb is made a pearl tiara,

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10

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I'll say
That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

In short, convince you that however wise
You may have grown from Convent libraries,
I have, by many yards at least, been carding
A longer skein of wit in Convent garden.

BERNARDINE.

A very Eden that same place must be!
Pray what demesne? Whose Lordship's legacy?
What, have you convents in that Gothic Isle?
Pray pardon me, I cannot help but smile.

10

Sir, Convent Garden is a monstrous beast
From morning, four o'clock, to twelve at noon,
It swallows cabbages without a spoon,
And then, from twelve till two, this Eden made is
A promenade for cooks and ancient ladies;

And then for supper, 'stead of soup

and poaches,

It swallows chairmen, damns, and Hackney coaches.
In short, Sir, 'tis a very place for monks,
For it containeth twenty thousand punks,

Which any man may number for his sport,
By following fat elbows up a court.

In such like nonsense would I pass an hour
With random Friar, or Rake upon his tour,
Or one of few of that imperial host

Who came unmaimed from the Russian frost

To-night I'll have my friar-let me think
About my room,-I'll have it in the pink ;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,

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To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;

A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol-bow, strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;

A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower;-just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon, the lights bring in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as tho' they had
Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet;
And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin."
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore 'tis sure a want of Attic taste
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece

And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,
Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.
My ebon sofas should delicious be

With down from Leda's cygnet progeny.
My pictures all Salvator's, save a few

Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new,
Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.
My wine-O good! 'tis here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.

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