Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:

And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry

The spots and struggles of the timid dawn;
Lest so we tempt th' approaching noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our morn.

SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM;

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND,

FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S BOOK OF THE CHURCH.

POET.

I NOTE the moods and feelings men betray,
And heed them more than aught they do or say;
The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed
Still-born or haply strangled in its birth;

These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed!
These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth!

made up of impudence and trick,

With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick,
Rome's brazen serpent-boldly dares discuss
The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss!
And with grim triumph and a truculent glee

Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy,
That made an empire's plighted faith a lie,
And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye-
(Pleased with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart
To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!)
Yet

FRIEND.

Enough of! we're agreed,

Who now defends would then have done the deed.
But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway,
Who but must meet the proffer'd hand half way
When courteous

POET (aside).

(Rome's smooth go-between!)

FRIEND.

Laments the advice that sour'd a milky queen— (For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press :)

Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds,

With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds!
And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur
We damn the French and Irish massacre,

Yet blames them both-and thinks the Pope might

err !

What think you now?

shield

Boots it with spear and

Against such gentle foes to take the field

Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield?

POET.

What think I now? Even what I thought before;boasts though may deplore,

What

Still I repeat, words lead me not astray

When the shown feeling points a different way.
Smooth
can say grace at slander's feast,

And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest;
Leaves the full lie on

's gong to swell, Content with half-truths that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!

So much for you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch ! But when a Liberal asks me what I think— Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam— An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!

Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food:

And who shall blame him that he purs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!

Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt,

I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws
More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws !

LINES

TO A COMIC AUTHOR, ON AN ABUSIVE REVIEW.

WHAT though the chilly wide-mouth'd quacking

chorus

From the rank swamps of murk Review-land croak :
So was it, neighbour, in the times before us,
When Momus, throwing on his Attic cloak,

Romp'd with the Graces; and each tickled Muse
(That Turk, Dan Phoebus, whom bards call divine,
Was married to at least, he kept-all nine)
Fled, but still with reverted faces ran;
Yet, somewhat the broad freedoms to excuse,
They had allured the audacious Greek to use,
Swore they mistook him for their own good man.
This Momus-Aristophanes on earth

Men call'd him-maugre all his wit and worth,
Was croak'd and gabbled at. How, then, should you,
Or I, friend, hope to 'scape the skulking crew?
No! laugh, and say aloud, in tones of glee,
"I hate the quacking tribe, and they hate me!"

CONSTANCY TO AN IDEAL OBJECT. SINCE all that beat about in Nature's range,

Or veer or vanish; why shouldst thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning thought! that livest but in the brain? Call to the hours, that in the distance play,

The faery people of the future day-
Fond thought! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers sheltering from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou art she,

Still, still as though some dear embodied good,
Some living love before my eyes there stood
With answering look a ready ear to lend,

I mourn to thee and say-" Ah! loveliest friend!
That this the meed of all my toils might be,
To have a home, an English home, and thee!"
Vain repetition! Home and thou are one.
The peacefull'st cot the moon shall shine upon,
Lull'd by the thrush and waken'd by the lark,
Without thee were but a becalmed bark,
Whose helmsman on an ocean waste and wide
Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.
And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glistening haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,

*

An image with a glory round its head;

The enamour'd rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes the shadow he pursues !

*This phenomenon, which the author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Trans