White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearl'd with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest ;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the beehive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy ! let her loose; Everything is spoilt by use: Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at ? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new ? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft ? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain peltetla. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind :

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe’s, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,
And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash ;
Quickly break her prison-string,
And sucb joys as these she'll bring:-
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.

THE DOUBLE-LIFE OF POETS.

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too, ,
Double-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon ;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease

Seated en lysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;

Thus

ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you, Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!

CITY AND SUBURB.

To one who has been long in city pent,

'Tis very sweet to look into the fair

And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.*
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,

Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of

wavy grass, and reads a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear

Catching the notes of Philomel,--an eye Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,

He mourns that day so soon has glided by: E'en like the passage of an angel's tear

That falls through the clear ether silently.

BYRON.

1788–1824.

PRINCIPAL WORKS:–Hours of Idleness, 1807, attacked with an excess of critical severity by Brougham in the recently established Edinburgh Review.—English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 1808, a satirical and exceedingly witty reply to his critics, upon whom he made a pitiless onslaught.-- Childe Harold (first two cantos), 1812, the result of two years travelling in the Peninsula and in Greece; and written in the Spenserian stanza.—The Giaour and The Bride of Abydos, 1813. – The Corsair and Lara, 1814, written, like the two former poems, in the versification of Scott, but with sufficient differences of style. They are romances founded upon Greek and Oriental life and scenery, and abound in interesting and charming situations. They at once secured the unbounded favour and admiration of the whole reading world; and Byron, at the age of twenty-five, was at the acknowledged as well as undoubted head of all the poets of his time, for Shelley was as yet unknown to fame. Until the turn in the public, or rather fashionable, feeling (caused by the revelations of his private life which followed on the separation from his wife after a twelvemonth's union) no writer ever received so unbounded adulation, excepting perhaps the author of Candide and Zaïre: nor did those scandals affect so much his popularity as they provoked the somewhat arbitrary criticism of the world of fashion. In fact, it is certain that the wild life of the noble poet, and the air of mystery which always hung about his career, contributed not a little to create the enthusiasm which the actual merits of his produetions alone would scarcely have secured.— The Siege of Corinth and Parisina, published about this period, betray something of the consciousness of the revolution of feeling, real or affected, towards him.The third canto of Childe Harold was written and given to the world by the poet while, a voluntary exile, he was wandering about, chiefly in France and Switzerland. The fourth and concluding canto appeared in 1818.—Mazeppa, the first five cantos of Don Juan, his dramas of Marino Faliero, The Two Foscari, Cain, appeared between 1818 and 1821 ; having been written during his residence at Venice and Ravenna. Manfred, his earliest dramatic effort, had been produced some time before. The dramas, although exhibiting in many parts the splendid