They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than

the vilest.

Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca,

Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness.

Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol ;

Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid-the people with mad shouts

Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous

river

Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd,

Rushes dividuous all-all rushing impetuous onward.

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.*

HEAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!—
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland ;
In the dim distance amid the skiey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had placed it.
From the far shores of the bleak resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,

* Freely translated from Mathisson's Milesisches Mährchen.

Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it

Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor
Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE,

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE.

UN

A SOLILOQUY.

NCHANGED within to see all changed without Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret ? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor

heed

Whether the object by reflected light

Return thy radiance or absorb it quite :

And though thou notest from thy safe recess
Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

PHANTOM OR FACT?

A DIALOGUE IN VERSE.

AUTHOR.

A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed,

And such a feeding calm its presence shed,

A tender love so pure from earthly leaven,
That I unnethe* the fancy might control,

'Twas my own spirit newly come from heaven,
Wooing its gentle way into my soul !

But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet—
Alas! that change how fain would I forget!
That shrinking back, like one that had mistook!
That weary, wandering, disavowing look!
'Twas all another, feature, look, and frame,
And still, methought, I knew, it was the same!

FRIEND.

This riddling tale, to what does it belong?
Is't history? vision? or an idle song?
Or rather say at once, within what space
Of time this wild disastrous change took place?

AUTHOR.

Call it a moment's work (and such it seems)
This tale's a fragment from the life of dreams;
But say, that years matured the silent strife,
And 'tis a record from the dream of life.

PHANTOM.

ALL look and likeness caught from earth,

All accident of kin and birth,

Had pass'd away. There was no trace
Of aught on that illumined face,
Upraised beneath the rifted stone
But of one spirit all her own;—
She, she herself, and only she,
Shone through her body visibly.

* i. e. scarcely, hardly.-ED.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.*

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY,† 1827.

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their

lair-

The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing-
And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

YOUTH AND AGE.‡

VERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying, Where Hope clung § feeding, like a bee— Both were mine! Life went a-maying

With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,

When I was young !

* Printed in The Bijou, Lond., William Pickering, 1828. On a day in February-Bijou.

Printed in The Bijou, 1828, and in The Literary Souvenir § Clings-Bijou.

of the same date.

When I was young?—Ah, woful when!
Ah! for the change 'twixt Now and Then !
This breathing house* not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er aery cliffs and glittering sands,†
How lightly then it flash'd along :—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Nought cared this body for wind or weather When Youth and I lived in't together.§

Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;

O! the joys, that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, ||

Ere I was old!

Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere,**

Which tells me, Youth's no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet, ††
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit-‡‡

* This house of clay-Bijou.

+ O'er hill and dale and sounding sands—il. Boats-ib.

§ See Ode to the Rain, suprà, p. 263.

|| Of Beauty, Truth, and Liberty-1828. ** Ah mournful Ere-Literary Souvenir. †† So merry and sweet-Bijou.

False conceit-ib.