Thou at once full-born
Madden'st in thy joyance,
Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st,
Life invulnerable.
A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER.
'RE on my bed my limbs I lay,
God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear
In strength and health for many a year;
And, O! preserve my father too,
And may I pay him reverence due;
And may I my best thoughts employ
To be my parents' hope and joy;
And O! preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other
Our friends, our father, and our mother :
And still, O Lord, to me impart
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my last sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day!
LOVE'S APPARITION AND
EVANISHMENT.
LIKE a lone Arab, old and blind,
Some caravan had left behind,
Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his aged head aslant,
And listens for a human sound-in vain!
And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;—
Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
I sate upon the couch of camomile ;
And-whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
Flitted across the idle brain, the while
I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
Turn'd my eye inward-thee, O genial Hope,
Love's elder sister! thee did I behold,
Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
Lie lifeless at my feet!
And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
And stood beside my seat;
She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,
As she was wont to do ;-
Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
Woke just enough of life in death
To make Hope die anew.
N vain we supplicate the Powers above;
There is no resurrection for the Love
That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away
In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.
LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN
O'ER wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it ;-so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show,
The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow.
O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother dovė,
Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies ;-
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to
Love.
* Printed in The Keepsake, 1830, with the following title:"The Poet's Answer to a Lady's Question respecting the accomplishments most desirable in an instructress of children."
Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When overtask'd at length
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And both supporting does the work of both.
A BIRD, who for his other sins
Had lived amongst the Jacobins ;
Though like a kitten amid rats,
Or callow tit in nest of bats,
He much abhorr'd all democrats ;
Yet nathless stood in ill report
Of wishing ill to Church and Court,
Though he'd nor claw, nor tooth, nor sting,
And learnt to pipe God save the King;
Though each day did new feathers bring,
All swore he had a leathern wing;
Nor polish'd wing, nor feather'd tail,
Nor down-clad thigh would aught avail;
And though his tongue devoid of gall—
He civilly assured them all :—
“A bird am I of Phoebus' breed,
And on the sunflower cling and feed;
My name, good sirs, is Thomas Tit!"
The bats would hail him brother cit,
Or, at the furthest, cousin-german.
At length the matter to determine,
He publicly denounced the vermin ;
He spared the mouse, he praised the owl;
But bats were neither flesh nor fowl.
Blood-sucker, vampire, harpy, goul,
Came in full clatter from his throat,
Till his old nest-mates changed their note
To hireling, traitor, and turncoat,-
A base apostate who had sold
His very teeth and claws for gold ;—
And then his feathers !-sharp the jest―
No doubt he feather'd well his nest !
A Tit indeed! ay, tit for tat-
With place and title, brother Bat,
We soon shall see how well he'll play
Count Goldfinch, or Sir Joseph Jay !"
Alas, poor Bird! and ill-bestarr'd-
Or rather let us say, poor Bard!
And henceforth quit the allegoric,
With metaphor and simile,
For simple facts and style historic :
Alas, poor Bard! no gold had he.
Behind another's team he stept,
And plough'd and sow'd, while others reapt ;
The work was his, but theirs the glory,
Sic vos non vobis, his whole story.
Besides, whate'er he wrote or said
Came from his heart as well as head;
And though he never left in lurch
His king, his country, or his church,
'Twas but to humour his own cynical
Contempt of doctrines Jacobinical ;
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