X.

WHEN high romance o'er every wood and stream,
Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire;
Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream,
First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre.
All there was mystery then, the gust that woke
The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge;
And unseen fairies would the moon invoke,

To their light morrice by the restless surge.

Now to my sober'd thought, with life's false smiles,
Too much

The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.

XI.

HUSH'D is the lyre-the hand that swept

The low and pensive wires,

Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.

Yes it is still the lyre is still;

The spirit which its slumbers broke,

Hathi pass'd away,-and that weak hand that woke,

Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.

Yet I would press you to my lips once more,
Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poësy;
Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours; for to me

Ye have beguil❜d the hours of infancy,
As in the wood-paths of my native→→→→

XII.

ONCE more, and yet once more,

I give unto my harp a dark-woven lay;

I heard the waters roar,

I heard the flood of ages pass away.
O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell
In thine eternal cell,

Noting, grey chronicler! the silent years;

I saw thee rise,-I saw the scroll complete,
Thou spakest, and at thy feet,

The universe gave way.

This poem was begun either during the publication of Clifton Grove or shortly afterwards. Henry never laid aside the intention of completing it, and some of the detached parts were among his latest productions.

TIME.

A POEM.

GENIUS of musings, who, the midnight hour
Wasting in woods or haunted forests wild,
Dost watch Orion in his arctic tower,

Thy dark eye fix'd as in some holy trance;
Or, when the volley'd lightenings cleave the air,
And Ruin gaunt bestrides the winged storm,
Sitt'st in some lonely watch-tower-where thy lamp,
Faint-blazing, strikes the fisher's eye from far,
And, 'mid the howl of elements, unmov'd
Dost ponder on the awful scene, and trace
The vast effect to its superior source,-
Spirit, attend my lowly benison!

For now I strike to themes of import high
The solitary lyre; and borne by thee

Above this narrow cell, I celebrate
The mysteries of Time!