No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow; No maiden, with dishevell'd hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to Earth,

With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear.

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives and him who dies.

'Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see; Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish-for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan!

For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown.

"Ay, but to die, and go,” alas!

That what I loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
Tis nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not sea Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear

To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
"Tis something better not to be

STANZAS.

Hea quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,

Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity, Returns again to me,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

Than aught, except its living years.

STANZAS.

Ir sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,
The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sad and silent hour

Thus much of thee can still restore,
And sorrow unobserved may pour
The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile,

I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy memory! Nor deem that memory less dear, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,

It is not drain'd to banish care, The cup must hold a deadlier draught, That brings a Lethe for despair. And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free, I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl That drown'd a single thought of thee.

TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND. FEW years have pass'd since thou and I Were firmest friends, at least in name, And childhood's gay sincerity

Preserved our feelings long the same.

But now, like me, too well thou knowst
What trifles oft the heart recal;
And those who once have loved the most
Too soon forget they loved at all.

And such the change the heart displays,
So frail is early friendship's reign,
A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's,
Will view thy mind estranged again.

If so, it never shall be mine

To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, Which made thee fickle as thou art.

As rolls the ocean's changing tide,

So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide Where stormy passions ever glow?

It boots not, that together bred,

Our childish days were days of joy ; My spring of life has quickly fled; Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy.

And when we bid adieu to youth,

Slaves to the specious world's control, We sigh a long farewell to truth; That world corrupts the noblest soul.

Ah, joyous season! when the mind

Dares all things boldly but to lie;
When thought ere spoke is unconfined,
And sparkles in the placid eye.

Not so in Man's maturer years,
When Man himself is but a tool;
When interest sways our hopes and fears,
And all must love and hate by rule.

With fools in kindred vice the same,
We learn at length our faults to blend,
And those, and those alone may claim
The prostituted name of friend.

WAS BROKEN.

ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be

That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain? Have years of care for thine and thee

Alike been all employ'd in vain ?

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, And every fragment dearer grown, Since he who wears thee, feels thou art A fitter emblem of his own.

Can we then 'scape from folly free?
Can we reverse the general plan,
Nor be what all in turn must be?

No, for myself, so dark my fate

Through every turn of life hath been;
Man and the world I so much hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,
Wilt shine awhile and pass away;
As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
But dare not stand the test of day.

Alas! whenever folly calls

Where parasites and princes meet, (For cherish'd first in royal halls, The welcome vices kindly greet)

Even now thou'rt nightly seen to add
One insect to the fluttering crowd;
And still thy trifling heart is glad,
To join the vain, and court the proud.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
Still simpering on with eager haste,
As flies along the gay parterre,

That taint the flowers they scarcely taste.

But say, what nymph will prize the flame Which seems, as marshy vapours move, To flit along from dame to dame,

An ignis-fatuus-gleam of love?

What friend for thee, howe'er inclined, /Will deign to own a kindred care? Who will debase his manly mind,

For Friendship every fool may share?

In time forbear; amidst the throng
No more so base a thing be seen;
No more so idly pass along:

Be something, any thing, but-mean.

Yet was I calm: I knew the time

My breast would thrill before thy look; But now to tremble were a crime— We met, and not a nerve was shook.

I saw thee gaze upon my face,
Yet meet with no confusion there:
One only feeling couldst thou trace;
The sullen calmness of despair.

Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream? My foolish heart be still, or break!

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

IN moments to delight devoted,

"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die. To death even hours like these must roll, Ah! then repeat those accents never; Or change “my life! into "my soul!” Which, like my love, exists for ever.

TO

WELL! thou art happy, and I feel
That I should thus be happy too;
For still my heart regards thy weal
Warmly, as it was wont to do.

Thy husband's blest- and 'twill impart
Some pangs to view his happier lot:
But let them pass-Oh! how my heart
Would hate him, if he loved thee not!

When late I saw thy favourite child,

I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled, I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake.

I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs
Its father in its face to see;
But then it had its mother's eyes,
And they were all to love and me.

Mary, adieu! I must away:

While thou art blest I'll not repine; But near thee I can never stay;

My heart would soon again be thine.

I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride Had quench'd at length my boyish flame; Nor knew, till seated by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits, Her dusky shadow mounts too high, And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink : My thoughts their dungeon know to well: Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, And droop within their silent cell.

TO TIME.

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,

But drag or drive us on to die—
Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven.
To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain ;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet e'en that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour. In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to woe; For then, however drear and dark, My soul was suited to thy sky; One star alone shot forth a spark To prove thee- not Eternity. That beam hath sunk; and now thou art A blank; a thing to count and curse Through each dull tedious trifling part, Which all regret, yet all rehearse. One scene even thou canst not deform; The limit of thy sloth or speed, When future wanderers bear the storm Which we shall sleep too sound to heed: And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon—a nameless stone!

My curdling blood, my maddening brain,
In silent anguish I sustain;
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults - while mine is breaking.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know,
That joy is harbinger of woe.

A SONG.

THOU art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:

SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my woe,
1 faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net,
Which Love around your haunts hath set!
Or circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

grievest,

Too well thou lovest-too soon thou leavest.

The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,

Whose love is as sincere as sweet,When she can change who loved so truly, It feels what mine has felt so newly.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,

We scarce our fancy can forgive,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
That cheated us in slumber only,

What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition,
As if a dream alone had charm'd?

Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine:
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm, to bid thy lover live.

And all thy change can be but dreaming!

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE?"

THE "Origin of Love!”—Ah why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou mayst read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?

And shouldst thou seek his end to know : My heart forebodes, my fears foresee, He'll linger long in silent woe;

But live-until I cease to be.

LINES

Oh, God! that we had met in time,
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free ;

START not-nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

1 lived, I loved, I quaff'd like thee; I died, let earth my bones resign: Fill up-thou canst not injure me;

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape

The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine!

Quaff while thou canst—another race, When thou and thine like me are sped, May rescue thee from earth's embrace,

And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not? since through life's little day Our heads such sad effects produce; Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, This chance is theirs, to be of use. Newstead Abbey, 1808.

REMEMBER HIM.

REMEMBER him, whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved :
Remember thou that dangerous hour
When neither fell,though both were loved.

That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blest:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, represt.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost,

But saved thee all that conscience fears; And blush for every pang it cost

To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue, Whose busy accents whisper blame, Would do the heart that loved thee wrong, And brand a nearly blighted name.

Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.

And I been less unworthy thee!

Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And, that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last!
This heart, alas! perverted long,

Itself destroy'd might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.

Then to the things whose bliss or woe,

Like mine, is wild and worthless all, That world resign-such scenes forego, Where those who feel must surely fall.

Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness,
Thy soul from long seclusion pure;
From what even here hath past, may guess,
What there thy bosom must endure.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,

Since not by Virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.

Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still, had I loved thee less, my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;
It felt not half so much to part,
As if its guilt had made thee mine.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.

THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry, And Triumph weeps above the brave. For them is Sorrow's 'purest sigh

O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument!

A tomb is theirs on every page,

An epitaph on every tongue. The present hours, the future age,

For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round.