Light as the angel-shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness:-
With eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abash'd away,
Blinded like serpents, when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze:
Yet fill'd with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this!
A soul, too, more than half divine,
Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, Religion's soften'd glories shine,
Like light through summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm, and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere!
REBELLION! foul, dishonouring word,
Whose wrongful blight so oft has stain'd
The holiest cause that tongue or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gain'd:
How many a spirit, born to bless,
Has sunk beneath that withering name,
Whom but a day's-an hour's success
Had wafted to eternal fame!
As exhalations, when they burst
From the warm earth, if chill'd at first,
If check'd in soaring from the plain,
Darken to fogs, and sink again ;-
But if they once triumphant spread
Their wings above the mountain-head,
Become enthroned in upper air,
And turn to sun-bright glories there.
Он for a tongue to curse the slave,
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the counsels of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
May life's unblessed cup for him
Be drugg'd with treacheries to the brim--
With hopes that but allure to fly,
With joys that vanish while he sips,
Like Dead-Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips!
His country's curse, his children's shame,
Outcast of virtue, peace, and fame,
May he, at last, with lips of flame,
On the parch'd desert thirsting die,—
While lakes that shone in mockery nigh
Are fading oft, untouch'd, untasted,
Like the once glorious hopes he blasted!
And, when from earth his spirit flies,
Just Prophet, let the damn'd one dwell
Full in the sight of Paradise,
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell!
THE COMING STORM.
THE day is lowering-stilly black
Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack,
Dispersed and wild, 'twixt earth and sky
Hangs like a shatter'd canopy:
There's not a cloud in that blue plain
But tells of storm to come or past,—
Here, flying loosely as the mane
Of a young war-horse in the blast,— There, roll'd in masses dark and swelling, As proud to be the thunder's dwelling:
While some, already burst and riven,
Seem melting down the verge of heaven;
As though the infant storm had rent
The mighty womb that gave him birth,
And, having swept the firmament,
Was now in fierce career for earth.
On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,
More awful than the tempest's sound.
The diver steer'd for Ormuz' bowers,
And moor'd his skiff till calmer hours;
The sea-birds, with portentous screech,
Flew fast to land; upon the beach
The pilot oft had paused, with glance
Turn'd upward to that wild expanse ;
And all was boding, drear, and dark
As her own soul, when Hinda's bark
Went slowly from the Persian shore:-
No music timed her parting oar,
Nor friends upon the lessening strand
Linger'd to wave the unseen hand,
Or speak the farewell, heard no more;
But lone, unheeded, from the bay
The vessel takes its mournful way,
Like some ill-destined bark that steers
In silence through the Gate of Tears.*
· Φίλον τὸ φέγγος τοῦτο τοῦ θεοῦ, φίλον.
BLEST power of Sunshine! genial Day,
What balm, what life is in thy ray!
To feel thee is such real bliss,
That had the world no joy but this,
To sit in sunshine calm and sweet,-
It were a world too exquisite
For man to leave it for the gloom,
The deep, cold shadow of the tomb!
Bab-el-Mandeb, in the poetic style of the Arabs the expressive name
for the dangerous entrance to the Red Sea.
PRINCIPAL WORKS :- On the Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy and Modern Greece, 1816, somewhat in the style, though not in the spirit, of parts of the Childe Harold-The Vespers of Palermo, a tragedy, 1823 -The Forest Sanctuary, 1826-Songs of the Affections, 1830. Besides these more ambitious efforts, she gave to the world an immense number. of fugitive pieces of various merit. Her two earliest efforts were also her best. Byron praised the Restoration, &c., and carried a copy of it with him in his continental travels in 1818. Many of the sonnets and other poems have been admired rather, it may be presumed, for a certain elegance and taste than for originality or profoundness of thought. If, however, there are too many flowers for the fruit,' the flowers are, many of them, sufficiently attractive. Of the occasional poems, Elysium is one of the most original.
BRIGHT as that fairy vision of the wave,
Raised by the magic of Morgana's wand,
On summer seas that undulating lave
Romantic Sicily's Arcadian strand;
That pictured scene of airy colonnades,
Light palaces, in shadowy glory drest,
Enchanted groves, and temples, and arcades,
Gleaming and floating on the ocean's breast;
Athens thus fair the dream of thee appears,
As Fancy's eye pervades the veiling cloud of years.
Still be that cloud withdrawn-oh mark on high,
Crowning yon hill, with temples richly graced,
That fane, august in perfect symmetry,
The purest model of Athenian taste.
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