'Twas day, but now few, large, and bright
The stars are round the crescent moon!
And now it is a dark warm night,

The balmiest of the month of June!

A glow-worm fallen, and on the marge remounting,
Shines, and its shadow shines, fit stars for our sweet fountain.

O ever-ever be thou blest!

For dearly, Asra, love I thee!

This brooding warmth across my breast,
This depth of tranquil bliss-ah me!

Fount, tree, and shed are gone, I know not whither,
But in one quiet room we three are still together.
The shadows dance upon the wall,

By the still dancing fire-flames made;
And now they slumber, moveless all!

And now they melt to one deep shade!

But not from me shall this mild darkness steal thee:
I dream thee with mine eyes, and at my heart I feel thee!

Thine eye-lash on my cheek doth play

'Tis Mary's hand upon my brow!

But let me check this tender lay,

Which none may hear but she and thou!

Like the still hive at quiet midnight humming,

Murmur it to yourselves, ye two beloved women!

We will now present a few of those gems without a flaw which were the latest produce of Coleridge's genius. The following lines are entitled Work without Hope, and are stated to have been 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 unbrightened, 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.

To about the same date belongs the following, entitled Youth and Age:

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, woeful 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-
It cannot be, that thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled :-
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve,
With oft and tedious taking leave;

Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist,
Yet hath outstayed his welcome while,

And tells the jest without the smile.

The following was written, we believe, a year or two later. It winds up a prose dialogue between two girls and their elderly male friend the Poet, or Improvisatore, as he is more familiarly styled, who, after a most eloquent description of that rare mutual love, the possession of which he declares would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue, to the remark, "Surely, he who has described it so well must have possessed it?" replies, "If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment!" and then, after a pause, breaks out into verse thus :—

Yes, yes! that boon, life's richest treat,

He had, or fancied that he had;

Say, 'twas but in his own conceit

The fancy made him glad!

Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish,

The boon prefigured in his earliest wish,

The fair fulfilment of his poesy,

When his young heart first yearned for sympathy!

But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain

Unnourished wane;

Faith asks her daily bread,

And fancy must be fed.

Now so it chanced—from wet or dry,

It boots not how-I know not why-
She missed her wonted food; and quickly

Poor fancy staggered and grew sickly.
Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,
His faith was fixed, his heart all ebb and flow;
Or like a bark, in some half-sheltered bay,
Above its anchor driving to and fro.

That boon, which but to have possest
In a belief gave life a zest-
Uncertain both what it had been,

And if by error lost, or luck;

And what it was;-an evergreen

Which some insidious blight had struck,

Or annual flower, which, past its blow,
No vernal spell shall e'er revive!
Uncertain, and afraid to know,

Doubts tossed him to and fro :

Hope keeping Love, Love Hope, alive,
Like babes bewildered in the snow,
That cling and huddle from the cold
In hollow tree or ruined fold.

Those sparkling colours, once his boast,
Fading, one by one away,

Thin and hueless as a ghost,

Poor fancy on her sick-bed lay;
Ill at a distance, worse when near,
Telling her dreams to jealous fear!

Where was it then, the sociable sprite

That crowned the poet's cup and decked his dish!
Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,

Itself a substance by no other right

But that it intercepted reason's light;

It dimmed his eye, it darkened on his brow :
A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow!
Thank heaven! 'tis not so now.

O bliss of blissful hours!

The boon of heaven's decreeing,

While yet in Eden's bowers

Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate!

The one sweet plant, which, piteous heaven agreeing,
They bore with them through Eden's closing gate!

Of life's gay summer tide the sovran rose !

Late autumn's amaranth, that more fragrant blows
When passion's flowers all fall or fade;

If this were ever his in outward being,

Or but his own true love's projected shade,

Now that at length by certain proof he knows
That, whether real or a magic show,

Whate'er it was, it is no longer so;

Though heart be lonesome, hope laid low,

Yet, lady, deem him not unblest;

The certainty that struck hope dead

Hath left contentment in her stead:

And that is next to best!

And still more perfect and altogether exquisite, we think, than anything we have yet given, is the following, entitled Love, Hope, and Patience, in Education:

O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule,
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 grouped in seemly show,
The straitened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that touching, as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed 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 dove,

Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies :

Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.

Yet haply there will come a weary day,

When overtasked 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.

SOUTHEY.

Coleridge died in 1834; his friend Southey, born three years later, survived to 1843. If Coleridge wrote too little poetry, Southey may be said to have written too much and too rapidly. Southey, as well as Coleridge, has been popularly reckoned one of the Lake poets; but it is difficult to assign any meaning to that name which should entitle it to comprehend either the one or the other. Southey, indeed, was, in the commencement of his career, the associate of Wordsworth and Coleridge; a portion of his first poem, his Joan of Arc, published in 1796, was written by Coleridge; and he afterwards took up his residence, as well as Wordsworth, among the lakes of Westmoreland. But, although in his first volume of minor poems, published in 1797, there was something of the same simplicity or plainness of style, and choice of subjects from humble life, by which Wordsworth sought to distinguish himself about the same time, the manner of the one writer bore only a very superficial resemblance to that of the other; whatever it was, whether something quite original, or only, in the main, an inspiration caught from the Germans, that gave its peculiar character to Wordsworth's poetry, it was