TO MARY.

I.

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.

2.

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!

3.

When late I saw thy favourite child,
I thought my jealous heart would break;
But when th'unconscious infant smiled,
I kissed it, for its mother's sake.

4.

I kissed it, and repressed 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.

5.

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.

****

6.

I deemed that time, I deemed that pride
Had quenched at length my boyish flame;
Nor knew, till seated by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same.

7.

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.

8.

I saw thee gaze upon my face,

Yet meet with no confusion there : One only feeling could'st thou trace; The sullen calmness of despair.

9.

Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream?

My foolish heart be still, or break.

EUTHANASIA.

I.

WHEN
HEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion! may thy languid wing
Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

2.

No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep, or wish, the coming blow :
No maiden, with dishevelled hair,
To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

3.

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.

4.

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.

5.

'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.

6.

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.

7.

Then lonely be my latest hour,
Without regret, without a groan!
For thousands Death hath ceased to lower,
And pain been transient or unknown.

8.

·་

Ay, but to die, and

go, »

alas!

Where all have gone, and all must go!

To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

9.

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.

« O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
<< Ducentium ortus ex animo : quater
« Felix! in imo qui scatentem

« Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit. >>

I.

GRAY'S Poemata.

THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes

away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull

decay ;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself

be past.

2.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness,

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess : The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch

again.

3.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down ;

It cannot feel for other's woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill bas frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,

And tho' the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice

appears.