4.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

"Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

5.

Oh could I feel as I have felt,—or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene!

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would

flow to me.

1815.

ON A NUN".

SONNET

Composed in the name of a father whose daughter had recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the father of her who had lately taken the veil.

OF

F two fair virgins, modest, though admired, Heaven made us happy, and now, wretched sires, Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,

And gazing upon either, both required.

Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired,

Becomes extinguished, soon-too soon expires:
But thine within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.

But thou at least from out the jealous door,

Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes, May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more: I to the marble, where my daughter lies, Rush, the swoln flood of bitterness I pour, And knock, and knock, and knock-but none replies.

(1) Translation from Vittorelli.

WHAT WAS THE ORIGIN OF LOVE?

THE « Origin of Love! »—Ah why

That cruel question ask of me,
When thou may'st read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?

And should'st 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.

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 too well;
Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,
And droop within their silent cell.

HEBREW MELODIES.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

I.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

II.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen :
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

III.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
IV.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

4.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

VI.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wall,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canʼst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!