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ST. PETER'S AT ROME.

Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize,

All musical in its immensities ;

A LADY'S CHAMBER.

The moon shines dim in the open air, And not a moonbeam enters here.

The chamber carved so curiously,

Rich marbles, richer painting, shrines where But they without its light can see
flame
The lamps of gold, and haughty dome which Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,

vies

In air with earth's chief structures, though For a lady's chamber meet:

The lamp with twofold silver chain

their frame Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the cloud Is fastened to an angel's feet. must claim.

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The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.

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In This, I fondly hoped to cusp,
A Friend whom Death alone could sever
But lavy with malignant Grasp,
Has toon thee from my
Breast forevers

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I neither seeke by bribes to please, Nor by desert to breed offence. Thus do I live; thus will I die ; Would all did so as well as I!

SIR EDWARD DYER.*

TO THE HON. CHARLES MONTAGUE.
OUR hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
But all the pleasure of the game
Is afar off to view the flight.

The worthless prey but only shows The joy consisted in the strife ; Whate'er we take, as soon we lose

In Homer's riddle and in life.

So, whilst in feverish sleeps we think We taste what waking we desire, The dream is better than the drink, Which only feeds the sickly fire.

To the mind's eye things well appear,

At distance through an artful glass; Bring but the flattering objects near,

They're all a senseless gloomy mass.

Seeing aright, we see our woes :

Then what avails it to have eyes? From ignorance our comfort flows, The only wretched are the wise.

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'T is much immortal beauty to admire,
But more immortal beauty to withstand;
The perfect soul can overcome desire,
If beauty with divine delight be scanned.
For what is beauty but the blooming child
Of fair Olympus, that in night must end,
And be forever from that bliss exiled,
If admiration stand too much its friend?
The wind may be enamored of a flower,
The ocean of the green and laughing shore,
The silver lightning of a lofty tower,
But must not with too near a love adore
Or flower and margin and cloud-capped tower
Love and delight shall with delight devour!

;

LORD EDWARD THUrlow.

OF MYSELF.

MATTHEW PRIOR.

THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honor I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better than ill known:

Rumor can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. My house a cottage more

Than palace; and should fitting be

For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

BEAUTY.

FROM HYMN IN HONOR OF BEAUTY.”

So every spirit, as it is most pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight;
For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make.

Therefore wherever that thou dost behold

A comely corpse, with beauty fair endued,
Know this for certain, that the same doth hold
A beauteous soul, with fair conditions thewed,
Fit to receive the seed of virtue strewed;
For all that fair is, is by nature good;
That is a sign to know the gentle blood.

Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures Dwells in deformèd tabernacle drowned,

yield,

Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

* This is frequently attributed to William Byrd. Bartlett, how ever, gives it to Sir Edward Dyer, referring to Hannah's Courtly Poets as authority; so, also, Ward, in his English Poets, Vol. I., 1880.

Either by chance, against the course of kind, Or through unaptnesse in the substance found, Which it assumed of some stubborne ground, That will not yield unto her form's direction, But is performed with some foul imperfection.

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