PERSECUTION.

"And the woman fled into the wilderness."

SAY, who is he in deserts seen,

Or at the twilight hour;

Of garb austere, and dauntless mien, Measured in speech, in purpose keen, Calm as in heaven he had been,

Yet blithe when perils lower?

My holy Mother made reply,

"Dear child, it is my Priest. The world has cast me forth, and I Dwell with wild earth and gusty sky; He bears to men my mandates high,

And works my sage behest.

"Another day, dear child, and thou

Shalt join his sacred band, Ah! well I deem, thou shrinkest now From urgent rule and severing vow; Gay hopes flit round, and light thy brow; Time hath a taming hand!” OXFORD, November 22, 1832.

THE SCARS OF SIN.

My smile is bright, my glance is free,
My voice is calm and clear;
Dear friend, I seem a type to thee
Of holy love and fear.

But I am scann'd by Eyes unseen,
And these no saint surround;
They mete what is by what has been,
And joy the lost is found.

Erst my good Angel shrank to see
My thoughts and ways of ill,

And now he scarce dare gaze on me
Sear-seamed and crippled still.

IFFLEY, November 29, 1832.

THE ISLES OF THE SIRENS.

CEASE, Stranger, cease those piercing notes, The craft of Siren choirs;

Hush the seductive voice that floats

Upon the languid wires.

Music's ethereal fire was given,

Not to dissolve our clay,

But draw Promethean beams from heaven, And purge the dross away.

Weak self! with thee the mischief lies,
Those throbs a tale disclose:
Nor age nor trial has made wise,

The man of many woes.
OFF LISBON, December 13, 1832.

MEMORY.

My home is now a thousand miles away;
Yet in my thoughts its every image fair
Rises as keen as I still lingered there,
And, turning me, could all I loved survey.
And so, upon Death's unaverted day,

As I sped upwards, I shall on me bear,
And in no breathless whirl, the things that
were,

And duties given and ends I did obey.
And, when at length I reach the Throne of
Power,

Ah! still unscared, I shall in fulness see
The vision of my past innumerous deeds,
My deep heart-courses, and their motive seeds,
So to gaze on till the red dooming hour.
Lord, in that strait, the Judge! remember me!
OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR, December 15, 1832.

MOSES.

MOSES, the patriot fierce, became
The meekest man on earth,
To show us how love's quick'ning flame
Can give our souls new birth.

Moses, the man of meekest heart,
Lost Canaan by self-will,

To show, where Grace has done its part,
How sin defiles us still.

Thou, who hast taught me in Thy fear,
Yet seest me frail at best,

O grant me loss with Moses here,
To gain his future rest!

AT SEA, December 19, 1832.

THE COURSE OF TRUTH.

"Him God raised up the third day, and shewed Him openly, not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God."

WHEN royal Truth, released from mortal throes,
Burst His brief slumber, and triumphant rose,
Ill had the Holiest sued
A patron multitude,

Or courted Tetrach's eye, or claim'd to rule By the world's winning grace, or proofs from learned school.

But, robing him in viewless air, He told
His secret to a few of meanest mould;

They in their turn imparted

The gift to men pure-hearted,

While the brute many heard His mysteries high,

As some strange fearful tongue, and crouch'd, they knew not why.

Still is the might of Truth, as it has been, Lodged in the few, obey'd, and yet unseen. Rear'd on lone heights, and rare, His saints their watch-flame bear, And the mad world sees the wide-circling blaze, Vain searching whence its streams, and how to quench its rays.

MALTA, December 24, 1832.

CORCYRA.

I SAT beneath an olive's branches gray,
And gazed upon the sight of a lost town,
By sage and poet raised to long renown ;
Where dwelt a race that on the sea held sway,
And, restless as its waters, forced a way

From civil strife a hundred states to drown.
That multitudinous stream we now note down
As though one life, in birth and in decay.
But is their being's history spent and run,
Whose spirits live in awful singleness,

Each in its self-form'd sphere of light or gloom? Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done,

Such reverence on me shall its seal impress
As though I corpses saw, and walk'd the tomb.
AT SEA, January 7, 1833,

A HERMITAGE.

FROM ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN.

SOME One whisper'd yesterday,

Of the rich and fashionable, Gregory in his own small way

Easy was and comfortable.

Had he not of wealth his fill Whom a garden gay did bless, And a gently trickling riil,

And the sweets of idleness?

I made answer:-"Is it ease
Fasts to keep and tears to shed,
Virgil hours and wounded knees,
Call you these a pleasant bed?"
Thus a veritable monk

Does to death his fleshy frame; Be there who in sloth are sunk, They have forfeited the name.

OXFORD, 1834.

JOSEPH.

O PUREST Symbol of the Eternal Son!
Who dwelt in thee, as in some sacred shrine,
To draw hearts after thee, and make them
thine;

Not parent only by that light was won,
And brethren crouch'd who had in wrath begun,
But heathen pomp abased her at the sign

Of a hid God, and drank the sound divine, Till a king heard, and all thou bad'st was done. Then was fulfill'd Nature's dim augury,

That "Wisdom, clad in visible form, would be So fair, that all must love and bow the knee;" Lest it might seem, what time the Substance

came,

Truth lack'd a sceptre, when It but laid by Its beaming front, and bore a willing shame. LAZARET, MALTA, January 20, 1833.

ISAAC.

MANY the guileless years the Patriarch spent, Bless'd in the wife a father's foresight chose; Many the prayers and gracious deeds, which

rose

Daily thank-offerings from his pilgrim tent.
Yet these, though written in the heavens, are rent
From out truth's lower roll, which sternly shows
But one sad trespass at his history's close.
Father's, son's, mother's and its punishment.
Not in their brightness, but their earthly stains
Are the true seed vouchsafed to earthly eyes.
Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace,
So we move heavenward with averted face,
Seared into faith by warning of sin's pains;
And Saints are lower'd, that the world may rise.
VALLETTA, January 23, 1833.

LOVE'S LAST MESSAGES.

MERRY, merry little stream,

Tell me, hast thou seen my dear? I left him with an azure dream

Calmly sleeping on his bier-
But he has fled!

"I passed him in his church-yard bedA yew is sighing o'er his head,

And grass-roots mingle with his hair."
What doth he there?

O cruel! can he lie alone?

Or in the arms of one more dear? Or hiles he in that bower of stone,

To cause and kiss away my fear?

He doth not speak, he doth not moan--
Blind, motionless, he lies alone;
But, ere the grave snake fleshed his sting,
This one warm te ir he bade me bring
And lay it at thy feet

Among the daisies sweet."

Moonlight whisperer, summer air,
Songster of the groves above,
Tell the maiden rose I wear,

Whether thou hast seen my love.

"This night in heaven I saw him lie,

Discontented with his bliss; And on my lips he left this kiss, For thee to taste and then to die."

DIRGE.

IF thou wilt ease thine heart
Of love and all its smart,
Then sleep, dear, sleep;

And not a sorrow

Hang any tear on your eyelashes;
Lie still and deep,

Sad soul, until the sea-wave washes The rim o' the sun to-morrow,

In eastern sky.

But wilt thou cure thine heart

Of love and all its smart,

Then die, dear, die ;

"Tis deeper, sweeter,

Than on a rose bank to lie dreaming
With folded eye;

And then alone, amid the bea.ning Of love's star, thou'lt meet hers

In eastern sky

THE Swallow leaves her nest, The soul my weary breast; But therefore let the rain

On my grave

Fall pure; for why complain? Since both will come again

O'er the wave.

The wind dead leaves and snow Doth hurry to and fro;

And, once, a day shall break

O'er the wave.

When a storm of ghosts shall shake The dead, until they wake

In the grave.

A CYPRESS BOUGH, and a rose-wreath sweet,
A wedding-robe and a winding-sheet,
A bridal-bed and a bier.
Thine be the kiss 's, maid,

And smiling Love's alarms;
And thou, pale youth, be laid
In the grave's cold arms.
Each in his own charms,

Death and Hymen both are here;
So up with scythe and torch,
And to the old church porch,
While all the bells ring clear:
And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom,
And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb.
Now tremble dimples on your cheek,
Sweet be your lips to taste and speak,
For he who kisses is near :
By her the bride-god fair,

In youthful power and force;

By him the grizard bare,

Pale knight on a pale horse,
To woo him to a corpse.

Death and Hymen both are here:

So up with scythe and torch, And to the old church porch, While all the bells ring clear: And rosy, rosy the bed shall bloom, And earthy, earthy heap up the tomb

SONG ON THE WATER.

WILD with passion, sorrow-beladen,
Bend the thought of thy stormy soul
On its home, on its heaven, the loved maiden;
And peace shall come at her eyes, control.
Even so night's starry rest possesses

With its gentle spirit these tamed waters, And bids the wave, with weedy tresses

Embower the ocean's pavement stilly
Where the sea-girls lie, the mermaid daughters,

Whose eyes not born to weep,
More palely-lidded sleep,

Than in our fields the lily;

And sighing in their rest

More sweet than is its breath;

And quiet as its death

Upon a lady's breast.

Heart high beating, triumph-bewreathed,
Search the record of loves gone by,
And borrow the blessings by them bequeathed
To deal from out of thy victory's sky.
Even so, throughout the midnight deep,
The silent moon doth seek the bosoms
Of those dear mermaid-girls asleep,
To feed its dying rays anew,
Like to the bee on earthly blossoms,
Upon their silvery whiteness,
And on the rainbow brightness
Of their eyelashes' dew,

And kisseth their limbs o'er :
Her lips where they do quaff
Strike starry tremors off,
As from the waves our oar.

A DIRGE.
(Written for a Drama.)

TO-DAY is a thought, a fear is to-morrow,
And yesterday is our sin and our sorrow;
And life is a death,

Where the body's the tomb,
And the pale sweet breath

Is buried alive in its hideous gloom. Then waste no tear,

For we are the dead; the living are here, In the stealing earth, and the heavy bier. Death lives but an instant, and is but a sigh, And his son is unnamed immortality, Whose being is thine. Dear ghost, so to die Is to live, and life is a worthless lie.Then we weep for ourselves, and wish thee goodbye.

THE RUNAWAY

HAST no one seen my heart of you?
M heart has run away;

And, if you catch him, ladies, do
Return him me, I pray.

On earth he is no more, I hear,

Upon the land or sea;

For the women found the rogue so queer,

They sent him back to me.

In heaven there is no purchaser

For such strange ends and odds, Says a Jew, who goes to Jupiter

To buy and sell old gods

So there's but one place more to search,
That's not genteel to tell,
Where demonesses go to church :—
So Christians fair, farewell.

A CROCODILE.

HARD by the lilied Nile I saw

A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads,
And a small fragment of its speckled egg
Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout;
A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch
The baulking, merry flies. In the iron jaws
Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul
Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew
A snowy troculus, with roseate beak
Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat

A SUBTERRANEAN CITY.

I FOLLOWED once a fleet and mighty serpent
Into a cavern on a mountain side:
And, wading many lakes, descending gulphs,
At last I reached the ruins of a city
Built not like ours but of another world,
As if the aged earth had loved in youth
The mightiest city of a perished planet,
And kept the image of it in her heart,
So, dream-like, shadowy, and spectral was it.
Nought seemed alive there, and the bony dead
Were of another world the skeletons.

The mammoths, ribbed like to an arched cathedral,

Lay there, and ruins of great creatures else
More like a shipwrecked fleet, too vast they seemed
For all the life that is to animate:

And vegetable rocks, tall sculptured palms,
Pines grown, not hewn, in stone; and giant ferns
Whose earthquake-shaken leaves bore graves for

nests.

SWEET TO DIE.

Is it not sweet to die? for, what is death,
But sighing that we ne'er may sigh again,
Getting at length beyond our tedious selves;
But trampling the last tear from poisonous sor-

row,

Spilling our woes, crushing our frozen hopes,
And passing like an incense out of man?
Then, if the body felt, what were its sense,
Turning to daisies gently in the grave,

If not the soul's most delicate delight

When it does filtrate, through the pores of

thought,

In love and the enamelled flowers of song?