The Wants of Мат Man wants but little have below: Has not with me exactly so: My wants are man many, and if tokl Would muster many a score: Washington 21. August 1841 John Quincy Adams. To make grief bliss, Anne hath a way. Talk not of gems, the orient list, Anne Hathaway; To shame bright gems, Anne hath a way. But were it to my fancy given To rate her charms, I'd call them heaven; And sweetest heaven on earth display, To be heaven's self, Anne hath a way. Attributed to SHAKESPEare. UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF JOHN MILTON, PREFIXED TO "PARADISE Lost.' THREE Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn. The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she joined the former two. JOHN DRYDEN. TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON. THE Muse's fairest light in no dark time, The wonder of a learnéd age; the line Which none can pass; the most proportioned wit, To nature, the best judge of what was fit; TO MACAULAY. THE dreamy rhymer's measured snore Falls heavy on our cars no more; And by long strides are left behind WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. TO H. W. L., ON HIS BIRTнday, 27th FEBRUARY, 1867. I NEED not praise the sweetness of his song, Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along, With loving breath of all the winds his name As I muse backward up the checkered years Wherein so much was given, so much was lost, Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen tears, But hush! this is not for profaner ears; Let them drink molten pearls nor dream the cost. Some suck up poison from a sorrow's core, As naught but nightshade grew upon earth's ground; Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and the more Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a door, Leading to sweeter manhood and more sound. Even as a wind-waved fountain's swaying shade Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith shot with sun, So through his trial faith translucent rayed Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And the next age in praise shall double this. [The immolation of this republican judge was celebrated in the following lines by the youthful Southey during his short experience as a democratic regenerator. In their original publication they were called: "Inscription for the Apartment in Cheapstone Castle where Henry Marten the Regicide was imprisoned thirty Years." After Southey became Poet Laureate he endeavored to suppress the poem, but unsuccessfully.] FOR thirty years secluded from mankind, Did nature's fair varieties exist: ROBERT SOUTHEY, INSCRIPTION FOR BROWNRIGG'S CELL. A PARODY. [Canning, who was retained by the other side, parodied Southey's honest lines in the "Anti-Jacobin," November 20, 1797, by the fol. lowing verses, entitled: "Inscription for the Door of the Cell in Newgate where Mrs. Brownrigg the 'Prentice-cide was confined previous to her Execution."] FOR one long term, or ere her trial came, Here Brownrigg lingered. Often have these cells Till at the last in slow-drawn cart she went Such as Lycurgus taught, when at the shrine When France shall reign, and laws be all repealed. SMOLLETT. GEORGE CANNING. WHENCE could arise the mighty critic spleen, JOHN CHURCHILL. TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD. TAKE back into thy bosom, earth, This joyous, May-eyed morrow, The gentlest child that ever mirth Gave to be reared by sorrow! "T is hard - while half rays half gold, green, Through vernal bowers are burning, And streams their diamond mirrors hold To say we 're thankful that his sleep In whose sweet-tongued companionship But all the more intensely true His soul gave out each feature Of elemental love, each hue And grace of golden nature, The deeper still beneath it all Lurked the keen jags of anguish ; The more the laurels clasped his brow Their poison made it languish. Seemed it that, like the nightingale Of his own mournful singing, The tenderer would his song prevail While most the thorn was stinging. So never to the desert-worn Did fount bring freshness deeper Than that his placid rest this morn Has brought the shrouded sleeper. That rest may lap his weary head Where charnels choke the city, Or where, mid woodlands, by his bed The wren shall wake its ditty; But near or far, while evening's star Is dear to hearts regretting, Around that spot admiring thought Shall hover, unforgetting. BARTHOLOMEW SIMMONS BURNS. ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM. No more these simple flowers belong They bloom the wide world over. In smiles and tears, in sun and showers, Wild heather-bells and Robert Burns! The gray sky wears again its gold And manhood's noonday shadows hold The dews that washed the dust and soil From off the wings of pleasure, The sky, that flecked the ground of toil I call to mind the summer day, I hear the blackbird in the corn, And, like the fabled hunter's horn, How oft that day, with fond delay, I sought the maple's shadow, Bees hummed, birds twittered, overhead I watched him while in sportive mood Sweet day, sweet songs! The golden hours New light on home-seen Nature beamed, I woke to find the simple truth Than all the dreams that held my youth That Nature gives her handmaid, Art, In every tongue rehearsing. Why dream of lands of gold and pearl, I saw through all familiar things The joys and griefs that plume the wings I saw the same blithe day return, |