Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food:

And who shall blame him that he purs applause,

When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause;

And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws!

Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt,

I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws
More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt,
Impearling a tame wild-cat's whiskered jaws !

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS,
OB. ANNO DOM. 1088.

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope
Soon shall I now before my God appear,
By him to be acquitted, as I hope;
By him to be condemned, as I fear.-

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE.

Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed,
Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.

All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What? though dread of threaten'd

death

And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath

Inconstant to the truth within thy heart?

That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,

Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:

And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own,
Judge him who won them when he stood alone,
And proudly talk of recreant Berengare-
O first the age, and then the man compare!
That age how dark! congenial minds how rare!
No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn!
No throbbing hearts awaited his return!
Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell,
He only disenchanted from the spell,

Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:

And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye
Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn!
Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry
The spots and struggles of the timid dawn;
Lest so we tempt th' approaching noon to scorn
The mists and painted vapours of our morn.

NOT AT HOME.

THAT Jealousy may rule a mind
Where Love could never be
I know; but ne'er expect to find
Love without Jealousy.

She has a strange cast in her ee,
A swart sour-visaged maid-
But yet Love's own twin-sister she
His house-mate and his shade.

Ask for her and she'll be denied:-
What then? they only mean
Their mistress has lain down to sleep,
And can't just then be seen.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827.

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing

And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll: And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, And hope without an object cannot live.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP OPPOSITE.

HER attachment may differ from yours in degree,
Provided they are both of one kind;

But Friendship how tender so ever it be

Gives no accord to Love, however refined.

Love, that meets not with Love, its true nature revealing, Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs:

If

you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling,

You must lower down your state to hers.

MOLES.

--THEY shrink in, as Moles

(Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground)
Creep back from Light-then listen for its sound;-
See but to dread, and dread they know not why-
The natural alien of their negative eye.

DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE.

THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. A SOLILOQUY.

UNCHANGED within to see all changed without
Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt.
Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret?
Then only might'st thou feel a just regret,
Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light
In selfish forethought of neglect and slight.
O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed,
While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor heed
Whether the object by reflected light

Return thy radiance or absorb it quite:

And though thou notest from thy safe recess

Old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air,
Love them for what they are; nor love them less,
Because to thee they are not what they were.

SONG.

THOUGH veiled in spires of myrtle wreath,
Love is a sword that cuts its sheath,
And thro' the clefts itself has made
We spy the flashes of the Blade!

But thro' the clefts itself has made
We likewise see Love's flashing blade,
By rust consumed or snapt in twain.
And only Hilt and Stump remain.