XI.

Winter has changed his mind and fixt to come.
Now two or three snow-feathers at a time
Drop heavily, in doubt if they should drop
Or wait for others to support their fall.

XII.

I entreat you, Alfred Tennyson,

Come and share my haunch of venison.
I have too a bin of claret,

Good, but better when you share it.
Tho' 'tis only a small bin,

There's a stock of it within.
And as sure as I'm a rhymer,
Half a butt of Rudesheimer.

Come; among the sons of men is one
Welcomer than Alfred Tennyson?

Joy is the blossom, sorrow is the fruit,
Of human life; and worms are at the root.

XV.

"Why do I smile?" To hear you say
"One month, and then the shortest day!"
The shortest, whate'er month it be,
Is the bright day you pass with me.

XVI.

COWLEY'S STYLE.

Dispenser of wide-wasting woe,
Creation's laws you overthrow.

Mankind in your fierce flames you burn
And drown in their own tears by turn.
Deluged had been the world in vain,
Your fire soon dried its clothes again.

XVII.

Ye who adore God's Vicar while he saith,
Blessed be every lie that props the faith,
Draw ye from Peter's fish no purer oil

To feed your Lamp? In vain then do ye toil.

XVIII.

Thought fights with thought: out springs a spark of truth From the collision of the sword and shield.

XIX.

Where are the sounds that swam along

The buoyant air when I was young?
The last vibration now is o'er,

And they who listen'd are no more;
Ah! let me close my eyes and dream,
I see one imaged on the Leam.

XX.

Fair Love! and fairer Hope! we play'd together,
When ye were little ones, for many a day,
Sometimes in fine, sometimes in gloomier weather:
Is it not hard to part so soon in May?

XXI.

Alas! 'tis very sad to hear,

Your and your Muse's end draws near:

I only wish, if this be true,

To lie a little way from you.

The grave is cold enough for me

Without you and

your poetry.

XXII.

E. ARUNDELL.

Nature! thou mayest fume and fret,

There's but one white violet;

Scatter o'er the vernal ground

Faint resemblances around,
Nature! I will tell thee yet

There's but one white violet.

XXIII.

Known as thou art to ancient Fame
My praise, Ristormel, shall be scant:
The Muses gave thy sounding name,
The Graces thy inhabitant.

XXIV.

Mild is Euphemius, mild as summer dew
Or Belgic lion poked to Waterloo.

XXV.

A friendship never bears uncanker'd fruit
Where one of ancient growth has been blown down.

XXVI.

Pentheus, by maddening Furies driven,
Saw, it is said, two suns in heaven,

And I believe it true;

I also see a double sun

Where calmer mortals see but one..

My sun, my heaven.

XXVII.

in you.

Graceful Acacia! slender, brittle,

I think I know the like of thee;

But thou art tall and she is little ..

What God shall call her his own tree?

Some God must be the last to change her;
From him alone she will not flee;

O may he fix to earth the ranger,

Ånd may

he lend her shade to me!

XXVIII.

Whether the Furies lash the criminal
Or weaker Passions lead him powerless on,
I see the slave and scorn him equally.

XXIX.

Unkindness can be but where kindness was;
Thence, and thence only, fly her certain shafts
And carry fire and venom on the point.

XXX.

TO POETS.

My children! speak not ill of one another;
I do not ask you not to hate;
Cadets must envy every elder brother,
The little poet must the great.

XXXI.

Cahills! do what you will at home,
Order'd, or order'd not, by Rome.
Teach Innocence the deeds of Shame,
Question her, what each act, each name?
Hear patiently, where, how, how often,
Ere ghostly commination soften.
Brawl, bidding civil discord cease;
Murder, to please the Prince of Peace.
For Him who sees thro' worlds set spies,
And guard the throne of Truth with lies.
Only, where Treason tempts you, pause,
And leave us house and home and laws.

XXXII.

Love flies with bow unstrung when Time appears,
And trembles at the assault of heavy years;
A few bright feathers bear him on his flight
Quite beyond call, but not forgotten quite.

XXXIII.

Matthias, Gifford, men like those,
Find in great poets but great foes;
In Wordsworth but a husky wheeze,
Or Byron but a foul disease,
In Southey one who softly bleats,
And one of thinnest air in Keats.

Yet will these live for years and years,
When those have felt the fatal shears.

XXXIV.

To his young Rose an old man said,
"You will be sweet when I am dead:
Where skies are brightest we shall meet,
And there will you be yet more sweet,
Leaving your winged company

To waste an idle thought on me."

XXXV.

AMERICAN CHRISTMAS GAMES.

When eating and drinking and spitting and smoking
And romping and roaring and slapping and joking
Have each had fair play, the last toast of the night
Is "Success to the brave who have fought the good fight."
Then America, whistles, and Hungary sings,

"The cards in the pack are not all knaves and kings.
There are rogues at Vienna, and worse at Berlin,
Who chuckle at cheating so long as they win;

For us yet remains a prime duty to do,

Tho' we dirty the kennel by dragging them thro'."

XXXVI.

I, near the back of Life's dim stage
Feel thro' the slips the drafts of age.
Fifty good years are gone: with youth
The wind is always in the south.

XXXVII.

In the odour of sanctity Miriam abounds,
Her husband's is nearer the odour of hounds,
With a dash of the cess-pool, a dash of the sty,
And the water of cabbages running hard-by.

༨

XXXVIII.

The crysolites and rubies Bacchus brings

To crown the feast where swells the broad-vein'd brow, Where maidens blush at what the minstrel sings,

They who have coveted may covet now.

Bring me, in cool alcove, the grape uncrusht,

The peach of pulpy cheek and down mature,
Where every voice (but bird's or child's) is husht,
And every thought, like the brook nigh, runs pure.

XXXIX.

Among the few sure truths we know "

A poet, deep in thought and woe,

Says "Flowers, when they have lived, must die,"
And so, sweet maid! must you and I.