LXXI.

Love-making is like haymaking, soon over,
And both are mutable throughout their season.
Haymaker! hear me; thou too hear me, lover,
Nor scorn experience nor be deaf to reason.
Be quick at work; the sunny hours won't last,
And storms may come before they half are past.

LXXII.

Grief is unquiet, and no less
Unquiet is man's happiness.
Change is for ever what he wants;
Dead is the heart that never pants.

LXXIII.

By our last ledger-page we ascertain

What friends have fail'd and fled, and what remain. Content, in summing up, to find how few

Are scored for false, how many starr'd for true.

LXXIV.

TO YOUNG POETS.

Children! why pull ye one another's hair?
May not Callimachus or Bion wear

A sprig of bay or myrtle they have found
Lying since nightfall on neglected ground?

LXXV.

Altho' thou lovest much to sit alone,

Why stayest thou when all the rest are gone?
Thus spake I to a nightingale; then she
Stepping a little farther on the tree.

"One night a cruel archer heard me sing,

"And came at early morn and broke my wing. "The leaves were denser then; he could not find "The prey he sought, and left me thus behind." She flutter'd, but alas! no more she flew, And softly I, with backward step, withdrew.

LXXVI.

TO IANTHE.

We once were happier; true; but were
Our happiest hours devoid of care?

Remains there nothing like the past,
But calmer and less overcast

By clouds no effort could dispel,

And hopes we neither dared to tell?

I wish that hand were earlier free

Which Love should have preserved for me.
Content, if sad, I must be now

With what the sparing Fates allow,
And feel, tho' once the hope seem'd vain,
There may be love that feels no pain.

LXXVII.

To my ninth decad I have totter'd on,
And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady ;
She, who once led me where she would, is

gone,

So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready.

LXXVIII.

ON MAN.

In his own image the Creator made

His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man! Thou breathing dial! since thy day began The present hour was ever markt with shade!

LXXIX.

A voice I heard and hear it yet,

We meet not so again;

My silly tears you must forget,
Or they may give you pain.

LXXX.

CALVERTON DOWNS.

He whom the Fates forbid to dwell
Beside the Loire or the Moselle,
And who abhors the din of towns,
Should nestle here beneath these downs.

LXXXI.

ON SOME OBSCURE POETRY.

In vain he beats his brow who thinks
To get the better of a Sphynx.

LXXXII.

The tears that on two faces meet
My Muse forbids to dry,

She keeps them ever fresh and sweet
When hours and years run by.

LXXXIII.

Both men and poets of the Saxon race
Excel in vigour, few excel in grace.

LXXXIV.

TO A LIZARD.

Why run away, poor lizard? why
Art thou so diffident and shy?
Trust to my word; I only want
To look awhile and see thee pant.
For well I know thy pantings are
No signs of sorrow or of care,
Altho' they swell thy jewel'd breast
And never let it lie at rest:
Even when thou sinkest to repose
None ever saw thy eyelids close.
Turn, I beseech thee, turn again,
So mayst thou watch no fly in vain.

LXXXV.

Let fools place Fortune with the Gods on high,
Prudence, be thou my guardian deity.
I have neglected thee, alas, too long!
But listen now and hear life's evensong.

LXXXVI.

THE LATER DAY.

Who in this later day shall there arise
To pierce the cloud that overspreads thy skies,
Fair trustful Italy, too long beguiled

By one who treats thee like a pouting child.
Break off the painted handle of his whip,
And spring no more to kiss his frothy lip:
Alone in Garibaldi place thy trust,

There shalt thou find a guardian brave and just.

LXXXVII.

THE FORMER DAY.

Iberians, Belgians, Gauls! ye rage in vain,
Cromwell shall rule the land and Blake the main,
A greater man, if greater man there be,
Milton, hath undersign'd the Lord's decree.

LXXXVIII.

CONFESSION OF JEALOUSY.

Jealous, I own it, I was once,
That wickedness I here renounce.
I tried at wit, it would not do;
At tenderness, that fail'd me too;
Before me on each path there stood
The witty and the tender Hood.

LXXXIX.

A generous action may atone

For many a less worthy one,

Yet take thou heed the generous be

In number as threescore to three.

XC.

A friend by accident met Socrates,

And hail'd, accosting him in words like these.
There are two miseries in human life,
To live without a dog and with a wife.
My Xanthos in his early doghood died,
Xanthippe sticks like pitch against thy side;
Men, were such wives unfaithful, might forgive,
But ah! they are so faithful, and they live.

XCI.

We may repair and fix again
A shatter'd or a broken pane,
Not friendship so: it lies beyond
Man's wit to piece a diamond.

XCII.

O immortality of fame!

What art thou? even Shakespeare's name
Reaches not Shakespeare in his grave.
The wise, the virtuous, and the brave,

Resume ere long their common clay,
And worms are longer lived than they.
At last some gilded letters show

What those were call'd who lie below.

XCIII.

A burdock's dryest slenderest thread
Thro' a whole garden soon is spread,
And every shoot you tear away
Sends up a hundred day by day.
Such is a lie; but lies are sown
With diligence, and, fully grown,
Each busy neighbour multiplies
By culture its varieties.

XCIV.

The dead are soon forgotten, and not all
Who walk aside and bear the sable pall

Sleep the less soundly at that evening's close.

I in my vigil think I heard a toll

Such as it boom'd when Teresita's soul

In heaven's own purity to heaven arose.

XCV.

I own I like plain dishes best,
And those the easiest to digest.
Take in the fresher, tougher, harder,
But hook them longer in the larder.
Show me that humble village inn
Where Goldsmith tuned his violin,
Then leave me, at the close of day,
To muse in the churchyard with Gray.

XCVI.

There are sweet flowers that only blow by night,
And sweet tears are there that avoid the light;
No mortal sees them after day is born,

They, like the dew, drop trembling from their thorn.

VOL. VIII.

XCVII.

On days gone by us we look back
As on a last year's almanack.

We never think 'tis worth our while

To crowd with it the dusty file,
Yet might the cast-off sheet supply,
If studied, some true prophecy.

Z