POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH * SONNET-TO SCIENCE. SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art! How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, * Private reasons-some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson's first poems-have induced me, after some hesitation, to re-publish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim-without alteration from the original edition-the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged. VOL. II.-5. E. A. P. AL AARAAF.* PART I. O! NOTHING earthly save the ray That list our Love, and deck our bowers Adorn yon world afar, afar— The wandering star. 'Twas a sweet time for Nesace-for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns-a temporary rest— An oasis in desert of the blest.. * A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter-then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since. Away-away-'mid seas of rays that roll Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt) Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled- All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride- On Santa Maura-olim Deucadia. + Sappho. *And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd— (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew) She fears to perfume, perfuming the night: And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth- * This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated. + Clytia-The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol-which turns continually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.-B. de St. Pierre. There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July-you then perceive it gradually open its petals-expand them-fade and die.-St. Pierre. |