The earth is like ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion;
Bird, beast, man, and worm,
Have crept out of the storm:-
Come away!

2. "Our boat has one sail,
.And the helmsman is pale.
A bold pilot, I trow,

Who should follow us now!"
Shouted he.

And she cried: "Ply the oar;
Put off gaily from shore !"-
As she spoke, bolts of death,
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea:

And from isle, tower, and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke:
And, though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast

From the lee.

3. And "Fear'st thou?" and "Fear'st thou ?'
And "Seest thou?" and "Hear'st thou ?”
And "Drive we not free
O'er the terrible sea,
I and thou?"

One boat-cloak did cover
The loved and the lover;
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low;—

While around the lashed ocean.
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered, and shifted
To and fro.

4. In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,
Like a bloodhound well beaten
The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame.

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant father;
To his voice, the mad weather
Seems tame;

And, with curses as wild
As e'er clung to child,

He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest, and last,
Of his name.

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken;

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

SONG.

I. RARELY, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
2. How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free,
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

3. As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

4. Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure ;-
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

5. I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh earth in new leaves dressed,
And the starry night,

Autumn evening, and the morn

When the golden mists are born.

6. I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;

I love waves and winds and storms,-
Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be
Untainted by man's misery.

7. I love tranquil solitude,

And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good.
Between thee and me

What difference? But thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

8. I love Love, though he has wings,

And like light can flee;

But above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee-

Thou art love and life! Oh come!

Make once more my heart thy home!

LINES

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

1. WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?
Art thou not over-bold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?
Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

2. How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled,

And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold
Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled—
What, Mother, dost thou laugh now he is dead?

3.

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth,
'Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art over-bold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "To my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled;

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

4.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,
"I grow bolder and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed and splendour and mirth.
I was cloudy and sullen and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead

My heart grew warm: I feed on whom I fed.

5. "Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth.

66

Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.

Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which, like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

MUTABILITY.

THE flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies:

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue how frail it is!

Friendship how rare!

Love how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day,

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou-and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

SONNET.

POLITICAL GREATNESS.

NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,

Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame :— Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts;

History is but the shadow of their shame;

Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts,
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,

Staining that heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers knit.
By force or custom? Man who man would be
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

LINES.

IF I walk in Autumn's even
While the dead leaves pass,