Their spears, and glittering mails;

And ever thou didst spill in winding streams
Sparkles and midnight gleams,

For fishes to new gloss their argent scales!

V.

Why sighs?-why creeping tears?-why clasped hands?
Is it to count the boy's expended dower?

That fairies since have broke their gifted wands?
That young Delight, like any o'erblown flower,
Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the ground?
Why then, fair Moon, for all thou markst no hour,
Thou art a sadder dial to old Time

Than ever I have found

On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tower,
Mottoed with stern and melancholy rhyme.

VI.

Why should I grieve for this? OI must yearn,
Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory,

Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn,

Richly embossed with childhood's revelry,

With leaves and clustered fruits, and flowers eterne,

(Eternal to the world, though not to me;)

Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be,
The deathless wreath, and undecayed festoon,

When I am hearsed within,

Less than the pallid primrose to the Moon,
That now she watches through a vapour thin.

VII.

So let it be:-Before I lived to sigh,
Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills,
Beautiful Orb! and so, whene'er I lie
Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills.
Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills,
And blessed thy fair face, O Mother mild!
Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run,
Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond,
And blend their plighted shadows into one:
Still smile at even on the bedded child,
And close his eyelids with thy silver wand!

THOMAS HOOD.

Song.

WEEP no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that's gone;

Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again;
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully,
Fate's hidden ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe;
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

The Maid's Lament.

I LOVED him not; and yet now he is gone

I feel I am alone.

I checked him while he spoke; yet could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.

For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought

To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love, could he but live

Who lately lived for me, and when he found
'T was vain, in holy ground

He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath

Who wasted his for me: but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns

With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep

Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.

Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,

These may she never share!

Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,

Than daises in the mould,

Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.

Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,

And oh! pray too for me.

LANDOR.

Sonnet.

WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climbst the skies;
How silently; and with how wan a face!

What! may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feelst a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there-ungratefulness?

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

The Voice of Departed Friendship.

I HAD a friend who died in early youth!
And often in those melancholy dreams,

When my soul travels through the umbrage deep
That shades the silent world of memory,

Methinks I hear his voice! sweet as the breath

Of balmy ground-flowers, stealing from some spot Of sunshine sacred, in a gloomy wood,

To everlasting spring.

In the church-yard

Where now he sleeps-the day before he died,
Silent we sat together on a grave;

Till gently laying his pale hand on mine,

Pale in the moonlight that was coldly sleeping
On heaving sod and marble monument,-

This was the music of his last farewell!

"Weep not, my brother! though thou seest me led

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By short and easy stages, day by day,

"With motion almost imperceptible
"Into the quiet grave. God's will be done.
"Even when a boy, in doleful solitude

My soul oft sate within the shadow of death! “And when I looked along the laughing earth,

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Up the blue heavens, and through the middle air Joyfully ringing with the sky-lark's song,