SONNET.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE
FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scanned that face of feeble infancy :
For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my child might be !
But when I saw it on its mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile)
Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm
Impressed a father's kiss: and all beguiled

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seemed to see an angel-form appear-
'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.

ODE TO GEORGIANA,

DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER "PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD.

"

"And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild
Where Tell directed the avenging dart,

With well-strung arm, that first preserved his child,

Then aimed the arrow at the tyrant's heart."

SPLENDOUR'S fondly fostered child!

And did you hail the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure!

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran,
From all that teaches brotherhood to Man

Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear!
Enchanting music lulled your infant ear,
Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart :
Emblazonments and old ancestral crests,

With many a bright obtrusive form of art,

Detained your eye from nature: stately vests,
That veiling strove to deck your charms divine,
Rich viands and the pleasurable wine,

Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see
The unenjoying toiler's misery.

And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child,

You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame,
All living faculties of bliss ;
And Genius to your cradle came,

His forehead wreathed with lambent flame,
And bending low, with godlike kiss
Breath'd in a more celestial life;
But boasts not many a fair compeer,
A heart as sensitive to joy and fear?
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,
Some few, to nobler being wrought,
Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought.

Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurelled war and plumy state;
Or in verse and music dress
Tales of rustic happiness-
Pernicious tales! insidious strains!
That steel the rich man's breast,
And mock the lot unblest,

The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be

The doom of ignorance and penury!
But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child,
You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure?

You were a mother! That most holy name,
Which Heaven and Nature bless,
I may not vilely prostitute to those
Whose infants owe them less
Than the poor caterpillar owes

Its gaudy parent fly.

You were a mother! at your bosom fed

The babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye,

Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read,

Which you yourself created. Oh! delight!

A second time to be a mother,

Without the mother's bitter groans:

Another thought, and yet another,

By touch, or taste, by looks or tones

O'er the growing sense to roll,

The mother of your infant's soul!

The Angel of the Earth, who, while he guides
His chariot-planet round the goal of day,

All trembling gazes on the eye of God,
A moment turned his awful face away;
And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet
New influences in your being rose,

Blest intuitions and communions fleet

With living Nature, in her joys and woes!

Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see
The shrine of social Liberty!

O beautiful! O Nature's child!
'Twas thence you hailed the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell!

O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure!
Thence learn'd you that heroic measure.

HYMN TO THE EARTH

HEXAMETERS.

EARTH thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother,

Hail! O Goddess, thrice hail! Blest be thou! and, blessing, I hymn thee!

Forth, ye sweet sounds! from my harp, and my voice shall float on your surges

Soar thou aloft, O my soul! and bear up my song on thy pinions.

Travelling the vale with mine eyes—green meadows and lake with green island,

Dark in its basin of rock, and the bare stream flowing in brightness, Thrilled with thy beauty and love in the wooded slope of the mountain,

Here, great mother, I lie, thy child, with his head on thy bosom !
Playful the spirits of noon, that rushing soft through thy tresses,
Green-haired goddess! refresh me; and hark! as they hurry or
linger,

Fill the pause of my harp, or sustain it with musical murmurs.
Into my being thou murmurest joy, and tenderest sadness

Shedd'st thou, like dew, on my heart, till the joy and the heavenly sadness

Pour themselves forth from my heart in tears, and the hymn of thanksgiving.

Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the

mother,

Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the sun, the rejoicer !

Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget

not,

Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold

thee!

Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured! Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess,

Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he wooed thee and won thee!

Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre ! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teemed forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impelled by thousand-fold instincts,

Filled, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels;

Laughed on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swelled upward;

Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains,

Wandered bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches.

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY.

TRANQUILLITY! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame!
Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age
To low intrigue, or factious rage;
For oh! dear child of thoughtful Truth,

To thee I gave my early youth,

And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore,
Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,

On him but seldom, Power divine

Thy spirit rests! Satiety

And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope
And dire remembrance interlope,

To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind :

The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead

At morning through the accustomed mead
And in the sultry summer's heat

Will build me up a mossy seat;

And when the gust of Autumn crowds,
And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,

Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune,
Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,

To thee I dedicate the whole !
And while within myself I trace

The greatness of some future race,