While I this midnight vigil keep,
And bless thee in thy silent bower;
To me 'tis sweeter than the power
Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurled,
That I alone, at this still hour,
In patient love outwatch the world.
IT was not in the winter
Our loving lot was cast;
It was the time of roses, -
We plucked them as we passed!
That churlish season never frowned
On early lovers yet!
the world was newly crowned With flowers when first we met.
"Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses,
We plucked them as we passed!
SHALL I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love,
That once in rage, with the wild winds at strife,
Thou darest menace my unit of a life,
Sending my clay below, my soul above,
Whilst roared thy waves, like lions when they rove
By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth?
Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ?
Didst thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove?
Nay, didst thou not against my own dear shore
Full break, last link between my land and me?
My absent friends talk in thy very roar,
In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see,
And if I must not see my England more,
Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee!
Coblentz, May, 1835.
A POOR old king, with sorrow for my crown, Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind For pity, my own tears have made me blind, That I might never see my children's frown; And may be madness, like a friend, has thrown A folded fillet over my dark mind,
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind,
Albeit I know not. I am childish grown
And have not gold to purchase wit withal
I that have once maintained most royal state
A very bankrupt now, that may not call
My child, my child - all-beggared save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,
Foolish
and blind - and overcome with years!
RARE composition of a poet-knight,
Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men,
Distinguished for a polished lance and pen
In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight;
Lustrous in scholarship, in honor bright,
Accomplished in all graces current then,
Humane as any in historic ken,
Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite ;
Most courteous to that race become of late
So fiercely scornful of all kind advance,
Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate
To Albion, plotting ever her mischance,
Alas, fair verse! how false and out of date
Thy phrase "sweet enemy" applied to France!
FALSE POETS AND TRUE.
Look how the lark soars upward and is gone,
Turning a spirit as he nears the sky!
His voice is heard, but body there is none
To fix the vague excursions of the eye.
So, poets' songs are with us, though they die
Obscured and hid by Death's oblivious shroud,
And earth inherits the rich melody,
Like raining music from the morning cloud.
Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud,
Their voices reach us through the lapse of space :
The noisy day is deafened by a crowd
Of undistinguished birds, a twittering race;
But only lark and nightingale forlorn
Fill up the silences of night and morn.
My heart is sick with longing, though I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial's face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and time is dead indeed.
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours' flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!
FOR THE FOURTEENTH OF FEBRUARY.
No popular respect will I omit
To do the honor on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey.
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun
All calendars with Love's, whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the sun,
For with thy favor was my life begun;
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles :
O! if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine.
O, 'TIS a touching thing, to make one weep,
A tender infant with its curtained eye,
Breathing as it would neither live nor die
With that unchanging countenance of sleep!
As if its silent dream, serene and deep,
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky,
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie,
With no more life than roses just to keep
The blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath.
O blossom boy! so calm is thy repose,
So sweet a compromise of life and death,
"Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose
For memory to stain their inward leaf,
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief.
THE world is with me, and its many cares,
Its woes
its wants the anxious hopes and fears
That wait on all terrestrial affairs
The shades of former and of future years
Foreboding fancies and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate.
Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears,
Where youth, and mirth, and health are out of date
But no a laugh of innocence and joy
Resounds, like music of the fairy race,
And, gladly turning from the world's
I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place.”
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