Lady Clara Vere de Vere, when thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, she spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed, I heard one bitter word that scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere, there stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: you changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse, to make him trust his modest worth.

And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare, and slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, from yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife smile at the claims of long descent.

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'tis only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: you pine among your halls and towers:

The languid light of your proud eyes is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, but sickening of a vague

disease,

You know so ill to deal with time, you needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, if time be heavy on your hands,

Are there no beggars at your gate, nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, oh! teach the Orphan-girl to sew, Pray heaven for a human heart, and let the foolish yeoman go.

(By permission of Messrs. Moxon and Co.)

TO A SKYLARK.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

[Percy Bysshe Shelley was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart., of Field Place, Sussex, where he was born August 4th, 1792. He was sent to Eton, but, violating the rules of that school, was removed to Oxford at an earlier age than is usual. Shelley was twice married. His second wife was Miss Godwin, daughter of the author, and herself famous as the author of "Frankenstein." With his new wife he went to Italy, renewed his acquaintance with Byron, and joined Leigh Hunt in the "Liberal." Shortly after this he met with his untimely death, by the wreck of his boat in a violent storm, on his return to his house on the Gulf of Lerici, July 8th, 1822. His body was washed ashore fifteen days afterwards. His principal poetical works are

"Prometheus Unbound," "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude," "Queen Mab," "The Revolt of Islam," and "The Cenci," a tragedy. Many of his minor poems are simple and very beautiful.]

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still, and higher,

From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are bright'ning,

Thou dost float and run,

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view.

Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was

Joyous and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass :

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,

A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ?

What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain ?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:

Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;

Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught:

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever could come near.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then as I am listening now.

THE CATARACT OF LODORE.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
[See page 110.]

How does the water come down at Lodore?
My little boy asked me thus, once on a time.
Moreover, he task'd me to tell him in rhyme;
Anon at the word there first came one daughter,
And then came another to second and third
The request of their brother, and hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar,
As many a time they had seen it before.

So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store. And 'twas in my vocation that thus I should sing, Because I was laureate to them and the King.

From its sources which well

In the tarn on the fell,

From its fountain in the mountain,
Its rills and its gills,

Through moss and through brak
It runs and it creeps,
For awhile till it sleeps,
In its own little lake,
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,

And through the wood shelter,
Among crags and its flurry,
Helter-skelter-hurry-skurry.

How does the water come down at Lodore?
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Here smoking and frothing,
Its tumult and wrath in,

It hastens along, conflicting, and strong,
Now striking and raging,

As if a war waging,
Its caverns and rocks among.

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,

Swelling and flinging,

Showering and springing,

Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Twining and twisting,
Around and around,
Collecting, disjecting,

With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzing and deafening the ear with its sound.