All his mighty mind was love

Ah! sure his pen was once a feather

In the wing of Noah's dove,

It brings us so in peace together.

Oh! the sweetness of his song,

The music and the mirth of Shakspeare; Golden word was never heard

Like thy all-echoed name, Will Shakspeare !

O'er the mind his magic breathed,

And still it leaves a charm within it,

As Apollo's harp bequeathed

Its music where it lay a minute.

Time shall never still the tone,

Nor e'er of radiant wreaths deprive him,

Nature was his nurse alone,

And Nature only can survive him.

Oh! the green, the glorious page,

The everlasting line of Shakspeare; Millions meet with praises sweet

Around the sunny shrine of Shakspeare.

Р

THE CHILD AND HER CAPTIVE.

'BIRD, you are mine!' said a bird-like child, Ardent, graceful, sensitive, wild;

'I am your mistress, you are my own;

Caught on the window-sill where you had flown.

'Here in this cage, all glittering, new,

Bought, you must know, on purpose for you,
With leaves and seeds, and water to drink,

You must be always happy, I think.'

With many a sweetly-prattled word

The child saluted her captive bird;

With glistening eyes for hours she gazed,

And wondered he sang not while she praised.

Sing, my bird!' And all day long

Her ears were open to catch the song.
In vain 'twas surely a singular thing
That a bird so happy refused to sing !

Morning again. Ah, now his throat
Will swell with many an exquisite note!
Silent! How strange that a bird should be
Mute in a cage who sang on a tree!

Again she listened her morning away;

And listened, and wondered, day by day;
His cage was darkened, his sugar was stopped-
Still not a chirrup the prisoner dropped.

A spell is upon him ; 'tis sunny spring;
He has nothing on earth to do but sing.
Hark!

What a note! Was it his? You see

The singer out there on the apple-tree.

The child is asleep. As her eyelids close,
Thousands of wires in golden rows,

Gleaming like sunbeams, shot from the ground,
And forming a circle, encaged her round.

That graceful, playful, laugh-loving child,
She who but now might ramble wild
From sport to sport of her innocent age;
Ah! she is caught, like a bird in her cage.

Quite, quite shut in; she scarce respires,"
Her heart is pierced by those sharp gold-wires ;
But a giant Bird is her keeper the while,
And she must gambol, and sing, and smile!

The glorious noon seems deep midnight;
But the child's despair is the bird's delight;
And she must lament, the whole day long,
Her freedom lost-in laughter and song.

The child is awake; and, with eager hands
On the window-sill the cage she stands ;
She opens the door; the bird is free!
Hark! how he sings on the apple-tree.

1836.

THE GAME AT CHESS.

LOVE with a Lady-would you know Her name, then read this heart, for there 'Tis written, like the words of woe,

Imprinted in the hyacinth fair— Love with a Lady played-but where, Or when, or how, 'tis yours to guess, Enough if we this truth declare, Love with a Lady played at Chess !

Most innocent, and calm, and high
The mind which in that Lady's face
Was mirrored, as the morning-sky
In a clear brook's green dwelling-place,
And, robed in each serenest grace,
She mused, more tranquil than the dove;
So there, as time grew on apace,
The Lady played at Chess with Love.

'Twas like a dream to see them play;
So deeply, marvellously still,

And hushed in charmed thought sat they, One influence of the tyrant will