(1826.)

There's nothing but another earth,
As dark and restless as our own,
Where misery is child of mirth,
And every heart is born to groan,
And every flower to wither!"

MY FIRST FOLLY.

STANZAS WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT.

PRETTY Coquette, the ceaseless play
Of thine unstudied wit,

And thy dark eye's remembered ray

By buoyant fancy lit,

And thy young

forehead's clear expanse,

Where the locks slept, as through the dance,

Dreamlike, I saw thee flit,

Are far too warm and far too fair

To mix with aught of earthly care;

But the vision shall come when my day is done,

A frail and a fair and a fleeting one!

And if the many boldly gaze

On that bright brow of thine,
And if thine eye's undying rays

On countless coxcombs shine,
And if thy wit flings out its mirth,
Which echoes more of air than earth,

For other ears than mine,

I heed not this; ye are fickle things,
And I like your very wanderings;

I gaze, and if thousands share the bliss,
Pretty capricious! I heed not this.

In sooth I am a wayward youth,
As fickle as the sea,

And

very apt to speak the truth, Unpleasing though it be;

I am no lover; yet as long

As I have heart for jest or song,

An image, Sweet, of thee,

Locked in my heart's remotest treasures, Shall ever be one of its hoarded pleasures ;This from the scoffer thou hast won,

And more than this he gives to none.

20th December, 1821.

A SHOOTING STAR.

"An ignis fatuus gleam of love."-BYRON.

A SHOOTING Star !—the dim blue night
Gleamed where the wanderer went,
For it flung a stream of gushing light
Around its bright ascent.

I saw it fade !-in cold and cloud
The young light fleeted by,

And the shrill night-wind whistled loud,
As darkness spread her solemn shroud
Over the midnight sky.

Thou Maiden of the secret spell,
Star of the soul, farewell, farewell!
E'en such has been thy lovely light,
So calmly keen, so coldly bright;
A meteor, seen and worshipped only
To leave a lonely heart more lonely.
The Star hath set!-the spell is broken;
And thou hast left behind no token-
No token, lovely one, to me,

Of what thou art, or art to be;
Except one dear and cherished thought
In Memory's sunless caverns wrought,

One moonlight vision, one sweet shade,
Quick to appear, and slow to fade,
A warm and silent recollection,

The fancy's dream, the heart's affection.

Bright be thy lot in other years!-
Fill high the cup of wine;

In all the pain of hopes and fears
I will not bathe with any tears
That laughing love of thine.

Yet often in my waking slumbers

Thy voice shall speak its magic numbers,

And I shall think on that dark brow

On which my fancy gazes now,
And sit in reverie lone and long
To muse on that Italian song.

And thou, perhaps, in happier times,
And fairer scenes, and warmer climes,
Wilt think of one who would not dim
With aught of care that wit and whim,—
Of one who oft, in other years,

Fills high the cup of wine,

Because, in all his hopes and fears,
He will not bathe with any tears
That laughing love of thine!

MARCH 15, 1822.

VOL. 1.