Poets and painters, hither hie, His hand at Burnham-beeches. When monks, by holy Church well schooled, Skirting the convent's walls of yore, But shaven crown and cowl no more Here bards have mused, here lovers true O ne'er may woodman's axe resound, In the sweet shade that cools the ground Hold! tho' I'd fain be jingling on, Henry Luttrell. CCCL. A MAN'S REQUIREMENTS. LOVE me, Sweet, with all thou art, Love me with thine open youth Can Heaven's truth be wanting? Love me with their lids, that fall Love me with thine hand, stretched out Love me with thy loitering foot,- Love me with thy voice, that turns Love me with thy blush, that burns Love me with thy thoughts, that roll Love me in thy gorgeous airs, When the world has crown'd thee; Love me, kneeling at thy prayers, With the angels round thee. Love me pure, as musers do, Love me gaily, fast and true, Through all hopes that keep us brave, Further off or nigher, Love me for the house and grave, And for something higher. Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear, I will love thee-half a year, As a man is able. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. CCCLI. OVER A COVERED SEAT IN THE FLOWERGARDEN AT HOLLAND HOUSE, Where the Author of the "Pleasures of Memory" was ac customed to sit, appear the following lines. HERE Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell, CCCLII. ON SAMUEL ROGERS' SEAT IN THE GARDEN AT HOLLAND HOUSE. How happily shelter'd is he who reposes In this haunt of the poet, o'ershadow'd with roses, Let me in, and be seated.—I'll try if, thus placed, Well-now I am fairly install'd in the bower, While Rogers, on whom they look kindly, can strike Henry Luttrell. CCCLIII. THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. YEARS-years ago,-ere yet my dreams I saw her at the County Ball : There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet in that old hall Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that set young hearts romancing; She was our queen, our rose, our star; And then she danced-O Heaven, her dancing! Dark was her hair, her hand was white; Shot right and left a score of arrows; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wonder'd where she'd left her sparrows. She talk'd,-of politics or prayers,— Or Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets, Of danglers-or of dancing bears, Of battles or the last new bonnets, If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmur'd Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal: She was the daughter of a Dean, Had fed the parish with her bounty; And Lord Lieutenant of the County. But titles, and the three per cents., As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach, Young blossom in her boudoir fading : She touch'd the organ; I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows. She kept an album, too, at home, Well fill'd with all an album's glories; Paintings of butterflies, and Rome, Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories; Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter, And autographs of Prince Leboo, And recipes for elder-water. And she was flatter'd, worshipp'd, bored; Her steps were watch'd, her dress was noted; Her poodle dog was quite adored, Her sayings were extremely quoted; She smiled on many, just for fun,— I knew that there was nothing in it; I was the first-the only one Her heart had thought of for a minute.I knew it, for she told me so, In phrase which was divinely moulded; She wrote a charming hand,-and oh! How sweetly all her notes were folded! T |