Poets and painters, hither hie,
Here ample room for each is
With pencil and with pen to try

His hand at Burnham-beeches.

When monks, by holy Church well schooled,
Were lawyers, statesmen, leeches,
Cured souls and bodies, judged or ruled,
Then flourished Burnham-beeches,

Skirting the convent's walls of yore,
As yonder ruin teaches.

But shaven crown and cowl no more
Shall darken Burnham-beeches.

Here bards have mused, here lovers true
Have dealt in softest speeches,
While suns declined, and, parting, threw
Their gold o'er Burnham-beeches.

O ne'er may woodman's axe resound,
Nor tempest, making breaches

In the sweet shade that cools the ground
Beneath our Burnham-beeches.

Hold! tho' I'd fain be jingling on,
My power no further reaches-
Again that rhyme? enough-I've done,
Farewell to Burnham-beeches.

Henry Luttrell.

CCCL.

A MAN'S REQUIREMENTS.

LOVE me, Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing:
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.
Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest granting;
Taking colour from the skies,-

Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.

Love me with thine hand, stretched out
Freely, open-minded:

Love me with thy loitering foot,-
Hearing one behind it.

Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;

Love me with thy blush, that burns
When I murmur, Love me!
Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;

Love me with thy thoughts, that roll
On through living-dying.

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,
Up the woodlands shady;

Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.

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,
Woman's love no fable,

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,
To me, those pleasures that he sang so well.
Lord Holland.

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,
While the sun is rejoicing, unclouded, on high,
And summer's full majesty reigns in the sky!

Let me in, and be seated.—I'll try if, thus placed,
I can catch but one spark of his feeling and taste,
Can steal a sweet note from his musical strain,
Or a ray of his genius to kindle my brain.

Well-now I am fairly install'd in the bower,
How lovely the scene! How propitious the hour!
The breeze is perfumed by the hawthorn it stirs ;
All is beauty around me ;-but nothing occurs,
Not a thought, I protest, though I'm here and alone,
Not a line can I hit on, that Rogers would own,
Though my senses are ravish'd, my feelings in tune,
And Holland's my host, and the season is June.
The trial is ended. Nor garden, nor grove,
Though poets amid them may linger or rove,
Nor a seat e'en so hallow'd as this can impart
The fancy and fire that must spring from the heart.
So I rose, since the Muses continue to frown,
No more of a poet than when I sat down;

While Rogers, on whom they look kindly, can strike
Their lyre, at all times, in all places, alike.

Henry Luttrell.

CCCLIII.

THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM.

YEARS-years ago,-ere yet my dreams
Had been of being wise or witty,-
Ere I had done with writing themes,
Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty ;-
Years-years ago,-while all my joy
Was in my fowling-piece and filly,--
In short, while I was yet a boy,
I fell in love with Laura Lily.

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;
Her voice was exquisitely tender;
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender!
Her every look, her every smile,

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,
By candlelight, at twelve o'clock,
To me it matter'd not a tittle;

If those bright lips had quoted Locke,

I might have thought they murmur'd Little.

Through sunny May, through sultry June,
I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them to the Sunday Journal:
My mother laugh'd; I soon found out
That ancient ladies have no feeling :
My father frown'd; but how should gout
See any happiness in kneeling?

She was the daughter of a Dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother, just thirteen,
Whose colour was extremely hectic ;
Her grandmother for many a year

Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,

And Lord Lieutenant of the County.

But titles, and the three per cents.,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes, and rents,
Oh what are they to love's sensations?
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks-
Such wealth, such honours, Cupid chooses
He cares as little for the Stocks,

As Baron Rothschild for the Muses.

She sketch'd; the vale, the wood, the beach,
Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading:
She botanized; I envied each

Young blossom in her boudoir fading :
She warbled Handel; it was grand;
She made the Catalani jealous :

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 laugh'd, and every heart was glad,
As if the taxes were abolish'd;
She frown'd, and every look was sad,
As if the Opera were demolish'd.

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