STANZAS,

WRITTEN UNDER A DRAWING OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL,

CAMBRIDGE.

EXTRACTED FROM AN ALBUM IN DEVONSHIRE.

MOST beautiful!—I gaze and gaze
In silence on the glorious pile;
And the glad thoughts of other days
Come thronging back the while.
To me dim Memory makes more dear
The perfect grandeur of the shrine ;
But if I stood a stranger here,

The ground were still divine.

Some awe the good and wise have felt,
As reverently their feet have trod
On any spot where man hath knelt,
To commune with his God;
By haunted spring, or fairy well,
Beneath the ruined convent's gloom,
Beside the feeble hermit's cell,

Or the false prophet's tomb.

But when was high devotion graced

With lovelier dwelling, loftier throne, Than thus the limner's art hath traced

From the time-honored stone?

The spirit here of worship seems

To hold the heart in wondrous thrall, And heavenward hopes and holy dreams, Came at her voiceless call;

At midnight, when the lonely moon
Looks from a vapor's silvery fold;
Or morning, when the sun of June
Crests the high towers with gold;
For every change of hour and form

Makes that fair scene more deeply fair; And dusk and day-break, calm and storm, Are all religion there.

TWENTY-EIGHT AND TWENTY-NINE.

I HEARD a sick man's dying sigh,

And an infant's idle laughter,

The Old Year went with mourning by

The New came dancing after!

Let Sorrow shed her lonely tear,
Let Revelry hold her ladle;
Bring boughs of cypress for the bier,

Fling roses on the cradle;

Mutes to wait on the funeral state;
Pages to pour the wine;

A requiem for Twenty-Eight,
And a health to Twenty-Nine!

Alas for human happiness!

Alas for human sorrow!

Our yesterday is nothingness,

What else will be our morrow?

Still Beauty must be stealing hearts,

And Knavery stealing purses;
Still cooks must live by making tarts,
And wits by making verses;

While sages prate and courts debate,

The same stars set and shine;

And the world as it rolled through Twenty-Eight,

Must roll through Twenty-Nine.

Some King will come, in Heaven's good time,

To the tomb his father came to;

Some Thief will wade through blood and crime
To a crown he has no claim to;

Some suffering land will rend in twain
The manacles that bound her;
And gather the links of the broken cham
To fasten them proudly round her;
The grand and great will love and hate,
And combat and combine;

And much where we were in Twenty-Eight,
We shall be in Twenty-Nine.

O'Connell will toil to raise the Rent,
And Kenyon to sink the Nation;
And Shiel will abuse the Parliament,
And Peel the Association;

And thought of bayonets and swords
Will make ex-Chancellors merry;

And jokes will be cut in the House of Lords,
And throats in the County of Kerry;

And writers of weight will speculate
On the Cabinet's design;

And just what it did in Twenty-Eight
It will do in Twenty-Nine.

And the Goddess of Love will keep her smiles,

And the God of Cups his orgies; And there'll be riots in St. Giles,

And weddings in St. George's;

And mendicants will sup like Kings,
And Lords will swear like lacqueys;
And black eyes oft will lead to rings,
And rings will lead to black eyes;
And pretty Kate will scold her mate,
In a dialect all divine;

Alas! they married in Twenty-Eight,
They will part in Twenty-Nine.

My uncle will swathe his gouty limbs,
And talk of his oils and blubbers;

My aunt, Miss Dobbs, will play longer hymns,
And rather longer rubbers;

My cousin in Parliament will prove

How utterly ruined Trade is:

My brother, at Eaton, will fall in love
With half a hundred ladies;

My patron will sate his pride from plate,
And his thirst from Bordeaux wine:
His nose was red in Twenty-Eight,
"Twill be redder in Twenty-Nine.

And oh! I shall find how, day by day,
All thoughts and things look older;
How the laugh of Pleasure grows less gay,
And the heart of Friendship colder;