SHALL I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love,

That once, in rage with the wild winds at strife,
Thou darest menace my unit of a life,

Sending my clay below, my soul above,

Whilst roar'd thy waves, like lions when they rove
By night, and bound upon their prey by stealth?
Yet did'st thou ne'er restore my fainting health?
Did'st thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove?
Nay, did'st thou not against my own dear shore
Full break, last link between my land and me ?-
My absent friends talk in thy very roar,
In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see,
And, if I must not see my England more,
Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee!

II.

LEAR.

A POOR old king, with sorrow for my crown,
Thron'd upon straw, and mantled with the wind-
For pity, my own tears have made me blind
That I might never see my children's frown ;
And may be madness, like a friend, has thrown
A folded fillet over my dark mind,

So that unkindly speech may sound for kind,-
Albeit I know not.-I am childish grown-
And have not gold to purchase wit withal-
I that have once maintain❜d most royal state-
A very bankrupt now that may not call

My child, my child—all-beggar'd save in tears,
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate,
Foolish-and blind-and overcome with years!

III.

SONNET TO A SONNET.

RARE composition of a poet-knight,
Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men,
Distinguish'd for a polish'd lance and pen
In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight;
Lustrous in scholarship, in honor bright,
Accomplish'd in all graces current then,
Humane as any in historic ken,

Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite;
Most courteous to that race become of late
So fiercely scornful of all kind advance,
Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate
To Albion, plotting ever her mischance,-
Alas, fair verse! how false and out of date
Thy phrase "sweet enemy " applied to France!

Look how the lark soars upward and is gone,
Turning a spirit as he nears the sky!
His voice is heard, but body there is none
To fix the vague excursions of the eye.
So, poets' songs are with us, tho' they die
Obscur'd, and hid by death's oblivious shroud,
And Earth inherits the rich melody

Like raining music from the morning cloud.
Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud,
Their voices reach us through the lapse of space:
The noisy day is deafen'd by a crowd
Of undistinguish'd birds, a twittering race;
But only lark and nightingale forlorn

Fill up the silences of night and morn.

TO

V.

My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept-forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial's face.
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed.
But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart,
Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies,
It seems we only meet to tear apart
With aching hands and lingering of eyes.
Alas, alas! that we must learn hours' flight
By the same light of love that makes them bright!