Their glossy rind here winter stains,
Here the hot solstice bleaches.

Bow, stubborn oaks! bow, graceful planes!
Ye match not Burnham-beeches.

Gardens may boast a tempting show
Of nectarines, grapes, and peaches,
But daintiest truffles lurk below
The boughs of Burnham-beeches.

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.

CCCLXXXIII.

NETS AND Cages.

COME, listen to my story, while
Your needle's task you ply;

At what I sing some maids will smile,
While some, perhaps, may sigh.

Tho' Love's the theme, and Wisdom blames

Such florid songs as ours,

Yet Truth sometimes, like Eastern dames,

Can speak her thoughts by flowers.

Then listen, maids, come listen, while
Your needle's task you ply;

At what I sing there's some may smile,
While some, perhaps, may sigh.

Young Chloe bent on catching Loves,
Such nets had learnt to frame,
That none, in all our vales and groves,
E'er caught so much small game :
But gentle Sue, less giv'n to roam,
While Chloe's nets were taking

Such lots of Loves, sat still at home,
One little Love-cage making.

Come, listen, maids, etc.

Much Chloe laugh'd at Susan's task;
But mark how things went on:

These light-caught Loves, ere you could ask
Their name and age, were gone!

So weak poor Chloe's nets were wove,
That, tho' she charm'd into them

New game each hour, the youngest Love

Was able to break through them,

Come, listen, maids, etc.

Meanwhile, young Sue, whose cage was wrought

Of bars too strong to sever,

One Love with golden pinions caught,

And caged him there for ever:

Instructing, thereby, all coquettes,
What'er their looks or ages,
That, tho' 'tis pleasant weaving Nets,
'Tis wiser to make Cages.

Thus, maidens, thus do I beguile
The task your fingers ply,-
May all who hear, like Susan smile,
And not, like Chloe, sigh!

Thomas Moore.

CCCLXXXIV.

OVER A COVERED SEAT IN THE FLOWER-GARDEN AT HOLLAND HOUSE

Where the Author of the "Pleasures of Memory" was accustomed 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.

CCCLXXXV.

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.

CCCLXXXVI.

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 love her with a loved 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 locksSuch 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;