PERSONAL POEMS.

A COLLECTION OF SONNETS.

TO MR. GRAY.

NOT that her blooms are marked with beauty's hue, My rustic Muse her votive chaplet brings; Unseen, unheard, O Gray, to thee she sings!While slowly pacing through the church-yard dew, At curlew-time, beneath the dark-green yew,

Thy pensive genius strikes the moral strings; Or borne sublime on Inspiration's wings, Hears Cambria's bards devote the dreadful clew Of Edward's race, with murders foul defiled; Can aught my pipe to reach thine ear essay? No, bard, divine! For many a care beguiled By the sweet magic of thy soothing lay, For many a raptured thought, and vision wild, To thee this strain of gratitude I pay.

THOMAS WARTON (1728-1790).

BLANCO WHITE.

COULDST thou in calmness yield thy mortal breath,
Without the Christian's sure and certain hope?
Didst thou to earth confine our being's scope,
Yet, fixed on One Supreme with fervent faith,
Prompt to obey what conscience witnesseth,
As one intent to fly the eternal wrath,

Decline the ways of sin that downward slope?
O thou light-searching spirit! that didst grope
In such bleak shadows here, 'twixt life and death,--
To thee dare I bear witness, though in ruth
(Brave witness like thine own!),-dare hope and

pray

That thou, set free from this imprisoning clay, Now clad in raiment of perpetual youth,

May find that bliss untold, 'mid endless day, Awaits each earnest soul that lives for Truth! SARA COLERIDGE (1803-1852).

The Human Soul; as when, pushed off the shore, Thy mystic bark would through the darkness sweep,

Itself the while so bright! For oft we seemed
As on some starless sea-all dark above,
All dark below-yet, onward as we drove,
To plough up light that ever round us streamed.
But he who mourns is not as one bereft
Of all he loved: thy living Truths are left.
WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779-1843).

TO WORDSWORTH.

THERE have been poets that in verse display
The elemental forms of human passions:
Poets have been, to whom the fickle fashions
And all the willful humors of the day
Have furnished matter for a polished lay:

And many are the smooth, elaborate tribe
Who, emulous of thee, the shape describe,
And fain would every shifting hue portray
Of restless Nature. But thou, mighty Seer!

'Tis thine to celebrate the thoughts that make The life of souls, the truths for whose sweet sake We to ourselves and to our God are dear.

Of Nature's inner shrine thou art the priest, Where most she works when we perceive her least.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1796-1849).

MILTON.

He left the upland lawns and serene air
Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew,
And reared his helm among the unquiet crew
Battling beneath; the morning radiance there
Grew grim with sulphurous dust and sanguine dew;
Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew
The signs of his life's dayspring, calm and fair.
But when peace came, peace fouler far than war,
And mirth more dissonant than battle's tone,
He with a scornful sigh of his clear soul,
Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore,
And with the awful night he dwelt alone,
In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll.
ERNEST MYERS (1844--

TO THE MEMORY OF SYDNEY DOBELL. AND thou, too, gone! one more bright soul away To swell the mighty sleepers 'neath the sod; One less to honor and to love, and say,

Who lives with thee doth live half-way to God!