IV.

AGAINST PRIDE OF INTELLECT.

PROUD Poet, think'st thou that the mass of men, Low as they seem beneath thy fancied height, Have yet no other sources of delight,

No poesy, save that of thy poor pen? Little as distance makes them to thy ken, Haply that self-same distance, to their sight, Makes thee as little seem, and with more right, Who deem'st thyself not of them, and art then, And just for this, beneath them. Is yon Sun, Rising in glory, not far better, pray,

Than thy description of it? the lark's lay Itself, than all thy verses on it? one

Sweet flower more than all that thou canst say,

And far beyond thy best comparison?

V.

A PRIVILEGE WORTH A HARD EARNING.

It is the hardest task, the highest end,
Of all true wisdom, rightly understood,
To see the Ill, yet not o'erlook the Good,
Nor let the Ill beyond itself extend,
Nor o'er the sunny side its shadows send

Beyond its own intrinsic magnitude,

As mountains cast their shadows far, and brood At distance, and their own real bulk transcend. "T is hard to school the heart to be, in spite Of injury and envy, generous still;

In seeing Good alone to take delight, And to forget, or to forgive, the Ill:

And he who can do this, has still a right

To think godlike of man, and must, and will.

VI.

A MUSIC YET UNKNOWN, REMAINING TO BE

EARTH.

HEARD ON

THE music of the days which are to come
Doth haunt me ever, and my footsteps move
In time unto it, paces of deep love
And faith unchangeable! I hear the hum
Of mighty workings, and cannot be dumb.

To the grand concert of the spheres above.
Mankind moves on, vain omens to disprove,
While overhead, and in the vanward, some
Prophetic soul, lark-like, doth soar and sing.
A few poor snatches of that music here,
My fellow-men, I, as a pledge, would bring, –
The music at my heart still answering clear,

Which tells me that there must be yet some string

Untouched, which God intended Man to hear.

EGERTON WEBBE.

TO A FOG.*

HAIL to thee, Fog! most reverend, worthy Fog!
Come in thy full-wigged gravity: I much
Admire thee:— thy old dulness hath a touch

Of true respectability. The rogue

That calls thee names (a fellow I could flog)
Would beard his grandfather, and trip his crutch;
But I am dutiful, and hold with such

As deem thy solemn company no clog.
Not that I love to travel best incog.,

To pounce on latent lamp-posts, or to clutch
The butcher in my arms, or in a bog

Pass afternoons; but while through thee I jog,
I feel I am true English, and no Dutch,
Nor French, nor any other foreign dog

That never mixed his grog

Over a sea-coal fire a day like this,

And bid thee scowl thy worst, and found it bliss,

And to himself said, "Yes,

Italia's skies are fair, her fields are sunny,

This is the sonnet with the coda (or tail) alluded to in the Introductory Essay, page 60. The gap in the last line is left to be

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON.

I.

HAPPINESS.

A SPLENDOR amid glooms, a sunny thread

Woven into a tapestry of cloud,

A merry child a-playing with the shroud
That lies upon a breathless mother's bed,
A garland on the front of one new-wed,

Trembling and weeping while her troth is vowed,
A school-boy's laugh that rises light and loud
In licensed freedom from ungentle dread ;-
These are ensamples of the Happiness

For which our nature fits us. More and less
Are parts of all things to the mortal given,
Of Love, Joy, Truth, and Beauty. Perfect light
Would dazzle, not illuminate, our sight;

From Earth it is enough to glimpse at Heaven.

filled up by the readers, according to their respective notions of what is fittest for the nonce, or properest to be read aloud. The word "Yes," though an allowable rhyme to bliss and this, especially on a comic occasion, may also, if the reader pleases, be emphatically pronounced "yis." It is a license often taken by conversers in England; and I remember saying so to my friend, when I first read the verses. I think he said that he intended to imply the license in the rhyme; but at all events I am sure he agreed with me, and laughed heartily; and we read it so accordingly on the spot.