And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings for heaven:-Porphyro grew
faint:

She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.

Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one,
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm
is fled.

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay; Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away; Flown,like a thought, until the morrow-day; Blissfully heaven'd both from joy and pain; Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims

pray;

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

Stol'n to this paradise, and so entranced,
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress,
And listen'd to her breathing, if it chanced
To wake into a slumberous tenderness;
Which when he heard, that minute did he

bless, crept,

Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness,
And over the hush'd carpet, silent, stept,
And 'tween the curtains peep'd, where, lo!—
how fast she slept.

Then by the bed-side, where the faded moon
Made a dim, silver twilight, soft he set
A table, and, half anguish'd, threw thereon
A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet:-
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet!
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion,
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet,
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone:-
The hall-door shuts again, and all the noise.
is gone.

-

ear,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the

foam
Of perilous seas, in faery-lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:-do I wake or sleep?

FANCY.

EVER let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home:

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: what do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The scar faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy,

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,
Fancy, high-commission'd:-send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delight of summer-weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it :- thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn :
And, in the same moment-hark!
'Tis the early April-lark,

Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the Mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm ;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn-breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz'd at? where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.- Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.—
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

TO THE HERB ROSEMARY. SWEET-SCENTED flower! wont to bloom On January's front severe, And o'er the wintry desert drear To waft thy waste perfume!

Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, And I will bind thee round my brow;

And as I twine the mournful wreath, I'll weave a melancholy song; And sweet the strain shall be, and long, The melody of death!

Come, funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
And throw across the desert gloom
A sweet decaying smell!
Come, press my lips, and lie with me
Beneath the lowly alder-tree:

And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
And not a care shall dare intrude
To break the marble solitude,
So peaceful and so deep.

And hark! the wind-god, as he flies,
Moans hollow in the forest-trees,
And, sailing on the gusty breeze,
Mysterious music dies.

Sweet flower! that requiem wild is mine,
It warns me to the lonely shrine,

The cold turf-altar of the dead: My grave shall be in yon lone spot, Where, as I lie by all forgot,

A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.

TIME.

THE Night's my friend, my mistress, and my theme,

And she shall aid me now to magnify
The night of ages;-now when the pale ray
Of star-light penetrates the studious gloom.
And, at my window seated, while mankind
Are lock'd in sleep, I feel the freshening
breeze

Of stillness blow, while, in her saddest stole,
Thought, like a wakeful vestal at her shrine
Assumes her wonted sway. Behold! the world
Rests, and her tired inhabitants have paused
From trouble and turmoil. The widow now
Has ceased to weep, and her twin-orphans -
Lock'd in each arm, partakers of her rest
The man of sorrow has forgot his woes;
The outcast that his head is shelterless,
His griefs unshared.-The mother tends no

more

Her daughter's dying slumbers, but surprised
With heaviness, and sunk upon her couch
Dreams of her bridals. Even the hectic, lu -
On Death's lean arm to rest, in visions wrapt
Crowning with hope's bland wreath ba
shuddering nurse,
Poor victim! smiles. Silence and deep repar
Reign o'er the nations; and the warning va
Of Nature utters audibly within
The general moral— tells us that repost.

Death-like as this, but of far longer span,
Is coming on us-that the weary crowds,
Who now enjoy a temporary calm,
Shall soon taste lasting quiet, wrapt around
With grave-clothes; and their aching restless
heads

Mouldering in holes and corners unobserved, Till the last trump shall break their sullen sleep.

Who needs a teacher to admonish him That flesh is grass?—that earthly things are mist?

What are our joys but dreams? and what our hopes

But goodly shadows in the summer-cloud? There's not a wind that blows, but bears with it

Some rainbow promise,—not a moment flies
But puts its sickle in the fields of life,
And mows its thousands, with their joys
and cares.

'Tis but as yesterday since on yon stars Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd gazed,

In his mid-watch observant, and disposed The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shapes:

Yet in the interim what mighty shocks Have buffeted mankind! whole nations razed,

Cities made desolate,-the polish'd sunk To barbarism, and once barbaric states Swaying the wand of science and of arts; Illustrious deeds and memorable names Blotted from record, and upon the tongue Of gray tradition voluble no more.

Where are the heroes of the ages past? Where the brave chieftains, where the mighty ones

Who flourish'd in the infancy of days?
All to the grave gone down. On their fall'n

Of his red eye-ball.-Yesterday his name
Was mighty on the earth:-To-day, 'tis what?
The meteor of the night of distant years,
That flash'd unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld
Musing at midnight upon prophecies,
Who at her lonely lattice saw the gleam
Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly
Closed her pale lips, and lock'd the secret up
Safe in the charnel's treasures. - O how weak
Is mortal man! how trifling-how confined
His scope of vision! -Puff'd with confidence,
His phrase grows big with immortality,
And he, poor insect of a summer's day,
Dreams of eternal honours to his name,
Of endless glory, and perennial bays.
He idly reasons of eternity,

As of the train of ages,-when, alas!

Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Are, in comparison, a little point,
Too trivial for account.-0 it is strange,
'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies:
Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,
Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
And smile and say: My name shall live with
this

Till time shall be no more;-while at his feet,
Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
Of the fall'n fabric of the other day,
Preaches the solemn lesson. He should
know,

That Time must conquer; that the loudest blast

That ever fill'd renown's obstreperous trump,
Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom
Of the gigantic pyramid? or who
Rear'd its high walls?—Oblivion laughs and
says:

The prey is mine.-They sleep, and never

more

Their names shall strike upon the ear of man; Their memory burst its fetters.--Where is Rome?

She lives but in the tale of other times; Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home; And her long colonnades, her public walks, Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet, Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace, Thro' the rank moss reveal'd, her honour'd dust.

TO CONTEMPLATION.

COME, pensive sage, who lov'st to dwell
In some retired Lapponian cell,
Where, far from noise and riot rude,
Resides sequester'd Solitude.
Come, and o'er my longing soul
Throw thy dark and russet stole,
And open to my duteous eyes
The volume of thy mysteries.

I will meet thee on the hill,
Where, with printless footsteps still
The morning, in her askin gray,
Springs upon her eastern way;
| While the frolic zephyrs stir,
Playing with the gossamer,
And, on ruder pinions borne,
Shake the dew-drops from the thorn.
There, as o'er the fields we pass,
Brushing with hasty feet the grass,
We will startle from her nest
The lively lark with speckled breast,
And hear the floating clouds among
Her gale-transported matin-song,
Or on the upland stile embower'd,
With fragrant hawthorn snowy flower'd,
Will sauntering sit, and listen still
To the herdsman's oaten quill,