crown

With rapture thrilled; whose Youth revered the Sit loosely, like the thistle's crest of down;

To be blown off at will, by Power that spares it Of Saxon liberty that Alfred wore,

In cunning patience, from the head that wears it.
Alfred, dear Babe, thy great Progenitor !
-Not He, who from her mellowed practice drew Lost people, trained to theoretic feud !
His social sense of just, and fair, and true; Lost above all, ye labouring multitude !
And saw, thereafter, on the soil of France Bewildered whether ye, by slanderous tongues
Rash Polity begin her maniac dance,

Deceived, mistake calamities for wrongs;
Foundations broken up, the deeps run wild, And over fancied usurpations brood,
Nor grieved to see (himself not unbeguiled) - Oft snapping at revenge in sullen mood;
Woke from the dream, the dreamer to upbraid, Or, from long stress of real injuries fly
And learn how sanguine expectations fade

To desperation for a remedy;
When novel trusts by folly are betrayed,-

In bursts of outrage spread your judgments wide, To see Presumption, turning pale, refrain

And to your wrath cry out,“ Be thou our guide ;" From further havoc, but repent in vain,- Or, bound by oaths, come forth to tread earth's Good aims lie down, and perish in the road

floor
Where guilt had urged them on with ceaseless goad, In marshalled thousands, darkening street and moor
Proofs thickening round her that on public ends With the worst shape mock-patience ever wore;
Domestic virtue vitally depends,

Or, to the giddy top of self-esteem
That civic strife can turn the happiest hearth By Flatterers carried, mount into a dream
Into a grievous sore of self-tormenting earth. Of boundless suffrage, at whose sage behest

Justice shall rule, disorder be supprest,
Can such a One, dear Babe! though glad and And every man sit down as Plenty's Guest !
proud

-O for a bridle bitted with remorse To welcome thee, repel the fears that crowd To stop your Leaders in their headstrong course! Into his English breast, and spare to quake Oh may the Almighty scatter with his grace Less for his own than for thy innocent sake! These mists, and lead you to a safer place, Too lateor, should the providence of God By paths no human wisdom can foretrace ! Lead, through dark ways by sin and sorrow trod, May He pour round you, from worlds far above Justice and peace to a secure abode,

Man's feverish passions, his pure light of love, Too soon-thou com’st into this breathing world ; That quietly restores the natural mien Ensigns of mimic outrage are unfurled.

To hope, and makes truth willing to be seen! Who shall preserve or prop the tottering Realm? Else shall your blood-stained hands in frenzy reap What hand suffice to govern the state-helm? Fields gaily sown when promises were cheap.If, in the aims of men, the surest test

Why is the Past belied with wicked art, Of good or bad (whate'er be sought for or profest) The Future made to play so false a part, Lie in the means required, or ways ordained, Among a people famed for strength of mind, For compassing the end, else never gained ; Foremost in freedom, noblest of mankind ? Yet governors and govern'd both are blind We act as if we joyed in the sad tune To this plain truth, or fling it to the wind; Storms make in rising, valued in the moon If to expedience principle must bow;

Nought but her changes. Thus, ungrateful Nation ! Past, future, shrinking up beneath the incumbent If thou persist, and, scorning moderation, Now;

Spread for thyself the snares of tribulation, If cowardly concession still must feed

Whom, then, shall meekness guard! What saving The thirst for power in men who ne'er concede ;

skill Nor turn aside, unless to shape a way

Lie in forbearance, strength in standing still ? For domination at some riper day;

-Soon shall the widow (for the speed of Time If generous Loyalty must stand in awe

Nought equals when the hours are winged with Of subtle Treason, in his mask of law,

crime) Or with bravado insolent and hard,

Widow, or wife, implore on tremulous knee, Provoking punishment, to win reward ;

From him who judged her lord, a like decree; If office help the factious to conspire,

The skies will weep o'er old men desolate: And they who should extinguish, fan the fire Ye little-ones! Earth shudders at your fate, Then, will the sceptre be a straw, the crown Outcasts and homeless orphans

And what if thou, sweet May, hast known

Mishap by worm and blight;
If expectations newly blown

Have perished in thy sight;
If loves and joys, while up they sprung,

Were caught as in a snare;
Such is the lot of all the young,

However bright and fair.

With emblematic purity attired
In a white vest, white as her marble neck
Is, and the pillar of the throat would be
But for the shadow by the drooping chin
Cast into that recess—the tender shade
The shade and light, both there and every where,
And through the very atmosphere she breathes,
Broad, clear, and toned harmoniously, with skill
That might from nature have been learnt in the

hour
When the lone shepherd sees the morning spread
Upon the mountains. Look at her, whoe'er
Thou be that, kindling with a poet's soul,
Hast loved the painter's true Promethean craft
Intensely—from Imagination take
The treasure,—what mine eyes behold see thou,
Even though the Atlantic ocean roll between.

Lo! Streams that April could not check

Are patient of thy rule ;
Gurgling in foamy water-break,

Loitering in glassy pool:
By thee, thee only, could be sent

Such gentle mists as glide,
Curling with unconfirmed intent,

On that green mountain's side.

3

1826-1834.

How delicate the leafy veil

A silver line, that runs from brow to crown Through which yon house of God

And in the middle parts the braided hair, Gleams ’mid the peace of this deep dale

Just serves to show how delicate a soil By few but shepherds trod !

The golden harvest grows in; and those eyes, And lowly huts, near beaten ways,

Soft and capacious as a cloudless sky
No sooner stand attired

Whose azure depth their colour emulates,
In thy fresh wreaths, than they for praise Must needs be conversant with upward looks,
Peep forth, and are admired.

Prayer's voiceless service; but now, seeking nought

And shunning nought, their own peculiar life Season of fancy and of hope,

Of motion they renounce, and with the head Permit not for one hour,

Partake its inclination towards earth A blossom from thy crown to drop,

In humble grace, and quiet pensiveness
Nor add to it a flower!

Caught at the point where it stops short of sadness.
Keep, lovely May, as if by touch
Of self-restraining art,

Offspring of soul-bewitching Art, make me
This modest charm of not too much,

Thy confidant! say, whence derived that air
Part seen, imagined part !

Of calm abstraction? Can the ruling thought
Be with some lover far away, or one
Crossed by misfortune, or of doubted faith?
Inapt conjecture! Childhood here, a moon

Crescent in simple loveliness serene,
LINES

Has but approached the gates of womanhood,
Not entered them; her heart is yet unpierced

By the blind Archer-god; her fancy free:
F. STONE.

The fount of feeling, if unsought elsewhere,
Beguiled into forgetfulness of care

Will not be found. Due to the day's unfinished task; of pen

Her right hand, as it lies Or book regardless, and of that fair scene

Across the slender wrist of the left arm In Nature's prodigality displayed

Upon her lap reposing, holds—but mark Before my window, oftentimes and long

How slackly, for the absent mind permits I gaze upon a Portrait whose mild gleam

No firmer grasp—a little wild-flower, joined
Of beauty never ceases to enrich

As in a posy, with a few pale ears
The common light; whose stillness charms the air, of yellowing corn, the same that overtopped
Or seems to charm it, into like repose ;

And in their common birthplace sheltered it
Whose silence, for the pleasure of the ear, "Till they were plucked together; a blue flower
Surpasses sweetest music. There she sits

Called by the thrifty husbandman a weed;

XXXVIII.

SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT FROM THE PENCIL OF

1834.

XXXIX.

THE FOREGOING SUBJECT RESUMED.

But Ceres, in her garland, might have worn Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze
That ornament, unblamed. The floweret, held Upon this solemn Company unmoved
In scarcely conscious fingers, was, she knows, By shock of circumstance, or lapse of years,
(Her Father told her so) in youth's gay dawn Until I cannot but believe that they-
Her Mother's favourite; and the orphan Girl, They are in truth the Substance, we the Shadows."
In her own dawn-a dawn less gay and bright,
Loves it, while there in solitary peace

So spake the mild Jeronymite, his griefs
She sits, for that departed Mother's sake.

Melting away within him like a dream
-Not from a source less sacred is derived Ere he had ceased to gaze, perhaps to speak :
(Surely I do not err) that pensive air

And I, grown old, but in a happier land,
Of calm abstraction through the face diffused Domestic Portrait ! have to verse consigned
And the whole person.

In thy calm presence those heart-moving words:
Words have something told Words that can soothe, more than they agitate;
More than the pencil can, and verily

Whose spirit, like the angel that went down
More than is needed, but the precious Art Into Bethesda's pool, with healing virtue
Forgives their interference-Art divine,

Informs the fountain in the human breast
That both creates and fixes, in despite

Which by the visitation was disturbed.
Of Death and Time, the marvels it hath wrought. -But why this stealing tear? Companion mute,

On thee I look, not sorrowing ; fare thee well,
Strange contrasts have we in this world of ours ! My Song's Inspirer, once again farewell !*
That posture, and the look of filial love
Thinking of past and gone, with what is left
Dearly united, might be swept away
From this fair Portrait's fleshly Archetype,
Even by an innocent fancy's slightest freak
Banished, nor ever, haply, be restored
To their lost place, or meet in harmony

Among a grave fraternity of Monks,
So exquisite ; but here do they abide,

For One, but surely not for One alone,
Enshrined for ages. Is not then the Art

Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter's skill,
Godlike, a humble branch of the divine,

Humbling the body, to exalt the soul ;
In visible quest of immortality,

Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong
Stretched forth with trembling hope ?-In every and dissolution and decay, the warm
realm,

And breathing life of flesh, as if already
From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains,

Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
Thousands, in each variety of tongue

With no mean earnest of a heritage
That Europe knows, would echo this appeal;

Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too,
One above all, a Monk who waits on God

With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!
In the magnific Convent built of yore

From whose serene companionship I passed
To sanctify the Escurial palace. He-

Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still ; thou
Guiding, from cell to cell and room to room,

also—
A British Painter (eminent for truth

Though but a simple object, into light
In character, and depth of feeling, shown

Called forth by those affections that endear
By labours that have touched the hearts of kings,

The private hearth ; though keeping thy sole seat
And are endeared to simple cottagers)—

In singleness, and little tried by time,
Came, in that service, to a glorious work,

Creation, as it were, of yesterday-
Our Lord's Last Supper, beautiful as when first

With a congenial function art endued
The appropriate Picture, fresh from Titian's hand, For each and all of us, together joined
Graced the Refectory: and there, while both

In course of nature under a low roof
Stood with eyes fixed upon that masterpiece,
The hoary Father in the Stranger's ear

* The pile of buildings, composing the palace and con.
Breathed out these words :-“Here daily do we sit, vent of San Lorenzo, has, in common usage, lost its proper
Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here name in that of the Escurial, a village at the foot of the
Pondering the mischiefs of these restless times,

hill upon which the splendid edifice, built by Philip the

Second, stands. It need scarcely be added, that Wilkie is And thinking of my Brethren, dead, dispersed, the painter alluded to.