Such once was hers-to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!

But nature to its inmost part

Faith had refined; and to her heart

A peaceful cradle given:

Calm as the dew-drop's, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose's breast
Till it exhales to Heaven.

Was ever Spirit that could bend
So graciously?-that could descend,
Another's need to suit,

So promptly from her lofty throne ?-
In works of love, in these alone,
How restless, how minute!

Pale was her hue; yet mortal cheek
Ne'er kindled with a livelier streak
When aught had suffered wrong,

When aught that breathes had felt a wound,
Such look the Oppressor might confound,

However proud and strong.

But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things;

Her quiet is secure;

No thorns can pierce her tender feet,
Whose life was, like the violet, sweet,

As climbing jasmine, pure ;—

Or snowdrop on an infant's grave,
Or lily heaving with the wave
That feeds it and defends;

As Vesper, ere the star hath kissed

The mountain top, or breathed the mist That from the vale ascends.

Thou takest not away, O Death!
Thou strik'st-and absence perisheth,
Indifference is no more;

The future brightens on our sight;
For on the past hath fallen a light
That tempts us to adore.

EXTEMPORE EFFUSION

UPON THE DEATH OF

JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

WHEN first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,

The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.

When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the border minstrel led.

The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes:

Nor has the rolling year twice measured
From sign to sign, its steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source;

The 'rapt One, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.

Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!

Yet I, whose lids from infant slumbers
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
"Who next will drop and disappear?"

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,
On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead's breezy heath.

As if but yesterday departed,

Thou too art gone before; but why,
O'er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?

Mourn rather for that holy Spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep;
For Her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.

No more of old romantic sorrows,

For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,

And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.*

Nov. 1835.

*Walter Scott died 21st Sept. 1832.

S. T. Coleridge
Charles Lamb

George Crabbe
Felicia Hemans

25th July, 1834.

27th Dec. 1834.
3d Feb. 1832.
16th May, 1835.