Who let me taste that more than cordial dram,
The sharp, the rapier-pointed epigram?

Show'd me that epic was of all the king,

Round, vast, and spanning all, like Saturn's ring?
You too upheld the veil from Clio's beauty,
And pointed out the patriot's stern duty;
The might of Alfred, and the shaft of Tell;
The hand of Brutus, that so grandly fell

Upon a tyrant's head. Ah! had I never seen,
Or known your kindness, what might I have been?
What my enjoyments in my youthful years,
Bereft of all that now my life endears?
And can I e'er these benefits forget?
And can I e'er repay the friendly debt?

No, doubly no ;—yet should these rhymings please,
I shall roll on the grass with two-fold ease;
For I have long time been my fancy feeding

With hopes that you would one day think the reading
Of my rough verses not an hour mispent ;
Should it e'er be so, what a rich content!

Some weeks have pass'd since last I saw the spires
In lucent Thames reflected:-warm desires
To see the sun o'er-peep the eastern dimness,
And morning-shadows streaking into slimness.
Across the lawny fields, and pebbly water;
To mark the time as they grow broad and shorter;
To feel the air that plays about the hills,
And sips its freshness from the little rills;
To see high, golden corn wave in the light
When Cynthia smiles upon a summer's night,
And peers among the cloudlets, jet and white,
As though she were reclining in a bed
Of bean-blossoms, in heaven freshly shed.

No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasures,
Than I began to think of rhymes and measures;
The air that floated by me seem'd to say,
"Write! thou wilt never have a better day."
And so I did. When many lines I'd written,
Though with their grace I was not oversmitten,
Yet, as my hand was warm, I thought I'd better
Trust to my feelings, and write you a letter.
Such an attempt required an inspiration
Of a peculiar sort,- -a consummation ;—
Which, had I felt, these scribblings might have been
Verses from which the soul would never wean;
But many days have passed since last my heart
Was warm'd luxuriously by divine Mozart;
By Arne delighted, or by Handel madden'd;
Or by the song of Erin pierced and sadden'd:
What time you were before the music sitting,
And the rich notes to each sensation fitting.
Since I have walk'd with you through shady lanes
That freshly terminate in open plains,

And revell'd in a chat that ceased not,

When, at night-fall, among your books we got:
No, nor when supper came, nor after that,—
Nor when reluctantly I took my hat;

No, nor till cordially you shook my hand

Mid-way between our homes:-your accents bland
Still sounded in my ears, when I no more

Could hear your footsteps touch the gravelly floor.
Sometimes I lost them, and then found again;
You changed the foot-path for the grassy plain.
In those still moments I have wish'd you joys
That well you know to honor:-"Life's very toys

With him," said I, "will take a pleasant charm;
It cannot be that aught will work him harm.”
These thoughts now come o'er me with all their might :-
Again I shake your hand,-friend Charles, good night.
September, 1816.

STANZAS.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,

Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;

But with a sweet forgetting,

They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 't were so with many

A gentle girl and boy!

But were there ever any

Writhed not at passed joy?

To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steal it,
Was never said in rhyme.

END OF PART II.