EAR, wakeful bird! I bid thine accents hail,
When, like the voice of May, thy startling note
Comes wandering up the moonlit, grassy vale,

Or hill of springing corn, or reedy moat ;
Dearer I love thee than the classic throat,

Melodious, of the poet's nightingale,
When her aerial numbers wildly float,
Like fairy music, o'er some haunted dale.

'Tis thine to wake a sweeter harmony,

Thrilling the viewless chords of memory :-
To come upon the heart in silent hours,
Touching each trembling pulse deliciously;

Recalling vows of youth, Hope's budding flowers,
And visions of pure love in amaranthine bowers!

TO GENEVRA.

HY cheek is pale with thought, but not from

woe,

And yet so lovely, that if mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow ;-
And dazzle not thy deep blue eyes,—but oh!

While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes, low depending,
The soul of melancholy gentleness

Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;

At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

LAKE LEMAN.

JOUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and De

Staël

Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more Their memory thy remembrance would recall:

To them thy banks were lovely as to all,

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore

Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall

Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,

In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,

The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,

Which of the heirs of immortality

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!

CHILLON.

TERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind! Brightest in dungeons, Liberty, thou art— For there thy habitation is the heart— The heart which love of thee alone can bind; And when thy sons to fetters are consigned,

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar, for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

THE FIRE-FLY.

ELL us, O Guide, by what strange natural laws
This winged flower throws out, night after

night,

Such lunar brightness? Why,-for what grave cause Is this earth-insect crowned with heavenly light? Peace! Rest content! See where, by cliff and dell,

Past tangled forest-paths and silent river,
The little lustrous creature guides us well,
And where we fail, his small light aids us ever.
Night's charming servant! Pretty star of earth!
I ask not why thy lamp doth ever burn.
Perhaps it is thy very life,―thy mind;

And thou, if robbed of that strange right of birth,
Might be no more than Man, when death doth turn

His beauty into darkness, cold and blind.