FANCY IN NUBIBUS.

IT is pleasant, with a heart at ease,
Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies,

To make the shifting clouds be what you please,

Or let the easily-persuaded eyes

Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould

Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low

And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold

'Twixt crimson banks; and then, a traveller, go

From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! Or listening to the tide, with closed sight,

Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand

By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,

Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee

Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

THE AUTUMNAL MOON.

ILD splendour of the various-vested Night!
Mother of wildly-working-visions! hail!

I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
Behind the gathered blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
Thy placid lightning o'er the awakened sky.
Ah such is Hope! as changeful and as fair!
Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-winged Despair;
But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o'er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

FAREWELL TO LOVE.

AREWELL, sweet Love! yet blame you not

my truth:

More fondly ne'er did mother eye her child Than I your form. Yours were my hopes of youth, And as you shaped my thoughts, I sighed or smiled. While most were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving To pleasure's secret haunts, and some apart Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving, Το you I gave my whole, weak, wishing heart.

And when I met the maid that realized

Your fair creations, and had won her kindness,
Say but for her if aught on earth I prized!

Your dream alone I dreamt, and caught your blindness.
O grief!—but farewell, Love! I will go play me
With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me.

ASK not riches, and I ask not power,
Nor in her revel rout shall Pleasure view

Me ever,—a far sweeter nymph I woo.

Hail, sweet Retirement! lead me to thy bower, Where fair Content has spread her loveliest flower, Of more enduring, though less gaudy hue, Than Pleasure scatters to her giddy crew; Nor let aught break upon thy sacred hour, Save some true friend, of pure congenial soul; To such the latchet of my wicket-gate Let me lift freely, glad to share the dole Fortune allows me, whether small or great, And a warm heart, that knows not the control Of Fortune, and defies the frown of Fate.

GOD! have mercy in this dreadful hour
On the poor mariner! in comfort here

Safe sheltered as I am, I almost fear

The blast that rages with resistless power.
What were it now to toss upon the waves,

The maddened waves, and know no succour near :
The howling of the storm alone to hear,
And the wild sea that to the tempest raves;
To gaze amid the horrors of the night
And only see the billow's gleaming light;

Then in the dread of death to think of her
Who, as she listens sleepless to the gale,
Puts up a silent prayer and waxes pale,—
'O God! have mercy on the mariner !'