WELL! thou art happy, and I feel
That I should thus be happy too;
For still my heart regards thy weal
Warmly, as it was wont to do,

Thy husband's blest-and 't will impart
Some pangs to view his happier lot:
But let them pass-Oh! how my heart

Would hate him, if he loved thee not!

When late I saw thy favourite child,

I thought my jealous heart would break;
But when the unconscious infant smiled,
I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake.

I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs
Its father in its face to see;
But then it had its mother's eyes,
And they were all to love and me.

Mary, adieu! I must away:

While thou art blest I'll not repine; But near thee I can never stay;

My heart would soon again be thine.

I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride
Had quench'd at length my boyish flame;
Nor knew, till seated by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same.

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.

In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd,
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride:
In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.

Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd,
Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!)
Through clouds of fire, the massy fragments riven,
Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven,
Saw the long columu of revolving flames

Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,
While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome,
Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home,
As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone
The skies with lightnings awful as their own,
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall
Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall;
Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile,
Rear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle,
Know the same favour which the former knew,
A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you?
Yes-it shall be the magic of that name
Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame;
On the same spot still consecrates the scene,
And bids the Drama be where she hath been:
This fabric's birth attests the potent spell-
Indulge our honest pride, and say, How well'
As soars this fane to emulate the last,
Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast
Names such as hallow still the dome we lost.
On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art
O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest heart.
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew;
Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,
Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu:
But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom
That only waste their odours o'er the tomb.
Such Drury claim'd and claims-nor you refuse
One tribute to revive his slumbering muse;
With garlands deck your own Menander's head!
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead!

Dear are the days which made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write.
Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,
Vain of our ancestry, as they of theirs;
While thus remembrance borrows Banquo's glass,
To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass,
And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine
Immortal names, emblazon'd on our line,
Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn,
Reflect how hard the task to rival them!

Friends of the stage! to whom both players and plays
Must sue alike for pardon or for praise,
Whose judging voice and eye alone direct
The boundless power to cherish or reject;
If e'er frivolity has led to fame,

And made us blush that you forbore to blame;
If e'er the sinking stage could condescend
To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend,
All past reproach may present scenes refute,
And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute!
Oh ! since your fiat stamps the drama's laws,
Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause:
So pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,
And reason's voice be echo'd back by ours!

This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd,
The Drama's homage by her herald paid,
Receive our welcome too, whose every tone

Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises-may our stage unfold

Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old!
Britons our judges, nature for our guide,

Still may we please-long, long may you preside!

TO TIME.

TIME' on whose arbitrary wing

The varying hours must flag or fly, Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring. But drag or drive us on to dieHail thon! who on my birth bestow'd Those boons to all that know thee known;

Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thon hast given;

And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare,
All that I loved, to peace or heaven,
To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet een that pain was some relief;

It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight

Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee-not Eternity.

That beam hath sunk; and now thou art
A blank-a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform;
The limit of thy sloth or speed,
When future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed: And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon-a nameless stone!

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without

The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my woe,

I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew:
Alas! I find them poison'd too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net,
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing

Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,

I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,

Can neither feel nor pity pain;

The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting hp, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!

And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.

Oh, God! that we had met in time,

Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free; When thou hadst loved without a crime, And I been less unworthy thee!

Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And, that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last!
This heart, alas! perverted long,

Itself destroy'd might there destroy,
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake presumption's hope of joy.
Then to the things whose bliss or woe,
Like mine, is wild and worthless all,
That world resign-such scenes forego,
Where those who feel must surely fall.

Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness,
Thy soul from long seclusion pure,
From what even here hath past, may guess,
What there thy bosom must endure.

Oh! pardon that imploring tear,

Since not by virtue shed in vain, My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;

For me they shall not weep again.

Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still, had I loved thee less, my heart

Had then less sacrificed to thine;

It felt not half so much to part,
As if its guilt had made thee mine.

LINES

INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL.

START not-nor deem my spirit tled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee;
I died; let earth my bones resign:

Fill up-thou canst not injure me;

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;

And circle in the gobler's shape

The drink of gods, than reptiles' food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst-another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,

And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not? since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.
Newstead Abbey, 1808.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.
THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,

And triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is sorrow's purest sigh

Oer ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie-

All earth becomes their monument!

A tomb is theirs on every page,

An epitaph on every tongue;
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.
For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep remembrance pours to worth

The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined

Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be; And early valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell. Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherish'd name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While griefs full heart is fed by fame. Alas! for them, though not for thee,

They cannot chuse but weep the more; Deep for the dead the grief must be

Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

FROM THE TURKISH.
THE chain I gave was fair to view,
The lute I added sweet in sound,
The heart that offer'd both was true,
And ill deserved the fate it found.
These gifts were charm'd by secret spell
Thy truth in absence to divine;
And they have done their duty well,

Alas! they could not teach thee thine.
That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch;
That lute was sweet-till thou couldst think
In other hands its notes were such.

Let him, who from thy neck unbound
The chain which shiver'd in his grasp,
Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp.
When thou wert changed, they alter'd too ;
The chain is broke, the music mute:
'Tis past-to them and thee adieu-
False heart, frail chain, and silent lute.

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, And the wan lustre of thy features-caught From contemplation-where serenely wrought, Seems sorrow's softness charm'd from its despairHave thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That--but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thoughtI should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent)

The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn―

Such seem'st thou-but how much more excellent! With nought remorse can claim-nor virtue scorn.

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

Tuy 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 bleuding,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

INSCRIPTION

ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

WHEN Some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,