1811.

Dear the boon to fancy given,

Retracted while it's granted:

Sweet the rose which lives in heaven

(Although on earth 'tis planted);
Where its honours blow,

While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

Age cannot love destroy :

But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when, in most unwary hour,
It blooms in fancy's bower.

Age cannot love destroy:

But perfidy can rend the shrine

In which its vermeil splendours shine.

TO MARY, WHO DIED IN THIS OPINION.

MAIDEN, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye :

Firmness dare to borrow

From the wreck of destiny;

For the ray morn's bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue

As that which mocks concealing,

And sheds its loveliest light on you.

Yet is the tie departed
Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss?
Has it left thee brokenhearted

In a world so cold as this!

Yet, though, fainting fair one,

Sorrow's self thy cup has given,

Dream thou'lt meet thy dear one,

Never more to part, in heaven.

Existence would I barter
For a dream so dear as thine,
And smile to die a martyr
On affection's bloodless shrine.

Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,
If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.

MOTHER AND SON.

I.

SHE was an aged woman; and the years

Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray

Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,
Pressed into light by silent misery,

Hath soul's imperishable energy.

She was a cripple, and incapable

To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:

And therefore did her spirit dimly feel

That poverty, the crime of tainting stain, Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

II.

One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,

Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child
For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield-
Bend to another's will become a thing
More senseless than the sword of battlefield-

Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting; And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.

III.

For seven years did this poor woman live
In unparticipated solitude.

Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude
Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.
If human, thou mightst then have learned to feel.
The gleanings of precarious charity

Her scantiness of food did scarce supply.

The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt
Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:

Each arrow of the season's change she felt.
Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,
One only hope: it was-once more to see her son.

IV.

It was an eve of June, when every star
Spoke peace from heaven.—

She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eve

When first her soul began indeed to grieve:

Then he was there; now he is very far.
The sweetness of the balmy evening
A sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling,

Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear:

A balm was in the poison of the sting.

This aged sufferer for many a year

Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed A sigh-and, turning round, clasped William to her breast!

V.

And, though his form was wasted by the woe
Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak,
Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek

Of slavery's violence and scorn did speak,
Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow.
The vital fire seemed reillumed within
By this sweet unexpected welcoming.

Oh consummation of the fondest hope

That ever soared on fancy's wildest wing!

Oh tenderness that found'st so sweet a scope!
Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,

When thou canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!

VI.

Her son, compelled, the country's foes had fought,
Had bled in battle; and the stern control

Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul

Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl,
And unsubduable evils on him brought.
He was the shadow of the lusty child
Who, when the time of summer season smiled,
Did earn for her a meal of honesty,
And with affectionate discourse beguiled

The keen attacks of pain and poverty;
Till Power, as envying her this only joy,
From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.

VII.

And now cold charity's unwelcome dole
Was insufficient to support the pair;

And they would perish rather than would bear

The law's stern slavery, and the insolent stare
With which law loves to rend the poor man's soul-
The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noise

Of heartless mirth which women, men, and boys,
Wake in this scene of legal misery.

January 1812.

THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.

I.

BROTHERS! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar:

Yet in spirit oft I see

On thy wild and winding shore
Freedom's bloodless banners wave,—
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished in the grave,—

See them drenched in sacred gore,-
Catch the warrior's gasping breath
Murmuring "Liberty or death !”

II.

Shout aloud! Let every slave,

Crouching at Corruption's throne,

Start into a man, and brave

Racks and chains without a groan;
And the castle's heartless glow,
And the hovel's vice and woe,

Fade like gaudy flowers that blow-
Weeds that peep, and then are gone;
Whilst, from misery's ashes risen,
Love shall burst the captive's prison.

III.

Cotopaxi! bid the sound

Through thy sister mountains ring,
Till each valley smile around
At the blissful welcoming!

And O thou stern Ocean deep,
Thou whose foamy billows sweep
Shores where thousands wake to weep
Whilst they curse a villain king,
On the winds that fan thy breast
Bear thou news of Freedom's rest!

IV.

Ere the daystar dawn of love,

Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above

The fabric of a ruined world-
Never but to vengeance driven
When the patriot's spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native heaven!
There, to desolation hurled,
Widowed love may watch thy bier,
Balm thee with its dying tear.

14 February 1812.

TO IRELAND.

BEAR witness, Erin! when thine injured isle
Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy circling deep.
Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave
Peace, wealth, and beauty, to its friendly wave,
VOL. II.

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