The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell

Comes articulate and presseth
On his ear like mother-tongue.

MODERN LOVE

AND what is love? It is a doll dress'd up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long,
Till Miss's comb is made a pearl tiara,

10

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;
Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,
And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.
Fools! if some passions high have warm'd the world,
If Queens and Soldiers have play'd deep for hearts,
It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.
Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I'll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

FRAGMENT OF "THE CASTLE BUILDER "

TO-NIGHT I'll have my friar-let me think
About my room,-I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,

To see what else the moon alone can show ;

While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees

10

A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;

A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol-bow, strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;

A skull upon a mat of roses lying,

Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower;-just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon,-the lights bring in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as tho' they had
Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet;
And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin."
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore 'tis sure a want of Attic taste
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece

And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought, 40 Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.

My ebon sofas should delicious be

With down from Leda's cygnet progeny.

My pictures all Salvator's, save a few

Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new,

Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.
My wine-O good! 'tis here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.

*

17 A viol, bow-strings torn, Houghton.

A SONG OF OPPOSITES

"Under the flag

Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms."-MILTON.

WELCOME joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!

I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.

Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;

Visage sage at pantomime;

Funeral, and steeple-chime;

10

Infant playing with a skull;

Morning fair, and shipwreck'd hull;

Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;

Cleopatra regal-dress'd

With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad d;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale ;-
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil ;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night-
Both together:-let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath'd with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.

SONNET

TO A CAT

CAT! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd ?-How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears-but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me-and upraise

Thy gentle mew-and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists-
For all the wheezy asthma,-and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off-and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists

In youth thou enter'dst on glass bottled wall.

10

LINES ON SEEING A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR

CHIEF of organic numbers!

Old Scholar of the Spheres!

Thy spirit never slumbers,

But rolls about our ears,
For ever, and for ever!

O what a mad endeavour

Worketh he,

Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse
And melody.

How heavenward thou soundest,
Live Temple of sweet noise,
And Discord unconfoundest,
Giving Delight new joys,
And Pleasure nobler pinions!
O, where are thy dominions?
Lend thine ear

10

Sonnet to a Cat] Sonnet on Mrs. Reynolds's Cat. Woodhouse. Milton's Hair] 12 O living fane of Sounds- Draft, cancelled.

To a young Delian oath,-aye, by thy soul,
By all that from thy mortal lips did roll,
And by the kernel of thine earthly love,
Beauty, in things on earth, and things above
I swear!

When every childish fashion

Has vanish'd from my rhyme,
Will I grey-gone in passion,

Leave to an after-time,

Hymning and harmony

Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life;
But vain is now the burning and the strife,
Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife

With old Philosophy,

And mad with glimpses of futurity!

20

30

For many years my offering must be hush'd;
When I do speak, I'll think upon this hour,
Because I feel my forehead hot and flush'd,
Even at the simplest vassal of thy power,-
A lock of thy bright hair,—
Sudden it came,

And I was startled, when I caught thy name
Coupled so unaware;

Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood.
I thought I had beheld it from the flood.

40

SONNET

ON SITTING DOWN TO READ KING LEAR ONCE AGAIN

O GOLDEN tongued Romance, with serene lute!
Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away!
Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute

Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit: