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LUCY.

I TRAVELLED among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel

The joy of my desire;

And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;

And thine is too the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

THE PRAISE OF DAPHNE.

"TIS sung in ancient minstrelsy
That Phoebus wont to wear
"The leaves of any pleasant tree
Around his golden hair,'

Till Daphne, desperate with pursuit
Of his imperious love,

At her own prayer transformed, took root,
A laurel in the grove.

Then did the Penitent adorn

His brow with laurel green;
And 'mid his bright locks, never shorn,
No meaner leaf was seen;
And Poets sage, through every age,
About their temples wound

The bay; and Conquerors thanked the gods,

With laurel chaplets crowned.

Into the mists of fabling Time
So far runs back the praise

Of Beauty, that disdains to climb
Along forbidden ways;

That scorns temptation; power defies
Where mutual love is not;

And to the tomb for rescue flies
When life would be a blot.

TO MARY.

LET other bards of angels sing,
Bright suns without a spot;
But thou art no such perfect thing;
Rejoice that thou art not!

Such if thou wert in all men's view,
A universal show,

What would my fancy have to do
My feelings to bestow?

The world denies that thou art fair;
So, Mary, let it be,

If nought in loveliness compare
With what'thou art to me.

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SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. 1772-1834.

LOVE.

ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I,
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story-
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love,

Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

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She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms, She pressed me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see, The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

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ROBERT SOUTHEY.

1774-1843.

LOVE'S IMMORTALITY.

THEY sin who tell us Love can die!
With life all other passions fly;

All others are but vanity.
In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions, as of earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But Love is indestructible,

Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth:
For oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppressed,
It here is tried and purified,
And hath in heaven its perfect rest.
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the anxious night,
For all her sorrows, all her tears,
An overpayment of delight?

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WHEN the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies deadWhen the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render No song when the spirit is mute: No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest,
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possest.
O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high:
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.

VERSES FOUND IN BOTHWELL'S POCKET-BOOK.

"With these letters was a lock of hair, wrapped in a copy of verses, written obviously with a feeling which atoned, in Morton's opinion, for the roughness of the poetry, and the conceits with which it abounded, according to the taste of the period."

THY hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright,
As in that well-remembered night,
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whispered love.

Since then how often hast thou pressed
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to
dwell

With the first sin which peopled hell!
A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake's wild commo-
tion!-

Oh, if such clime thou canst endure,
Yet keep thy hue unstained and pure,
What conquest o'er each erring thought
Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
I had not wandered wild and wide,
With such an angel for my guide;
Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove

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Although we now can form no more Long schemes of life, as heretofore; Yet you, while time is running fast, Can look with joy on what is past.

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Were future happiness and pain A mere contrivance of the brain, As atheists argue, to entice And fit their proselytes for vice (The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes): Grant this the case; yet sure 'tis hard That virtue, styled its own reward, And by all sages understood To be the chief of human good, Should acting die, nor leave behind Some lasting pleasure in the mind, Which by remembrance will assuage Grief, sickness, poverty, and age, And strongly shoot a radiant dart To shine through life's declining part. Say, Stella, feel you no content, Reflecting on a life well spent? Your skilful hand employed to save Despairing wretches from the grave; And then supporting with your store Those whom you dragged from death beSo Providence on mortals waits, Preserving what it first creates. Your generous boldness to defend An innocent and absent friend; That courage, which can make you just To merit humbled in the dust; The detestation you express For vice in all its glittering dress; That patience under torturing pain, Where stubborn stoics would complain; Must these like empty shadows pass, Or forms reflected from a glass? Or mere chimæras in the mind, That fly, and leave no marks behind? Does not the body thrive and grow By food of twenty years ago? And, had it not been still supplied. It must a thousand times have died. Then who with reason can maintain That no effects of food remain ? And is not virtue in mankind The nutriment that feeds the mind; Upheld by each good action past, And still continued by the last? Then who with reason can pretend That all effects of virtue end?

Believe me, Stella, when you show That true contempt for things below, Nor prize your life for other ends Than merely to oblige your friends, Your former actions claim their part, And join to fortify your heart.

For virtue in her daily race,

Like Janus, bears a double face,—
Looks back with joy where she has gone,
And therefore goes with courage on.
She at your sickly couch will wait,
And guide you to a better state.

Oh, then, whatever Heaven intends,
Take pity on your pitying friends!
Nor let your ills affect your mind,
To fancy they can be unkind.
Me, surely me, you ought to spare,
Who gladly would your sufferings share,
Or give my scrap of life to you,
And think it far beneath your due;
You, to whose care so oft I owe
That I'm alive to tell you so.

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WILLIAM COWPER.

1731-1800.

ON THE RECEIPT OF MY
MOTHER'S PICTURE OUT
OF NORFOLK.

The Gift of my Cousin, Ann Bodham. OH that those lips had language! Life has passed

With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

Those lips are thine-thy own sweet smile I see,

The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, "Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"

The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize-
The art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim
To quench it!) here shines on me still the

same.

Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, O welcome guest, though unexpected here! Who bid'st me honour with an artless song,

Affectionate, a mother lost so long.

I will obey, not willingly alone,

But gladly, as the precept were her own;
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,
A momentary dream, that thou art she.
My mother! when I learned that thou
wast dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?

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