TO W. C

WITH

A COPY OF "SCOTT'S LIFE OF NAPOLEON,"

AFTER HE AND THE AUTHOR HAD SPENT THE SUMMER

TOGETHER IN WALES.

I MEANT not to insult thy love,

As though it were not far above
Such homage venal souls can pay,—
As though it must be bribed to stay,
And were not that pure holy thing,

Fresh from the warm heart's warmest spring,

That asks not, and accepts not aught

Less worthy than a heart unbought,

The spirit's deep responsive tone,

That pays it with itself alone.

Yet must I plead, nor plead in vain, That 'mid the bright and gorgeous train

Of tomes, thy glittering shelves that grace,
My book may find a dwelling-place.

They bear to stranger's wondering eyes
Exulting honours' proud device,—

Mine but reveals to thee alone

A name unnoticed and unknown;

But which in future years may fling

A spell o'er thy lone heart's communing, And raise a sigh of sweet regret

For suns that may have long been set.

And as the storied page shall trace

The headlong victor's frantic race,

Thou wilt sigh for him, whose baleful star

Raised him above his kind so far,

Throned him on Glory's summit high,

In desolate sublimity,—

To him the blood-stained wreath assigned

The curse of having cursed mankind ;

And, prompt each meaner joy to send,
Denied Heaven's dearest boon-a friend.

Then shall thy full soul sweetly wander,

On calmer, happier scenes to ponder,
Contrasting with those troubled waters,

Darkened with crimes, profaned by slaughters,

Life's humbler streams, on whose sweet breast Religion's cloudless sunbeams rest

Those wavelets through the soft flowers stealing,

And by their light their course revealing.

Then, haply, on thy pensive eyes

Shall Cambria's misty mountains rise;

Where, cradled in its green recess,

Sleeps Aber's cottage loveliness,

When evening swathes in shadowy pall

The solitary waterfall,

Or loves its purple light to pour
Along the cliffs of Pen-man-mawr,

Or tinges with its last farewell

Y Wyddfa's naked pinnacle.

But chief shall memory mark the spot,
Where peace hath built her sylvan grot,
Where Mona still delights to lave

Her tresses in the sunny wave,

Shall tell of joys that pass'd o'er thee,

Like music o'er the midnight sea,

The walk at eve, or dewy dawn,

Traced frequent on the sea-washed lawn,

Shall to thy musing soul restore

Faces, thine eye may view no more;

Words, from the tongue that blithely part,

The boundings of the happy heart

Oh, cease-my own hath caught the spell;

It is too much,-farewell, farewell!

Cambridge. Dec. 19, 1827.

D D

PARODY ON

"THE BURIAL OF SIR J. MOORE."

Nor a laugh had been heard for three months or more,

On the drowsy air reported;

Not a creature had dared to assail the door

Of the room where our hero was sported.

He studied his Newton at dead of night,

The leaves with his lean fingers turning,

By the unsnuffed candles' misty light,
Or the pale lamp dimly burning.

Not a sigh was breathed, not a word was said,

Not a sign of visible sorrow;

But he anxiously glanced at his watch as he read,

And he bitterly thought of the morrow.