LINES.

I.

THAT time is dead for ever, child,
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past

And stare aghast

At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast, Of hopes which thou and I beguiled To death on life's dark river.

II.

The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ;

Its waves are unreturning;

But we yet stand

In a lone land,

Like tombs to mark the

memory

Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee

In the light of life's dim morning.

DEATH.

I.

THEY die

the dead return not― Misery

Sits near an open grave and calls them over, A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye

They are the names of kindred, friend and lover, Which he so feebly calls—they all are gone! Fond wretch, all dead, those vacant names alone, This most familiar scene, my pain

These tombs alone remain.

Misery, my sweetest friend

II.

Thou wilt not be consoled

oh! weep no more! I wonder not!

For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door
Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot
Was even as bright and calm, but transitory,
And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;
This most familiar scene, my pain —

These tombs alone remain.

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

I.

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it, The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thou delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,
And the winds are loose, we must not stay,
Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II.

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.

To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee

Because we are fearless and free.

III.

Come thou, beloved as thou art ;

Another sleepeth still

Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart,

Which thou with joy shalt fill,

With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be

The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV.

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells ;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

V.

Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?

There sit between us two, thou dearest
Me and thy mother well we know

The storm at which thou tremblest so,

With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves

Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

VI.

This hour will in thy memory
Be a dream of days forgotten long,
We soon shall dwell by the azure sea
Of serene and golden Italy,

Or Greece, the Mother of the free;
And I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old
In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame
Of Grecian lore, that by such name
A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim !

LINES TO A CRITIC.

I.

HONEY from silkworms who can gather, Or silk from the yellow bee?

The grass may grow in winter weather

As soon as hate in me.

II.

Hate men who cant, and men who pray,

And men who rail like thee;