I see the semblance of my private woe,
And tell it to the dilatory blast.

Yet will I hail the sunbeam as it flies,
And bid the universal world be glad ;
With my brief joy all souls shall sympathise-
And only I, will all alone be sad.

THOUGHTS.

Он, sacred Freedom! thou that art so fair,

That all, who once have seen thee, love thee ever,-Thou apparition, that hast been so rare

That wise men say thou wert embodied never,

And learned sages, doating on their lore,
Say thou hast been, and never shalt be more.

When Reason-that whate'er it is, must be-
Was tangled in the complex web of life,
And Sin, the fruit of that forbidden tree,

Made human choice an everlasting strife;

Then every Passion, native to the hour,

Claim'd Reason's privilege and Reason's power.

-

Yet some there are, and some that still have been,
Who feel, and hate, yet cannot cease to feel
The conscious issue of the cause unseen,

The fate that whirls around the restless wheel:
Some to the stars ascribe the inborn evil,
Some to the Gods, and others to the devil,

To live without a living soul,

To feel the spirit daily pining, Sinking beneath the base control

Of mindless chance, itself consigning

To the dull impulse of oppressive time,
To find the guilt without the power of crime.—

Such is the penance, and the meed

Of thoughts that, boasting to be free,
Spurning the dictates of a practic creed,
Are tangled with excess of liberty,
Making themselves sole arbiters of right,
Trampling on hallow'd use with proud delight.

Perchance they roam in Duty's sacred name,
Commission'd to erect the world anew ;—
All worldly ties, all interests they disclaim,

Sworn votaries of the beautiful and true;
But vainly deem their own device, in sooth,
The very substance of eternal truth.

Their duty still is Duty to deny,

To burst her bonds and cast her cords away; As some turn rebels for pure loyalty,

And some, to save the soul, the body slay:

If any

law they own, that law decrees,

That sovereign right is born of each man's phantasies.

"Twere woe to tell what lamentable wreck

Such dreams may bring upon the public weal,
If once restraint be broken from the neck
Of such as grossly think, and fiercely feel,
In whom the noble parts by Nature lent,
Are sway'd and biass'd from their kindly bent.

Thralls of the world, to whom the world affords
No hope but only this,-to toil for food,
And eat that they may toil-vassals of lords
With slavish minds and tyrant wills endued,
Whose only charity is selfish waste,
Whose brightest honour 'tis, to sin with taste.

The master of a slave is never free,

But still himself the slave of sensual fear:-
Woe to mankind,—for ever doom'd to be

The slaves of slaves. The only freedom here
Lives in the spirit that disowns the bands,
And dares refuse imperious Fate's commands.

From age to age, beneath the base control

Of servile time, we drudge in sloth or toil; If hope of freedom fire the indignant soul, Then follows terror wild, and bloody spoilMad Revolution, like a headlong flood, O'erwhelms alike the evil and the good.

ADDRESS

TO CERTAIN GOLD FISHES.

RESTLESS forms of living light
Quivering on your lucid wings,
Cheating still the curious sight
With a thousand shadowings;-
Various as the tints of even,
Gorgeous as the hues of heaven,
Reflected on your native streams
In flitting, flashing, billowy gleams!

Harmless warriors, clad in mail

Of silver breastplate, golden scale ;-
Mail of Nature's own bestowing,

With peaceful radiance mildly glowing,—

Fleet are ye, as fleetest galley
Or pirate rover sent from Sallee ;
Keener than the Tartar's arrow,

Sport ye in your sea so narrow.

Was the sun himself your sire?
Were ye born of vital fire?

Or of the shade of golden flowers,
Such as we fetch from eastern bowers,
To mock this murky clime of ours?
Upwards, downwards, now ye glance,
Weaving many a mazy dance;
Seeming still to grow in size
When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem,-
As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleam'd in far Cathay;

And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art

To drown the outcry of the heart;

It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,

Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,