I see the semblance of my private woe, Yet will I hail the sunbeam as it flies, 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, When Reason-that whate'er it is, must be- 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, The fate that whirls around the restless wheel: 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, Such is the penance, and the meed Of thoughts that, boasting to be free, Perchance they roam in Duty's sacred name, Sworn votaries of the beautiful and true; 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, Thralls of the world, to whom the world affords The master of a slave is never free, But still himself the slave of sensual fear:- The slaves of slaves. The only freedom here 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 Harmless warriors, clad in mail Of silver breastplate, golden scale ;- With peaceful radiance mildly glowing,— Fleet are ye, as fleetest galley Sport ye in your sea so narrow. Was the sun himself your sire? Or of the shade of golden flowers, And yet, since on this hapless earth To drown the outcry of the heart; It may be, that your ceaseless gambols, Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles, |