ON A PICTURE OF A VERY YOUNG NUN, NOT READING A DEVOTIONAL BOOK, AND NOT CONTEMPLATING A CRUCIFIX PLACED BESIDE HER. So young, too young, consign'd to cloistral shade, And hast thou left no thought, no wish behind, Thou wert immured, poor maiden, as I guess, Nor will that book, whate'er its page contain, Thou wert intended to be loved and love. Poor maiden! victim of the vilest craft At which e'er Moloch grinn'd or Belial laugh'd, And all thy sighs be register'd in Heaven, To what thou should'st have been, and what thou art! BEAUTY. OH! why is beauty still a bud unfolding, Nay, beauty is with thee the power of life, He dream'd of beauty, and he wish'd to see A form to be the substance of his dream; So want begot a child of vacancy, And that now is which did before but seem. Adam did love before he look'd on Eve; He found himself unblest in Eden's bower. A love there is that does not yet conceive Its own existence: 'tis a simple power,- A power that most does recognise its might In weakness, want, and everlasting yearning; Whose heaven is soaring, seeking, endless flight, Whose hell is thirst and everlasting burning. For what is hell, but an eternal thirst, And burning for the bounty once rejected? And what is heaven, but God on earth rehearsed, In the calm centre of the Lord perfected? Then ask not why is beauty but a bud, That never more than half itself discloses ; Sweet flower, like thee is every human good, And love divine is seen in unblown roses. FAIRY LAND. YES, I am old, and older yet must be, Drifting along the everlasting sea; And yet, through puzzling light and perilous dark, I bear with me, as in a lonely ark, A precious cargo of dear memory; For, though I never was a citizen, And ne'er believed the phantom of the few Yet I have loved sweet things, that are not now, I never thought they were; and therefore now No doubt obscures the memory dream. of my |