Nor let a Queen, a matron pure and young,
And sweet as e'er by vagrant bard was sung,
Conspire with those who would, with eyeless rage,
Deface the relics of ancestral age;
But, as her duty, be it still her joy
All to improve, and nothing to destroy.
So Naworth stands, still rugged as of old,
Arm'd like a knight without, austerely bold;
But all within bespeaks the better day,
And the bland influence of a Morpeth's sway.
Oн for a man, I care not what he be,
A lord or labourer, so his soul be free,
Who had one spark of that celestial fire
That did the Prophets of old time inspire,
When Joel made the mystic trumpet cry,
When Jeremiah raised his voice on high,
And rapt Isaiah felt his great heart swell
With all the sins and woes of Israel!
Not such am I,—a petty man of rhyme,
Nursed in the softness of a female time.
From May of life to Autumn have I trod
The earth, not quite unconscious of my God;
But apter far to recognise his power
In sweet perfection of a pencill'd flower,
A kitten's gambols, or a birdie's nest,
A baby sleeping on its mother's breast,
Than in the fearful passages of life,—
The battle-field, the never-ceasing strife
Of policy that ever would be wise,
Dissecting truth into convenient lies,-
The gallows, or the press-gang, or the press,-
poor man's pittance, ever less and less,— The dread magnificence of ancient crime, Or the mean mischief of the present time. Yet there is something in my heart that would Become a witness to eternal good.
Woe to the man that wastes his wealth of mind,
And leaves no legacy to human kind!
I love my country well,-I love the hills,
I love the valleys and the vocal rills;
But most I love the men, the maids, the wives,
The myriad multitude of human lives.
THERE came a stream of music on my ear
From the dark centre of an aged wood,
Now muffled deep, and now ecstatic clear,
Bright as a prophecy of coming good.
I knew not, and I did not care to know,
What voice or what mechanic instrument
Utter'd the sounds, whose never-ending flow
[Sustain'd] my soul in such sublime content.
'Twas no small, light, and self-repeating air,
The close we guess before 'tis well begun ;
"Twas the united voice of everywhere,
Past, present, future, all in unison
It was a strain might usher in the birth
Of human life, and soothe its earliest cry, And sound the last farewell to mother earth,
When souls for heaven mature are glad to fly.
All elements of sound, and all the wealth
Of music's universal speech was there,
And ever and anon the wily stealth
Of Love was murmuring in the fitful air.
I HAVE WRITTEN MY NAME ON WATER.
THE PROPOSED INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMB OF JOHN KEATS.
AND if thou hast, where could'st thou write it better Than on the feeder of all lives that live?
The tide, the stream, will bear away the letter,
And all that formal is and fugitive:
Still shall thy Genius be a vital power,
Feeding the root of many a beauteous flower.
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,
Untimely wedded,-wedded, yet a maid;
And hast thou left no thought, no wish behind,
No sweet employment for the wandering wind.
Who would be proud to waft a sigh from thee,
Sweeter than aught he steals in Araby?
Thou wert immured, poor maiden, as I guess,
In the blank childhood of thy simpleness;
Too young to doubt, too pure to be ashamed,
Thou gavest to God what God had never claim'd,
And didst unweeting sign away thine all
Of earthly good,-a guiltless prodigal.
The large reversion of thine unborn love
Was sold to purchase an estate above.
Yet by thy hands, upon thy bosom prest,
I think, indeed, thou art not quite at rest;
That Christ that hangs upon the sculptured cross
Is not the Jesus to redeem thy loss;
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