ON THE DEATH OF HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE.

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND.

GREAT joy was mine to hear a second hope,

Another little maid, was born to thee,

On whom

your elder darling needs must look

With some surprise, as on a legacy

From some old miser uncle never seen.

And when I learned that, on the self-same day

That gave that pure ideal of new life,

A softly-breathing infant, to the air,

The vow confirmed had made among thy kindred

A serious matron of a maiden gay,

I did design a furious gush of song,

A

merry multiplicity of rhymes,

Where little sense were needed, save the sense,
That one delight is in a score of souls.

But death had struck me; God had called away
One whom the world, and I among the world,
Had augured to an honest course of glory;

Whose earliest youth was crowned with laureate wreath
On the proud banks of Isis and of Cam;

VOL. II.

N

Eton's prime scholar, and the youth adroit
To turn the nicest phrases of the Greeks,
The very quintessence of Roman speech,
To modern meanings and to modish arts,
Which neither Greek nor Roman ever knew.
Vain knowledge this, unprofitable skill,
So may you think, and truly would you say,
But that the mind thus curiously trained
In the pure beauty of Hellenic art,
And grandeur elegant of gorgeous Rome,
Becomes to beauty feelingly awake,

Nice to perceive, glad to believe and love
Whate'er of beautiful abides in forms,

Hues, sounds, emotions of the moral heart,
Feeling a universal harmony

Of all good things seen, or surpassing sense,
And for the love of all that lovely is,
And for a dauntless spirit unsubdued

By a too general lack of sympathy

Fighting for truth. My sister loved him well!

She was a maid-alas! a widow now

Not easily beguiled by loving words,

Nor quick to love; but, when she loved, the fate Of her affection was a stern religion,

Admitting nought less holy than itself.

Seven years of patience, and a late consent
Won for the pair their all of hope. I saw
My sweetest sister in her honeymoon,
And then she was so pensive and so meek
That now I know there was an angel with her
That cried, Beware!

But he is gone, and all

The fondest passages of wedded life

And mutual fondling of their progeny,

And hopes together felt, and prayers when both
Blended their precious incenses, and the wish
That they together might behold the growth
And early fruit, most holy and approved,
Of their two darlings, sinks in viewless night
And is no more.

Thus ever in this world are joy and woe;
The one before, the other hurrying after,
And "cadent tears" are ever prone to flow
In the quaint channels that are made by laughter.

Jan. 28, 1843.

AGNES.

In an old house, a country dwelling, nigh
A river, chafed by many a wave-worn stone,
A good man kept old hospitality,

With a warm purse well filled by industry
And prosperous dealings in the torrid zone.

His spouse was comely, stricken well in years;
His daughters' faces lighted all the house,
And they had tongues as well as eyes and ears.
But one there was, the youngest of the dears,
A child sedate, as still as any mouse.

Still as a little timid mouse she sat;
And yet her stillness seemed not to be fear,
Like mouse's hiding from the whisker'd cat.
Oh no! whate'er the subject of our chat,
She seemed to drink it in with eye and ear.

I cannot say she had a speaking eye,

For when my eye with hers would fain converse,
She would begin her needle's task to ply,
Stirring her little fingers busily;

And, wanting work, the kitten would she nurse.

Soon as she could, she unobserved withdrew,
Determined of my purpose to defeat me.
And yet I loved her, as I always do

All pretty maids that are too young to woo,
However scurvily they choose to treat me.

Years have gone by, her worthy father dead,
And she could deem herself a child no longer.
Who can conceive what thoughts in her were

bred,

When she beheld her elder sisters wed,

And womanhood in her grew daily stronger?

Or did she feel a warning in her heart,
An inward clock, that timely struck eleven,
And said, sweet Agnes, tender as thou art,
One hour is thine; be ready to depart;

Thy spouse affianced waits for thee in heaven ?