ADVERTISEMENT.

A SMALL proportion of the Poems in this volume was prepared for the press by the Author. Of the remainder, it is probable that several have not received his last corrections; and that some were not intended for publication. But in making the selection from a much larger number, the Editor has had no guide but his own discretion. He has generally, but not uniformly, chosen such as appeared to him most finished. In some cases, he has seen in a hasty sketch sufficient interest to atone, in his opinion, for one or more weak or imperfect lines. A word here and there may have been mistaken from the imperfection of the manuscript; and better copies of some of the pieces, now first printed, may be in existence. These, and other inaccuracies, should such be detected, will, it is hoped, be pardoned in a posthumous publication.

The fine sonnets on 66 'Homer," and on "Freedom," are variations, and, as the Editor thinks, improvements upon those bearing the same name in the first volume, with which

it may be interesting to compare them.

ST. MARK'S COLLEGE, CHELSEA,

December 22nd, 1850.

SONNETS.

I.

TO S. T. COLERIDGE.

If when thou wert a living man, my sire,
I shrank unequal from the task to praise
The ripening worth of thy successive days,
What shall I do since that imputed fire,
Extinct its earthly aliment, doth aspire,
Purged from the passionate subject of all lays,
From all that fancy fashions and obeys,
Beyond the argument of mortal lyre?

and pain,

If while a militant and suffering saint,
Thou walk'dst the earth in penury
Thy great Idea was too high a strain
For my infirmity, how shall I dare
Thy perfect and immortal self to paint?
Less awful task to" draw empyreal air."

IL.

OH! my dear mother, art thou still awake?
Or art thou sleeping on thy Maker's arm,-
Waiting in slumber for the shrill alarm
Ordain'd to give the world its final shake?
Art thou with "interlunar night "opaque
Clad like a worm while waiting for its wings;
Or doth the shadow of departed things
Dwell on thy soul as on a breezeless lake!
Oh! would that I could see thee in thy heaven
For one brief hour, and know I was forgiven
For all the pain and doubt and rankling shame
Which I have caused to make thee weep or sigh.
Bootless the wish! for where thou art on high,
Sin casts no shadow, sorrow hath no name.

1845.

III.

HAST thou not seen an aged rifted tower,
Meet habitation for the Ghost of Time,
Where fearful ravage makes decay sublime,
And destitution wears the face of power?
Yet is the fabric deck'd with many a flower
Of fragrance wild, and many-dappled hue,
Gold streak'd with iron-brown and nodding blue,
Making each ruinous chink a fairy bower.
E'en such a thing methinks I fain would be,
Should Heaven appoint me to a lengthen’d age;
So old in look, that Young and Old may see
The record of my closing pilgrimage:

Yet, to the last, a rugged wrinkled thing

To which young sweetness may delight to cling!

IV.

LET me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my Being was an accident,

Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wish'd to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain
Hath its own mission, and is duly sent

To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent

'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main. very shadow of an insect's wing,

The

For which the violet cared not while it stay'd, Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,

Proved that the sun was shining by its shade: Then can a drop of the eternal spring,

Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?