The flower is broken from its stem,

The ring has lost its only gem:

Oh! princely Claremont, wither'd be thy bowers;
Cold is the hand that cull'd thy fairest flowers:
Like them, in bloom of youth she died!
Go, tell it to the house of pride-

Mock the self-loving fair—

Go, whisper in the ear of kings,
(While Death aside the curtain flings,
And shows his victim there,

Cold, voiceless, joyless, motionless—)
How vain is human happiness!

Away, away! it is not meet

To view her in her winding-sheet:
I see her on her sapphire throne,

A circling halo is her crown,

A halo of eternal light:

How mild her features seem, and yet how heavenly

bright!

LINES

ΤΟ

THE MEMORY OF THE ILLUSTRIOUS CANOVA.

I.

WHERE is he now? an awful question! where?
'Mid spirits glorified in realms of light,

Viewing angelic shapes more dazzling there
Than those which gave him while on earth delight:
Such as appear'd unto his mental sight,

When he would dare create, what art alone
Like his could realize, a goddess bright,

A Hebe, or a Grace without her zone,

Or all that poets dream of beauty's queen, in stone.

II.

Whate'er of beautiful, high-minded Greece
Imagined, from Canova's chisel sprung:

And must that master-hand for ever cease

To mould those forms so graceful and so young,
In praise of which the mystic bards have sung?

S

Those forms, o'er which ideal loveliness

Is, as it were, by touch ethereal flung!
That hand, which in cold marble could express
All-perfect beauty, youth, eternal happiness!

III.

His delicate Hebe almost seems to move :
So light thy step, fair daughter of the skies!
Thou art the gentle power that waits on Jove :
Thou art the flower of youth that never dies.
Sure 'tis a spirit that delights our eyes!
But Psyche, a celestial lover's pride,
With her sweet rival in proportion vies;

While beaming, like a twin-star at her side,
Cupid, as finely wrought, clasps his life-giving bride.

IV.

O! 'tis a super-human skill that turns
To being such creations of the brain
As the fond worshipper of fancy burns
To paint in glowing colours, but in vain.
Look on these breathing marbles-look again-
They are the visions of our youth brought forth,
Though motionless, yet beautiful! no stain

Sullies their charms; they are not of this earth, But pure as when the bards' conceptions gave them birth.

V.

How o'er the sculptor's manly features play'd
The light of genius, as with modest zeal
He spoke of those immortal works survey'd
By him with raptures such as he must feel
To whom Art loves her secrets to reveal;
The Phidian fragments! beautiful—sublime,
Whence Art gives laws 'gainst which there's no appeal.
Such were man's labours in the olden time,

When freedom quicken'd thought, and a soul-wakening clime.

VI.

Yet in Canova's mind were nursed those fine

Imaginings, that, but by few possest,

We call, adoring their results, divine,

Since those who have them are indeed most blest

Of mortal beings, far above the rest.

The poetry of sculpture must be caught

From heaven it gives a feeling unexprest When bodied forth, to those by art untaught: "Tis an ambrosial flame-the very soul of thought.