TAGLIONI.

How gracefully she now advances ! see
That step so firm, so elegant, and free!
Now move with an inimitable ease

Her lovely limbs-no effort hers to please!
'Tis the perfection of all art-conceal'd,-

The grace and energy of life reveal'd;

While sylph and sylphid, beauteous girl and boy,

Hover around her, prodigal of joy.

This union of repose and power combined

Once co-existed in the Sculptor's mind,

When at his call divinities awoke

From marble, and to hearts, though silent, spoke.

A COMPARISON.

A SUN impurpled glow

Is on the waveless sea, And not a breeze doth blow, And not a sail I see.

Like heaven's own pavement bright,*

Is now the placid deep, On which the farewell light

Of sunset loves to sleep.

TO A LARK.

THE hymeneal chant

While youthful hearts do pant,

Rising like incense rich around a bridegroom king,

Its strains cannot compare

With thine for notes so rare,

That from thy joyous heart exultingly do spring.

Thy music is thine own;

A soul-enchanting tone,

By ecstacy inbreathed, when thou wast born, to be A soaring song of Love

Embodied, that above

Mocks our most vivid joys with its aërial glee.

ON

THE FALL OF THE LEAVES.

THEY lie commingling with the earth that late
In rich luxuriance o'er the trees display'd
Their leafy grandeur; in another year

Others will be as beautiful, and sear.

My friends around me fall, by death's rude blast
Blown rapidly away; and some in prime

Of verdant youth. And are they lost amid
The common dust? No. This most lovely eve,
When not a gauze cloud through the atmosphere
Melts gradually away, gives to my heart
A consolation, a prophetic hope

That they shall be again as flourishing

As e'er on earth, in heaven, and happier far.
The after-radiance of the blessed sun
Wakes in my soul a melancholy joy :

I hail the omen, sorrow for the loss

Of dearest friends, but joy that they are blest.
This "woody theatre,"* that circles now

*"A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend

Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view."-MILTON.

My good old mansion, shall resound no more
With my friend's social laugh, and cheerful horn.
He's gone whose presence dissipated spleen

And head-ache, and the "numerous ills that flesh
Is heir to." While the night-dew damps my brow,
I fancy that I see his presence near,

Smiling with wonted cheerfulness on me :

I know that manly form, but, Oh! how pale

Those cheeks, that once with health's rich colour glow'd! Mild as the moon in the deep blue of heaven

Looks gentleness above the quiet grove,

He looks, dear

I'll remember thee

And thy society,-alas, how brief!

And hope for thy companionship again

In worlds which here conjecture vainly strives
To bring before the mind, but worlds of bliss.

October, 1830.