Would it were fancy! but she's gone-
The truest, dearest, loveliest one

That e'er a nation's wishes bless'd
That e'er a husband's love possess'd;
Friend to the poor, the fatherless,
Friend to all virtue in distress!
But wherefore grieve we so?
There's selfishness in woe.

Angels of love, with gratulations high,
Welcome their sister-spirit to the sky :
O ever-living bride! all beauteous sprite !
With them thou dwell'st in everlasting light.
Not hers the glare of royalty-

The pride, or pomp of place;
But mild, domestic charity,

And every winning grace.

Yet Death has dimm'd the lustre of her eyes : In lifeless loveliness his victim lies;

Britannia, frantic, clasps her favourite's urn; Wit, Virtue, Beauty, for their darling mourn. But through the royal house,

No loud laments arise:

Silence that loathes repose

There stalks with tearful eyes.

Ne'er may our querulous complaints intrude On the lone mourner's sacred solitude:

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

TO

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.