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,

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.

THE WOOD NYMPH.

SAW you the Wood-nymph pass this way,
As light in her step as a spirit of air,
With cheeks all glowing, and look so gay,
While the breeze plays with her beautiful hair?

Nature alone can give the grace

That tempers vivacity in her fair form;

Like Dian she moves, but her lovely face
With rose-hues Dione might envy is warm.

She bounded along like the gentle fawn

Through the glade, then rapidly glided away: Thus vanish the fairies at break of dawn,

When their revels have ended beneath the moon's ray.

THE CIGAR.

"EX FUMO DARE LUCEM."

CIGAR, thou comfort of my life,
With joy I taste thy fragrant leaf;

It soothes me when my heart's at strife
With the world's cares; it gives relief
When at an inn in lonely hour

Blue devils rush before my sight;
Its sweet intoxicating power

Turns devils into angels bright:
The cold that chills my feeble frame,
As damps arise, it soon dispels;
In thee composure, or what name
Does better suit the feeling, dwells.

A self-complacency that creeps
O'er all the senses, thou alone

Canst give; till every passion sleeps,
And thought assumes a milder tone.

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