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SONNET III.

ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such an hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks, to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
O conquer what you cannot satiate !
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

SONNET IV.

LIFT not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread:-behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin destinies; who ever weave
The shadows, which the world calls substance, there.

I knew one who had lifted it-he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

A SONG.

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind kept on above,
The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flower upon the ground,

And little motion in the air

Except the mill-wheel's sound.

TO E*** y***

MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet basil and mignionette?

Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath might be.

Alas, and they are wet!

Is it with thy kisses or thy tears?
For never rain or dew

Such flagrance drew

From plant or flower-the very doubt endears

My sadness ever new,

The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee.

March, 1821.

A DIRGE.

ROUGH wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;

Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
Bare woods, whose branches stain,
Deep caves and dreary main,

Wail, for the world's wrong!

LINES.

FAR, far away, O ye
Halcyons of memory,

Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast;-
No news of your false spring
To my heart's winter bring,
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.

Vultures, who build your bowers
High in the Future's towers,
Withered hopes on hopes are spread,

Dying joys choked by the dead,
Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;

Solemn hours! wail aloud"

For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the year:-be calm and mild,
Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave
And April weeps-but, O, ye hours,
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

January 1st, 1821.

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