POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816.

THE SUNSET.

THERE late was One, within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky,
Genius and death contended. None may know
The sweetness of the joy which made his breath
Fail, like the trances of the summer air,
When, with the Lady of his love, who then
First knew the unreserve of mingled being,
He walked along the pathway of a field,
Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er,
But to the west was open to the sky.
There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold
Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points
Of the far level grass and nodding flowers,
And the old dandelion's hoary beard,
And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay
On the brown massy woods—and in the east
The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose
Between the black trunks of the crowded trees,
While the faint stars were gathering overhead.
“Is it not strange, Isabel,” said the youth,
“ I never saw the sun ? We will walk here
“ To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.”

That night the youth and lady mingled lay
In love and sleep—but when the morning came
The lady found her lover dead and cold.
Let none believe that God in mercy gave
That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild,
But year by year lived on--in truth I think
Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles,
And that she did not die, but lived to tend
Her aged father, were a kind of madness,
If madness 'tis to be unlike the world.
For but to see her were to read the tale
Woren by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts
Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;-
Her eye-lashes were torn away with tears,
Her lips and cheeks were like things dead-se

pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering

veins And weak articulations might be seen Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!

“ Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm, and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, O, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; O, that like thine, mine epitaph were—Peace!” This was the only moan she ever made.

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.

The awful skadow of some unseen Power &

Floats tho’ unseen among us; visiting

This various world with as inconstant wingt As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain

shower,
It visits with inconstant glance

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Each human heart and countenance ;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,

Like clouds in starlight widely spread, e
Like memory of music fled,

Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery

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Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon

Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ?

Ask why the sunlight not for ever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river ;Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown;

Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth

Such gloom ; why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope.

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

To sage or poet these responses given ;
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and

Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavor;
Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail

to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,

Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven,

Or music by the night wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,

Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart

And come, for some uncertain moments lent.

Man were immortal and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his

heart.
Thou messenger of sympathies

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,

Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came ;

Depart not, lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped

Thro' many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin,

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead;
I called on poisonous names with which our youth

is fed.
I was not heard, I saw them not;

When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing

All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,

Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers

To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even

now

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in

visioned bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight

Outwatched with me the envious night :
They know that never joy illumed my brow,

Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery,

That thou, O awful LOVELINESS,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

The day becomes more solemn and serene