respectful care. And if it should seem to the welljudging, that I have erred, the error (should a second edition ever grant me the opportunity) shall be expunged. The nature of my undertaking has obliged me to give the poem in the shape of fragments, and it may be as well to add, that the poem, in its original state, was privately printed some years ago at Paris, though scarcely thirty copies have ever left my hands, and only a hundred were printed.

MILTON.

PART I.

Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer eves by haunted stream.

L'ALLEGRO, line 129.

I.

It was the minstrel's merry month of June;
Silent and sultry glowed the breezeless noon;
Along the flowers the bee went murmuring ;
Life in its myriad forms was on the wing,

Broke thro' the green leaves with the quivering beam;
Sung from the grove, and sparkled on the stream:
When-where yon beech-tree broke the summer-ray-
Wrapt in rich dreams of light-young MILTON lay.
For him the earth beneath, the heaven above,
Teem'd with the earliest spring of joyous youth;

Y

Sunshine and flowers-and vague and virgin Love,
Kindling his tenderest visions into truth,

While Poesy's sweet voice sung over all,
Making the common air most musical.

II.

Alone he lay, and to the laughing beams,
His long locks glitter'd in their golden streams;
Calm on his brow sate wisdom-yet the while
His lips wore love, and parted with a smile;
And beauty reigned along each faultless limb-
The lavish beauty of the olden day,

Ere with harsh toil our mortal mould grew dim-
When gods who sought for true-love met him here,
And the veil'd Dian lost her lonely sphere—
And her proud name of chaste, for him whose sleep
Drank in Elysium on the Latmos steep.

Nor without solemn dream, or vision bright,

The bard for whom Urania left the shore—

The viewless shore where never sleeps the light,

Or fails the voice of music; and bequeath'd.

Such flowers as ne'er by Thracian well were wreath'd—

And song more high than e'er on Chian Rock was breath'd.
Dreams he of nymph half hid in sparry cave,

Or Naiad rising from her mooned wave,
Or imag'd idol earth has never known,
Shrin'd in his heart, and there adored alone;

Or such, perchance, as all divinely stole,
In later times, along his charmed soul;

When from his spirit's fire, and years beguil'd
Away in hoarded passion—and the wild,

Yet holy dreams of angel-visitings,

Mix'd with the mortal's burning thoughts which leave
Ev'n heaven's pure shapes with all the woman warm ;
When from such bright and blest imaginings
The inspiring seraph bade him mould the form,
And show the world the wonder of his Eve?

III.

Has this dull earth a being to compare

With those which genius kindles ?-Can the sun
Show his young bard a living shape as fair

As those which haunt his sleep?--Yea, there is one Brighter than aught which fancy forms most dear— Brighter than love's wild dream; and lo! behold her here!

She was a stranger from the southern sky,

And wandering from the friends with whom she rov'd
Along those classic gardens-chanced to stray

By the green beech-tree where the minstrel lay.

IV.

Silent-in wonder's speechless trance-she stood,
With lifted hand, and lips apart and eye
Gazing away the rich heart, as she viewed;
Darker than night her locks fell clustering