Seeking---nor yet with vulgar wish-to wield

Arms coldly lov'd---but in a Cause of Right-Content for that-light hours and love to yield,

Was it for this--sweet Night ?

Thou answerest not---but round thee, lo! the clouds

Are darkening into ire--the Moon is gone, And the ghost stars lie wan within their shrouds,

The storm sweeps labouring on !

Shine out---shine out, my true and stedfast soul-
My answer and

my
solace come

from thee! Round earth's low heaven--the shade, the storm may roll,

Thou art a Heaven to Me!

Foes--and Life's baffled ends--the hydra birth

Of cares---upon thy front can stamp no frown, But on the shifts and phantoms of the earth

Thou with a smile look'st down!

TO JULIET.

THE VINDICATION OF SILENCE.

When heavens are bright, how stilly glide

The waters to the lulling air!
I feel thee on my heart's deep tide--

How can I break the silence there?

ON FOREBODINGS.

What are ye, haggard and all ghastly warnings-
Ye moral wraiths of the contemning soul ?
Ye glide away like clouds beneath our scornings,
But heavy, dark, and mournful, back ye

roll. Without a cause the heart beats high and quick, And the blest breath grows labour-fraught and thick.

What are ye?—Phantoms of the brain ?—The crude
And half-begot chimæras that arise
From our most earthly members, and intrude
A loathly shadow on our mental eyes ?
Wan nightmares of drows'd thought ?—the goblin banes
That steam and flit from the o’erpamper'd veins ?

What! can these seerlike and unearthly shapes
Of Thought be fathered thus ? And can a crumb—
An incoct atom, kindle that which apes
A demon's horror—and can strike us dumb-
Appal us to the centre of our clay-
And shake the Spirit on her Throne ?--Away!

What! to these wretched wants mst we fulfil
A slavery so subjected and entire,
Bearing a devil in ourselves—at will
To mock the Angel Thought that would aspire
Out from this nether cell ;—to laugh to scorn
The very aims for which all thought was born ?

Can we not hold ev'n this most lean and

poor
Pittance of sense, but that to every heat
And frailty of the flesh, we must endure
To pare and pawn the dowry; and complete
All degradation by the gibe and guile
Of the worm's prey, which rots the very while ?

Nay!—have ye not been prophets in your strange
Revealings, and with no oracular* faith,
Betokened woe or weal; and the last change
Of this our state ? as if there were in death,
And that which stirs within us, something more
Of speech and commune than our creeds explore !

The hardest and the coldest breasts have thrilled As ye

have passed them on your ghostlike way; And in the hour ye whispered—have fulfilled Their doom :-Upon the dial of their clay Rested the shadowy hand, -and at the chime Foretold—they had no farther note of time !

We boast our growing wisdom !-Know we more
Than het the source of Plato's golden stream ?
Have we a bolder sense-a steadier lore?
Mix we with science no more shadowy dream ?-
Yet he, dread spectres, mocked ye not; but taught
Your credence with a bow'd and reverent thought.

Avaunt-avaunt—what! yield we to your

cold And curdling grasp ?-Ye fool us with a power Which, like the Saga's muttered rhyme of old, Is built not on your potence, but on our Weakness. We crown you with grim thoughts, -and quake Before the very tyrants that we make.

Our Reason or whate'er that be—and how
Begotten or inspired-by which we move
Erect upon life's narrow bridge; and know
Our end-our aims—our powers--alone can prove
Our guide. And Faith, the barter of our will,
Contracting Reason is her offspring still.

And if we err, and darkling grope and vain,
'Tis not our Reason's treachery, but our own
Surrender of our Reason, and the chain
By which we bind her to the Titan's stone.
From ignorance spring earth's errors-raise the powers
Of Reason to their height--and Heaven is ours !

Shadows avaunt !--were all the monsters armed
By hell or monkish madness, round the ring
In which lone Reason sits abstract and charmed;
Yea, all pale Priestcraft from her caves could bring,
Or northern Fancy nurture; were the earth's
Soft snile to wither; and unnatural births
Creep from her hollow womb;—were the sweet skies

B B

To lose all love, and murmur from the stars-o
“ TREMBLE”—The Unknown within me should defy
Terror-the arch and real fiend that wars
On God; our God is Love !--and greet the levin
Whose wrath but brighter shows the depths of Heaven!

IF THE POOR MADE LAWS FOR THE RICH.

If the poor made laws for the rich-the rich,

What a change in our jails would be!
Which would be for the best ? and which-oh, which,

Bring the most to the gallows tree?
They would pass a nobleman vagrant bill,

For the fellows who idly roam ;
The Travellers' club would be sent to the Mill,

And Lord E—x be passed to--home.
They'd make game laws for the sporting one,

And refuse a squire to bail;
Old B-ks would be shot with a good spring-gun,

And Sh-y would rot in jail !
“ Most libellous trash,” the books that blind

The eyes of the mass they'd call; Murray's Review would be damnably fined,

And they'd ruin great Captain H-11.
They'd make it a capital crime to pay

Oneself from the public purse ;
Our younger sons would be shipped to “ the Bay,”
And the Bishop of