LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS, OB. ANNO DOM. 1088.

No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope

Soon shall I now before my God appear,

By him to be acquitted, as I hope;

By him to be condemned, as I fear.

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE.

Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed,
Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.

All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What? though dread of threaten'd

death

And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart?

That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,

Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,

Or not so vital as to claim thy life:

And myriads had reached Heaven, who never

knew

Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true!

Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of recreant Berengare― O first the age, and then the man compare! That age how dark! congenial minds how rare! No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn! No throbbing hearts awaited his return! Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell, He only disenchanted from the spell,

Like the weak worm that gems the starless night,
Moved in the scanty circlet of his light:

And was it strange if he withdrew the ray
That did but guide the night-birds to their prey?

The ascending day-star with a bolder eye Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry The spots and struggles of the timid dawn; Lest so we tempt th' approaching noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our morn.

NOT AT HOME.

THAT Jealousy may rule a mind
Where Love could never be
I know; but ne'er expect to find
Love without Jealousy.

She has a strange cast in her ee,
A swart sour-visaged maid-
But yet Love's own twin-sister she
His house-mate and his shade.

Ask for her and she'll be denied:-
What then? they only mean
Their mistress has lain down to sleep,
And can't just then be seen.

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.

LINES COMPOSED 21ST FEBRUARY, 1827.

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair

The bees are stirring-birds are on the wing—
And Winter slumbering in the open air,

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.

Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my
soul?

Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP OPPOSITE.

HER attachment may differ from yours in degree,
Provided they are both of one kind;
But Friendship how tender so ever it be
Gives no accord to Love, however refined.

Love, that meets not with Love, its true nature revealing,

Grows ashamed of itself, and demurs :

If you cannot lift hers up to your state of feeling, You must lower down your state to hers.

MOLES.

-THEY shrink in, as Moles

(Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the

ground)

[sound;Creep back from Light-then listen for its See but to dread, and dread they know not whyThe natural alien of their negative eye.