EDWARD COATES PINKNEY.

1802-1828.

A HEALTH.

I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements

And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
"Tis less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music's own,

Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears

The image of themselves by turns,
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,

And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,

When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.

I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,

A woman, of her gentle sex

The seeming paragon;

Her health! and would on earth there stood

Some more of such a frame,

That life might be all poetry,

And weariness a name.

GEORGE DARLEY.

1785-1849.

SWEET in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
Lulled by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
Sleeps she, and hears not the melancholy numbers
Breathed to my sad lute amid the lonely air!

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming

To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above; O that, in tears, from my rocky prison streaming,

I, too, could glide to the bower of my love!

Ah! where the woodbines, with sleepy arms, have wound her, Opes she eyelids at the dream of my lay,

Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her, To her lost mate's call in the forests far away!

Come, then, my bird! for the peace thou ever bearest,

Still heaven's messenger of comfort to me;

Come! this fond bosom, my faithfullest, my fairest,
Bleeds with its death-wound-but deeper yet for thee!

417

ALFRED TENNYSON.

1810.

["Poems." 1832.]

LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.

LADY Clara Vere de Vere,

Of me you shall not win renown;
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.

At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired :
The daughter of a hundred Earls,
You are not one to be desired.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

I know you proud to bear your name; Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake. A heart that dotes on truer charms.

A simple maiden in her flower

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is,

I could not stoop to such a mind.

You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply.

The lion on your old stone gates

Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown, Since I beheld young Laurence dead. O your sweet eyes, your low replies:

A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother's view,

She had the passions of her kind,

She spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed, I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear;

Her manners had not that repose

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall:

The guilt of blood is at your door:

You changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse,

To make him trust his modest worth,

And, last, you fixed a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

From yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife

Smile at the claims of long descent Howe'er it be, it seems to me,

'Tis only noble to be good.