From vain temptations dost set free,

And calm'st the weary strife of frail Humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them who in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth.

Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work and know it not :

Long may the kindly impulse last !

But thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security:

And they a blissful course may hold
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed,

Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust;
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferr'd

The task, in smoother walks to stray:
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul

Or strong compunction in me wrought
I supplicate for thy controul,

But in the quietness of thought:
Me this uncharter'd freedom tries,

I feel the weight of chance desires,

My hopes no more must change their name;

I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Law-giver! Yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.

To humble functions, awful Power!

I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour.
O, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice ;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of Truth thy Bondman let me live!

NATURE'S DARLING.

Three years she grew in sun and shower:
Then Nature said-A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown :

This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse; and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power,

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell :

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell.—

Thus Nature spake : the work was done.
How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died and left to me

This health, this calm, and quiet scene,
The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

THE TRIAD.

Show me the noblest Youth of present time Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth; Some God, or Hero from the Olympian clime

Return'd to seek a Consort upon earth!

Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see

The brightest Star of ages yet to be!
And I will mate and match him blissfully.

I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood

Pure as herself (Song lacks not mightier power),
Nor leaf-crown'd Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-Nymph glistening from her coral bower:
Mere Mortals, bodied forth in vision, still
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.

Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love ;
Nor shall the tongue of envious pride
Presume those interweavings to reprove
In you, which that fair progeny of Jove
Learn'd from the tuneful spheres that glide

In endless union earth and sea above.

-I sing in vain :-the pines have hush'd their waving : A peerless Youth expectant at my side,

Breathless as they, with unabated craving

Looks to the earth and to the vacant air

And, with a wandering eye that seems to chide,
Asks of the clouds what occupants they hide.

But why solicit more than sight could bear

By casting on a moment all we dare?

Invoke we those bright Beings, one by one!

And what was boldly promised truly shall be done.

Fear not a constraining measure!

-Yielding to this gentle spell,
Lucida! from domes of pleasure,
Or from cottage-sprinkled dell,
Come to regions solitary

Where the eagle builds her aery

Above the hermit's long-forsaken cell!

She comes! Behold

That Figure, like a ship with snow-white sail!
Nearer she draws; a breeze uplifts her veil;
Upon her coming wait

As pure a sunshine and as soft a gale
As e'er on herbage covering earthly mould
Tempted the bird of Juno to unfold

His richest splendour, when his veering gait
And every motion of his starry train
Seem governed by a strain

Of music, audible to him alone.

O Lady! worthy of earth's proudest throne,
Nor less, by excellence of nature, fit
Beside an unambitious hearth to sit,

Domestic queen, where grandeur is unknown :
What living man could fear

The worst of Fortune's malice wert Thou near,
Humbling that lily-stem, thy sceptre meek,
That its fair flowers may from his cheek
Brush the too happy tear?

Queen and handmaid lowly!

Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares, And banish melancholy

By all that mind invents or hand prepares :

O Thou! against whose lip, without its smile,
And in its silence even, no heart is proof;
Whose goodness, sinking deep, would reconcile
The softest nursling of a gorgeous palace
To the bare life beneath the hawthorn roof
Of Sherwood's Archer, or in caves of Wallace :
Who that hath seen thy beauty could content
His soul with but a glimpse of heavenly day?
Who that hath loved thee but would lay
His strong hand on the Wind if it were bent
To take thee in thy majesty away?
-Pass onward! Even the glancing deer