SONNETS.

I.

As when at sea, in storms and darkness drear,
And distant far from sight of land or sky,
We, overwhelm'd with weariness and fear,
Feel dark despair on every heart doth lie;
When, 'midst the hollow booming of our gun,
A light we see gleam in the murky air,
And hail it as we would God's blessed sun,
For help in our distress appeareth there;
So, when desponding thought doth me oppress.
And painful doubt casts over me its chill,
Thy spoken name, or sight of golden tress,
Or one dear scene anear a ruin'd mill,

Doth cause the blinding tears of love to start,
And faith in thine own truth to fill my heart.

II.

FROM CORNWALL.

RARELY, O Friend, in these "degenerate days,"
Can we discover any hamlet rude,
Where still the hush of pastoral solitude
Is undisturb'd in seldom-trodden ways.
How sweet, then, while the winter wind delays
To strip the beeches' solemn sisterhood,

In some sweet western valley, where intrude No troubling sounds, and where no vulgar gaze Can penetrate, to spend delicious hours

Beside the ferny becks and torrent-streams, While fancy scales the cloud-embattled towers Of Milton's empyrean, or sails wide

Through Spenser's faery sea, or in the bowers Of Shakspeare's sonnets amorously doth hide!

III.

A JOY there is that yields me more delight,
Hath o'er my soul a far intenser power,
Than when, in ivy-crown'd and mossy bower,
With roses wild and honeysuckle dight,
The rolling sea below, above the light

Streaming full red through cloudy dome and
tower,

We clasped hands in the sweet twilight hour, And pleading passion glowed with burning

might!

Calm Joy! thou bring'st a recollection dear,
A sweeter, later day than that of Love,
(Though words then spoken must for ever live),
When sneers and coldness lost their power to

sear,

When by sad Nature lifted far above,

I knew the peace which she alone can give.

IV.

MEMORIES.

THE happy dwellers in green spring-tide valleys, The wanderers over moor and heath and down, Ladies of hill-tops far from any town,

Where the fresh north wind o'er the grey wold

sallies,

With antique garb, and old Greek songs outsinging,

They come to bless me, shadows of the South, Sweet lily limbs, and dewy rose for mouth, And violet eyes from depths of soul upspringing; And some come crown'd with hyacinth and moly, A sad wan smile faint flickering on their lips,Slowly they draw a veil of dim eclipse Over their eyes so sweetly melancholy;

And some bring garlands dipp'd in mandragore, By moonlight pluck'd on some Circean shore.

V.

WHAT man is there loves not the moon's white shell, Carv'd out upon the purple sky aright,

When stars are waking in the early night, And flowers are closing up each tender bell For dewy sleep? Ah! dear friend, loved so well! Thou, like the moon, didst borrow all thy light From the sweet source of glory and delight,

The sun, my deity, my oracle!

Now for thy own sake art thou dear to me,
For I have learn'd to find in all thy ways
Peculiar beauty, where at first I saw
Only the lovely and reflected grace

Of that

pure soul who all through life must be My crown of comfort, my desire, and law.