For, something duller than at first,
Nor wholly comfortable,

I sit (my empty glass reversed),
And thrumming on the table:

Half fearful that, with self at strife
I take myself to task;
Lest of the fulness of my life

I leave an empty flask :
For I had hope, by something rare,'
To prove myself a poet:
But, while I plan and plan, my hair
Is gray before I know it.

So fares it since the years began,
Till they be gather'd up;

The truth, that flies the flowing can,
Will haunt the vacant cup:

And others' follies teach us not,

Nor much their wisdom teaches; And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches.

Ah, let the rusty theme alone!
We know not what we know.
But for my pleasant hour, 't is gone,
'Tis gone, and let it

go.

'Tis gone a thousand such have slipt

Away from my embraces,

And fall'n into the dusty crypt

Of darken'd forms and faces.

Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went
Long since, and came no more;

With peals of genial clamor sent
From many a tavern-door,
With twisted quirks and happy hits,
From misty men of letters;
The tavern-hours of mighty wits

Thine elders and thy betters.

Hours, when the Poet's words and looks
Had yet their native glow:
Nor yet the fear of little books
Had made him talk for show;

But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd
He flash'd his random speeches;
Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm'd
His literary leeches.

So mix forever with the past,

Like all good things on earth!

For should I prize thee, couldst thou last, At half thy real worth?

I hold it good, good things should pass : With time I will not quarrel:

It is but yonder empty glass

That makes me maudlin-moral.

Head-waiter of the chop-house here,

To which I most resort,

I too must part: I hold thee dear
For this good pint of port.

For this, thou shalt from all things suck
Marrow of mirth and laughter;
And, wheresoe'er thou move, good luck
Shall fling her old shoe after.

But thou wilt never move from hence,
The sphere thy fate allots :
Thy latter days increased with pence
Go down among the pots:
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
In haunts of hungry sinners,
Old boxes, larded with the steam
Of thirty thousand dinners.

We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,
Would quarrel with our lot;
Thy care is, under polished tins,
To serve the hot-and-hot;
To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,
And watch'd by silent gentlemen,
That trifle with the cruet.

Live long, ere from thy topmost head
The thick-set hazel dies;

Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread
The corners of thine eyes:

Live long, nor feel in head or chest
Our changeful equinoxes,

Till mellow Death, like some late guest,
Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease the gritted floor,

To pace

And, laying down an unctuous lease

Of life, shalt earn no more;

No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,
Shall show thee past to heaven:
But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,
A pint-pot, neatly graven.

ΤΟ

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS.

"Cursed be he that moves my bones."
Shakspeare's Epitaph.

You might have won the Poet's name,
If such be worth the winning now,
And gain'd a laurel for your brow
Of sounder leaf than I can claim;

But you have made the wiser choice,

A life that moves to gracious ends Thro' troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die

Nor leave his music as of old,

But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show:

Break lock and seal: betray the trust:
Keep nothing sacred: 't is but just
The many-headed beast should know."

Ah shameless! for he did but sing
A song that pleased us from its worth;
No public life was his on earth,
No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

He gave the people of his best:

His worst he kept, his best he gave.

My Shakspeare's curse on clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet to be

The little life of bank and brier,
The bird that pipes his lone desire
And dies unheard within his tree,

Than he that warbles long and loud

And drops at Glory's temple-gates,
For whom the carrion vulture waits
To tear his heart before the crowd!

TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE.

ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Pencïan pass,

The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,

With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there:

And trust me while I turn'd the page,
And track'd you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd

And glisten'd here and there alone
The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown
By fountain-urns ; and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain-lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.

LADY CLARE.

It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long-betroth'd were they:
They two will wed the morrow morn:
God's blessing on the day!

"He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.

In there came old Alice the nurse,

Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me."

"O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse, "That all comes round so just and fair:

Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,

And you are not the Lady Clare."