For a stretched hand, ever the same to me, And total, glorious want of vile hypocrisy.

Adieu, adieu :-) say no more.—God speed you ! Remember what we all expect, who read you.

Hampstead, April, 1816.

TO THOMAS MOORE.

Ωδε καλον βομβευντι ποτι σμανεσσι μελισσαι

ται δ' επι δενδρω Ορνιθες λαλαγευντι:

βαλλει δε και α πιτυς υψοθε κωνους.

Here, here sweetly murmur the bees,
Here talk the quick birds in the trees,
And the pines drop their nuts at their ease.

THEOCRITUS.

a

DEAR Tom, who enjoying your brooks and your

bowers, Live just like a bee, when he's flushest of flowers, A maker of sweets, busy, sparkling, and singing, Yet armed with an exquisite point too for sting

ing,

I owe you a letter, and having this time
A whole series to write to you, send them in rhyme ;
For rhyme, with its air, and its step-springing tune,
Helps me on, as a march does a soldier in June';
And when chattering to you, I've a something about

me,

That makes all my spirits come dancing from out me.

a

I told you, you know, you should have a detail
Of Hampstead's whole merits,-heath, wood, hill,

and vale,
And threatened in consequence (only admire
The metal one's turned to by dint of desire)
To draw you all near me,—vain dog that I was,-
As the bees are made swarm by the clinking of brass.

(By the bye, this comparison, well understood, Is, modestly speaking, still better than good;

For a man who once kept them in London, they say, Found out that they came here to dine every day.)

a

But at present, for reasons I'll give when we meet, I shall spare you the trouble,—I mean to say treat; And yet how can I touch, and not linger a while, On the spot that has haunted my youth like a smile? On its fine breathing prospects, its clump-wooded

glades, Dark pines, and white houses, and long-allied shades, With fields going down, where the bard lies and sees The hills up above him with roofs in the trees? Now too, while the season,-half summer, half

spring, Brown elms and green oaks,--makes one loiter and

sing; And the bee's weighty murmur comes by us at noon, And the cuckoo repeats his short indolent tune,

And little white clouds lie about in the sun,
And the wind's in the west, and hay-making begun?

Even now while I write, I'm half stretched on the

ground With a cheek-smoothing air coming taking me

round, Betwixt hillocks of green, plumed with fern and

wild flowers, While my eye closely follows the bees in their bowers. People talk of “ poor insects,” (although, by the way, Your old friend, Anacreon, was wiser than they); But lord, what a set of delicious retreats The epicures live in,-shades, colours, and sweets ! The least clumps of verdure, on peeping into 'em, Are emerald groves, with bright shapes winding

through 'em ; And sometimes I wonder, when poking down by 'em, What odd sort of giant the rogues may think I am.

G