ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE

CRICKET.

REEN little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of
June,

Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy

noon,

When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass; And you, warm little housekeeper, who class

With those who think the candles come too soon, Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune Nick the glad silent moments as they pass; Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,

One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong

At your dear hearts; and both were sent on earth To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,In doors and out, Summer and Winter, Mirth! LEIGH HUNT.

ADDRESSED TO HAYDON.

IGH-MINDEDNESS, a jealousy for good,

A loving-kindness for the great man's fame,

Dwells here and there with people of no name, In noisome alley, and in pathless wood: And where we think the truth least understood, Oft may be found a "singleness of aim," That ought to frighten into hooded shame A money-mongering, pitiable brood.

How glorious this affection for the cause
Of steadfast genius, toiling gallantly!
What when a stout unbending champion awes
Envy and malice to their native sty ?
Unnumber'd souls breathe out a still applause,
Proud to behold him in his country's eye.

ADDRESSED TO THE SAME.

REAT spirits now on earth are
sojourning :

He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide

awake,

Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,

The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo! whose steadfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart

Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings ?

Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

FTER dark vapours have oppress'd our

plains

For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears

away

From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved from its pains,

Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May, The eye-lids with the passing coolness play, Like rose-leaves with the drip of summer rains. And calmest thoughts come round us-as of leaves Budding-fruit ripening in stillness-autumn

suns

Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,-

Sweet Sappho's cheek, a sleeping infant'e breath,—

The gradual sand that through an hour-glass

runs,

A woodland rivulet,- -a Poet's death.

Jan. 1817.

ON SEEING THE ELGIN MARBLES FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Y spirit is too weak; mortality

M

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,

And each imagined pinnacle and steep

Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,

That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain

Bring round the heart an indescribable feud: So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,

That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time—with a billowy main A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

TO HAYDON.

(WITH THE ABOVE.)

AYDON! forgive me that I cannot speak

Definitively of these mighty things;
Forgive me, that I have not eagle's
wings,

That what I want I know not where to seek.
And think that I would not be over-meek,
In rolling out upfollow'd thunderings,
Even to the steep of Heliconian springs,
Were I of ample strength for such a freak.
Think, too, that all these numbers should be thine;
Whose else? In this who touch thy vesture's
hem?

For, when men stared at what was most divine
With brainless idiotism and o'erwise phlegm,
Thou hadst beheld the full Hesperian shine
Of their star in the east, and gone to worship
them!

HEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like full garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And feel that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love !-then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

1817.

ON LEIGH HUNT'S POEM, THE
"STORY OF RIMINI."

HO loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,

Let him, with this sweet tale, full often
seek

For meadows where the little rivers run;
Who loves to linger with that brightest one
Of Heaven-Hesperus-let him lowly speak
These numbers to the night, and starlight meek,
Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.
He who knows these delights, and too is prone
To moralise upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,

A bower for his spirit, and will steer To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone, Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.

1817.