Then your palm tow'rds the fire, and your face

turned to me,

And shawls and great-coats being-where they

should be,

And due "never saw's" being paid to the weather,
We cherished our knees, and sat sipping together,
And leaving the world to the fogs and the fighters,
Discussed the pretensions of all sorts of writers;
Of Shakspeare's coevals, all spirits divine;

Of Chapman, whose Homer's a fine rough old wine;
Of Marvel, wit, patriot, and poet, who knew
How to give, both at once, Charles and Cromwell
their due;

Of Spenser, who wraps you, wherever you are,
In a bow'r of seclusion beneath a sweet star;
Of Richardson too, who afflicts us so long,

We begin to suspect him of nerves over strong;

In short, of all those who give full-measur'd page, Not forgetting Sir Thomas, my ancestor sage, Who delighted (so happy were all his digestions) In puzzling his head with impossible questions.

But now, Charles-you never (so blissful you deem me)

Come lounging, with twirl of umbrella, to see me. In vain have we hoped to be set at our ease

By the rains, which you know used to bring Lamb

and pease;

In vain we took out like the children in Thomson, And say, in our innocence, "Surely he'll come soon."

'Tis true, I do live in a vale, at my will,

With sward to my gateway, and trees on the hill: My health too gets on; and now autumn is nigh, The sun has come back, and there's really blue sky,

But then, the late weather, I think, had it's merits, And might have induced you to look at one's spirits; We hadn't much thunder and lightning, I own; But the rains might have led you to walk out of town;

And what made us think your desertion still stran

ger,

The roads were so bad, there was really some dan

ger;

At least where I live; for the nights were so

groping,

The rains made such wet, and the paths are so

sloping,

That few, unemboldened by youth or by drinking,

Came down without lanthorns,-nor then without

shrinking.

And really, to see the bright spots come and go,

As the path rose or fell, was a fanciful shew.

Like fairies they seemed, pitching up from their

nooks,

And twinkling upon us their bright little looks;
Or if there appeared but a single, slow light,
It seemed Polyphemus, descending by night
To walk in his anguish about the green places,
And see where his mistress lay dreaming of Acis.

I fancy him now, coming just where she sleeps ;
He parts the close hawthorns, and hushes, and

creeps;

The moon slips from under the dark clouds, and

throws

A light, through the leaves, on her smiling repose. There, there she lies, bower'd ;-a slope for her bed; One branch, like a hand, reaches over her head; Half naked, half shrinking, with side-swelling grace, A crook's 'twixt her bosom, and crosses her face,

I

The crook of her shepherd;-and close to her lips Lies the Pan-pipe he blows, which in sleeping she

sips ;

The giant's knees totter, with passions diverse;
Ah, how can he bear it! Ah, what could be worse!
He's ready to cry out, for anguish of heart;

And tears himself off, lest she wake with a start.