Like the midnight winds that blow
Round a lone cottage in the snow,
With howling swell and sighing fall,
It wails along the trophied hall.
In such a wild and dreary moan

The watches of the Seraphim
Poured out all night their plaintive
hymn

Before the eternal throne.

Then, when from many a heavenly eye
Drops as of earthly pity fell
For her who had aspired too high,

For him who loved too well.
When, stunned by grief, the gentle pair
From the nuptial garden fair,
Linked in a sorrowful caress,
Strayed through the untrodden wilder-

ness;

And close behind their footsteps came
The desolating sword of flame,
And drooped the cedared alley's pride,
And fountains shrank, and roses died.

"Rejoice, oh Son of God, rejoice,"
Sang that melancholy voice,
"Rejoice, the maid is fair to see;
The bower is decked for her and thee;
The ivory lamps around it throw
A soft and pure and mellow glow.
Where'er the chastened lustre falls
On roof or cornice, floor or walls,
Woven of pink and rose appear
Such words as love delights to hear.
The breath of myrrh, the lute's soft sound,
Float through the moonlight galleries
round.

O'er beds of violet and through groves of spice,

Lead thy proud bride into the nuptial bower;

For thou hast bought her with a fearful price,

The still small voice makes answer "Wait and see,

Oh sons of glory, what the end shall be.'

"But, in the outer darkness of the place Where God hath shown his power without his grace,

Is laughter and the sound of glad acclaim,
Loud as when, on wings of fire,
Fulfilled of his malign desire,
From Paradise the conquering serpent

came.

The giant ruler of the morning star
From off his fiery bed

Lifts high his stately head,
Which Michael's sword hath marked
with many a scar.
At his voice the pit of hell
Answers with a joyous yell,
And flings her dusky portals wide
For the bridegroom and the bride.

"But louder still shall be the din
In the halls of Death and Sin,
When the full measure runneth o'er,
When mercy can endure no more,
When he who vainly proffers grace,
Comes in his fury to deface

The fair creation of his hand; When from the heaven streams down amain

For forty days the sheeted rain;
And from his ancient barriers free,
With a deafening roar the sea

Comes foaming up the land.
Mother, cast thy babe aside:
Bridegroom, quit thy virgin bride:
Brother, pass thy brother by:
'Tis for life, for life, ye fly.
Along the drear horizon raves
The swift advancing line of waves.
On: on their frothy crests appear

fearful dower.

Urge the dromedary's speed;
Spur to death the reeling steed;
If perchance ye yet may gain
The mountains that o'erhang the plain.

"Oh thou haughty land of Nod,
Hear these ntence of thy God.
Thou hast said Of all the hills
Whence, after autumn rains, the rills
In silver trickle down,
The fairest is that mountain white
Which intercepts the morning light
From Cain's imperial town.

Lollard's bower, good authorities say,
Is again fitting up for a prison;
And a wood-merchant told me to-day
'Tis a wonder how faggots have risen.

"The finance scheme of Canning contains

A new Easter-offering tax; And he means to devote all the gains To a bounty on thumb-screws and racks.

Your living, so neat and compactPray, don't let the news give you pain

Is promised, I know for a fact,

To an olive-faced Padre from Spain."

I read, and I felt my heart bleed,
Sore wounded with horror and pity;
So I flew, with all possible speed,

To our Protestant champion's com-
mittee.

True gentlemen, kind and well-bred!

No fleering! no distance! no scorn! They asked after my wife who is dead, And my children who never were born.

They then, like high-principled Tories, Called our Sovereign unjust and unsteady,

And assailed him with scandalous stories,

Till the coach for the voters was ready.

That coach might be well called a casket

Of learning and brotherly love : There were parsons in boot and in basket;

There were parsons below and above.

There were Sneaker and Griper, a pair Who stick to Lord Mulesby like leeches ;

A smug chaplain of plausible air, Who writes my Lord Goslingham's speeches.

Dr. Buzz, who alone is a host,

Who, with arguments weighty as lead, Proves six times a week in the Post That flesh somehow differs from bread.

Dr. Nimrod, whose orthodox toes Are seldom withdrawn from the stirrup;

Dr. Humdrum, whose eloquence flows, Like droppings of sweet poppy syrup;

Dr. Rosygill puffing and fanning,

And wiping away perspiration; Dr. Humbug, who proved Mr. Canning The beast in St. John's Revelation.

A layman can scarce form a notion

Of our wonderful talk on the road; Of the learning, the wit, and devotion, Which almost each syllable showed: Why divided allegiance agrees

So ill with our free constitution; How Catholics swear as they please, In hope of the priest's absolution; How the Bishop of Norwich had bartered

His faith for a legate's commission; How Lyndhurst, afraid to be martyr'd, Had stooped to a base coalition; How Papists are cased from compassion By bigotry, stronger than steel; How burning would soon come in fashion,

And how very bad it must feel.

We were all so much touched and excited

By a subject so direly sublime, That the rules of politeness were slighted,

And we all of us talked at a time; And in tones, which each moment grew louder,

Told how we should dress for the show, And where we should fasten the powder, And if we should bellow or no.

Thus from subject to subject we ran, And the journey passed pleasantly o'er,

Till at last Dr. Humdrum began ;

From that time I remember no more. At Ware he commenced his prelection, In the dullest of clerical drones; And when next I regained recollection We were rumbling o'er Trumpington stones.

SONG. (1827.)

O STAY, Madonna! stay; 'Tis not the dawn of day That marks the skies with yonder opal streak:

The stars in silence shine;

Then press thy lips to mine, And rest upon my neck thy fervid cheek.

O sleep, Madonna! sleep;
Leave me to watch and weep.
O'er the sad memory of departed joys,
O'er hope's extinguished beam,
O'er fancy's vanished dream,
O'er all that nature gives and man
destroys.

O wake, Madonna! wake;
Even now the purple lake

Is dappled o'er with amber flakes of light;

A glow is on the hill;

And every trickling rill

In golden threads leaps down from yonder height.

O fly, Madonna! fly,

Lest day and envy spy

Thou more than Neptune, Lowther, lend thine ear.

At Neptune's voice the horse, with flowing mane

And pawing hoof, sprung from th' obedient plain;

But at thy word the yawning earth, in fright,

Engulf'd the victor steed from mortal sight.

Haste from thy woods, mine Arbuthnot, with speed,

Rich woods, where lean Scotch cattle love to feed:

know:

Fly, and tread softly, dear!
Lest those who hate us hear

The sounds of thy light footsteps as they go.

POLITICAL GEORGICS.
(MARCH 1828.)

"Quid faciat lætas segetes," &c.

How cabinets are form'd, and how

destroy'd,

How Tories are confirm'd, and Whigs decoy'd,

How in nice times a prudent man should vote,

At what conjuncture he should turn his coat,

The truths fallacious, and the candid lies,
And all the lore of sleek majorities,
I sing, great Premier. Oh, mysterious
two,

Lords of our fate, the Doctor and the
Jew,

If, by your care enriched, the aspiring clerk

Quits the close alley for the breezy park,

And Dolly's chops and Reid's entire resigns

For odorous fricassees and costly wines; And you, great pair, through Windsor's shades who rove,

The Faun and Dryad of the conscious grove;

band,

Art head and heart a pettifogger still. So, where once Fleet-ditch ran confessed, we view

A crowded mart and stately avenue; But the black stream beneath runs on

the same,

He smote the haughty race
Of unbelieving Thrace,

turned their rage to fear, their
pride to shame.

He looked in wrath from high,
Upon their vast array;

And, in the twinkling of an eye,
Tambour, and trump, and battle-
cry,

And steeds, and turbaned infantry, Passed like a dream away. power defends the mansions of the just:

But, like a city without walls, The grandeur of the mortal falls Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust.

The

proud blasphemers thought all earth their own;

They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire

Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire,

The Christian altars and the Augustan throne.

In

And soon, they cried, shall Austria

bow

To the dust her lofty brow.

The princedoms of Almayne Shall wear the Phrygian chain; humbler waves shall vassal Tiber

roll;

And Rome, a slave forlorn,

Her laurelled tresses shorn,

Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul.
Who shall bid the torrent stay?
Who shall bar the lightning's way?
Who arrest the advancing van
Of the fiery Ottoman ?

As the curling smoke wreaths fly
When fresh breezes clear the sky,
Passed away each swelling boast
Of the misbelieving host.
From the Hebrus rolling far
Came the murky cloud of war,
And in shower and tempest dread
Burst on Austria's fenceless head.
But not for vaunt or threat
Didst Thou, oh Lord, forget
The flock so dearly bought, and loved
so well.