I said, as far from men,

"How came I here, and when?"

I had forgotten; and alas!

Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was;

And from that time till this, I bear

Such love for the green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere.

LEIGH HUNT.

HE ENVIES EVERY SPOT THAT SHE FREQUENTS.

O bright and happy flowers and herbage blessed,
On which my lady treads! O favoured plain,
That hears her accents sweet, and can retain
The traces by her fairy steps impressed!
Pure shrubs, with tender verdure newly dressed,
Pale amorous violets, leafy woods, whose reign
Thy sun's bright rays transpierce, and thus sustain
Your lofty stature, and umbrageous crest;

O thou, fair country, and thou, crystal stream,
Which bathes her countenance and sparkling eyes,
Stealing fresh lustre from their living beam;
How do I envy thee those precious ties!
Thy rocky shores will soon be taught to gleam
With the same flame that burns in all my sighs.

WROTTESLEY.

TO THE SUN, WHOSE SETTING HID LAURA'S DWELLING FROM HIS VIEW.

O blesséd Sun! that sole sweet leaf I love,
First loved by thee, in its fair seat, alone,
Bloometh without a peer, since from above
To Adam first our shining ill was shown.
Pause we to look on her! Although to stay
Thy course I pray thee, yet thy beams retire;
Their shades the mountains fling, and parting day
Parts me from all I most on earth desire.

The shadows from yon gentle heights that fall,
Where sparkles my sweet fire, where brightly grew
That stately laurel from a sucker small,
Increasing, as I speak, hide from my view

The beauteous landscape and the blesséd scene,
Where dwells my true heart with its only queen.

MACGREGOR.

TO LOVE, ON LAURA WALKING ABROAD.

Here stand we, Love, our glory to behold,
How, passing Nature, lovely, high, and rare!
Behold! what showers of sweetness falling there!
What floods of light by heaven to earth unrolled!
How shine her robes, in purple, pearls, and gold,
So richly wrought, with skill beyond compare!
How glance her feet! her beaming eyes how fair
Through the dark cloister which these hills enfold!
The verdant turf, and flowers of thousand hues
Beneath yon oak's old canopy of state,
Spring round her feet to pay their amorous duty:
The heavens, in joyful reverence, cannot choose

But light up all their fires, to celebrate

Her praise, whose presence charms their awful beauty.

MERIVALE.

HE LEAVES VAUCLUSE, BUT HIS SPIRIT REMAINS THERE WITH LAURA.

The loved hills where I left myself behind,
Whence ever 'twas so hard my steps to tear,
Before me rise; at each remove I bear
The dear load to my lot by Love consigned.
Often I wonder inly in my mind,

That still the fair yoke holds me, which despair
Would vainly break, that yet I breathe this air;
Though long the chain, its links but closer bind.

And as a stag, sore struck by hunter's dart,
Whose poisoned iron rankles in his breast,

Flies, and more grieves the more the chase is pressed,
So I, with Love's keen arrow in my heart,

Endure at once my death and my delight,

Racked with long grief, and weary with vain flight.

MACGREGOR.

HEARING NO TIDINGS OF HER, HE BEGINS TO DESPAIR.

Still do I wait to hear, in vain still wait,

Of that sweet enemy I love so well:
What now to think or say I cannot tell,
'Twixt hope and fear my feelings fluctuate.
The beautiful are still the marks of fate;
And sure her worth and beauty most excel:
What if her God have called her hence, to dwell
Where virtue finds a more congenial state?

If so, she will illuminate that sphere
Even as a sun: but I-'tis done with me!
I then am nothing, have no business here!
O cruel absence! why not let me see
The worst? My little tale is told, I fear;
My scene is closed ere it accomplished be.

MOREHEAD.

TO LAURA IN DEATH.

HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.

E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway

Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,

Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, passed from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,

From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind

That first of peace, of sin that latest day?

As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul, glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow :
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!

MACGREGOR.

HE PRAYS THAT SHE WILL BE NEAR HIM AT HIS DEATH, WHICH HE FEELS APPROACHING.

Go, plaintive verse, to the cold marble go,
Which hides in earth my treasure from these eyes,
There call on her who answers from yon skies,
Although the mortal part dwells dark and low.

Of life how I am wearied make her know,

Of stemming these dread waves that round me rise:

But, copying all her virtues I so prize,

Her track I follow, yet my steps are slow.

I sing of her, living or dead, alone,

(Dead, did I say? She is immortal made!)

That by the world she should be loved, and known.

O in my passage hence may she be near,

To greet my coming that's not long delayed;

And may I hold in heaven the rank herself holds there!

NOTT.

HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF, WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM

WITH HER PRESENCE.

To that soft look which now adorns the skies,

The graceful bending of the radiant head,

The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,

That soothed me once, but now awake my sighs:
O when to these imagination flies,

I wonder that I am not long since dead!
'Tis she supports me, for her heavenly tread
Is round my couch when morning visions rise!
In every attitude how holy, chaste!

How tenderly she seems to hear the tale
Of my long woes, and their relief to seek!
But when day breaks she then appears in haste
The well-known heavenward path again to scale,
With moistened eye and soft expressive cheek!

MOREHEAD.

SINCE HER DEATH HE HAS CEASED TO LIVE.

Death cannot make that beauteous face less fair, But that sweet face may lend to death a grace; My spirit's guide, from her each good I trace; Who learns to die, may seek his lesson there. That Holy One, who not his blood would spare, But did the dark Tartarean bolts unbrace; He, too, doth from my soul death's terrors chase: Then welcome, death, thy impress I would wear. And linger not, 'tis time that I had fled; Alas! my stay hath little here availed,

Since she, my Laura blest, resigned her breath: Life's spring in me hath since that hour lain dead, In I her lived, my life in hers exhaled,

The hour she died I felt within me death!

WOLLASTON.