This and the following poem originated in the lines "How delicate the leafy veil," etc.-My daughter and I left Rydal Mount upon a tour through our mountains with Mr. and Mrs. Carr in the month of May 1826, and as we were going up the vale of Newlands I was struck with the appearance of the little chapel gleaming through the veil of half-opened leaves; and the feeling which was then conveyed to my mind was expressed in the stanza referred to above. As in the case of "Liberty" and "Humanity," my first intention was to write only one poem, but subsequently I broke it into two, making additions to each part so as to produce a consistent and appropriate whole.

WHILE from the purpling east departs
The star that led the dawn,
Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts,
For May is on the lawn.

A quickening hope, a freshening glee,
Foreran the expected Power,
Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and

tree,

Shakes off that pearly shower.

All Nature welcomes Her whose sway Tempers the year's extremes;

Who scattereth lustres o'er noon-day,
Like morning's dewy gleams;
While mellow warble, sprightly trill,
The tremulous heart excite;

And hums the balmy air to still
The balance of delight.

Time was, blest Power! when youths and maids

At peep of dawn would rise,

And wander forth, in forest glades
Thy birth to solemnize.

Though mute the song-to grace the rite
Untouched the hawthorn bough,

Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight;
Man changes, but not Thou!

Thy feathered Lieges bill and wings
In love's disport employ;

Warmed by thy influence, creeping things
Awake to silent joy:

Queen art thou still for each gay plant
Where the slim wild deer roves;
And served in depths where fishes haunt
Their own mysterious groves.

Cloud-piercing peak, and trackless heath,
Instinctive homage pay;

Nor wants the dim-lit cave a wreath

To honour thee, sweet May!
Where cities fanned by thy brisk airs
Behold a smokeless sky,
Their puniest flower-pot-nursling dares
To open a bright eye.

And if, on this thy natal morn,

The pole, from which thy name Hath not departed, stands forlorn

Of song and dance and game; Still from the village-green a vow Aspires to thee addrest, Wherever peace is on the brow, Or love within the breast.

Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach The soul to love the more;

"ONCE I COULD HAIL (HOWE'ER SERENE THE SKY)"

"No faculty yet given me to espy

The dusky Shape within her arms imbound." Afterwards, when I could not avoid seeing it, I wondered at this, and the more so because, like most children, I had been in the habit of watching the moon through all her changes, and had often continued to gaze at it when at the full, till half blinded.

Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme."

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
Percy's Reliques.

ONCE I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)
The Moon re-entering her monthly round,"
No faculty yet given me to espy

The dusky Shape within her arms imbound, That thin memento of effulgence lost Which some have named her Predecessor's ghost.

Young, like the Crescent that above me shone,

Nought I perceived within it dull or dim; All that appeared was suitable to One Whose fancy had a thousand fields to

skim;

To expectations spreading with wild growth, And hope that kept with me her plighted troth.

I saw (ambition quickening at the view) A silver boat launched on a boundless flood;

A pearly crest, like Dian's when it threw Its brightest splendour round a leafy wood; But not a hint from under-ground, no sign Fit for the glimmering brow of Proserpine.

Or was it Dian's self that seemed to move Before me?-nothing blemished the fair sight;

On her I looked whom jocund Fairies love, Cynthia, who puts the little stars to flight, And by that thinning magnifies the great, For exaltation of her sovereign state.

And when I learned to mark the spectral
Shape

As each new Moon obeyed the call of Time,
If gloom fell on me, swift was my escape;
Such happy privilege hath life's gay Prime,
To see or not to see, as best may please
A buoyant Spirit, and a heart at ease.

Now, dazzling Stranger! when thou meet'st my glance,

Thy dark Associate ever I discern; Emblem of thoughts too eager to advance While I salute my joys, thoughts sad or

These verses perhaps had better be transferred to the class of "Italian Poems." I had observed in the Newspaper, that the Pillar of Trajan was given as a subject for a prize-poem in English verse. I had a wish perhaps that my son, who was then an undergraduate at Oxford, should try his fortune, and I told him so; but he, not having been accustomed to write verse, wisely declined to enter on the task; whereupon I showed him these lines as a proof of what might, without difficulty, be done on such a subject.

WHERE towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds

O'er mutilated arches shed their seeds; And temples, doomed to milder change,

unfold

A new magnificence that vies with old;

Things that recoil from language; that, if

shown

By apter pencil, from the light had flown. A Pontiff, Trajan here the Gods implores, There greets an Embassy from Indian shores;

Lo! he harangues his cohorts-there the

storm

Of battle meets him in authentic form! Unharnessed, naked, troops of Moorish horse

Sweep to the charge; more high, the Dacian force,

To hoof and finger mailed;1-yet, high or low,

None bleed, and none lie prostrate but the foe;

In every Roman, through all turns of fate,
Is Roman dignity inviolate;

Spirit in him pre-eminent, who guides,
Supports, adorns, and over all presides;
Distinguished only by inherent state
From honoured Instruments that round
him wait;

Rise as he may, his grandeur scorns the