ROBERT SOUTHEY.

CCVII.

WINTER.

A WRINKLED crabbed man they picture thee,
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey
As the long moss upon the apple tree;
Blue-lipt, an ice drop at thy sharp blue nose,

Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way

Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows.

They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, Old Winter! seated in thy great armed chair, Watching the children at their Christmas mirth;

Or circled by them as thy lips declare

Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night;

Pausing at times to rouse the smouldering fire,

Or taste the old October brown and bright.

CCVIII.

THE TOUCH OF LIFE.

I SAW a circle in a garden sit

Of dainty dames and solemn cavaliers,
Whereof some shuddered at the burrowing nit,
And at the carrion worm some burst in tears
And all, as envying the abhorred estate
Of empty shades and disembodied elves,

Under the laughing stars, early and late,
Sat shamefast at their birth and at themselves.
The keeper of the house of life is fear;

In the rent lion is the honey found
By him that rent it; out of stony ground
The toiler, in the morning of the year,
Beholds the harvest of his grief abound
And the green corn put forth the tender ear.

CHARLES STRONG.

CCIX.

EVENING.

My window's open to the evening sky;

The solemn trees are fringed with golden light;
The lawn here shadow'd lies, there kindles bright;
And cherished roses lift their incense high.
The punctual thrush, on plane-tree warbling nigh,
With loud and luscious cries calls down the night;

Dim waters, flowing on with gentle might,
Between each pause are heard to murmur by.

The book that told of wars in holy-land,

(Nor less than Tasso sounded in mine ears)

Escapes unheeded from my listless hand.

Poets whom Nature for her service rears,

Like Priests in her great temple ministering stand, But in her glory fade when she appears.

CCX.

TO TIME.

TIME, I rejoice, amid the ruin wide

That peoples thy dark empire, to behold

Shores against which thy waves in vain have rolled, Where man's proud works still frown above thy tide. The deep based Pyramids still turn aside

Thy wasteful current; vigorously old,
Lucania's temples their array unfold,
Pillar and portico, in simple pride.

Nor less thy joy, when, sheltered from thy storms
In earth's fond breast, hid treasure bursts the sod-
Elaborate stone in sculpture's matchless forms,

Oft did I mock thee, spoiler, as I trod

The glowing courts where still the Goddess warms And stern in beauty stands the quivered God.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

CCXI.

TO THEODORE WATTS.

(Dedicatory Sonnet. Tristram of Lyonesse: And other Poems.)

SPRING speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,

And all our wide glad wastes a-flower around,

That twice have heard keen April's clarion sound

Since here we first together saw and heard

Spring's light reverberate and reiterate word

Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned Here with the best one thing it ever found, As of my soul's best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith

Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me

Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife, This truth more sure than all things else but death, This pearl most perfect found in all the sea

That washes towards your feet those waifs of life.