Queen-bird that sittest on thy shining nest,
        And thy young cygnets without sorrow hatchest,
        And thou, thou other royal bird, that watchest
        Lest the white mother wandering feet molest: 
        Shrined are your offspring in a chrystal cradle,
        Brighter than Helen’s ere she yet had burst
        Her shelly prison.  They shall be born at first
        Strong, active, graceful, perfect, swan-like able
        To tread the land or waters with security. 
        Unlike poor human births, conceived in sin,
        In grief brought forth, both outwardly and in
        Confessing weakness, error, and impurity. 
        Did heavenly creatures own succession’s line,
        The births of heaven like to your’s would shine.

* * * * *

Here came “Was it some sweet device.”  See page 4.

Here came “Methinks how dainty sweet.”  See page 5.

Here came “When last I roved.”  See page 8.

Here came “A timid grace” See page 8.

Here came “If from my lips.”  See page 9.

* * * * *

THE FAMILY NAME

What reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire’s sire,
Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher;
And I, a childless man, may end the same. 
Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received the first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains. 
Perchance from Salem’s holier fields returned,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr’d
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn’d. 
Whate’er the fount whence thy beginnings came,
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.

TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ.

Of the South-Sea House

John, you were figuring in the gay career
Of blooming manhood with a young man’s joy,
When I was yet a little peevish boy—­
Though time has made the difference disappear
Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so great—­
And still by rightful custom you retain
Much of the old authoritative strain,
And keep the elder brother up in state. 
O! you do well in this.  ’Tis man’s worst deed
To let the “things that have been” run to waste,
And in the unmeaning present sink the past: 
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read
Old buried forms, and faces long ago,
Which you, and I, and one more, only know.

* * * * *

Here came “O!  I could laugh.”  See page 5.

Here came “We were two pretty babes.”  See page 9.

Here came, under the heading “Blank Verse,” “Childhood,” see page 9; “The Grandame,” see page 6; “The Sabbath Bells,” see page 10, “Fancy employed on Divine Subjects,” see page 10; and “Composed at Midnight,” see page 26.