ote 14: Written at Coblenz, where Hood and his family were then
settled, in November 1835.]

And has the earth lost its so spacious round,
The sky its blue circumference above,
That in this little chamber there is found
Both earth and heaven--my universe of love!
All that my God can give me, or remove,
Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death.
Sweet that in this small compass I behove
To live their living and to breathe their breath!
Almost I wish that, with one common sigh,
We might resign all mundane care and strife,
And seek together that transcendent sky,
Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband, Wife,
Together pant in everlasting life!

STANZAS.[15]

[Footnote 15: Assigned by Hood's son to the year 1835, but apparently
only on conjecture.]

Is there a bitter pang for love removed,
O God! The dead love doth not cost more tears
Than the alive, the loving, the beloved--
Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears!
Would I were laid
Under the shade
Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years,--

That love might die with sorrow:--I am sorrow;
And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press
Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow
Only new anguish from the old caress;
Oh, this world's grief
Hath no relief

In being wrung from a great happiness.
Would I had never filled thine eyes with love,
For love is only tears: would I had never
Breathed such a curse-like blessing as we prove;
Now, if "Farewell" _could_ bless thee, I would sever!
Would I were laid
Under the shade
Of the cold tomb, and the long grass forever!

ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQ.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE _ATHENAEUM_.

MY DEAR SIR--The following Ode was written anticipating the tone of
some strictures on my writings by the gentleman to whom it is
addressed. I have not seen his book; but I know by hearsay that some
of my verses are characterized as "profaneness and ribaldry"--citing,
in proof, the description of a certain sow, from whose jaw a cabbage
sprout

"Protruded, as the dove so staunch
For peace supports an olive branch."

If the printed works of my Censor had not prepared me for any
misapplication of _types_, I should have been surprised by this
misapprehension of one of the commonest emblems. In some cases the
dove unquestionably stands for the Divine Spirit; but the same bird
is also a lay representative of the peace of this world, and, as s