OF MILTON, IN YOUTH AND AGE, AT STOURHEAD.

IN YOUTH.

Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
To mar its openness, we seem to trace
The front of the first lord of human race,
'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!

IN AGE.

And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days,"
And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,--
A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
As in the sight of God intent to seek,
'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
Of hard adversity, the approving look
Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!

TO SIR WALTER SCOTT.

ON ACCIDENTLY MEETING AND PARTING WITH SIR WALTER SCOTT, WHOM I HAD NOT
SEEN FOR MANY YEARS, IN THE STREETS OF LONDON, MAY 1828.

Since last I saw that countenance so mild,
Slow-stealing age, and a faint line of care,
Had gently touched, methought, some features there;
Yet looked the man as placid as a child,
And the same voice,--whilst mingled with the throng,
Unknowing, and unknown, we passed along,--
That voice, a share of the brief time beguiled!
That voice I ne'er may hear again, I sighed
At parting,--wheresoe'er our various way,
In this great world,--but from the banks of Tweed,
As slowly sink the shades of eventide,
Oh! I shall hear the music of his reed,
Far off, and thinking of that voice, shall say,
A blessing rest upon thy locks of gray!

ELEGY WRITTEN AT THE HOTWELLS, BRISTOL,

JULY, 1789.

INSCRIBED TO THE REV. W. HOWLEY.[16]

The morning wakes in shadowy mantle gray,