Man is ever warring, rushing

Onward through life's ftormy way,
Wild his fervour, fierce and crushing,
Knows he neither reft nor stay :
Creating, flaying-day by day

Urged by paffion's fury brood,
A hydra band, whofe heads, for aye,
Fall, to be for aye renewed.

But women, to fweet filent praises refigning
Such hopes as affection is ever enshrining,

Pluck the moment's brief flowers as they wander along.

More free in their limited range, richer ever,

Than man, proudly foaring with fruitless endeavour, Through the infinite circles of science and fong.

Strong and proud, and felf-commending,
Man's cold heart doth rarely move,
To the gentler fpirit bending,

To the god-like power of love;
Knows not foul-exchange fo tender,
Tears, by other's tears confeffed ;
Life's dark combats fteel and render
Harder his obdurate breaft!

Oh, wakened like harp, and as gently resembling
Its murmuring chords to the night-breezes trembling,
Breathes woman's fond foul, and as feelingly too.
Touched lightly, touched deeply, for ever she borrows
Grief itself from the image of grief, and her forrows

Ever gem her foft eyes with Heaven's holiest dew.

Man, of power defpotic lord,
In power doth infolently trust;
Scythia argues with the sword,

Perfia, crouching, bites the duft.
In their fury fights engaging,
Combat spoilers wild and dread,
Strife, and war, and havoc raging,
Where the charities have fled.

But gently intreating, and fweetly beguiling,

Woman reigns while the graces around her are smiling,

Calming down the fierce difcord of hatred and pride;

Teaching all whom the ftrife of wild paffions would

fever,

To unite in one bond, and with her, and for ever,

All hopes, each emotion, they else had denied.

SCHILLER.

XXVII.

THE SKYLARK.

AIL to thee, blythe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it,

Poureft thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springeft,

Like a cloud of fire

The blue deep thou wingeft,

And finging still doft foar, and foaring ever fingeft.

In the golden lightning

Of the funken fun,

O'er which clouds are brightening,

Thou doft float and run;

Like an unbodied joy whofe race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight,

Like a ftar of Heaven

In the broad daylight,

Thou art unfeen, but yet I hear thy fhrill de

light

Keen as are the arrows

Of that filver sphere,

Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,

Until we hardly fee we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud;

As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud,

The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not,

What is moft like thee;

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops fo bright to fee,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought; Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To fympathy with hopes and fears it heeded

not.

Like a glow-worm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Amid the flowers and grass that screen it from

the view.

Like a rofe embowered

In its own green leaves,

By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much scent these heavywinged thieves,—

Sound of vernal showers

On the awakened grass,

Rain awakened flowers,

All that ever was

Joyous and clear and fresh, thy mufic doth furpafs.

Teach us, fprite or bird,

What fweet notes are thine ;

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine,

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,

Or triumphant chant,

Matched with thine would be all

But an empty vaunt,

A thing wherein we feel there is fome hidden

want.

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy ftrains;

What fields, or waves, or mountains,

What shapes of sky or plains;

What love of thy own kind, what ignorance of

pain?