'A few cattle looking up askance With ruminant meek mouths and sleepy glance' there again he had liberated his perception and his pleasure, and might pause for a happy moment. So he flitted on with steady purpose, and a happy industrious imagination storing Es hive. His verses, though less rich and deep in loveliness than those of Keats, seem, as he so finely said of Keats's lines, ‘to take pleasure in the progress of their own beauty, like sea-nymphs luxuriating in the water.' He loved the triplet because it prolonged this luxury. Leigh Hunt's reverence for literature was of the finest temper. It would have pleased him to be a servant in the train of Ariosto. His loyalty to Keats was generous and constant, untouched by a shadow of ignoble rivalry. To him, the elder of the two, Keats offered his first printed verses. And Shelley withdrew, as fearing by sigh or tear to wrong the deeper grief of him, the 'gentlest of the wise,' who 'taught, soothed, loved, honoured' dead Adonais. EDWARD DOWDEN. A GARDEN AND SUMMER HOUSE [From The Story of Rimini.] A noble range it was, of many a rood, Of wall-flowers, and blue hyacinths, and blooms And orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit, And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade Of darksome pines, a babbling fountain played, And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, Which through the tops glimmered with showering light. So now you stood to think what odours best Made the air happy in that lovely nest; And now you went beside the flowers, with eyes Earnest as bees, restless as butterflies; And then turned off into a shadier walk, At last you entered shades indeed, the wood, And all about, the birds kept leafy house, Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through; But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks, half-way, And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay,— A spot, that struck you like enchanted ground :It was a shallow dell, set in a mound Of sloping orchards,—fig, and almond trees, Cherry and pine, with some few cypresses; Down by whose roots, descending darkly still, (You saw it not, but heard) there gushed a rill, Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said, Something eternal to that happy shade. The ground within was lawn, with fruits and flowers Heaped towards the centre, half of citron bowers; And in the middle of those golden trees, Half seen amidst the globy oranges, Lurked a rare summer-house, a lovely sight, Smail, marble, well-proportioned, creamy white, Its top with vine-leaves sprinkled,-but no more,- It was a beauteous piece of ancient skill, Built to the Nymphs that haunted there of old; By girls and shepherds brought, with reverend eyes, In like relief, a world of pagan bliss, That shewed, in various scenes, the nymphs themselves ; Some by the water-side, on bowery shelves Leaning at will,-some in the stream at play,— Some pelting the young Fauns with buds of May, Or half-asleep, pretending not to see The latter in the brakes come creepingly, A summer-house so fine in such a nest of green. RONDEAU. Jenny kissed me when we met, Sweets into your list, put that in: Say that health and wealth have missed me, Jenny kissed me. TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET. Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong, One to the fields, the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song— In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth. THE FISH, THE MAN, AND THE SPIRIT. You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced, Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced, And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,- |