Before all Rome I taunt thee, villain !— I'll

Poems Written in Youth.'

SONNET.-TO SCIENCE.

SCIENCE! True daughter of Old Time thou art!

Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

1

Private reasons-some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson's first poems-have induced me, after some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim, without alteration from the original edition, the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.-E. A. P.

AL AARAAF.1

PART I.

OH, nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy--
Oh, nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours—
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers

That list our Love, and deck our bowers

Adorn yon world afar, afar,

The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace - for there Her world lay lolling on the golden air, Near four bright suns-a temporary rest— An oasis in desert of the blest.

1 A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe, which appeared suddenly in the heavens; attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter; then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.

Away-away-'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er the unchained soul-
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence—
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favor'd one of God,
But now the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre-leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
She look'd into Infinity—and knelt.

Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled-
Fit emblems of the model of her world—
Seen but in beauty-not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light-
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in color bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers of lilies such as rear'd the head
On the fair Capo Deucato,1 and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang

Upon the flying footsteps of-deep pride-
Of her who lov'd a mortal-and so died.2
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
1 On Santa Maura-olim Deucadia.

2Sappho.