A nobler lesson learn’d the gallant Tar
From his Orphean lyre—­to temper right
The lion’s courage with the attributes
That to the gentle and the meek belong;
O’er fallen foes to check the eye of fire—­
O’er fallen foes to soften heart of oak.

He turn’d the Fatalist’s rash eye to Him
In whom the issues are of life and death;
He taught to whom the battle is—­to whom
The victory belongs.  His cherub, that aloft
Kept sleepless watch, was Providence—­not Chance.

And yet no honours are decreed for him—­
Friend of the Brave, thy memory cannot die! 
Th’inquiring voice, that eagerly demands
Where rest thy ashes?—­shall preserve thy fame. 
Thine immortality thyself hast wrought;—­
Familiar as the terms of art, thy verse,
Thine own peculiar words are still the mode
In which the Seaman aptly would express
His honest passions and his manly thoughts;
His feelings kindle at thy burning words,
Which speak his duty in the battle’s front;
His parting whisper to the maid he loves
Is breathed in eloquence he learned from thee;
Thou art his Oracle in every mood—­
His trump of victory—­his lyre of love!

A SKETCH FROM LIFE.

She sat in beauty, like some form of nymph
Or naiad, on the mossy, purpled bank
Of her wild woodland stream, that at her feet
Linger’d, and play’d, and dimpled, as in love. 
Or like those shapes that on the western clouds
Spread gold-dropp’d plumes, and sing to harps of pearl,
And teach the evening winds their melody: 
How shall I tell her beauty?—­for the eye,
Fix’d on the sun, is blinded by its beam. 
One glance, and then no more, upon that brow
Brighter than marble shining through those curls,
Richer than hyacinths when they wave their bells
In the low breathing of the twilight wind.—­
One glance upon that lip, beside whose hue
The morning rose would sicken and grow pale,
’Till it was waked again by the soft breath
That steals in music from those lips of love. 
Wert thou a statue I could pine for thee,
But in thy living beauty there is awe;
The sacredness of modesty enshrines
The ruby lip, bright brow, and beaming eye;—­
I dare but worship what I must not love.

ON THE PORTRAIT

OF THE SON OF J.G.  LAMBTON, ESQ., M.P.

BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A.

Beautiful Boy—­thy heavenward thoughts
  Are pictured in thine eyes,
Thou hast no taint of mortal birth,
Thy communing is not of earth,
  Thy holy musings rise: 
Like incense kindled from on high,
Ascending to its native sky.

And such a head might once have graced
  The infant Samuel, when
Call’d by the favour of his God,
The youthful priest the Temple trod
  Beloved of Heaven and men! 
The same devotion on his brow
As brightens in thy forehead now.