Caroline glides smooth in verse,
And is easy to rehearse;
Runs just like some crystal river
O’er its pebbly bed for ever.

Lines as harsh and quaint as mine
In their close at least will shine,
Nor from sweetness can decline,
Ending but with Caroline.

Maria asks a statelier pace—­ “Ave Maria, full of grace!” Romish rites before me rise, Image-worship, sacrifice, And well-meant but mistaken pieties.

Apple with Bee doth rougher run.  Paradise was lost by one; Peace of mind would we regain, Let us, like the other, strain Every harmless faculty, Bee-like at work in our degree, Ever some sweet task designing, Extracting still, and still refining.

TO CECILIA CATHERINE LAWTON

An Acrostic

Choral service, solemn chanting,
Echoing round cathedrals holy—­
Can aught else on earth be wanting
In heav’n’s bliss to plunge us wholly? 
Let us great Cecilia honour
In the praise we give unto them,
And the merit be upon her.

Cold the heart that would undo them, And the solemn organ banish That this sainted Maid invented.  Holy thoughts too quickly vanish, Ere the expression can be vented.  Raise the song to Catherine, In her torments most divine!  Ne’er by Christians be forgot—­ Envied be—­this Martyr’s lot. Lawton, who these names combinest, Aim to emulate their praises; Women were they, yet divinest Truths they taught; and story raises O’er their mouldering bones a Tomb, Not to die till Day of Doom.

ACROSTIC,

TO A LADY WHO DESIRED ME TO WRITE HER EPITAPH

(1830)

Grace Joanna here doth lie: 
Reader, wonder not that I
Ante-date her hour of rest. 
Can I thwart her wish exprest,
Ev’n unseemly though the laugh

Jesting with an Epitaph? 
On her bones the turf lie lightly,
And her rise again be brightly! 
No dark stain be found upon her—­
No, there will not, on mine honour—­
Answer that at least I can.

        Would that I, thrice happy man,
        In as spotless garb might rise,
        Light as she will climb the skies,
        Leaving the dull earth behind,
        In a car more swift than wind. 
        All her errors, all her failings,
        (Many they were not) and ailings,
        Sleep secure from Envy’s railings.

ANOTHER,

                TO HER YOUNGEST DAUGHTER
                         (1830)

        Least Daughter, but not least beloved, of Grace! 
        O frown not on a stranger, who from place,
        Unknown and distant these few lines hath penn’d. 
        I but report what thy Instructress Friend
        So oft hath told us of thy gentle heart. 
        A pupil most affectionate thou art,