She starts and files my love’s excess,
  Tho’ dim my brow, beneath its mail,
  As ocean when the sun is pale. 
    On, on! until my longing sight,
  Can fix upon that dwelling white,
  Beside a verdant bank that braves
  The ocean’s ever-sounding waves;—­
  There, all alone, she loves to sing,
  Watching the silver sea-mew’s wing. 
    In crowded halls, my spirit flies
  To wait upon her; and wasting sighs
  Consume my nights; where’er I turn
  For her I pant, for her I burn,
  Who, like some timid, graceful bird,
  Shrinks from my glance and fears my word. 
    I faint; my glow of youth is gone;
  Sleepless at night and sick at morn,
  My strength departs; I droop, I fade,
  Yet think upon that lonely maid,
  And pity her, the while I pine
  That she should spurn a love like mine
    This, Madoc took the harp to play;
  Cold in the earth Prince Hoel lay;
  And Llaian listened, fain to speak
  But wept as if her heart would break.

In this connection, writing of Southey, soon after intelligence was received in this country of the decay of his intelligence, from her coffee estate in Cuba, Mrs. Brooks says: 

When a child of ten years old I could admire the poem “Madoc,” such is the simplicity of its sentiments and the beauty of its delineations.  Looking it over, here, (amidst the woods and canes of that island where repose the bones of Columbus,) the song of Prince Hoel attached itself to my thoughts, and has been (involuntarily) put into rhyme.  This song may be found in the first part of the poem mentioned.  The lyric metre in which it now appears must rather injure than improve the belle nature of the original.  Still I wish it to be published, as coming from my hand; because it gives me an opportunity of expressing, in some degree, my unqualified admiration of its composer.  Well may he be called the poet and historian of the new world.  To justify this appellation, one has only to look at Madoc and the History of Brazil.  I have heard, from a friend, of a rumor that Southey is ill; and, as it is feared, irrecoverably.

This intelligence is unexpected as it is melancholy; for who had better reason to look forward to a protracted existence upon earth, than he who has written more than any other man except Voltaire—­than Robert Southey, perfectly proportioned in person, just in mind, regular in his way of living, and benevolent in all his doings?

During that Spring which hallowed the last revolution in France, (that of July, 1830,) I saw this bard of the lakes surrounded by his most amiable and certainly beautiful family; one only individual of which, his “Dark-eyed Birtha, timid as a dove,” was then absent.  I must ever believe that a common reputation for beauty depends more on circumstances than on any particular faultlessness in the person said generally to be handsome.