LINES TO

SENT WITH THIS VOLUME,

IN ALL OBEDIENCE, AS COMMANDED.

'Being your slave, what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.'

When thou art near ;- -forth from thy lattice look, My gentle

and that golden day

Recall, when first by Deben's seaward shores,
Following the curving of his banks, we stray'd;
Hand link'd in hand-sweet pilgrimage—and fill'd
With phantasies as sweet:-o'er ferny dell
We trode, and fields by reeking coulter torn,
And many a brook-fed mead, and islet green
With waving samphire-there the silver wave,
Obedient to the ocean's breath, just crept

vi

To kiss the dewy margent :-so we pass'd
Pinnace, and barge, and fisher's skiff, whence flung
The thin net sway'd along, and to the shore
The boatman's carol sounded-farther now,
Following the inland waters, and our hearts
Surrendering to the genial influences
Of sun, and airs by soft Favonius breath'd;
Say, how we linger'd, pleasure gathering up
As children chase the insects o'er the plain,
From every sight and sound.-The bee's wild hum,
His wing in some rude foliature encag'd,
The beetle with its scaly habergeon
Fretting the margin of the pool—the path
Of the grey lizard to its sinuous home;
Or watch'd the seamew's silvery pennons shine
Above the sparkling waters; or far off

Following their flight, the birds of nobler plume-
High-wing'd, and journeying to their distant home.

So on the river's crisped marge we stood,
Gazing the broad expanse, that like a lake
Lay folded in the mountain's soft embrace,
Fit haunt of nymph, or naiad.-Onward now
(What could we less, sweet nature's self our guide),
Up that dear path to vulgar eyes unseen,
With its grey shrine, and rural chapel crown'd,
Threading the oaken coppice, soon we gain'd
A little sylvan lawn, that 'mid the embrace
Of close-embowering trees, its tender green
Nurs'd with perennial dews:-the silent glade
To us, methought, was dedicate, and our's
It seem'd, alone its beauty:--to and fro,
The wild-rose shadows by the Summer's breath