SONNET 1.

THERE is a virtue, which to fortune's height
Follows us not, but in the vale below,

Where dwell the ills of life, disease and woe, Holds on its steady course, serenely bright: So some lone star, whose softly beaming light We mark not, in the blaze of solar day, Comes forth with pure and ever-constant ray, That makes e'en beautiful the gloom of night. Thou art that star, so beauteous and so lone, That virtue of distress, FIDELITY,

And thou, when every joy and hope is flown,

Cling'st to the relics of humanity,

Making, with all its sorrows, life still dear,

And death, with all its terrors, void of fear.

B

SONNET II.

INEUNTE ANNO 1822.

I've seen my day, before its noon, decline,
And dark is still the future, nor, alas!

Can Hope, with all the magic of her glass,
Irradiate the deep gloom, which fate malign
Hath gather'd round. Yet will I not repine,
For tho' the courage that can do and dare
Be brighter glory; unsubdued, to bear,
That calmer, better virtue may be mine;
For this is of the mind; the battle-plain
Asks but a moment's energies, and fame

First wakens, and then keeps alive the flame;

But patience must itself, itself sustain,

And must itself reward, nor care to find

The praise, or the compassion of mankind.

SONNET III.

The six following Sonnets were written on a Voyage from
Madeira to England.

MADEIRA, loveliest isle of isles, farewell!

If, nurs'd in odorous bowers by zephyrs mild,

Of health and peace Contentment were the child, Well might Contentment love green Funchal's dell. But oft, alas! the youthful soul will swell

With restless thoughts, and feed on visions wild, Till, by Ambition's serpent-tongue beguil'd,

'Tis pain, in happiness secure, to dwell. Then happy, but inglorious Isle, adieu!

Yet deem I, when the health you gave is

When novelty's and glory's brilliant hue

gone,

From the bright summer-skies of life is flown,

Then haply shall I turn again to you,

Nor wish again to leave your valleys lone.

SONNET IV.

O THOU pale Sun! that wrapp'd in mist and cloud,
Seem'st like thy sister cold and sad, the moon,
Oh! pierce, in pity pierce thy watery shroud,
And grant, 'tis all I ask, one half hour's boon
Of light, effulgent sovereign of the noon!

For bleak o'er ocean blows the northern gale,
And we are come from where eternal June
Nurses with tepid breath Madeira's vale:
Then come thou forth, and flush my visage pale!
Thou com'st; ah! no, that effort is in vain,

But, like some shield, thou twinklest thro' thy veil,

And now with ease art gaz'd upon again;

Darkness and cold reclaim the billowy plain,

And I may weave a fresh, and haply fruitless strain.