I KNOW her by her angry air,

Her bright black eyes, her bright black hair,

Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughters of the woodpecker

From the bosom of a hill.

'Tis Kate- she sayeth what she will: For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp.

Her heart is like a throbbing star. Kate hath a spirit ever strung Like a new bow, and bright and sharp, As edges of the scymitar. Whence shall she take a fitting mate? For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,

As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith "the world is void of might."
Kate saith"the men are gilded flies."
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lovers' sighs.
I would I were an arméd knight,

Far famed for well-won enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise :

For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,
In dreaming of my lady's eyes.

Oh! Kate loves well the bold and
fierce ;

But none are bold enough for Kate,
She cannot find a fitting mate.

Grew to his strength among his deserts cold;

When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled

The growing murmurs of the Polish war! Now must your noble anger blaze out

more

Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan, The Moslem myriads fell, and fled beforeThan when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan;

Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

SONNET

ON THE RESULT OF THE LATE RUSSIAN INVASION OF POLAND.

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,

And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased

To quiver, though her sacred blood doth drown

The fields; and out of every mouldering

town

Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be in

creased,

Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some

new crown:

Cries to Thee, "Lord, how long shall these things be?

How long shall the icy-hearted Muscovite Oppress the region?" Us, O Just and Good,

Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three ;

Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right

A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

SONNET.

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood,

And ebb into a former life, or seem
To lapse far back in a confuséd dream
To states of mystical similitude;
If one but speaks or hems or stirs his
chair,

Ever the wonder waxeth more and more,
So that we say,
"All this hath been before,

sloped

Into the slumberous summer noon; but

ME my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh:

Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory:

Thy spirit, circled with a living glory, In summer still a summer joy resumeth. Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh, Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary,

From an old garden where no flower bloometh,

One cypress on an island promontory. But yet my lonely spirit follows thine,

As round the rolling earth night follows day:

But yet thy lights on my horizon shine Into my night, when thou art far away.

• Friendship's Offering, 1833.

We know him, out of Shakespeare's art,

And those fine curses which he spoke ; The old Timon, with his noble heart, That, strongly loathing, greatly broke. Friendship's Offering, 1833.

+ Omitted from the edition of 1842.

Published in Punch, Feb. 1846, signed " Alcibiades."

Who killed the girls and thrilled the boys With dandy pathos when you wrote! A Lion, you, that made a noise,

And shook a mane en papillotes.

And once you tried the Muses too;
You failed, Sir: therefore now you turn,
To fall on those who are to you
As Captain is to Subaltern.
But men of long-enduring hopes,
And careless what this hour may bring,
Can pardon little would-be POPES
And BRUMMELS, when they try to sting.

An Artist, Sir, should rest in Art,
And waive a little of his claim;
To have the deep Poetic heart

Is more than all poetic fame.

But you, Sir, you are hard to please;
You never look but half content;
Nor like a gentleman at ease,

With moral breadth of temperament.

And what with spites and what with fears,
You cannot let a body be:
It's always ringing in your ears,

"They call this man as good as me."

What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt-
A dapper boot a little hand-
If half the little soul is dirt?

All freedom vanish'd, The true men banish'd,

He triumphs; may be we shall stand alone. Britons, guard your own.

His soldier-ridden Highness might incline

To take Sardinia, Belgium, or the Rhine: Shall we stand idle,

Nor seek to bridle

desire

Make their cause your own.

Should he land here, and for one hour

prevail,

There must no man go back to bear the

tale :

No man to bear it

Swear it! we swear it!

Although we fight the banded world alone,

We swear to guard our own.

THE THIRD OF FEBRUARY, 1852.*

My lords, we heard you speak; you told us all

That England's honest censure went too far;

That our free press should cease to brawl, Not sting the fiery Frenchman into

war.

It was an ancient privilege, my lords, To fling whate'er we felt, not fearing, into words.

France,

The Jesuit laughs, and reckoning on his

chance,

Would unrelenting, Kill all dissenting,

It might safe be our censures to withdraw; And yet, my lords, not well; there is a higher law.

As long as we remain, we must speak free,
Though all the storm of Europe on us
No little German state are we,
break;

But the one voice in Europe; we must
speak;

That if to-night our greatness were struck dead,

There might remain some record of the things we said!'

If you be fearful, then must we be bold. Our Britain cannot salve a tyrant o'er.

* The Examiner, 1852, and signed "Merlin."