WHO GAVE THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR.

A LIBERAL taste, and a wise gentleness,

Have ever been the true physician's dower,
As still is visible in the placid power

Of those old Grecian busts; and helps to bless
Cullen's dear memory, with his heart's address,
And flowing Garth; and him in Cowley's bower,
Harvey; and Milton's own exotic flower,
Young Deodati, plucked from his caress.

To add to these an ear for the sweet hold

Of music, and an eye, aye and a hand

For forms which the smooth Graces tend and follow,

Shews thee indeed true offspring of the bland

And vital god, whom she of happy mould,

The Larissaan beauty, bore Apollo.

ON A LOCK OF MILTON'S HAIR.

Ir lies before me there, and my own breath
Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside
The living head I stood in honoured pride,
Talking of lovely things that conquer death.
Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath

Ran his fine fingers, when he leant, blank-eyed,
And saw, in fancy, Adam and his bride

With their heaped locks, or his own Delphic wreath.

There seems a love in hair, though it be dead.

It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread

Of our frail plant,—a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk ;—as though it said

Patience and Gentleness is Power. In me

Behold affectionate eternity.

TRANSLATIONS.