With viewless billows of unweary sound;
Myriads of hearts in full commotion mix'd,
From morn to noon, from noon to night again,
Through the wide realm of whirling passion borne,—
And there is London !-England's heart and soul.
By the proud flowing of her famous Thames
She circulates through countless lands and isles
Her queenly greatness; gloriously she rules,
At once the awe and sceptre of the world!

Thou English Babylon! The Book of Life
With records that have made the angels weep,
Each daring moment thou dost darkly fill :—
For whatsoe'er the spirit can reveal

Of fallen nature, in her varying realm
Of sinfulness, is ever shown by thee.

Here, Fraud and Murder on their thrones erect
Infernal standards, and around them swarm
Such progenies, as Vileness, Want, and Woe
Beget, to live like cannibals on blood:
Or move as crawling Vipers in the path
Of infamy, foul lewdness, or despair.
Here, Misery betrays her wildest form,
And sheds her hottest tear. See! as they rush,
Thy million sons, along the sounding streets,
Upon them how she turns her haggard gaze,
Lifts her shrunk hand, and with heart-piercing wail,
A boon in God's name asks :-but let her die,
And be her death-couch the remorseless stones!
For when the hungry winter blast shall pause
To list the wailing of a lonely tree,
The crowds will stop, and pity her despair!

Here Pride, in her most vulgar glory struts;
And Envy all her vip'rous offspring breeds,
To scatter poison with a hand unseen.—
But, Mammon! thou almighty friend of Hell.
Sure London is thy ever-royal seat,

Thy chosen capital, thy matchless home!
Where rank idolaters, of every lot

And land, do bow them to the basest dust
That Falsehood, Flattery, or Cunning treads,
From dawn to eve, and serve thee with as true
A love as ever Angel served his God!

See! how the hard and greedy worldlings crowd,
With toiling motion, through the foot-worn ways;
The sour and sullen, wretch'd, rack'd, and wild,—
The whole vile circle of uneasy slaves.
Mark one, with features of ferocious hue;
Another, carved by Villany's own hand
A visage wears, and through the trait'rous blood
The spirit works, like venom from the soul!

What rush and roar unceasing! and how strange A mass of objects, as I move along Invisible, amid these floods of life

I see;-a chaos of unnumber'd hearts,

Beating and bounding, charged with great design, And making Fate, at every pulse, to feel,— Before me acts its mighty tragedy!

LOVERS BY MOONLIGHT.

ALL hours are sweet, when love is there
A heavenliness to make and share ;
All scenes delight, when eyes adored
The magic of their gaze afford;
No rock is bleak, no desert rude,
When Beauty walks the solitude;-
But moonlight charms the outward eye,
Like music heard by memory;
And temptingly the moonbeams play
Around young lovers' lonely way,
As though fond Nature glow'd to meet
The pressure of their timing feet!-
Belated, like a starry train

When loth to quit the azure plain,
Yon vision'd pair,- behold them now;
While Dian bares her crested brow,
And clouds of alabaster white

Float in the soundless breath of night,-
How beautiful Creation's sleep!
So innocent, so calm, and deep:
The air is rock'd to voiceless rest!
The bird within his woven nest;
The dew upon unshaken leaves
A web of filmy lustre weaves;
And onward as the lovers steal,
You'd deem the fairy ground could feel
Their shadows o'er its silence fall,-

So rapt a stillness veileth all!

But they have reach'd a woodland shore, Where billows, now the breeze is o'er,

Are blended into one broad mass
Of heaving glory !—like a glass
Reflecting forth with twinkling change
The heaven-lights, in their lofty range.-
Magnificent, and mute, and bright,—
To feel it,-is to worship night!

And there they stand, absorb'd and blest,
In adoration unexprest;

Yet, drinking in with eye and soul
Earth's beautiful and boundless whole!

LITERARY LIONS.

BUT, hark! to sounds so musically dear,
By flattery melted into Folly's ear!
Behold a LION that doth roar to night,
And doubt if homage be not man's delight!
Amid the sweet soft words that come and go
From lord to lady, and from belle to beau,
There in thyself a night-throned idol see,
'Tis all thou art, and all a fool should be !-
Enamour'd thus, nonsensically dream
Thy mental worth a supernatʼral theme;
Yet, look around thee ere the night be o'er,
Thy heart is free, and thou a fool no more!
Thy mien, thy manners, and thy person tend
To make no charm Politeness could commend;
And, lest they should not quite sufficient see,
The faults of others are bestow'd on thee:
Thus on, till all that once was glory thought
From tongue to tongue is whisper'd into nought;
While each is conscious, as thy fame's o'erthrown,
To wound another's, is to heal his own.

LOVE.

ETHEREAL essence, interfused through life,
Is love. In orbs of glory spirits live

On such perfection; and on earth it feeds
And quickens all things with a soul-like ray:
The beautiful in its most beauteous sense;
And symbolized by nature, in her play

Of harmonies,-her forms, her hues, and sounds;
In each connexion, aptitude, and grace
Reside. Thus flowers in their infantile bloom
Of sympathy, the bend of trees, and boughs,
The chime of waters, and caress of winds,-
Betoken that they all partake a sense

Of that sweet principle, that charms the world.

LONELINESS.

ALONE, amid the wide and desert world,
Without a heart to echo to our own,

O! what is all the pomp and play of life !—
There is a solitude that lifts the mind
To lofty things,—seclusion from the rush
And stir of the unfeeling crowd, whose days
Reap scarce a thought to sanctify their fight:
Far from the city din, may Wisdom haunt
Her lone retreats, and yet not live alone;
For is there not the fellowship of books
Divine, the company of kindling thoughts,
And all that Nature yields, a grateful mind?
This is not loneliness:-to look around

The peopled world, and 'mong its myriad hearts