WHAT YOU WILL.

NO. I.

EDITED BY VYVYAN JOYEUSE.

To all whom it may concern :

66

I, Vyvyan Joyeuse, give notice that all "Songs," "Lines," "Epigrams," "" -S, in this our realm of literature, have been made over to my sovereign rule and governance, and that I have been installed Generalissimo of Jeux d'Esprit, and Archbishop of Bagatelle.

Trinity College, Cambridge, April 1, 1823,

May 1.-I have a friend who writes more verses than any man under the sun. I will engage that he shall spill more ink in an hour than a County Member shall swallow claret, and dispose of a quire in less time than an Alderman shall raze a haunch. Lopez de Vega was nothing to him! When he dies he will die for want of a new rhyme; he has loose MSS. enough to make a myriad of winding sheets, and an album thick enough for a pyre. But may the muses avert such a consummation; particularly as he contributes. Only listen!

POEMS TO ZOE.

I.

One after one the joys of youth

Had died away;

And visions of unfading truth,
As false as they.

Then came a dark and dreary chill,
More sad than grief;

The very pang that bade me feel,
Had seem'd relief.

I saw thee smile ;-the icy chain
Began to melt;

I heard thee speak;-and once again

I lived-I felt!

Thy gentle care once more for me
Hope's garland wove,

And all my soul's dark apathy
Fled from thy love.

It vanish'd, like the languid mist
Whose sullen hue,

By morning's summer radiance kist,

Melts in bright dew.

And thou hast given me light and life,
Fond hopes, sweet fears;

The varying passion's pleasing strife,
And smiles, and tears.

II.

When o'er my brow steals sorrow's deep'ning shroud,
Oh bid me not the darker cause reveal;

Not for the wealth of worlds would I o'ercloud
Thy young clear spirit with the woes I feel!

It is not meet thine early years should share
The painful knowledge Time must render thine;
Yet Heaven avert that even Time should e'er
Instruct thy soul as fatally as mine!

No! be thou still the light of this fond soul,
Whose life in joy or grief thou still must be ;-
Then, ev'n if Woe my destiny controul,

I still may hope-I yet may smile-in thee!

Not all forlorn the wither'd tree is seen,
O'er which the ivy has its mantle thrown;
And many an eye mistakes the clustering green
That veils the leafless branches, for their own.

Ah, if thy light of gladness should depart,

If Hope no more in those dear eyes should shine,
How could I live? This much-enduring heart

Bears its own sorrows-but must break with thine.

May 2.-Pray, reader, did you ever write a sonnet? My friend Spatter showed me one the other day, containing somewhat more than the common professions of passion, wrapt up in somewhat more than the common ruggedness of measure and melody. Poor fellow! he has about as much passion as a poker, and rather more sentiment than a wheelbarrow. And he has indited a thing of forty falsehoods and of fourteen rhymes.Alas!

"He never wrote but one, and here he lies!"

As for myself, I have done a thousand. Beautiful Myou at least have not forgotten the pangs I endured and the paper I wasted; you, at least, can remember how often I bit my lips, and how often I bit my nails. I have not written a couplet since we parted; I will not write another till we meet:

Io vivrò sempre in pene,

Io non avro piu bene,
E tu,-chi sa, se mai

Ti sovererai di me?

But this, by the way, is idle, melancholy, and a lie. I will step out of the way, and introduce my reader to better company :-Gerard Montgomery, come into court.

SONNETS, BY G. M.

I. TO POESY.

Wonderful Spirit, whose eternal shrine
Is in great Poets' souls; whose voice doth send
High truths and dreams prophetic without end
Into the blind world from those founts divine;
Deep adoration from such souls is thine:
But I have loved thee, Spirit, as a friend,
Woo'd thee in pensive leisure but to lend
Thy sweetness to this wayward heart of mine,
And charm my lone thoughts into joyousness.
And I have found that thou canst lay aside
Thy terrors, and thy glory, and thy pride;
Quit thy proud temples for a calm recess

In lowly hearts, and dream sweet hours away,
Winning from soaring thought a frequent holiday.

Now, like a shooting star, thy bark doth fle
Over the azure waters, which convey

Thee and thy warrior-husband far away

From England's shores. Soon, soon on the wide sea,
When the hoarse waves are moaning sullenly,

And absent far is Friendship's cheering ray,

Shall ye two know how mighty is the sway

Of wedded love, how dear those fetters be

Which the free heart doth wear. Oh! we who doze

In tranquil homes, and with domestic mirth
Season the warmth of the calm evening hearth,

Can know but little of the love of those

Who, in the lonely waste of sea and skies,

Find home and comfort in each other's eyes.

III.

The gorgeous ranks of flaming cherubim,
The light, the rushing of unnumber'd wings,
The choral voices of the host that sings
Unceasing anthems at the Throne of Him,
Th' Eternal, the Unknown, to me are dim
And unattractive dreams. My weak soul clings
To joys and hopes that flow from earthly things,
E'en when the inward eye of faith doth swim
In dreams that wander thro' eternity-

I cannot long for unimagined joys;

My trust is that hereafter I shall see

Forms dear to me on Earth-that many a voice
Well known, in Paradise shall speak to me,
And earthly love be free from Earth's alloys.

May 5.-My dear Nicholas, your verses about the tomb of Napoleon will never do. Do you seriously believe that the Emperor had a file of grenadier's daily at the Thuileries, to be shot, at halfafter-twelve, for his imperial entertainment? Is it an article of your creed that he commonly dined upon stewed bombs and pickled musket-balls? And have you any authority for asserting that he amused himself in his captivity by applying thumbscrews to Marshal Bertrand, and pulling Madame Montholon's hair? And why do you exult so vehemently because such a man has nothing over his dust but a shrub and a flat stone? Are you really so anxious upon the subject of posthumous accommodation, that you would give half-a-crown for a bust, or five shillings for a pyramid? As an admirer of mine said but indifferently in Greek, and as I say very prettily in English,

Give me a low and humble mound;

In some sequestered dell;
Where echo shall make music round,
My buried dust shall dwell;
There shall the turf with dew be wet;

And while one natural rivulet

Shall wander on its way, and sing
Beneath the twilight beam,
Cypress and myrtle both shall spring
Beside its lonely stream;

And memory shall scatter there
The laurel I have long'd to wear;

And she I loved shall often glide,
When tolls the evening bell,

To whisper near that tomb and tide
One echoless farewell,"

And shed one tear in that still grove,-
The silent tear of parted love.

Build not for me a pyramid,

Carve not a stone for me;

The tear that gleams in that fair lid
Shall be mine elegy;

And in thy breast, thy tender breast,

My shade shall find a home of rest!

May 7.-Tristram Merton, I have a strong curiosity to know who Rosamond is. But you will not tell me; and, after all, as far as your verses are concerned, the surname is nowise german to the matter. As poor Sheridan said, it is too formal to be registered in Love's Calendar.

Oh Rosamond! how sweet it were, on some fine summer dawn,
With thee to wander, hand in hand, upon the dewy lawn,

When flowers and heaps of new-mown grass perfume the morning breeze,
And round the straw-built hive resounds the murmur of the bees;
To see the distant mountain-tops empurpled by the ray,

And look along the spreading vale to the ocean far away;
O'er russet heaths, and glancing rills, and massy forests green,
And curling smoke of cottages, and dark grey spires between.

And oh! how passing sweet it were, through the long sunny day,
To gaze upon thy lovely face, to gaze myself away,
While thou beneath a mountain-ash, upon a mossy seat,
Shouldst sing a low wild song to me, reclining at thy feet!
And oh! to see thee, in some mood of playful toil, entwine
Round the green trellice of our bower the rose and eglantine,
Still laying on my soul and sense a new and mystic charm,
At every turn of thy fairy shape and of thy snowy arm!

And when the winds, on winter nights, in fitful cadence blow,
And whirl against our frozen pane the eddying flakes of snow,
How gay would be the fireside light, how sweet the kettle's moan,
Joined to the lustre of thy smile, the music of thy tone!
How fondly could I play for hours with thy long curling tresses,
And press thy hand and clasp thy neck with fanciful caresses,
And mingle low impassioned speech with kisses and with sighs,
And pore into the dark-blue depths of those voluptuous eyes.

Tristram, I hope "Rosamond" and your "Fair Girl of France" will not pull caps,-but I cannot forbear the temptation of introducing your Roxana and Statira to an admiring public :

By thy love, fair girl of France,
And the arch and bashful glance
Which so well revealed it;
By the flush upon thy brow,
By the softly faltered vow,

And the kiss which sealed it