The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl! _5

***


A HATE-SONG.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870.]

A hater he came and sat by a ditch,
And he took an old cracked lute;
And he sang a song which was more of a screech
'Gainst a woman that was a brute.

***


LINES TO A CRITIC.

[Published by Hunt in "The Liberal", No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in
"Posthumous Poems", 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]

1.
Honey from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.