"O, thou hast robbed the Nereids, gentle brother, Of some swift fairy messenger; behold,-- His dappled livery prankt with red and gold Shows him their favourite page: just such another Sad Galatæa to her Acis sent To teach the new-born fountain how to flow, And track with loving haste the way she went Down the rough rocks, and through the flowery plain, Ev'n to her home where coral branches grow, And where the sea-nymph clasps her love again: We the while, terrible as Polypheme, Brandish the lissom rod, and featly try Once more to throw the tempting treacherous fly And win a brace of trophies from the stream."
"Come then, coy Zephyr, waft my feathered bait Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave Some Triton's ambush, where he lies in wait To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly: A rise, by Glaucus!--but he missed the hook,-- Another--safe! the monarch of the brook, With broadside like a salmon's, gleaming brightly: Off let him race, and waste his prowess there; The dread of Damocles, a single hair, Will tax my skill to take this fine old trout; So,--lead him gently; quick, the net, the net! Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out, Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet."
In the course of my Oxford career I tried for two Newdigate Prize poems, "The Suttees" and the "African Desert," won respectively by Claughton, now Bishop of St. Albans, and Rickards, whose honours of course I ought to know, but don't. A good-looking and well-speaking friend of mine, E.H. Abney, now a Canon, was so certain that the said prizes in those two successive years were to fall to me, that he learnt my poems by heart in order to recite them as my speech-substitute in the Sheldonian Theatre at Commemoration, and he used frequently to look in upon me to be coached in his recital. It was rumoured that I came second on both occasions,--one of them certainly had a 2 marked on it when returned to me, but I know not who placed it there. However, my pieces were afterwards printed; both separately, and among my "Ballads and Poems," by Hall and Virtue, and are now before me. As an impartial and veteran judge of such _literaria_, I am bold to say they are far better than I thought, and might fairly have won Newdigate prizes, even as friend Abney & Co. were sure they would.