With no beloved face at

my

bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel

guide, Would make me pass the cup of anguish by,

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died !

ADDRESSED

TO

A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE,

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND

CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear ! To plundered Want's half-sheltered hovel go,

Go, and some hunger- bitten infant hear

Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O’er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves

strewed, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy

heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject ! if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's common-weal

A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

have past,

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER. DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West ! How many various-fated

years
What happy, and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps ! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes, Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my

way Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs :

Ah! could I be once more a careless child !

SONNET. COMPOSED ON A JOURNEY HOMEWARD; THE AUTHOR

HAVING RECEIVED INTELLIGENCE OF THE BIRTH OF A SON, SEPT. 20, 1796.

OFT
FT o'er my brain does that strange fancy roll
Which makes the present (while the flash doth

last)
Seem a mere semblance of some unknown past.
Mixed with such feelings, as perplex the soul
Self-questioned in her sleep; and some have said*

* "Ην που ημών ή ψύχη πρίν εν τώδε τώ ανθρωπίνω είδει γενέσθαι -Plat. in Phædon.

We lived, ere yet this robe of flesh we wore.

O my sweet baby! when I reach my door,
If heavy looks should tell me thou art dead
li (As sometimes, through excess of hope, I fear),
I think that I should struggle to believe

Thou wert a spirit, to this nether sphere Sentenced for some more venial crime to grieve; Did'st moan, then spring to meet Heaven's quick

reprieve,
While we wept idly o'er thy little bier !

CHARLES ! my slow heart was only sad, when

first I scanned that face of feeble infancy! For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst

All I had been, and all my child might be! But when I saw it on its mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom (she the while

Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile) Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm Impressed a father's kiss : and all beguiled

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,

I seemed to see an angel form appear'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the mother's sake the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE HYMN.
COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN, IN A ROMAN

CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY.
DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet

Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule !
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat,

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

SLEEP, sweet babe! my cares beguiling;

Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth :

Come, soft slumber, balmily!

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.
ITS balmy lips the infant blest

Relaxing from its mother's breast,
How sweet it heaves the happy sigh
Of innocent satiety!

And such my infant's latest sigh!
O tell, rude stone! the passer by,
That here a pretty babe doth lie,
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

MELANCHOLY.

A FRAGMENT.

TRETCHED on a mouldered Abbey's broadest

wall,
Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep-
Her folded arms wrapping her tattered pall,
Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.

The fern was pressed beneath her hair,

The dark green adder's tongue was there; And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak, The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flushed: her

eager

look Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,

Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,
And her bent forehead worked with troubled

thought.
Strange was the dream-

TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE.

IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.

I.

MA

ARK this holy chapel well!

The birth-place, this, of William Tell.
Here, where stands God's altar dread,
Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

II.

Here, first, an infant to her breast,
Him his loving mother prest;