WOMAN.

PLACE the white man on Afric's coast,
Whose swarthy sons in blood delight,
Who of their scorn to Europe boast,

And paint their very demons white:
There, while the sterner sex disdains
To soothe the woes they cannot feel,
Woman will strive to heal his pains,

And weep for those she cannot heal: Hers is warm pity's sacred glow;

From all her stores, she bears a part, And bids the spring of hope reflow,

That languish'd in the fainting heart.

"What though so pale his haggard face, So sunk and sad his looks,' she cries; "And far unlike our nobler race,

With crisped locks and rolling eyes;
Yet misery marks him of our kind;
We see him lost, alone, afraid;
And pangs of body, griefs in mind,
Pronounce him man, and ask our aid.

"Perhaps in some far distant shore,

There are who in these forms delight; Whose milky features please them more, Then ours of jet thus burnish'd bright: Of such may be his weeping wife,

Such children for their sire may call, And if we spare his ebbing life,

Our kindness may preserve them all."

Thus her compassion Woman shows,
Beneath the Line her acts are these;
Nor the wide waste of Lapland-snows
Can her warm flow of pity freeze :

"From some sad land the stranger comes,

Where joys like ours are never found; Let's soothe him in our happy homes,

Where freedom sits, with plenty crown'd.

""Tis good the fainting soul to cheer, To see the famish'd stranger fed; To milk for him the mother-deer,

To smooth for him the furry bed.
The Powers above our Lapland bless
With good no other people know,
T'enlarge the joys that we possess,
By feeling those that we bestow!"

Thus in extremes of cold and heat,
Where wandering man may trace his kind;
Wherever grief and want retreat,

In Woman they compassion find;
She makes the female breast her seat,
And dictates mercy to the mind.

Man may the sterner virtues know,
Determin'd justice, truth severe;
But female hearts with pity glow,

And Woman holds affliction dear:
For guiltless woes her sorrows flow,
And suffering vice compels her tear,
'Tis hers to soothe the ills below,

And bid life's fairer views appear.
To Woman's gentler kind we owe
What comforts and delights us here;
They its gay hopes on youth bestow,

And care they soothe, and age they cheer.

CRABBE.

HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS.

THE bird let loose in eastern skies 1,
When fondly hastening home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idler wanderers roam :

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from earthly care,
From pride and passion free,
Aloft, through faith and love's pure air,
To wing my course to Thee.
No lure to tempt, no art to stay
My soul, as home she springs;
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom on her wings.

MOORE.

A WINTER'S MORNING.

THE morning vapour rests upon the heights,
Lurid and red, while growing gradual shades
Of pale and sickly light spread o'er the sky.
Then slowly from behind the southern hills,
Enlarg'd and ruddy, comes the rising sun,
Shooting askance the hoary waste his beams
That gild the brow of ev'ry ridgy bank,
And deepen ev'ry valley with a shade.

The carrier pigeon flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined.

T

The crusted window of each scatter'd cot,
The icicles that fringe the thatched roof,
The new-swept slide upon the frozen pool,
All keenly glance, new kindled with his rays;
And ev❜n the rugged face of scowling winter
Looks somewhat gay. But only for a time
He shows his glory to the brightening earth,
Then hides his face behind a sullen cloud.

The birds now quit their holes and lurking sheds, Most mute and melancholy, where through night, All nestling close to keep each other warm, In downy sleep they had forgot their hardships; But not to chant and carol in the air, Or lightly swing upon some waving bough, And merrily return each others' notes. No; silently they hop from bush to bush, Can find no seeds to stop their craving want, Then bend their flight to the low smoking cot, Chirp on the roof, or at the window peck, To tell their wants to those who lodge within. The poor lank hare flies homeward to his den, But little burthen'd with his nightly meal Of wither'd coleworts from the farmer's garden; A wretched, scanty portion, snatch'd in fear; And fearful creatures, forc'd abroad by hunger, Are now to every enemy a prey.

MRS. JOANNA BAILLIE.

THE PALM-TREE.

IT wav'd not through an Eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby;

It was not fann'd by southern breeze
In some green isle of Indian seas,

Nor did its graceful shadow sleep
O'er stream of Afric, long and deep.

But fair the exil'd Palm-tree grew
'Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the moss-beds at its feet.

Strange look'd it there! the willow stream'd
Where silvery waters near it gleam'd;
The lime-bough lur'd the honey-bee
To murmur by the Desert's Tree,
And showers of snowy roses made
A lustre in its fan-like shade.

There came an eve of festal hours.
Rich music fill'd that garden's bowers:
Lamps, that from flowery branches hung,
On sparks of dew soft colours flung,
And bright forms glanc'd — a fairy show
Under the blossoms to and fro.

But one, a lone one, 'midst the throng,
Seem'd reckless all of dance or song;
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been,
Of crested brow, and long black hair,
A stranger, like the Palm-tree, there.

And slowly, sadly, mov'd his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms:
He pass'd the pale-green olives by,
Nor won the chestnut flowers his eye;
But when to that sole Palm he came,
There shot a rapture through his frame.