Ranged on their hill, harmonia's daughters swell // The mingling tones of horn, and harp, and shell; Deep from his vaults the Loxian murmurs flow,* And Pythia's awful organ peals below.

"Beloved of Heaven! the smiling Muse shall shed Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head; Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined, And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind. I see thee roam her guardian power beneath, And talk with spirits on the midnight heath; Inquire of guilty wanderers whence they came, And ask each blood-stain'd form his earthly name; Then weave in rapid verse the deeds they tell, And read the trembling world the tales of hell.

hue,

"When Venus, throned in clouds of rosy Flings from her golden urn the vesper dew, And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ, Sacred to love and walks of tender joy; A milder mood the goddess shall recall, And soft as dew thy tones of music fall; While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart A pang more dear than pleasure to the heartWarm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain, And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.

"Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem, And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream;

* Loxias is the name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers; it is met with more than once in the Choephora of Æschylus.

To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile-
For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile ;-
On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief,

And teach impassion'd souls the joy of grief?

"Yes; to thy tongue shall seraph-words be given,

And power on earth to plead the cause of Heaven;
The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone,
That never mused on sorrow but its own,
Unlocks a generous store at thy command,
Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand.*
The living lumber of his kindred earth,
Charm'd into soul, receives a second birth,
Feels thy dread power another heart afford,
Whose passion-touch'd harmonious strings accord
True as the circling spheres to Nature's plan;
And man, the brother, lives the friend of man.

"Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven's command, When Israel march'd along the desert land, Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar, And told the path,―a never-setting star: So, heavenly Genius, in thy course divine, HOPE is thy star, her light is ever thine."

Propitious Power! when rankling cares annoy The sacred home of Hymenean joy ;

When doom'd to Poverty's sequester'd dell,
The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell,

*See Exodus, chap. xvii. 3, 5, 6.

Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame,

Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the same—
Oh! there, prophetic HOPE! thy smile bestow,
And chase the pangs that worth should never know—
There, as the parent deals his scanty store
To friendless babes, and weeps to give no more,
Tell, that his manly race shall yet assuage
Their father's wrongs, and shield his latter age.
What though for him no Hybla sweets distil,
Nor bloomy vines wave purple on the hill;
Tell, that when silent years have passed away,
That when his eye grows dim, his tresses gray,
These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build,
And deck with fairer flowers his little field,
And call from Heaven propitious dews to breathe
Arcadian beauty on the barren heath ;

Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears
The days of peace, the sabbath of his years,
Health shall prolong to many a festive hour
The social pleasures of his humble bower.

Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps, Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps ; She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies, Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes, And weaves a song of melancholy joy— "Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy ; No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine; No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine; Bright as his manly sire the son shall be

In form and soul; but, ah! more blest than he!

Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn,
To hail the bark that never can return;
And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep
That constant love can linger on the deep.

And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew

The world's regard, that sooths, though half untrue;

Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore,
But found not pity when it err'd no more.
Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye
The unfeeling proud one looks-and passes by,
Condemn'd on Penury's barren path to roam,
Scorn'd by the world, and left without a home—
Even he, at evening, should he chance to stray
Down by the hamlet's hawthorn-scented way,
Where, round the cot's romantic glade, are seen
The blossom'd bean-field, and the sloping green,
Leans o'er its humble gate, and thinks the while-
Oh! that for me some home like this would smile,
Some hamlet-shade, to yield my sickly form
Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm!
There should my hand no stinted boon assign
To wretched hearts with sorrow such as mine!-
That generous wish can sooth unpitied care,
And HOPE half mingles with the poor man's prayer.

HOPE! when I mourn, with sympathizing mind, The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind, Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see The boundless fields of rapture yet to be;

I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan,
And learn the future by the past of man.

Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time,
And rule the spacious world from clime to clime;
Thy handmaid-arts shall every wild explore,
Trace every wave, and culture every shore.
On Erie's banks, where tigers steal along,
And the dread Indian chants a dismal song,
Where human fiends on midnight errands walk,
And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk,
There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray,
And shepherds dance at Summer's opening day;
Each wandering genius of the lonely glen

Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men,
And silent watch, on woodland heights around,
The village curfew as it tolls profound.

In Libyan groves, where damned rites are done, That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun, Truth shall arrest the murderous arm profane, Wild Obi flies*-the veil is rent in twain.

Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains

roam,

Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home;

* Among the negroes of the West Indies, Obi, or Orbiah, is the name of a magical power, which is believed by them to affect the object of its malignity with dismal calamities. Such a belief must undoubtedly have been deduced from the superstitious mythology of their kinsmen on the coast of Africa. I have therefore personified Obi as the evil spirit of the African, although the history of the African tribes mentions the evil spirit of their religious creed by a different appellation. (

B