Ding-dong ! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells, Swinging o'er the weltering wave!

And we must seek

Our deathbeds bleak, Where the green sod grows upon the grave.

The Goddess of Consumption. Come, Melancholy, sister mine!

Cold the dews, and chill the night!
Come from thy dreary shrine!
The wan moon climbs the heavenly height,

And underneath the sickly ray,
Troops of squalid spectres play,
And the dying mortals' groan
Startles the Night on her dusky throne.
Come, come, sister mine!
Gliding on the pale moonshine :

We'll ride at ease,

On the tainted breeze,
And, oh! our sport will be divine.

The Goddess of Melancholy.
Sister, from my dark abode,
Where nests the raven, sits the toad,
Hither I come at thy command :
Sister, sister, join thy hand !
Sister, sister, join thy hand !
I will smooth the way for thee,
Thou shalt furnish food for me.
Come, let us speed our way
Where the troops of spectres play.
To charnel-houses, churchyards drear,
Where Death sits with a horrible leer,
A lasting grin on a throne of bones,
And skim along the blue tombstones.

Come, let us speed away,
Lay our snares, and spread our tether!

I will smooth the way for thee,
Thou shalt furnish food for me :

And the grass shall wave

O'er many a grave
Where youth and beauty sleep together.

Consumption.
Come, let us speed our way!
Join our hands, and spread our tether!

I will furnish food for thee,
Thou shalt smooth the way for me;

And the grass shall wave

O’er many a grave
Where youth and beauty sleep together.

Melancholy.
Hist! sister, hist! who comes here?
Oh! I know her by that tear,
By that blue eye's languid glare,
By her skin and by her hair;

She is mine,

And she is thine,
Now the deadliest draught prepare.

Consumption
In the dismal night-air dress'd,
I will creep into her breast !
Flush her cheek, and bleach her skin,
And feed on the vital fire within.
Lover, do not trust her eyes :
When they sparkle most, she dies !
Mother, do not trust her breath:
Comfort she will breathe in death!
Father, do not strive to save her:
She is mine, and I must have her!
The coffin must be her bridal bed,
The winding-sheet must wrap her head;
The whispering winds must o'er her sigh,
For soon in the grave the maid must lie;

The worm it will riot

On heavenly diet
When death has deflower'd her eye.

THE SHIPWRECKED SOLITARY'S SONG TO THE NIGHT.

Thou spirit of the spangled night!
I woo thee from the watch-tower high,
Where thou dost sit to guide the bark

Of lonely mariner.
The winds are whistling o'er the wolds,
The distant main is moaning low ;
Come, let us sit and weave a song !

A melancholy song!
Sweet is the scented gale of morn,
And sweet the noontide's fervid beam,
But sweeter far the solemn calm

That marks thy mournful reign.
I've pass'd here many a lonely year,
And never human voice have heard ;
I've pass'd here many a lonely year,

A solitary man.
And I have linger'd in the shade,
From sultry noon's hot beam; and I
Have knelt before my wicker door,

To sing my evening song.
And I have hail'd the gray morn high
On the blue mountain's misty brow,
And tried to tune my little reed

To hymns of harmony.
But never could I tune my reed,
At morn, or noon, or eve so sweet,
As when upon the ocean shore

I hail'd thy starbeam mild.
The day-spring brings not joy to me,
The moon it whispers not of peace !
But, oh! when darkness robes the heav'ns,

My woes are mix'd with joy.

And then I talk, and often think
Aërial voices answer me;
And, oh! I am not then alone-

A solitary man.

And when the blust'ring winter winds
Howl in the woods that clothe my cave,
I lay me on my lonely mat,

And pleasant are my dreams.

And Fancy gives me back my wife ;
And Fancy gives me back my child;
She gives me back my little home,

And all its placid joys.
Then hateful is the morning hour,
That calls me from the dream of bliss
To find myself still lone, and hear

The same dull sounds again.

The deep-toned winds, the moaning sea,
The whisp'ring of the boding trees,
The brook's eternal flow, and oft

The condor's hollow scream.

THE LULLABY OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD THB

NIGHT PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION.

Sleep, baby mine, enkerchief'd on my bosom,

Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast ; Sleep, baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother

To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.
Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining,

Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers Hed; Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning,

And I would fain compose my aching head.

Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weep

ing, When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be? Who then will sooth thee when thy mother's sleep

In her low grave of shame and infany? [ing Sleep, baby mine; to-morrow I must leave thee,

And I would snatch an interval of rest : Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee,

For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.

SONNET.

Give me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,

Where, far from cities, I may spend my days, And, by the beauties of the scene beguiled,

May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways. While on ihe rock I mark the browsing goat,

List to the mountain-torrent's distant noise, Or the hoarse bittern's solitary note,

I shall not want the world's delusive joys ; But with my little scrip, my book, my lyre,

Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more; And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire,

I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore,
And lay me down to rest where the wild wave

Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave.

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,

I've tasted her favours and felt her decay; Sweet is her blessing, and kind her caressing,

But soon it is fled-it is fled far away.