E'en while the bosom ached with lonelinessHow more than sweet, if some dear friend should

bless

The adventurous toil, and up the path sublime Now lead, now follow: the glad landscape round Wide and more wide, increasing without bound!

O then 'twere loveliest sympathy, to mark The berries of the half-uprooted ash Dripping and bright; and list the torrent's dash,

Beneath the cypress, or the yew more dark, Seated at ease, on some smooth mossy rock; In social silence now, and now to unlock The treasured heart; arm linked in friendly

arm,

Save if the one, his muse's witching charm
Muttering brow-bent, at unwatched distance lag;
Till high o'er head his beckoning friend appears
And from the forehead of the topmost crag
Shouts eagerly: for haply there uprears
That shadowing pine its old romantic limbs,
Which latest shall detain the enamoured sight
Seen from below, when eve the valley dims,
Tinged yellow with the rich departing light;
And haply, basoned in some unsunned cleft,
A beauteous spring, the rock's collected tears,
Sleeps sheltered there, scarce wrinkled by the
gale!

Together thus, the world's vain turmoil left,

Stretched on the crag, and shadowed by the pine,
And bending o'er the clear delicious fount,
Ah! dearest youth! it were a lot divine
To cheat our noons in moralizing mood,
While west-winds fanned our temples toil-
bedewed:

Then downwards slope, oft pausing, from the

mount,

To some lone mansion, in some woody dale,
Where smiling with blue eye, domestic bliss
Gives this the husband's, that the brother's kiss!
Thus rudely versed in allegoric lore,

The Hill of Knowledge I essayed to trace;
That verdurous hill with many a resting-place,
And many a stream, whose warbling waters
pour

To glad and fertilize the subject plains;
That hill with secret springs, and nooks untrod,
And many a fancy-blest and holy sod

Where Inspiration, his diviner strains Low murmuring, lay; and starting from the

rocks

Stiff evergreens, whose spreading foliage mocks
Want's barren soil, and the bleak frosts of age,
And bigotry's mad fire-invoking rage!

O meek retiring spirit! we will climb,
Cheering and cheered, this lovely hill sublinie ;
And from the stirring world uplifted high,
(Whose noises, faintly wafted on the wind,
To quiet musings shall attune the mind,

And oft the melancholy theme supply,)
There, while the prospect through the gazing

eye

Pours all its healthful greenness on the soul, We'll smile at wealth, and learn to smile at fame, Our hopes, our knowledge, and our joys the same, As neighbouring fountains image, each the whole :

Then, when the mind hath drunk its fill of truth, We'll discipline the heart to pure delight, Rekindling sober joy's domestic flame.

They whom I love shall love thee, honoured youth!

Now may Heaven realize this vision bright!

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 commonweal A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

SONNET TO THE RIVER OTTER.

DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have past,

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.

gray,

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! that once more I were a careless child!