Then heap the fire-shut out the biting air,
And from its station wheel the easy chair;
Thus fenced and warm, in silent fit, 'tis sweet
To hear without the bitter tempest beat...
All, all alone to sit and muse and sigh,
The pensive tenant of obscurity.

FRAGMENT,

OH! thou most fatal of Pandora's train,
Consumption! silent cheater of the eye;
Thou com'st not robed in agonizing pain,

Nor mark'st thy course with Death's delusive dye,
But silent and unnoticed thou dost lie;

O'er life's soft springs thy venom dost diffuse, And, while thou givest new lustre to the eye,

While o'er the cheek are spread health's ruddy hues, E'en then life's little rest thy cruel power subdues.

Oft I've beheld thee in the glow of youth,

Hid 'neath the blushing roses which there bloom'd, And dropt a tear, for then thy cankering tooth I knew would never stay, till, all consum'd, In the cold vault of death he were entomb'd.

But oh! what sorrow did I feel, as swift,
Insidious ravager, I saw thee fly

Through fair Lucina's breast of whitest snow,
Preparing swift her passage to the sky.
Though still intelligence beam'd in the glance,
The liquid lustre of her fine blue eye;
Yet soon did languid listlessness advance,

And soon she calmly sunk in death's repugnant trance.

Even when her end was swiftly drawing near,
And dissolution hover'd o'er her head;
Even then so beauteous did her form appear,

That none who saw her but admiring said,
Sure so much beauty never could be dead.
Yet the dark lash of her expressive eye,
Bent lowly down upon the languid-

SONNETS.

SONNETS.

TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.

LOFFT, unto thee one tributary song

The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring; She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng, And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring. Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,

Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild, Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth,

And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child : Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal, Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire, Would say how sweetly thou could'st sweep the lyre, And shew thy labours for the public weal,

Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme,

But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.