While on the 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.
Supposed to have been addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady.
LADY, thou weepest for the Maniac's woe,
And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young;
Oh may thy bosom never, never know
The pangs with which my wretched heart is wrung. I had a mother once a brother too
(Beneath yon yew my father rests his head :)
I had a lover once, and kind, and true,
But mother, brother, lover, all are fled!
Yet, whence the tear which dims thy lovely eye?
Oh! gentle lady-not for me thus weep,
The green sod soon upon my breast will lie,
And soft and sound will be my peaceful sleep.
To thou and pluck the roses while they bloom-
My hopes lie buried in the silent tomb.
Supposed to be written by the unhappy Poet Dermody, in a Storm, while on board a Ship in his Majesty's Service.
Lo! o'er the welkin the tempestuous clouds
Successive fly, and the loud-piping wind
Rocks the poor sea-boy on the dripping shrouds,
While the pale pilot, o'er the helm reclin'd,
Lists to the changeful storm: and as he plies:
His wakeful task, he oft bethinks him sad,
Of wife, and little home, and chubby lad,
And the half-strangled tear bedews his eyes;
I, on the deck, musing on themes forlorn,
View the drear tempest, and the yawning deep,
Nought dreading in the green sea's caves to sleep,
For not for me shall wife or children mourn,
And the wild winds will ring my funeral knell,
Sweetly, as solemn peal of pious passing-bell.
God help thee, Traveller, on thy journey far;
The wind is bitter keen, -the snow o'erlays
The hidden pits, and dangerous hollow ways,
And darkness will involve thee. - No kind star
To-night will guide thee, Traveller, and the war
Of winds and elements on thy head will break,
And in thy agonizing ear the shriek
Of spirits howling on their stormy car,
Will often ring appalling-I portend
A dismal night-and on my wakeful bed
Thoughts, Traveller, of thee will fill my head,
And him, who rides where wind and waves contend,
And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide
His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide.
This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this Volume, and was occasioned by several little Quatorzains, misnomered Sonnets, which he published in the Monthly Mirror. He begs leave to return his thanks to the much respected Writer, for the permission so politely granted to insert it here, and for the good opinion he has been pleased to express of his productions.
YE, whose aspirings court the muse of lays,
"Severest of those orders which belong,
"Distinct and separate, to Delphic song,"
Why shun the Sonnet's undulating maze ?
And why its name boast of Petrarchian days,
Assume, its rules disown'd? whom from the throng
The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys
Of its full harmony:-they fear to wrong
The Sonnet, by adorning with a name
Of that distinguish'd import, lays, though sweet,
Yet not in magic texture taught to meet
Of that so varied and peculiar frame.
O think! to vindicate its genuine praise
Those it beseems, whose Lyre a favouring impulse sways.
Recantatory, in reply to the foregoing elegant Admonition:
LET the sublimer muse, who, wrapt in night,
Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,
Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm,
Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight;
Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,
Disdain the plaintive Sonnet's little form,
And scorn to its wild cadence to conform
The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight.
But me, far lowest of the sylvan train,
Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest shade
With wildest song;-Me, much behoves thy aid......
Of mingled melody, to grace my strain,
And give it power to please, as soft it flows
Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent close.
On hearing the Sounds of an Eolian Harp.
So ravishingly soft upon the tide
Of the enfuriate gust, it did career,
It might have sooth'd its rugged charioteer,
And sunk him to a zephyr;-then it died,
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