Melting in melody; and I descried,
Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds.
Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?
WHAT art thou, MIGHTY ONE! and where thy seat ?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud, and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or on the red wing of the fierce Monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span
Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan
Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?
Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.
Oh, that I were but in my grave,
And winds were piping o'er me loud,
And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,
Were nestling in thy mother's shroud!
OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD, THE NIGHT PREVIOUS TO
SLEEP, Baby mine,* enkerchieft 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 fled;
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 weeping,
When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be :
Who then will sooth thee, when thy mother's sleeping
In her low grave of shame and infamy!
* Sir Philip Sidney has a poem beginning, " Sleep, Baby mine."
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.
WRITTEN DURING, OR SHORTLY AFTER, THE PUBLICATION OF
CLIFTON GROVE.
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