To death even hours like these must roll,

Ali! then repeat those accents dever; Or change « my life !» into « my soul!»

Which, like my love, exists for ever.

But

say, what nymph will prize the flame Which seems, as marshy vapours move, To flit along from dame to dame,

An ignis-fatuus gleam of love ?
What friend for thee, howe'er inclined,

Will deign to own a kindred care?
Who will debase his manly mind,
For friendship every fool

may

share? In time forbear; amidst the throng

No more so base a thing be seen; No more so idly pass along :

Be something, any thing, bui-mean.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND. When from the heart where Sorrow sils,

Her dusky shadow mounts too high, And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye. Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink

My thoughts their dungeon kuow too well; Back to my breast the wanderers shrink,

And droop within their silent cell.

TO ******

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANR THEATRE

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812,

Well! thou art happy, and I feel

That I should thus be happy too;
For still my heart regards thy weal

Warmly, as it was wont to do,
Thy husband's blest-and it will impart

Some pangs to view bis happier lot:
But let them pass-Oh! how my

heart Would hate liim, if he loved thee not! When late I saw thy favourite child,

I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled,

I kiss d it, for its mother's sake.
I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs

Its father in its face to see ;
But then it had its mother's eyes,

And they were all to love and me.
Mary, adieu! I must away:

While thou art blest I 'll not repine; But near thee I can never stay;

My heart would soon again be thine. I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride

Had quench'd at Jength my boyish flame; Nor knew, till seated by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same. Yet was I calm : I knew the time

My breast would thrill before thy look; But now to tremble were a crime

We met, and not a nerve was shook. I saw thee gaze upon my face,

Yet meet with no confusion there : One only feeling couldst thou trace-

The sullen calmness of despair. Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake : Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream?

My foolisha beart, be still, or break.

In one dread night our city saw, and sighd, Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride : In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign. Ye who beheld, (ola! sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!) Through clouds of fire, the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven, Saw the long columu of revolving flames Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames, While thousands, throny'd around the burning dome, Shrank back appalld, and trembled for their home, Las clared the volumed blaze, and ghasily shone The skies with lightnings awful as their own, Till blackening asties and the lonely wall Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd ber fall; Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile, Reard where once rose the mightiest in our isle, know the same favour which the former kuew, A shrinc for Shakspeare-worthy him and you? Yes-it shall be : the magic of that name Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame, On the same spot still consecrates the scene, And bids the Drama be where she hath been : This fabric's birth attests the potent spellIndulge our honest pride, and say, low well! As soars this fane to emulate the last, Oh! might we draw our omens from the past, Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest heart. On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew; llere last tears retiring Roscius drew, Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adicu: But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom That only waste their odours o'er the tomb. Such Drury claim'd and claims-nor you refuse One tribute to revive his slumbering muse; With garlands deck your own Menander's head! Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead!

your

FROM THE PORTUGUESE. In moments to delight devoted,

My life!» with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words on which my heart had doted,

If youth could neither fade nor die.

Dear are the days which made our annals bright,
Ere Garrick lled, or Brinsley ceased to write.
Heirs to their labours, like all high-born lieirs,
Vain of our ancestry, as ibey of theirs ;
While thus remembrance borrows Banquo's glass,
To claim the sceptred shadows as they puss,
And we the mirror bold, where imaged shine
Immortal names, emblazon d on our line,
Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn,
ketlect how hard the task to rival them!

That beam bath supk; and now thou art

A blank-a thing to count and curse
Through cach dull tedious trilling part,

Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform;

The limit of thy slotlı or speed,
Wben future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to beed: And I can sinile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak

Must fall upon-a nameless stone!

Friends of the stage! to whom both players and plays
Must sue alike for pardon or for praise,
Whose judging voice and eye alone direct
The boundless power to cherislı or reject;
If e'er frivolity has led to fame,
And made us blusli chat you forbore to blame;
If c'er the sinking stage could condescend
To soothie wir sickly taste it dire pot mend,
Ali past reproach may present scenes refute,
And crusure, wisely loud, be justly mute!
Oh! since your fiat stamp's the drama's laws,
Forbrar 10 mock us with mi placed applause:
So pride shall doubly perse che actor's powers,
Andreason's voice be echioid back by ours!

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

AN! Love was never yel without
The
ping

thic

agony, the doubt,
Whichi rends iny heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and ni;lit roll darkling by.
Without oue friend to hear iny woe,
I funt, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I know :
Alas! I find then poisoud too.

This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obrvil,
The Drama's homu, ja loyiser herald paid,
Recrive our welcome too, whose ciery tone
Springs from our lucarti and fain would win your own.
The curtain rises-may our stage unfold
Scenes not unworthy Drwy's days of old !
Britons our judges, nature for our gnide,
suill may we please-long, long may you preside!

TO TIME.

TIME! ou whose arbitrary wing

The varying liours must llg or fly,
Whose tarily winter, Oerting spring,

Putdrag or drive us on to die-
Thail thon! wlio on my birth bestowil

Those boons to all that know thee known; You better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one food heat should share

The bitter moments thon base given; And pardon thee, since thou couldst sparse,

All that I loved, to peace or heaven. To them br joy or rest, on me

Tly furre ills shall press in vain ; I nothing owe bul years to thee,

A debt already paid in pain. Yeteen that pain was some relief,

It felt, but still forgot the power : The active agony of yrief

Retards, but never count the hour. In joy I've sighid to think they thihat

Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to Wor; For then, however drear and Jark,

Hly soul was uited to thiy sky; One star alone shot forth a spark To

prove thap noi Eternity.

Birds, you in freedom, shun the net, Wheel Love around your haunts hath set; Or, circled by bis fatal fire, Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire. I birid of free and careless wing Wasi, trough many a smiling spriog; But caught within the subtle snare, I burn, and feebly flutter there. Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain, Can neither feel vor pity pain ; The cold ropuise, the look a kance, The lizhening of love's angry glance. In tuntering; dreams I deem'd thee mine; Now liope, and be who hoped, decline; Like mchuing wax, or withering flower, I feel my passion, aud thy power. My light of life! izh, tell me why That pouting lip, and alter'd eye? My bird of love! my beauteous mate! Aud art thou changed, and canst thou hate! Wine oyes like wintry streams o'erllow : What wretch with me would barter woe My bird relent: one note could give

charm, to bid ihly lover Ine. My cuiding blood, my inaddeving brain. in silent indul sustain! And will they heart, without partaking parla,

exulis-while mine is breaking. l'our mi

the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canstoc murder more than now:
Tve lived to l'urse my paal day,
dod love, that thus can lingering slay.
Hy wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patiener preach thre into rest?
Has! too late I dearly know,
That joy is harbinger of woe.

One

Quaff while thou canst-nother race,

When thou and thine like me are sped, May rescue thee from earthi's embrace,

And rhyme and revel with the dead. Why not? since through life's little day

Our heads such sad effects produce ; Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, This chance is theirs, to be of use.

Newstead Abbey, 1808.

FROM THE TURKISH. The chain I gave was fair to view,

The lule ladded sweet in sound, The leart that offer'd both was true,

And ill deserved the fale it found. These gifts were charm'd by sceret spell

Thy truth in absence to divine; And they have done their duty well,

Alas! they could not teach thee thine. That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch; Thücute was sweet-till thou couldst think

In oulier hands its notes were such. Let him, who from thy neck unbound

The chain which shiver'd in his grasp, Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp. When thou wert changed, they alter d too ;

The chain is broke, the music mute : "T is past-to them and thee adieu

False lieart, frail chain, and sileni lute.

SONNET,

TO GENEVRA.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.

THERE is a tear for all that dic,
A mourner o'er the humblest

grave;
But nations swell the funeral

cry,
And triumphi weeps above the brave.
For them is sorrow's purest sigh

() er ocean's heaving bosom sent:
Ju vain their bones unburied lie-

All earth becomes their monument !
A tomb is theirs on every page,

An epitaplı ou every tongue;
The

present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to thein belong.
For them the voice of festimirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound;
Wile deep reinembrance pours to worth

The goblet's tributary round.
A theme to crowds that knew them not,

Lamented by adiniring foes,
Who would not share their glorious lot?

Who would not die the death they chose ?
Ard, gallant Pirker! this cashrined

Thy life, thy fall, thy famne shall be;
And carly vulour, izlowing, find

A model in ily memory.
But there are breasts that bleed with thre

In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shudilerin; bear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.
Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?

Whoo cerse to bear thy cherishid name?
Time cunot teaclı forgetfuluess,

While griefs full heart is fed by fame.
Alas! for them, though not for thee,

They cannot chuse but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be

Who neer gave cause to mourn before.

Tuine eyes' blue tenderness, ily long fair hair,

And the wan lustre of thy features-caught

From contemplation--where serenely wrought, Seems sorrow's softness charmd from its despairllave thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraucht

With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thoughtI should have deend thee doomd to earthly care. With such an inspect, by his colours blent,

Wheu froin his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou luzst nothing to repent)

The Mag lalen of Guido saw the mornSuch secus thou-but how much more excellent!

With noughe remorse can claim-nor virtue scoro.

SONNET

TO GENEVRA.

Tey check is pels with thought, but not from woe, And yet so

lovely, that if mirth could flush Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush, My heart would wish awiry that rmer glow:And dazzle noi thy deep-blue eyes—but oh!

While pazing on them sterner eyes will gush,

An into mine my mother's weakness rush, Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow. For, through they long dark lashes low depending,

The soul of mcuncholy gentleness
Gleans like a seraple from the sky descending,

Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;
At once surli majesty with sweetness blending,

I worslup more, but cannot love thee less.

TO A LADY WEEPING.

WEEP, daughter of a royal line,

A sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; Ali, happy! if cacli tear of thine

Could wash a father's fault away! Worp--for thy tears are virtuc's tears

Anpirions to these suffering isles; And be cucli drop, in future years, Repaid thee by thy people's smiles !

March, 1812