I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse,
Tedious to thee, and from my anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved Sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I too a Sister had, an only Sister-
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her!
To her I pour’d forth all my puny sorrows
(As a sick patient in his nurse's arms),
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That shrink ashamed from even Friendship's eye.
Oh! I have woke at midnight, and have wept
Because she WAS NOT SCheerily, dear Charles !
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year:
Such warm presages feel I of high Hope.
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've view'd— her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories,
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
of whose omniscient and all-spreading Love
Aught to implore* were impotence of mind)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepared, when he his healing ray vouchsafes,
To pour forth thanksgiving with lified heart,
And praise Him Gracious with a Brother's joy!

December, 1794.

Embow'rs me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless riv'let stealing by,
Your modest verse, to musing Quiet dear,
Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd : the charm'd eye
Shall

gaze undazzled there, and love the sofien'd sky
Circling the base of the Poetic mount
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from Oblivion's fount :
The vapor-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet,
Beneath the Mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,
A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlab'ring feet.
Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That like some giant-king, o'erglooms the hill;
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! But th' unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill
Murmurs sweet under-song 'mid jasmin bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd—there collecting flow'rs
Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers !
There for the monarch-murder'd Soldier's tomb
You wore th' unfinish'd wreath of saddest hues ;
And to that holier chaplett added bloom,
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your Hendersonf awakes the Muse-
His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain and soar'd 'mid richer views'
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of

night! Sull soar, my friend, those richer views among, Strong, rapid, fervent flashing Fancy's beam!

Virtue and Truth shall love your genuer song ; But Poesy demands th' impassion d theme : Waked by Heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam, What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around ! But if the vext air rush a storiny stream, Or Autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound, With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest

honor'd ground.

THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN.

COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE. Diy hour! that sleep’st on pillowing clouds afar, O rise and yoke the turtles to thy car! Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove, And give me to the bosom of my love! My gentle love, caressing and carest, With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest; Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes, Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs : While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek. Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May Mourns the long absence of the lovely day; Young Day, returning at her promised hour, Weeps o'er the sorrows of her fav'rite nower; Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs, And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes. New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels : His pitying Mistress mourns, and mourning heals!

IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

THE THREE GRAVES.

A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON'S TALE.

On the hedge elms in the narrow lane

Still swung the spikes of corn: Dear Lord ! it seems but yesterday

Young Edward's marriage-morn.

Up through that wood behind the church,

There leads from Edward's door A mossy track, all over-bough'd

For half a mile or more.

And from their house-door by that track

The Bride and Bridegroom went; Sweet Mary, though she was not gay,

Seem'd cheerful and content.

But when they to the church-yard came,

I've heard poor Mary say,
As soon as she stepp'd into the sun,

Her heart it died away.

And when the vicar their hands,

Her limbs did creep and freeze ; But when they pray'd, she thought she saw

Her mother on her knees.

which must be supposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts, is as follows.

Edward, a young fariner, meets, at the house of Ellen, her bosom friend, Mary, and commonces an acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. With her consent, and by the advice of their common friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and intentions to Mary's Mother, a widow-woman bordering on her fortieth year, and from constant health, the possession of a competent property, and from having had no other children but Mary and another daughter (the Father died in their infancy), retaining, for the greater purt, her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance: but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable-"Well, Edward ! you are a handsome young fellow, and you shall have my Daughter." From this time all their wooing passed under the Mother's eye: and, in fine, she became herself enamoured of her future Son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of caluinny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the Tale are positive facts, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detraction from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the innocence of his own heart still mistaking her increasing fondness for motherly affection; she, at length overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, exclaimed with violent emotion-"O Edward! indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you--she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward! and I will this very day settle all my property on you."— The Lover's eyes were now opened ; and thus taken by surprise, whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a fit of laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a Joud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a Curse both on him and on her own Child. Mary happened to be in the room directly above them, heard Edward's laugh and her Mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the fall, ran up stairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her off to Ellen's home; and after some fruitless attempts on her part loward a reconciliation with her Mother, she was married to him.-And here the third part of the Tale begins.

I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to tragic, much less to monstrous events (though at the time that I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve years ago, I was less averse to such subjects than at present), but from finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an idea violently and suddenly impreszed on it. I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effect of the Oby Witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting Anecdotes of similar workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians (those of my readers who have it in their power will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to those works for the passages alluded to), and I conceived the design of showing that instances of this kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, and of illustrating the mode in which the mind is affected in these cases, and the progrees and symptoms of the morbid action on the fancy from the beginning.

(The Tale is supposed to be narrated by an old Sexton, in a country church-yari, to a Traveller whose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, close by each other, to two only of which there were grave-stones. On the first of these were the name, and dates, as usual: on the second, no name, but only a date, and the words, The Mercy of God is infinite...

And o'er the church-path they return'd

I saw poor Mary's back,
Just as she stepp'd beneath the boughs

Into the mossy track.

Her feet upon the mossy track

The married maiden set: That moment-I have heard her say

She wish'd she could forget.

The shade o'erflush'd her limbs with heat

Then came a chill like death: And when the merry bells rang out,

They seem'd to stop her breath.

Beneath the foulest Mother's curse

No child could ever thrive: A Mother is a Mother still,

The holiest thing alive.

So five month's pass'd: the Mother still

Would never heal the strife ; But Edward was a loving man,

And Mary a fond wife.

“ My sister may not visit us,

My mother says her nay: O Edward! you are all to me, I wish for your sake I could be

More lifesome and more gay.

“ I'm dull and sad! indeed, indeed

I know I have no reason! Perhaps I am not well in health,

And 't is a gloomy season."

PART III.

"T was a drizzly time-no ice, no snow!

And on the few fine days She stirr'd not out, lest she might moet

Her Mother in her ways. But Ellen, spite of miry ways

And weather dark and dreary, Trudged every day to Edward's house, And made them all more cheery.

THE grapes upon the vicar's wall

Were ripe as ripe could be ; And yellow leaves in sun and wind W'ere falling from the tree.

But ere she from the church-door stepp'd,

She smiled and told us why; • It was a wicked woman's curse,"

Quoth she," and what care I?”

Dear Ellen did not weep at all,

But closelier did she cling, And turn'd her face, and look'd as if She saw some frightful thing.