Amid the paly radiance soft and sad,
She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad.
With her along the streamlet's brink I rove;
With her I list the warblings of the grove;
And seems in each low wind her voice to float,
Lone-whispering Pity in each soothing note:

Spirits of Love! ye heard her name obey
The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair.
Whether on clustering pinions ye are there,
Where rich snows blossom on the myrtle trees,
Or with fond languishment around my fair
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair;
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way,
Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze'

Spirits! to you the infant Maid was given,
Form'd by the wonderous alchemy of heaven
No fairer maid does Love's wide empire know,
No fairer maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow.
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly;
A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye;
Love lights her smile—in Joy's red nectar dips
His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips.
She speaks! and hark that passion-warbled song—
Still, Fancy! still that voice, those notes prolong,
As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls
Shall wake the soften’d echoes of Ileaven's halls!

O (have I sigh'd) were mine the wizard's rod,
Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful god!
A flower-entangled arbour I would seem
To shield my Love from noontide's sultry beam :
Or bloom a Myrtle, from whose odorous boughs
My love might weave gay garlands for her brows.
When twilight stole across the fading vale,
To fan my love I'd be the Evening Gale;
Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest,
And flutter my faint pinions on her breast!
On Seraph wing 1 'd float a Dream by night,
To soothe my Love with shadows of delight:—
Or soar aloft to be the Spangled Skies,
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes!

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame
Had bask'd beneath the Sun's unclouded flame,
Awakes amid the troubles of the air,
The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare—
Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep,
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep:—
So tossed by storms along Life's wildering way,
Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day,
When by my native brook I wont to rove,
While Hope with kisses nursed the Infant Love.

Dear native brook! like Peace, so placidly
Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meck!
Dear native brook! where first young Poesy
Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream!
Where blameless pleasures dimple Quiet's cheek,
As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream :
Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay,
Where Friendship's fix’d star sheds a mellow'd ray,
Where Love a crown of thornless Roses wears,
Where soften’d Sorrow smiles within her tears;

And He the glitter of the Dew Scatters on the Rose's hue. Bashful, lo she bends her head, And darts a blush of deeper red!

Too well those lovely lips disclose
The triumphs of the opening Rose;
0 fair' 0 graceful! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low,
Well-pleased I hear the whispered a No!.
The whisper'd a No-—how little meant!
Sweet falsehood that endears consent:
For on those lovely lips the while
Dawns the soft relenting smile,
And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy
The gentle violence of Joy.

TO A YOUNG ASS. its Mothen being tethered near it.

Poor little foal of an oppressed race!
I love the languid patience of thy face:
And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged coat, and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled spirits hath dismay’d,
That never thou dost sport along the glade?
And (most unlike the nature of things young)
That earthward still thy moveless head is hung?
Do thy prophetic fears anticipate,
Meek Child of Misery! thy future fate?
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
• Which patient merit of the unworthy takes?»
or is thy sad beart thrill'd with filial pain
Io see thy wretched mother's shorten’d chain?
And truly, very pitcous is her lot—
Chain'd to a log within a narrow spot
Where the close-eaten grass is scarcely seen,

While sweet around her waves the tempting green!

Where foil shall call the charmer Health his Bride,

From the pomp of scepter'd state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottaged vale She dwells
Listening to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honour's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And, conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

The SIGH.

When Youth his faery reign began
Ere sorrow had proclaim'd me man;
While Peace the present hour beguiled,
And all the lovely prospect smiled;
Then Mary! 'mid my lightsome glee
I heaved the painless Sigh for thee.

And when, along the waves of woe,
My harass'd heart was doom'd to know
The frantic burst of outrage keen,
And the slow pang that gnaws unseen;
Then shipwreck'd on life's stormy sea
I heaved an anguish'd Sigh for thee!

But soon reflection's power imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast;
And sickly hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die:
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heaved a languid Sigh for thee!

And though in distant climes to roam,

A wanderer from my native home,

I fain would soothe the sense of Care

And lull to sleep the Joys that were!

Thy Image may not banish'd be—

Still, Mary! still I sigh for thce. June, 1794.

-

Epitaph ON AN INFANT.

ERE Sin could blight or Sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care;

The opening bud to Heaven convey'd And bade it blossom there.

LINES WRITTEN AT THE KING'S ARMS, ROSS. Fonviertly the house of the a MAN or Ross. m.

Richka than miser o'er his countless hoards,
Nobler than kings, or king-polluted lords,
Here dwelt the Man of Ross! O Traveller, hear!
Departed merit claims a reverent tear.
Friend to the friendless, to the sick man health,
With generous joy he view'd his modest wealth;
He hears the widow's heaven-breathed prayer of praise,
He mark'd the shelter'd orphan's tearful gaze,
Or where the sorrow-shrivell'd captive lay,
Pours the bright blaze of Freedom's noon-tide ray.
Beneath this roof if thy cheer'd moments pass,
Fill to the good man's name one grateful glass :

To higher zest shall Memory wake thy soul,
And Virtue mingle in the ennobled bowl.
But if, like me, through life's distressful scene
Lonely and sad thy pilgrimage hath been:
And if thy breast with heart-sick anguish fraught,
Thou journeyest onward tempest-toss'd in thought;
Here cheat thy cares! in generous visions melt,
And dream of goodness, thou hast never felt!

LINES TO A BEAUTIFUL SPRING IN A WILLAGE.

Once more, sweet Stream! with slow foot wandering
near,
I bless thy milky waters cold and clear.
Escaped the flashing of the noontide hours
With one fresh garland of Pierian flowers
(Ere from thy zephyr-haunted brink I turn)
My languid hand shall wreath thy mossy urn.
For not through pathless grove with murmur rude
Thou soothest the sad wood-nymph, Solitude;
Northine unseen in cavern depths to well,
The Hermit-fountain of some dripping cell!
Pride of the Wale! thy useful streams supply
The scatter'd cots and peaceful hamlet migh.
The elfin tribe around thy friendly banks
With infant uproar and soul-soothing pranks,
Released from school, their little hearts at rest,
Launch paper navies on thy waveless breast.
The rustic here at eve with pensive look
Whistling lorn ditties leans upon his crook,
Or, starting, pauses with hope-mingled dread
To list the much-loved maid's accustom'd tread:
She, vainly mindful of her dame's command,
Loiters, the long-fill'd pitcher in her hand.
Unboastful Stream! thy fount with pebbled falls
The faded form of past delight recalls,
What time the morning sun of Hope arose,
And all was joy; save when another's woes
A transient gloom upon my soul imprest,
Like passing clouds impictured on thy breast.
Life's current then ran sparkling to the noon,
Or silvery stole beneath the pensive Moon:
Ah! now it works rude brakes and thorns among,
Or o'er the rough rock bursts and foams along!

LINES ON A FRIEND,

who died of A Fraenzy Feven induced by cAlumNious Reports.

Edmund ! thy grave with aching eye I scan,
And inly groan for Heaven's poor outcast—Man!
'T is tempest all or gloom: in early youth,
If gifted with the Ithuriel lance of Truth,
We force to start amid her feign'd caress
Vice, siren-hag! in native ugliness;
A brother's fate will haply rouse the tear,
And on we go in heaviness and fear!
But if our fond hearts call to Pleasure's bower
Some pigmy Folly in a careless hour,
The faithless guest shall stamp the enchanted ground
And mingled forms of Misery rise around:
Heart-fretting Fear, with pallid look aghast,
That courts the future woe to hide the past;

Remorse, the poison'd arrow in his side,
And loud lewd Mirth, to Anguish close allied:
Till Frenzy, fierce-eyed child of moping pain,
Darts her hot lightning flash athwart the brain.
Rest, injured shade! Shall Slander squatting near
Spit her cold venom in a dead Man's ear?
'Twas thine to feel the sympathetic glow

In Merit's joy, and Poverty's meek woe;
Thine all that cheer the moment as it flies,
The zoneless Cares, and smiling Courtesies.
Nursed in thy heart the firmer Virtues grew,
And in thy heart they wither'd! Such chill dew
Wan Indolence on each young blossom shed;
And Vanity her filmy net-work spread,
With eye that roll'd around in asking gaze,
And tongue that traffick'd in the trade of praise.
Thy follies such the hard world mark'd then well! .
Were they more wise, the proud who never fell?
Rest, injured shade! the poor man's grateful prayer
On heaven-ward wing thy wounded soul shall bear.
As oft at twilight gloom thy grave I pass,
And sit me down upon its recent grass,
With introverted eye I contemplate
Similitude of soul, perhaps of—Fate!
To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assign'd
Euergic Reason and a shaping mind, -
The daring ken of Truth, the Patriot's part,
And Pity's sigh, that breathes the gentle heart.
Sloth jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
Drop Friendship's precious pearls, like hour-tlass sand.
I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
A dreamy pang in Morning's feverish doze.

Is this piled earth our being's passless mound?
Tell me, cold grave! is Death with poppies crown'd?
Tired sentinell mid fitful starts I nod,
And fain would sleep, though pillow'd on a clod!

TO A YOUNG LADY, WITH A POEM ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Much on my early youth I love to dwell,
Ere yet I bade that friendly dome farewell,
Where first, beneath the echoing cloisters pale,
I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale!
Yet though the hours flew by on careless wing,
Full heavily of Sorrow would I sing.
Aye as the star of evening flung its beam
In broken radiance on the wavy stream,
My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom
Mourn'd with the breeze, O Lee Boo! o'er thy tomb.
Where'er I wander'd, Pity still was near,
Breathed from the heart and (listen’d in the tear:
No knell that toll d, but fill'd my anxious eye,
And suffering Nature wept that one should die! »

Fierce on her front the blasting Dog-star glow'd;
Her banners, like a midnight meteor, flow'd;
Amid the yelling of the storm-rent skies!
She came, and scatter'd battles from her eyes!
Then Exultation waked the patriot fire
And swept with wilder hand the Alcaean lyre :
Red from the tyrant's wound I shook the lance,
And strode in joy the reeking plains of France!

Fallen is the oppressor, friendless, ghastly, low,
And my heart aches, though Mercy struck the blow.
With wearied thought once more I seek the shade,
Wuere peaceful Virtue weaves the myrtle braid.
And o! if eyes whose holy glances roll,
Swift messengers, and eloquent of soul;
If smiles more winning, and a gentler mien
Than the love-wilder'd Maniac's brain hath seen
Shaping celestial forms in vacant air,
If these demand the empassion'd poet's care—
If Alirth and softened Sense and Wit refined,
The blameless features of a lovely mind;
Then haply shall my trembling hand assign
No fading wreath to beauty's saintly shrine.
Nor, Sara! thou these early slowers refuse—
Ne'er lurk'd the snake beneath their simple hues;
No purple bloom the child of nature brings
From Flattery's night-shade: as he feels he sings.
September, 1792.

My heart has thanked thee, Bowles' for those soft strains whose sadness soothes me, like the murmuring of wild-bees in the sunny showers of spring! For hence not callous to the mourner's pains Through Youth's gay prime and thornless paths I went: And when the mightier Throes of mind began, | And drove me forth, a thought-bewilder'd man' Their mild and manliest melancholy lent A mingled charm, such as the pang consign'd To slumber, though the big tear it renewed; | Bidding a strange mysterious Pleasure brood Over the wavy and tumultuous mind, As the great Spirit erst with plastic sweep Moved on the darkness of the unformed deep. |

SONNET.

As late I lay in slumber's shadowy vale,
with wetted cheek and in a mourner's guise,
I saw the sainted form of Freedom rise:
She spoke! not sadder moans the autumnal gale-
. Great Son of Genius! sweet to me thy name,
Ere in an evil hour with altered voice
Thou badst Oppression's hireling crew rejoice
Blasting with wizard spell my laurell'd fame.
Yet never, Burke! thou drank'st Corruption's bowl'
The stormy Pity and the cherished lure

Of Pomp, and proud Precipitance of soul Wilder'd with meteor fires. Ah spirit purel That error's mist had left thy purged eye : So might I clasp thee with a mother's joy!»

SONNET.

Though roused by that dark Vizir, Riot rude
Have driven our Priest o'er the ocean swell;
Though Superstition and her wolfish brood
Bay his mild radiance, impotent and fell;
Calm in his halls of brightness he shall dwell!
For lo! Religion at his strong behest
Starts with mild anger from the Papal spell,
And flings to earth her tinsel-glittering vest,
Her mitred state and cumbrous pomp unholy;
And Justice wakes to hid the Oppressor wail
Insulting aye the wrongs of patient Folly:
And from her dark retreat by Wisdom won,
Meek Nature slowly lifts her matron veil
To smile with fondness on her gazing son 1

SONNET.

When British Freedom for a happier land
Spread her broad wings, that flutter'd with affright,
Enskine! thy voice she heard, and paused her flight
Sublime of hope! For dreadless thou didst sland
(Thy censer glowing with the hallow'd flame)
A hireless Priest before the insulted shrine,
And at her altar pour the stream divine
Of unmatch'd eloquence. Therefore thy name
Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast
With blessings heaven-ward breathed. And when the
doom
Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb
Thy light shall shine: as sunk, beneath the West,
Though the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze,
Still burns wide Heaven with his distended blaze.

SONNET.

It was some Spirit, Sheridan' that breathed
O'er thy young mind such wildly various power!
My soul hath mark'd thee in her shaping hour,
Thy temples with Hymmettian flow'rets wreathed:
And sweet thy voice, as when o'er Laura's bier
Sad music trembled through Vauclusa’s glade;
Sweet, as at dawn the love-lorn serenade
That wasts soft dreams to Slumber's listening ear.
Now patriot rage and indignation high
Swell the full tones! And now thine eye-beams dance
Meanings of Scorn and Wit's quaint revelry
Writhes inly from the bosom-probing glance
The Apostate by the brainless rout adored,
As erst that elder Fiend beneath great Michael's sword.

As pauses the tired Cossack's barbarous yell
Of triumph) on the chill and midnight gale
Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell
The dirge of murdered Hope! while Freedom pale
Bends in such anguish o'er her destined bier,
As if from eldest time some Spirit meek
Had gathered in a mystic urn-each tear
That ever on a Patriot's furrow'd cheek
Fit channel found; and she had drain'd the bowl
In the mere wilfulness, and sick despair of soul!

SONNET.

As when far off the warbled strains are heard
That soar on Morning's wing the vales among,
Within his cage the imprison'd matin bird
Swells the full chorus with a generous song:
He bathes no pinion in the dewy light,
No Father's joy, no Lover's bliss he shares,
Yet still the rising radiance cheers his sight;
His Fellows freedom soothes the Captive's cares!
Thou, FAyerTE! who didst wake with startling voice
Life's better sun from that long wintry night,
Thus in thy Country's triumphs shalt rejoice
And mock with raptures high the dungeon's might:
For lo! the morning struggles into day,
And Slavery's spectres shriek and vanish from the ray!

SONNET.

Thou gentle Look, that didst my soul beguile,
Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile!
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam:
What time, in sickly mood, at parting day
I lay me down and think of happier years:
Of joys, that glimmered in Ilope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of Ilope—for ever gone!
Could I recall you!—But that thought is vain.
Availeih not Persuasion's sweetest tone
To lure the fleet-wing'd travellers back again :
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam
Like the bright rainbow on a willowy stream.

SONNET.

Pale Roamer through the Night! thou poor Forlorn!
Remorse that man on his death-bed possess,
Who in the credulous hour of tenderness
Betray'd, then cast thee forth to Want and Scorn!
The world is pitiless: the Chaste one's pride,
Mimic of Virtue, scowls on thy distress:
Thy Loves and they, that envied thee, deride :
And Vice alone will shelter wretcheduess!
O! I am sad to think, that there should be
Cold-bosom'd lewd ones, who endure to place
Foul offerings on the shrine of Misery,
And force from Famine the caress of Love;
May He shed healing on the sore disgrace,
He, the great Comforter that rules above!

SONNET.

Sweet Mercy! how my very heart has bled
To see thee, poor Old Man! and thy grey hairs
Hoar with the snowy blast : while no one cares
To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head.
My Father! throw away this tatter'd vest
That mocks thy shivering! take my garment—use
A young man's arm . I'll melt these frozen dews
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast.
My Sara too shall tend thee, like a Child:
And thou shalt talk, in our fire-side's recess,
Of purple Pride, that scowls on Wretchedness.
He did not so, the Galilaean mild,
Who met the Lazars turn'd from rich man's doors,

And called them Friends, and healed their noisome

Sores!

SONNET.

Thou bleedest, my poor Heart! and thy distress
Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile,
And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while
Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.
Why didst thou listen to tope's whisper bland?
Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
When Jealousy with feverish fancies pale
Jarr'd thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?
Faint was that Hope, and rayless!—Yet 't was fair
And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest:
Thou shouldst have loved it most, when most opprest,
And nursed it with an agony of Care, -
Even as a Mother her sweet infant heir
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!

- SONNET.

To the AUThor of The a Robbers. * Schillen! that hour I would have wish'd to die, If through the shuddering midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent That fearful voice, a famished Father's cry— Lest in some after moment aught more mean Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black Horror scream’d, and all her goblin rout Diminish'd shrunk from the more withering scene! Ah Bard tremendous in sublimity! Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood! Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood: Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy!

LINES coviposed while clivieixo The LEFT Ascent of Bhockley coovib, someRsetshire, MAY 1795.

With many a pause and oft-reverted eye
I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet songsters near
Warble in shade their wild-wood melody:
Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear.
Up scour the startling stragglers of the Flock
That on green plots o'er precipices browze:
From the forced fissures of the naked rock
The Yew-tree bursts Beneath its dark green boughs