Loathing thy polluted lot, Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence ! Seek thy weeping Mother's cot, With a wiser innocence. Thou hast known deceit and folly, With a musing melancholy Inly arm'd, go, Maiden! go. Mother sage of Self-dominion, Firm thy steps, O Melancholy ! The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion Is the memory of past folly. Mute the sky-lark and forlorn, While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimm'd the tender corn, Or the bean-field's odorous blooms. Soon with renovated wing Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM. Nor cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast, These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign Hark! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate! Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer My lady eyes some maid of humbler state, While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest, Prattles accordant scandal in her ear. O give me, from this heartless scene releas'd, By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night, Or lies the purple evening on the bay But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead, Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures The Things of Nature utter; birds or trees Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. THE KEEP-SAKE. THE tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil, : Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust, Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark, Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years, * One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris; a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole Empire of Germany (Vergissmein nicht), and we believe, in Denmark and Sweden. In the cool morning twilight, early waked Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool. She would resign one half of that dear name, L2 |