-I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps
To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps,
Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws,
The fodder of his herds in winter snows.
Far different life to what tradition hoar
Transmits of days more blest in times of yore;
Then Summer lengthened out his season bland,
And with rock-honey flowed the happy land.
Continual fountains welling cheered the waste,
And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste.
Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled
Usurpign where the fairest herbage smiled ;
Nor Hunger forced the herds from pastures bare
For scanty food the treacherous cliffs to dare.
Then the milk-thistle bade those herds demand times
time Three mites a day the pail and welcome hand.
But human vices have provoked the rod
Of angry Nature to avenge her God.
Thus does the father to his sons relate,
On the lone mountain top, their changed estate.
Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.
When downward to his winter hut he goes,
Dear and more dear the lessening circle grows,
That hut which from the hills his eyes employs
So oft, the central point of all his joys,
Where safely guarded by the woods behind
He hears the chiding of the baffled wind;
Hears Winter, calling all his Terrors round,
Rush down the living rocks with whirlwind sound.
Through Nature's vale his homely pleasures glide
Unstained by envy, discontent, and pride;
The bound of all his vanity to deck
With one bright bell a favourite heifer's neck:
Content, upon some simple annual feast,
(Remembered half the year, and hoped the rest,)
If dairy produce, from his inner hoard,
Of thrice ten summers consecrate the board.
GAY lark of hope thy silent song resume!
Fair smiling lights the purpled hills illume!
Soft gales and dews of life's delicious morn,
And thou, lost fragrance of the heart return!
Soon flies the little joy to man allowed,
And grief before him travels like a cloud:
For come Diseases on, and Penury's rage,
Labour, and Care, and Pain, and dismal Age,
"Till, Hope-deserted, long in vain his breath
Implores the dreadful untried sleep of Death.
-Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine
Between interminable tracts of pine,
A Temple stands; which holds an awful shrine,
By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
On the mute Image and the troubled walls:
Pale, dreadful faces round the Shrine appear,
Abortive Joy, and Hope that works in fear;
While strives a secret Power to hush the crowd,
Pain's wild rebellious burst proclaims her rights aloud.
Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain
That views undimmed Ensiedlen's* wretched fane.
Mid muttering prayers all sounds of torment meet,
Dire clap of hands, distracted chafe of feet;
While loud and dull ascends the weeping cry,
Surely in other thoughts contempt may die.
If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
One flower of hope-Oh, pass and leave it there.
• This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by multitudes, from every corner of the Catholic world, labouring under mental or bodily afflictions.
Having described her own Situation with her Husband, serving in America during the War, she proceeds,
ALL perished-all, in one remorseless year,
Husband and Children! one by one, by sword
And ravenous plague, all perished: every tear
Dried up, despairing, desolate, on board
A British ship I waked, as from a trance restored.
Peaceful as some immeasurable plain
By the first beams of dawning light imprest,
In the calm sunshine slept the glittering main.
The very ocean has its hour of rest.
I too was calm, though heavily distrest!
Oh me, how quiet sky and ocean were!
My heart was hushed within me, I was blest,
And looked, and looked along the silent air,
Until it seemed to bring a joy to my despair.
Ah! how unlike those late terrific sleeps!
And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke!
The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps!
The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke!
The shriek that from the distant battle broke!
The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host
Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke
To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd,
Hope died, and fear itself in agony was lost!
Some mighty gulf of separation past,
I seemed transported to another world :—
A thought resigned with pain, when from the mast
The impatient mariner the sail unfurl'd,
And, whistling, called the wind that hardly curled
The silent sea. From the sweet thoughts of home
And from all hope I was for ever hurled.
For me farthest from earthly port to roam
Was best, could I but shun the spot where man might come.
And oft I thought (my fancy was so strong)
That I at last a resting-place had found;
"Here will I dwell," said I," my whole life long,
Roaming the illimitable waters round:
Here will I live:-of every friend disown'd,
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