Sadness doth of its lustre rob the eye;
And those who ever, in the hour of need,

To mitigate our griefs were kindly nigh,

Like shot stars, one by one, all disappear and die!

Earth is at best a heritage of grief,

But oh! fair cherub, may its calm be thine;
May Virtue be thy solace and relief,

When Pleasure on thy lot disdains to shine!
There was a time, when being was divine,
No sin, no sorrow,-paradise the scene;
But man was prone to error, and his line

In frailty like their sire have ever been ;—

How happy might'st thou be, were Eden's bowers still green!

Ah! may I guess, when years have o'er thy head
Their passage wing'd, maturity thine own,

How may on Earth thy pilgrimage be led ?-
Shall public cares, or privacy alone

Thy life engage? or shall thy lot be thrown
Where timbrel, horn, and martial drum inspire?
Or, soothed to softness, and a holier tone,
Draw down aërial spirits to thy lyre,

Or call upon the muse to arm thy words with fire?

Thy flaxen ringlets, and thy deep blue eyes,
Bring to my mind the little God of Love;
The last outvie the azure of the skies,

The first are like the clouds that float above

The Spring's descending sun. The boy whom Jove
Rapt from the earth-fair Ganymede-to dwell
Above the realms where Care has wing to rove,
Thy cherub features may betoken well;

Or if the one excell'd, perchance thou might'st excel.

Even now, begirt with utter helplessness, 'Tis hard to think, as on thy form I gaze, (Experience makes me marvel not the less,) That thou to busy man shalt rise, and raise Thyself, mayhap, a nation's pride, and praise; 'Tis hard to let the truth my mind employ, That he, who kept the world in wild amaze, That Cæsar in the cradle lay-a boy,

Soothed by a nurse's kiss, delighted with a toy!

That once the mighty Newton was like thee; The awful Milton, who on Heaven did look, Listening the councils of Eternity;

And matchless Shakespeare, who, undaunted, took From Nature's shrinking hand her secret book,

And page by page

the wondrous tome explored;

The fearless Sidney; the adventurous Cook;

Howard, who mercy for mankind implored;

And France's despot Chief, whose heart lay in his sword!

How doth the wretch, when life is dull and black,
Pray that he were, pure Innocent, like thee!
Or that again the guileless days were back,
When Childhood leant against a parent's knee!
"Tis meet that Sin should suffer-it must be :
To such as at the shrine of Virtue mock,
Remorse is what the righteous Fates decree;
On conquest bent, Sennacherib awoke,—

But Heaven had o'er his camp breathed death in the Siroc.

The unrelenting tyrant, who, unmoved,
Lays for a sweet and smiling land his snares,
Whose callous, unimpassion'd heart hath proved
Beyond the impulse of a mother's prayers,
Though not for Beauty's tearful eye he cares,
A tyrant among tyrants he must be-
A Herod with a Hydra soul, who dares

To spill the blood of innocent, like thee

All smiling in his face, and from a parent's knee!

Adieu ! fair Infant; be it thine to prove
The joy, of which an earnest thou wert sent;
And, in thy riper years, with looks of love,
Repay thy mother for the hours she spent
In fondness o'er thy cradle; thou wert meant
To be her solace in declining years;

Raise up the mind, with age and sorrow bent;
Assuage with filial care a parent's fears,

Awake her heart to joy, and wipe away her tears!

THE

LEAFLESS TREE.

THE silver moon careers a sky,
Whose breast is bright as beauty's eye;
Though somewhat of a paler hue;
Though somewhat of a milder blue;
While sweeps around me, far and fast,
With icy breath, the brumal blast;
And lands and lakes are whitely lost
In glistening snow, and sparkling frost.

When last thy trunk by me was seen, The bloom was white, the leaf was green; The air was stirless, and the sun His summer circuit had begun ;