And, when her shatter'd nerves forbid to roam,
In very spleen-rehearse the girls at home.

Last, the grey Dowager, in ancient flounces,
With snuff and spectacles the age denounces;
Boasts how the Sires of this degenerate Isle
Knelt for a look, and duell'd for a smile.
The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal,
Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal;
With modern Belles eternal warfare wages,
Like her own birds that clamor from their cages;
And shuffles round to bear her tale to all,
Like some old Ruin, " nodding to its fall!"

Thus Woman makes her entrance and her exit; Not least an actress, when she least suspects it. Yet Nature oft peeps out and mars the plot, Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot; Full oft, with energy that scorns control, At once lights up the features of the soul; Unlocks each thought chain'd down by coward Art, And to full day the latent passions start! -And she, whose first, best wish is your applause, Herself exemplifies the truth she draws. Born on the stage-through every shifting scene, Obscure or bright, tempestuous or serene, Still has your smile her trembling spirit fired! And can she act, with thoughts like these inspired? Thus from her mind all artifice she flings, All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things! To you, uncheck'd, each genuine feeling flows; For all that life endears-to you she owes.

ON

ASLEEP.

SLEEP on, and dream of Heaven awhile.
Though shut so close thy laughing eyes,
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile,
And move, and breathe delicious sighs!—

Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks,
And mantle o'er her neck of snow.
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish-and fear to know.

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps! Her fair hands folded on her breast. -And now, how like a saint she sleeps! A seraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above control,
Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee!
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

ΤΟ

Go-you may call it madness, folly; You shall not chase my gloom away. There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay.

Oh, if you knew the pensive pleasure
That fills my bosom when I sigh,
You would not rob me of a treasure
Monarchs are too poor to buy.

-Tis she, 't is she herself! she waves her hand!
Soon is the anchor cast, the canvas furl'd;
Soon through the whitening surge he springs to land,
And clasps the maid he singled from the world.

TO AN OLD OAK.

Immota manet; multosque nepotes,
Multa virum volvens durando sæcula, vincit. Virg.

ROUND thee, alas, no shadows move!
From thee no sacred murmurs breathe!
Yet within thee, thyself a grove,
Once did the eagle scream above,

And the wolf howl beneath.

There once the steel-clad knight reclined,
His sable plumage tempest-toss'd;
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,
From towers long fled by human kind,
His brow the hero cross'd!

Then Culture came, and days serene;
And village-sports, and garlands gay.
Full many a pathway cross'd the green;
And maids and shepherd-youths were seen
To celebrate the May.

Father of many a forest deep,
Whence many a navy thunder-fraught!
Erst in thy acorn-cells asleep,
Soon destined o'er the world to sweep,
Opening new spheres of thought!

Wont in the night of woods to dwell,
The holy Druid saw thee rise;
And, planting there the guardian spell,
Sung forth, the dreadful pomp to swell
Of human sacrifice!

Thy singed top and branches bare
Now straggle in the evening-sky;
And the wan moon wheels round to glare
On the long corse that shivers there
Of him who came to die!

TO TWO SISTERS.1

WELL may you sit within, and, fond of grief,
Look in each other's face, and melt in tears.
Well may you shun all counsel, all relief.
Oh she was great in mind, though young in years!

Changed is that lovely countenance, which shed Light when she spoke, and kindled sweet surprise, As o'er her frame each warm emotion spread, Play'd round her lips, and sparkled in her eyes.

Those lips so pure, that moved but to persuade
Still to the last enliven'd and endear'd.
Those eyes at once her secret soul convey'd,
And ever beam'd delight when you appear'd.

1 On the death of a younger sister.

Arrested in the realms of Frost, Or in the wilds of Ether lost.

Far happier thou! 't was thine to soar Careering on the winged wind. Thy triumphs who shall dare explore? Suns and their systems left behind. No tract of space, no distant star, No shock of elements at war, Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire Bore thee amidst the Cherub-choir; And there awhile to thee 't was given

FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM. WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels, And the blue vales a thousand joys recall, See, to the last, last verge her infant steals! O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall. Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare, And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.

TO THE FRAGMENT OF A STATUE OF HERCULES, COMMONLY CALLED THE TORSO.

AND dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone,
(Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurl'd),
Still sit as on the fragment of a ld;
Surviving all, majestic and alone?

What though the Spirits of the North, that swept
Rome from the earth, when in her pomp she slept,
Smote thee with fury, and thy headless trunk
Deep in the dust 'mid tower and temple sunk;
Soon to subdue mankind 'twas thine to rise,
Still, still unquell'd thy glorious energies!
Aspiring minds, with thee conversing, caught
Bright revelations of the Good they sought;
By thee that long-lost spell' in secret given,
To draw down Gods, and lift the soul to Heaven!

ΤΟ

AH! little thought she, when, with wild delight, By many a torrent's shining track she flew, When mountain-glens and caverns full of night O'er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

That in her veins a secret horror slept,
That her light footsteps should be heard no more,
That she should die-nor watch'd, alas, nor wept
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

1 Mrs. Sheridan's.

2 In the gardens of the Vatican, where it was placed by Julius II. it was long the favorite study of those great men to whom we owe the revival of the arts, Michael Angelo, Raphael,

and the Carracci.

Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew
The kindred forms her closing eye required.
There didst thou stand-there, with the smile she
knew,

3 Once in the possession of Praxiteles, if we may believe an ancient epigram on the Guidian Venus.-Analecta Vet. Poetarum, III. 200.

4 On the death of her sister.

She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired.

And now to thee she comes; still, still the same As in the hours gone unregarded by!

To thee, how changed! comes as she ever came, Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

WRITTEN IN A SICK CHAMBER. THERE, in that bed so closely curtain'd round, Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay, A father sleeps! Oh hush'd be every sound! Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away! He stirs yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams Long o'er his smooth and settled pillow rise; Till through the shutter'd pane the morning streams, And on the hearth the glimmering rush-light dies.

THE BOY OF EGREMOND.'

"SAY, what remains when Hope is fled ?"
She answer'd, "Endless weeping!"
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.

At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest-green,

With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more!

"T was but a step! the gulf he pass'd;
But that step-it was his last!
As through the mist he wing'd his way
(A cloud that hovers night and day),
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The Master and his merlin too.
That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of Life!

There now the matin-bell is rung; The "Miserere!" duly sung;

1 In the twelfth century William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword; and was afterwards established there by his uncle, David, King of Scotland.

of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here related; He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called the Boy when a Priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened. That place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in Wharfedale.-See Whitaker's Hist. of Craven.

And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they? Ruthless Lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the innocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan,
The child before thee is thy own.
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,
Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,
Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;
Of those who would not be consoled
When red with blood the river roll'd.

TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE. On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew. Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers; Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.

As on she moves with hesitating grace,
She wins assurance from his soothing voice;
And, with a look the pencil could not trace,
Smiles through her blushes, and confirms the choice.

Spare the fine tremors of her feeling frame!
To thee she turns-forgive a virgin's fears!
To thee she turns with surest, tenderest claim:
Weakness that charms, reluctance that endears!

At each response the sacred rite requires,
From her full bosom bursts the unbidden sigh.
A strange mysterious awe the scene inspires;
And on her lips the trembling accents die.

O'er her fair face what wild emotions play!
What lights and shades in sweet confusion blend!
Soon shall they fly, glad harbingers of day,
And settled sunshine on her soul descend!

Ah soon, thine own confest, ecstatic thought!
That hand shall strew thy summer-path with flowers;
And those blue eyes, with mildest lustre fraught,
Gild the calm current of domestic hours!

THE ALPS AT DAY-BREAK. THE Sun-beams streak the azure skies, And line with light the mountain's brow: With hounds and horns the hunters rise, And chase the roe-buck through the snow.

From rock to rock, with giant-bound, High on their iron poles they pass; Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound, Rend from above a frozen mass.1

The goats wind slow their wonted way Up craggy steeps and ridges rude; Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey, From desert cave or hanging wood.

1 There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above.

And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning-cloud,
Perch'd, like an eagle's nest, on high.

IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET.
LOVE, under Friendship's vesture white,
Laughs, his little limbs concealing;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,
Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles through his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!
He frowns, and tempests shake his frame!-
Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,
"T is Love; and Love is still the same.

A CHARACTER.

As through the hedge-row shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own

TO THE

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF LADY ***

AH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal What most her blushes would conceal? Why lift that modest veil to trace The seraph-sweetness of her face? Some fairer, better sport prefer; And feel for us, if not for her.

For this presumption, soon or late, Know thine shall be a kindred fate. Another shall in vengeance riseSing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes; And, echoing back her wood-notes wild, -Trace all the mother in the child!

AN EPITAPH 2 ON A ROBIN-REDBREAST
TREAD lightly here; for here, 't is said,
When piping winds are hush'd around,
A small note wakes from under-ground,
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,
With ruffled wing and faded breast,
His friendless, homeless spirit roves;
-Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never cat glides o'er the green,
Or school-boy's giant form is seen;
But Love, and Joy, and smiling Spring
Inspire their little souls to sing!

TO THE GNAT.

WHEN by the greenwood side, at summer eve,
Poetic visions charm my closing eye;
And fairy scenes, that Fancy loves to weave,
Shift to wild notes of sweetest minstrelsy;

1 Alluding to some verses which she had written on an elder sister.

2 Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod.

Tis thine to range in busy quest of prey,
Thy feathery antlers quivering with delight,
Brush from my lids the hues of heaven away,
And all is Solitude, and all is Night!
-Ah now thy barbed shaft, relentless fly,
Unsheathes its terrors in the sultry air!
No guardian sylph, in golden panoply,
Lifts the broad shield, and points the glittering spear.
Now near and nearer rush thy whirring wings,
Thy dragon-scales still wet with human gore.
Hark, thy shrill horn its fearful larum flings!
-I wake in horror, and dare sleep no more!

A WISH.

MINE be a cot beside the hill,

A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall, shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village-church, among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heaven.

WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT. 1786. WHILE through the broken pone the tempest sighs, And my step falters on the faithless floor, Shades of departed joys around me rise, With many a face that smiles on me no more; With many a voice that thrills of transport gave, Now silent as the grass that tufts their grave!

AN ITALIAN SONG.

DEAR is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave,
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay
Sung in the silent greenwood shade,
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

AN INSCRIPTION. SHEPHERD, or Huntsman, or worn Mariner, Whate'er thou art, who wouldst allay thy thirst, Drink and be glad. This cistern of white stone, Arch'd, and o'erwrought with many a sacred verse This iron cup chain'd for the general use, And these rude seats of earth within the grove, Were given by FATIMA. Borne hence a bride, "T was here she turn'd from her beloved sire, To see his face no more. Oh, if thou canst, ("T is not far off) visit his tomb with flowers; And with a drop of this sweet water fill The two small cells scoop'd in the marble there, That birds may come and drink upon his grave, Making it holy! 2

WRITTEN IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND,
SEPTEMBER 2, 1812.

BLUE was the loch, the clouds were gone
Ben Lomond in his glory shone,
When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze,
Bore me from thy silver sands,
Thy kirk-yard wall among the trees,
Where, grey with age, the dial stands;
That dial so well known to me!
-Though many a shadow it had shed,
Beloved Sister, since with thee
The legend on the stone was read.
The fairy-isles fled far away;
That with its woods and uplands green,
Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen,
And songs are heard at close of day;
That, too, the deer's wild covert, fled,
And that, the asylum of the dead:
While, as the boat went merrily,
Much of Rob Roy the boatman told,
His arm, that fell below his knee,
His cattle-ford and mountain-hold.

Tarbat, thy shore I climb'd at last, And, thy shady region pass'd, Upon another shore I stood, And look'd upon another flood; ' Great Ocean's self! (Tis He who fills That vast and awful depth of hills); Where many an elf was playing round Who treads unshod his classic ground; And speaks, his native rocks among, As Fingal spoke, and Ossian sung.

Night fell; and dark and darker grew That narrow sea, that narrow sky, As o'er the glimmering waves we flew ; The sea-bird rustling, wailing by. And now the grampus, half-descried, Black and huge above the tide; The cliffs and promontories there, Front to front, and broad and bare; Each beyond each, with giant-feet Advancing as in haste to meet ;

1 See an anecdote related by Pausanias, iii, 20. 2 A Turkish superstition.

3 A famous outlaw.

4 Signifying, in the Erse language, an Isthmus. 5 Loch-Long.