Yet now, would Phoebe her consent afford,
Her slave alone, again he'd mount the board ;

1 With her should years of growing love be spent, And growing wealth :—she sigh’d, and look'd consent.

Lo! now with red rent cloak and bonnet black, And torn green gown loose hanging at her back, One who an infant in her arms sustains, And seems in patience striving with her pains : Pinch'd are her looks, as one who pines for bread, Whose cares are growing, and whose hopes are fled; Pale her parch'd lips, her heavy eyes sunk low, And tears unnoticed from their channels flow; Serene her manner, till some sudden pain Frets the meek soul, and then she's calm again Her broken pitcher to the pool she takes, And every step with cautious terror makes; For not alone that infant in her arms, But nearer cause her anxious soul alarms: With water burden'd then she picks her way, Slowly and cautious, in the clinging clay ; Till, in mid-green, she trusts a place unsound, And deeply plunges in the adhesive ground; Thence, but with pain, her slender foot she takes, While hope the mind, as strength the frame, forsakes; For when so full the

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of sorrow grows,
Add but a drop, it instantly o’erflows.
And now her path, but not her peace, she gains,

,
Safe from her task, but shivering with her pains :
Her home she reaches, open leaves the door,
And placing first her infant on the floor,
She bares her bosom to the wind, and sits,
And sobbing struggles with the rising fits.

In vain---they come, she feels the inflating grief
That shuts the swelling bosom from relief;
That speaks, in feeble cries, a soul distress'd,
Or the sad laugh that cannot be repress'd :
The neighbour-matron leaves her wheel, and flies
With all the aid her poverty supplies ;
Unfee'd, the calls of nature she obeys,
Not led by profit, not allured by praise ;
And waiting long, till those contentions cease,
She speaks of comfort, and departs in peace.

.
The Parish Register.

AN ENGLISH FEN.

On either side Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, With dikes on either hand by ocean's self supplied : Far on the right the distant sea is seen, And salt the springs that feed the marsh between. Beneath an ancient bridge, the straitend flood Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud; Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, That frets and hurries to the opposing side; The rushes sharp that on the borders grow, Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below, Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow : Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom, Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume. The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread, Partake the nature of their fenny bed : Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom, Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume;

Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh,
And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh.
Low on the ear the distant billows sound,
And just in view appears their stony bound:
Nor hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun ;
Birds, save a watery tribe, the district shun,
Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run.

Tales in Verse.

NATURE'S CEMETERY.

(SONG OF THE CRAZED MAIDEN.)

LET me not have this gloomy view

About my room, about my bed;
But morning roses, wet with dew,

To cool my burning brow, instead :
As flowers that once in Eden grew,

Let them their fragrant spirits shed,
And every day their sweets renew,

Till I, a fading flower, am dead.

O let the herbs I loved to rear

Give to my sense their perfumed breath!
Let them be placed about my bier,

And grace the gloomy house of death.
I'll have my grave beneath a hill,

Where only Lucy's self shall know,
Where runs the pure pellucid rill

Upon its gravelly bed below :
There violets on the borders blow,

And insects their soft light display,
Till, as the morning sunbeams glow,

The cold phosphoric fires decay.

That is the grave to Lucy shown,

The soil a pure and silver sand ; The green cold moss above it grown,

Unpluck'd of all but maiden hand. In virgin earth, till then unturn'd,

There let my maiden form be laid ; Nor let my changed clay be spurn’d,

Nor for new guest that bed be made.

There will the lark, the lamb, in sport,

In air, on earth, securely play:
And Lucy to my grave resort,

As innocent, but not so gay.
I will not have the churchyard ground

With bones all black and ugly grown,
To press my shivering body round,

Or on my wasted limbs be thrown.

With ribs and skulls I will not sleep,

In clammy beds of cold blue clay,
Through which the ringèd earth-worms creep,

And on the shrouded bosom prey.
I will not have the bell proclaim

When those sad marriage-rites begin, And boys, without regard or shame,

Press the vile mouldering masses in.

Say not, it is beneath my care

I cannot these cold truths allow :
These thoughts may not afflict me there;

But oh! they vex and tease me now!
Raise not a turf, nor set a stone,

That man a maiden's grave may trace,
But thou, my Lucy, come alone,
And let affection find the place!

Tales of the Hall.

CAMPBELL.

1777-1844.

PRINCIPAL WORKS :— The Pleasures of Hope, 1799, of which four editions were published within the year-Ode to Winter and on the Battle of Hohenlinden, 1800—Gertrude of Wyoming, A Pennsylvanian Tale, 1809 --Lochiel's Warning, The Last Man, O'Connor's Child— Theodoric and other Poems, 1824— The Pilgrim of Glencoe and other Poems, 1842. The Pleasures of Hope (a title suggested by Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination) was published by the poet at the age of twenty-one : though not without signs of immature thought, it contains many eloquent and charming verses, and some of the episodes are especially fine, e.g. the digression on the partition of Poland. The melody and smoothness of the verse, doubtless, contributed largely to its extensive popularity. Twenty-one is an age, it is remarkable, at which some of the most famous poems in the language were composed— Milton's Ode on the Nativity, Pope's Essay on Criticism, Byron's English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and, more marvellous than all, Shelley's Queen Mab, which indeed was written at the still earlier age of eighteen.

Gertrude of Wyoming is the most considerable of Campbell's later works: but the Ode to Winter (inspired by the horrors of the Continental war then raging and of which he was, in part, an eye-witness) is the production which perhaps more than any other entitles him to his place among the British poets. He was an excellent critic as well as writer, of poetry; and his criticisms in the Specimens of the British Poets are for the most part equally just and elegant.

HOPE.

At summer eve, when heaven's aërial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ?-