“Hark! how the sign-board creaks !

The blast howls by!

Moan! moan! A dirge swells through the cloudy sky!
Ha! 'tis his knock! he comes! he comes once more!

'Tis but the lattice flaps! Thy hope is o'er.

"Nestle more closely, dear one, to my heart!

Thou'rt cold! thou'rt freezing!

Husband! - I die! - Father!

Oh God! protect my child!"

But we will not part.
It is not he!

The clock strikes three.

They're gone! they're gone! the glimmering spark hath fled,
The wife and child are number'd with the dead!
On the cold hearth, out-stretch'd in solemn rest,
The child lies frozen on its mother's breast!

The gambler came at last-but all was o'er

Dead silence reign'd around - The clock struck four!

As prisoners work for crime !

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed,

As well as the weary hand.

How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood!
When fond recollection presents them to view;
The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wild wood,
And every loved spot that my infancy knew;

The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, and the dairy-house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket that hung in the well.

That moss-cover'd vessel I hail as a treasure,

For often at noon, when return'd from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it with hands that were glowing, How quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell, Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well. The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-cover'd bucket arose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised on the kerb, it inclined to my lips :
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar that JUPITER Sips.
And now far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,

As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-cover'd bucket that hangs in the well.