which is also in verse, and very playfully and well written, I should be glad to introduce into this collection; but I have no opportunity for asking that permission, without which, I should be scrupulous of inserting it.

WHEREABOUT;

AN INTRODUCTORY CHARADE *

Be it or truth or fable, we are told,

To form young phoenix, you must burn the old.
Consume my first, you change at once its quality;
And give it increase; for you give plurality.

Reader, my second I shall not say much on :

Do you bear arms? 'Tis found in your escutcheon.
Seldom, if ever,
battle is, without it;

More rarely still, are those who keep it-routed.
In this fair second, see my first take root;
While both conspire, to form my latent tout.
What tout? Nay, be by you the answer given :
My guess perhaps might be the place we live in.

TO A MELODY LONG UNHEARD.†

O the days when first, how sweetly!
You stole upon mine ear,

* Which means to introduce, and "prate of my whereabout," when most of the poems (poems ?) that follow were composed.

A French air, the name and words of which I have forgotten. The following lines are closely adapted to it; perhaps at the expense of metre and smoothness, in lines third and eleventh.

Oh! you

stole upon mine ear,—

Are vanish'd, how completely!
Yet still I find you here:

And to my soul, as gliding down,
The phantom Past you bear,
My spirit fondly gazes on,
And welcomes with a tear :-

O stream of long-lost melody,
Where now thy sources? where?
Oh! where now thy sources? where?
In Memory's mirror while I see
Their liquid forms appear?

ANOTHER ADDRESS TO THE SAME MELODY."

Sweet air, that won my heart, oh!

'Twas this; oh! it was this;

Why vanish and depart, oh!

Soft hours of transient bliss?

Tho' many a year be gone, oh!

'Tis tinkling in my ears;

The strain my heart that won, oh!

Like music of the spheres.

*

* Written before the lines which have just been given.

THE TEAR.

His horses pace before the door,
And blooming Edwin must be gone,
To seek, in arms, the laurel'd shore,
Where Victory waits on Wellington.

Why lingers the young soldier? say:
He lingers for that sweet farewell,
Where bosom, cheek, and eye betray
What maiden lips refuse to tell.

"Here are the roses Bess desired," Low faltered Ellen, as she tied ;

And first bent o'er them, then retired,

The shower she could not check, to hide.

Lo! twinkling thro' their crimson hues,
A radiant speck was seen to lie :
Was it a dew-drop, think you, Muse?
Or liquid gem, from Ellen's eye?

"Oh! 'tis a tear !" the lover cried ;
And, as he drank the watery ray,
Thought of its sparkling source, and sigh'd,
And long'd to kiss the rest away.

And wont for tented field to burn,

Where steel-flash glances on the view,

Now melting, waits a maid's return;

And lingers for a soft adieu.

Mount and away, bold youth! but see,
To window stol'n, fair Ellen stand:
He looks a volume: what does she?
Her handkerchief is in her hand.

Away, fond youth! nor blush to be
True knight in love, as well as war :
Cowards lack sensibility;

And bold as fond was Lochinvar.

The heart that pours a melting vow,
In Valour's sterner flame shall glow;
The eye, that love suffuses now,

Gleam lightnings on the shrinking foe.

And if that breast a foeman scar,

And steep in Honour's purple tide, The wound shall lurk beneath a star, The stain-a crimson ribband hide.

Then weep no more, sweet maid: thy vows Are heard; thy Edwin's safe from harms :

And Ellen, destined to espouse,

Shall take a hero to her arms.

TO SLEEP.

Somne, quies rerum, placidissime Somne, Deorum,
Pax animi quem cura fregit; qui corda, diurnis
Fessa ministeriis, mulces, reparasque labori.

OVID, METAM. LIB. XI. FAB. X.

Lo, on thy wing flits heaven-sent healing;
In its soft shadow fold me, Sleep;

And, gently o'er my senses stealing,

In anodyne oblivions steep;

you shed,

While, thro' the shower of poppies that
A rainbow tint aerial visions spread.
"Balm of hurt minds!"-th' unrivall'd bard,
Fair, innocent Sleep, hath called you so ;*
Whose bland approaches, conscience-marred,
The murderous Cawdor ceased to know.
For hark, thro' all the house, with menace sore,
Terrific voice cries-" Cawdor, sleep no more:
"No rest await thee, Glamis; fell Macbeth,
"Whose ruthless treason smother'd sleep in death."

The innocent Sleep;

Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.

+

Shall sleep no more.

MACBETH.

Cawdor

IBID.

One is struck with a resemblance between the lines from Ovid, which form my motto, and those from Shakspeare, which are quoted in the first note. This resemblance is heightened by the following passages.

'Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,

The death of each day's life; sore Labour's bath.'