MATILDA with a mother's joy,
Gave thanks to heav'n's pow'r :
How fervent the imbrac'd her boy!
How bleft the faving hour!

O much deceiv'd and hapless fair,
Tho' ceas'd the waves to roar,
Thou, from that fatal moment, ne'er
Did'st taste of pleasure more.

For stepping forth from off the deck,
To reach the welcome ground,
The Babe, unclafping from her neck,
Plung'd in the gulph profound.

Amazement-chain'd! her haggard eye
Gave not a tear to flow,

Her bofom heav'd no confcious figh,
She ftood a fculptur'd woe,

To fnatch the child from inftant death,
Some brav'd the threat'ning main,

And to recall his fleeting breath

Try'd ev'ry art in vain.

But

But when the corfe first met her view,
Stretch'd on the pebbly strand,
Rous'd from her ecftafy the flew,

And pierc'd th' oppofing band.

With treffes difcompos'd and rude,
Fell proftrate on the ground,
To th' infant's lips her lips fhe glew'd,
And forrow burft its bound.

Now throwing round a troubled glance,
With madness' ray inflam'd,

And, breaking from her filent trance,
She wildly thus exclaim'd:

'Heard ye the helpless infant fcream?
< Saw ye the mother bold?
'How as the flung him in the ftream,

'The billows o'er him roll'd.

<

But foft, a while

-fee there he lies,

• Embalm'd in infant fleep :

Why fall the dew-drops from your eyes,

• What cause is here to weep?

• Yes,

Yes, yes

his little life is fled,

His heavelefs breaft is cold:

"What tears will not thy mother shed,

When thy fad tale is told

Those lips where late the rofes blew,

6 All, all my fon declare.

Strange thrilling horrors chill each vein→→

A voice in accents wild

• Thunders to this distracted brain

" MATILDA flew her child.

She added not-but funk opprefs'd-
Death on her eye-lids stole:
While from her grief-distracted breast
She figh'd her tortur'd soul.

THE

THE

SWEDISH CURATE.

A POE M.

E

ADVERTISEMENT.

GUSTAVUS VASA, after his escape from his confinement in Denmark, was received, as he travelled through SWEDEN in difguife, by SUVERDS10, a country curate; who, at the hazard of his life, concealed him in the parish church.

See the Revolutions of Sweden by Vertot.