And art thou fled, thou welcome orb?
So swiftly pleasure flies;

SONNETS.
So to mankind, in darkness lost,

The beam of ardour dies.
Wan Moon, thy nightly task is done,

TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
And now, encurtain'd in the main,

Thou sinkest into rest; But I, in vain, on thorny bed

LOFFT, unto thee one tributary song Shall woo the god of soft repose

The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring; She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng,

And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring.
Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,

Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild,
FRAGMENT.

Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth

And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child;

Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal, LOUD rage the winds without.-The wintry cloud Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire, [lyre, O'er the cold north star casts her flitting shroud; Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale, And show thy labours for the public weal. Starts as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale;

Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme, Where now, shut out from every still retreat,

But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat,

theme.
Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood,
Retire o'er all her pensive stores to brood ?
Shivering and blue the peasant eyes askance
The drifted fleeces that around him dance,

TO THE MOON.
And hurries on his half-averted form,
Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm.
Him soon shall greet his snow-topp'd (cot of thatch,]

Written in November.
Soon shall his numb'd hand tremble on the latch,
Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame
Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame; SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge
Round the light fire, while roars the north wind Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
loud,

As sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale What merry groups of vacant faces crowd;

Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge. These hail his coming-these his meal prepare, Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight, And boast in all that cot no lurking care.

And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way,

Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night, What, though the social circle be denied,

With double joy my homage do I pay. Even Sadness brightens at her own fireside,

When clouds disguise the glories of the day, Loves, with fix'd eye, to watch the fluttering blaze,

And stern November sheds her boisterous blight, While musing Memory dwells on former days; How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray Or Hope, bless'd spirit! smiles—and still forgiven,

Shoot through the mist from the ethereal height, Forgets the passport, while she points to Heaven.

And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring Then heap the fire-shut out the biting air,

The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring. And from its station wheel the easy chair: Thus fenced and warm, in silent fit, 'tis sweet To hear without the bitter tempest beat. All, all alone-to sit, and muse, and sigh, The pensive tenant of obscurity.

WRITTEN

AT THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.

PRAGMENT.

FAST from the West the fading day-streaks fly,

And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway, Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,

and o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay. Oh! 'tis not long since, George, with thee I wood

The maid of musings by yon moaning wave, And hail'd the moon's mild beam, which now

renew'l,
Seems sweetly sleeping on thy silent grave!
The busy world pursues its boisterous way

The noise of revelry still echoes round,
Yet I am sad while all beside is gay;

Yet still I weep o'er thy deserted mound.
Oh! that, like thee, I might bid sorrow cease,
And 'neath the green-sward sleep the sleep of peace.

OH! thou most fatal of Pandora's train,

Consumption ! silent cheater of the eye; Thou com'st not robed in agonizing pain,

Nor mark'st thy course with Death's delusive dye,

But silent and unnoticed thou dost lie;
O'er life's soft springs thy venom dost diffuse,

And, while thou giv'st new lustre to the eye,
While o'er the cheek are spread health's ruddy hues,
Even then life's little rest thy cruel power subdues.
Oft I've beheld thee, in the glow of youth
Hid 'neath the blushing roses which there

bloom'd,
And dropp'd a tear, for then thy cankering tooth

I knew would never stay, till all consumed,

In the cold vault of death he were entomb'd.
But oh! what sorrow did I feel, as swift,

Insidious ravager, I saw thee fly
Through fair Lucina's breast of whitest snow,

Preparing swift her passage to the sky.
Though still intelligence beam'd in the glance,

The liquid lustre of her fine blue eye;
Yet soon did languid listlessness advance,
And soon she calmly sunk in death's repugnant

trance.
Even when her end was swiftly drawing near,

And dissolution hover'd o'er her head : Even then so beauteous did her form appear,

That none who saw her but admiring said,

Sure so much beauty never could be dead.
Yet the dark lash of her expressive eye,
Bent lowly down upon the languid-

TO MISFORTUNE.

MISFORTUNE, I am young, my chin is bare,

And I have wonder'd much when men have told, How youth was free from sorrow and from care, That thou shouldst dwell with me, and leave the

old. Sure dost not like me!-Shrivell'd hag of hate,

My phiz, and thanks to thee, is sadly long;

I am not either, Beldam, over strong;
Nor do I wish at all to be thy mate,
For thou, sweet Fury, art my utter hate.
Nay, shake not thus thy miserable pate,
I am yet young, and do not like thy face;
And, lest thou shouldst resume the wild-goose chase,
I'll tell thee something all thy heat to assuage,
-Thou wilt not hit my fancy in my age.

AS thus oppress'd with many a heavy care,

(Though young yet sorrowful,) I turn my feet

To the dark woodland, longing much to greet
The form of Peace, if chance she sojourn there;
Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair,

Fills my sad breast; and, tired with this vain coil,
I shrink dismay'd before life's upland toil.
And as amid the leaves the evening air
Whispers still melody,-I think ere long,

When I no more can hear, these woods will speak
And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek,
And mournful phantasies upon me throng,
And I do ponder with most strange delight,
On the calm slumbers of the dead maa's

night,

YES, 'twill be over soon.-This sickly dream

Of life will vanish from my feverish brain;
And death my wearied spirit will redeem

From this wild region of unvaried pain.
Yon brook will glide as softly as before,

Yon landscape smile,-yon golden harvest grow,-
Yon sprightly lark on mounting wing will soar

When Henry's name is heard no more below. I sigh when all my youthful friends caress,

They laugh in health, and future evils brave; Them shall a wife and smiling children bless,

While I am mouldering in my silent grave. God of the just-Thou gavest the bitter cup; I bow to thy behest, and drink it up.

TO APRIL

TO CONSUMPTION.
EMBLEM of life! see changeful April sail

In varying vest along the shadowy skies,
Now bidding Summer's softest zephyrs rise,

GENTLY, most gently, on thy victim's head, Anon, recalling Winter's stormy gale,

Consumption, lay thine handlet me decay, And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail;

Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away, Then, smiling thro' the tear that dims her eyes,

And softly go to slumber with the dead. While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes, And if 'tis true, what holy men have said, Promise of sunshine, not so prone to fail.

That strains angelic oft foretell the day So, to us, sojourners in Life's low vale,

Of death, to those good men who fall thy prey, The smiles of Fortune flatter to deceive,

O let the aerial music round my bed,
While still the Fates the web of Misery weave; Dissolving sad in dying symphony,
So Hope exultant spreads her aery sail.

Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear
And from the present gloom the soul conveys That I may bid my weeping friends good by
To distant summers and far happier days.

Ere I depart upon my journey drear:
And, smiling faintly on the painful past,

Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.
SONNET.
YE unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,

Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies,

OF
When he, who now invokes you low is laid,
His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed,

M. DESBARREAUX
Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head,

And chant a dirge to his reposing shade! For he was wont to love your madrigals;

THY judgments, Lord, are just; thou lov'st to wear And often by the haunted stream that laves

The face of pity and of love divine; The dark sequester'd woodland's inmost caves

But mine is guilt-thou must not, canst not spare, Would sit and listen to the dying falls,

While Heaven is true, and equity is thine. Till the full tear would quiver in his eye, [tacy. Ves, oh my God!such crimes as mine, so dread, And his big heart would heave with mournful ecs

Leave but the choice of punishment to thee; Thy interest calls for judgment on my head,

And even thy mercy dares not plead for me!

Thy will be done-since 'tis thy glory's due,
TO A TAPER.

Bid from mine eyes the endless torrents flow;
Smite-it is time-though endless death ensue,

I bless the avenging hand that lays me low. 'TIS midnight-On the globe dead slumber sits, And all is silence-in the hour of sleep;

But on what spot shall fall thine anger's flood, Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits,

That has not first been drench'd in Christ's atoning

blood ? In the dark wood roars fearfully and deep. I wake alone to listen and to weep,

To watch, my taper, thy pale beacon burn;
And, as still Memory does her vigils keep,

TO
To think of days that never can return.
By thy pale ray I raise my languid head,
My eye surveys the solitary gloom;

A FRIEND IN DISTRESS,
And the sad meaning tear, unmix'd with dread,
Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb.

Who, when Henry reasoned with him calmly,asked,
Like thee I wane ,- like thine my life's last ray
Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away.

“If he did not feel for him pa

“DO I not feel " The doubt is keen as steel TO MY MOTHER.

Yea, I do feel-most exquisitely feel;
My heart can weep, when from my downcast eye,

I chase the tear, and stem the rising sigh:
AND canst thon, Mother, for a moment think, Deep buried there I close the rankling dart,

That we, thy children, when old age shall shed And smile the most when heaviest is my heart Its blanching honours on thy weary head,

On this I act-whatever pangs surround, Could from our best of duties ever shrink?

'Tis magnanimity to hide the wound! Hooner the sun from his high sphere should sink When all was new, and life was in its spring,

Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, I lived an unloved solitary thing;
To.pine in solitude thy life away,

Even then I learn'd to bury deep from day,
Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink. The piercing cares that wore my youth away:
Banish the thought !_where'er

our steps may roam, Even then I learn'd for others' cares to feel; O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree, Even then I wept I had not power to heal :

Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage,

# The 13 Poems which follow are of a later date And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age.

than the preceding.

Even then, deep-sounding thro' the nightly gloom,

Angels of Heaven, I heard the wretched's groan, and mourn'd the Ye who beheld Him fainting on the cross, wretched's doom,

(fire-. ! And did him homage, say, may mortal join Who were my friends in youth ?-The midnight The hallelujahs of the risen God? The silent moon-beam, or the starry choir;

Will the faint voice and grovelling song be heard To these I 'plained, or turn'd from outer sight, Amid the seraphim in light divine ? To bless my lonely taper's friendly light;

Yes, He will deign, the Prince of Peace will deign, I never yet could ask, howe'er forlorn,

For mercy, to accept the hymn of faith, For vulgar pity mix'd with vulgar scorn;

Low though it be and humble.-Lord of life, The sacred source of wo I never ope;

The Christ, the Comforter, thine advent now
My breast's my coffer, and my God's my hope. Fills my uprising soul.-I mount, I fly
But that I do feel, Time, my friend, will show, Far o'er the skies, beyond the rolling orbs;
Though the cold crowd the secret never know ; The bonds of flesh dissolve, and earth recedes,
With them I laugh-yet, when no eye can see, And care, and pain, and sorrow are no more.
weep for nature,

and I weep for thee.
Yes, thou didst wrong me, **; I fondly thought,
In thee I'd found the friend my heart had sought!
I fondly thought, that thou couldst pierce the guise
And read the truth that in my bosom lies;
I fondly thought ere Time's last days were gone,
Thy heart and mine had mingled into one!

NELSONI MORS.
Yes and they yet will mingle. Days and years
Will fly, and leave us partners in our tears:
We then shall feel that friendship has a power YET once again, my Harp, yet once again,
To sooth affliction in her darkest hour;

One ditty more, and on the mountain ash
Time's trial o'er, shall clasp each other's hand, I will again suspend thee, I have felt
And wait the passport to a better land.

The warm tear frequent on my cheek, since last,

Ateventide, when all the winds were hush'd, Thine

I woke to thee the melancholy song.

Since then with Thoughtfulness, a maid severe,
H. K. WHITE. I've journey'd, and have learn'd to shape the freaks

Of frolic fancy to the line of truth;
Half-past Eleven o'Clock at Night.

Not unrepining, for my froward heart,
Still turns to thee, mine Harp, and to the flow
Of spring-gales past-the woods and storied haunts
Of my not songless boyhood.-Yet once more,
Not fearless, I will wake thy tremulous tones,

My long-neglected Harp.-He must not sink;
CHRISTMAS-DAY.

The good, the brave-he must not, shall not sink
Without the meed of some melodious tear.

Though from the Muse's chalice I may pour 1804.

No precious dews of Aganippe's well,
Or Castaly,—though from the morning cloud

I fetch no hues to scatter on his hearse :
YET once more, and once more, awake my Harp, Yet will I wreathe a garland for his brows,
From silence and neglect--one lofty strain, Of simple flowers, such as the hedge-rows scent
Lofty, yet wilder than the winds of Heaven, Of Britain, my loved country; and with tears
And speaking mysteries more than words can tell,

Most eloquent, yet silent, I will bathe I ask of thee, for I, with hymnings high,

Thy honour'd corse, my Nelson, tears as warm Would join the dirge of the departing year.

And honest as the ebbing blood that flow'd Yet with no wintry garland from the woods,

Fast from thy honest heart.-Thou, Pity, too, Wrought of the leafless branch, or ivy sear,

If ever I have loved, with faltering step, Wreathe I thy tresses, dark December! now;

To follow thee in the cold and starless night, Me higher quarrel calls, with loudest song,

To the top crag of some rain-beaten cliff'; And fearful joy, to celebrate the day

And as I heard the deep gun bursting loud Of the Redeemer.-Near two thousand suns

Amid the pauses of the storm, have pour'd Have set their seals upon the rolling lapse

Wild strains, and mournful, to the hurrying winds, Of generations, since the day-spring first

The dying soul's viaticum; if oft Beam'd from on high !-Now to the mighty mass

Amid the carnage of the field I've sate Of that increasing aggregate we add

With thee upon the moonlight throne, and sung One unit more. Space, in comparison,

To cheer the fainting soldier's dying soul, How small, yet mark d with how much misery;

With mercy and forgiveness visitant Wars, famine, and the fury, Pestilence,

Of Heaven-sit thou

upon my harp, Over the nations hanging her dread scourge ;

And give it feeling, which were else too cold The oppressed, too, in silent bitterness,

For argument so great, for theme so high. Weeping their sufferance; and the arm of wrong,

How dimly on that morn the sun arose, Forcing the scanty portion from the weak,

'Kerchief'd in mists, and tearful, when And steeping the lone widow's couch with tears.

So has the year been character'd with wo
In Christian land, and mark'd with wrongs and

crimes,
Yet 'twas not thus He taught-not thus He lived,

HYMN.
Whose birth we this day celebrate with prayer
And much thanksgiving.--He, a man of woes,
Went on the way appointed, -path, though rude,
Yet borne with patience still :--He came to cheer

In Heaven we shall be purified, so as to be able to The broken-hearted, to raise up the sick,

endure the splendours of the Deity.
And on the wandering and benighted mind
To pour the light of truth.-0 task divine !
O more than angel teacher! He had words

I.
To soothe the barking waves, and hush the winds;
And when the soul was toss'd in troubled seas,

AWAKE, sweet harp of Judah, wake,
Wrapp'd in thick darkness and the howling storm, Retune thy strings for Jesus' sake;
He, pointing to the star of peace on high,

We sing the Saviour of our race,
Arm'd it with holy fortitude, and bade it smile, The Lamb, our shield, and hiding-place.
At the surrounding wreck.

II.
When with deep agony his heart was rack'd,
Not for himself the tear-drop dew'd his cheek,

When God's right arm is bared for war,
For them He wept, for them to Heaven he pray'd, And thunders clothe his cloudy car,
His persecutors Father, pardon them,

Where, where, oh where, shall man retire, They know not what they do."

To escape the horrors of his ire ?