She'd been to sea in a leaky sieve,

And one night as the old woman And a jovial storm had brew'd.

Was sick and ill in bed,

And pondering sorely on the life
She call'd around the winged winds,

Her wicked daughter led,
And raised a devilish rout;
And she laugh'd so loud, the peals were heard She heard her footstep on the floor,
Full fifteen leagues about.

And she raised her pallid head,

And she saw her daughter, with a knift,
She said there was a little bark

Approaching to her bed.
Upon the roaring wave,
And there was a woman there who'd been

And said, My child, I'm very ill,
To see her husband's grave.

I have not long to live,

Now kiss my cheek, that ere I die
And she had got a child in her arms,

Thy sins I may forgive.
It was her only child,
And oft its little infant pranks

And the murderess bent to kiss her cheek, Her heavy heart beguiled.

And she lifted the sharp bright knife

And the mother saw her fell intent,
And there was too in that same bark,

And hard she begg'd for life.
A father and his son:
The lad was sickly, and the sire

But prayers would nothing her avail,
Was old and wo-begone.

And she scream'd aloud with fear,

But the house was lone, and the piercing screams And when the tempest waxed strong,

Could reach no human ear
And the bark could no more it 'bide,
She said it was jovial fun to hear

And though that she was sick, and old,
How the poor devils cried.

She struggled hard and fought;

The murderess cut three fingers through
The mother clasp'd her orphan child

Ere she could reach her throat.
Unto her breast, and wept;
And sweetly folded in her arms

And the hag she held the fingers up,
The careless baby slept.

The skin was mangled sore,

And they all agreed a nobler deed
And she told how, in the shape o' the wind,

Was never done before.
As manfully it roar'd,
She twisted her hand in the infant's hair

And she threw the fingers in the fire,
And threw it overboard.

The red flame flamed high,

And round about the cauldron stout And to have seen the mother's pangs,

They danced right merrily. "I'was a glorious sight to see ; The crew could scarcely hold her down

The third arose; She said she'd been From jumping in the sea.

To Holy Palestine;

And seen more blood in one short day,
The bag held a lock of the hair in her hand,

Than they had all seen in nine.
And it was soft and fair:
It must have been a lovely child,

Now Gondoline, with fearful steps,
To have had such lovely hair.

Drew nearer to the flame,

For much she dreaded now to hear
And she said, the father in his arms

Her hapless lover's name.
He held his sickly son,
And his dying throes they fast arose,

The hag related then the sports
His pains were nearly done.

Of that eventful day,

When on the well-contested field
And she throttled the youth with her sinewy

Full fifteen thousand lay.
And his face grew deadly blue; [hands,
And his father he tore his thin gray hair,

She said that she in human gore
And kiss'd the livid hue.

Above the knees did wade,

And that no tongue could truly tell
And then she told, how she bored a hole

The tricks she there had play d.
In the bark, and it fill'd away :
And 'twas rare to hear, how come did swear,

There was a gallant-featured youth,
And some did vow and pray.

Who like a hero fought;

He kiss'd a bracelet on his wrist,
The man and woman they soon were dead,

And every danger sought.
The sailors their strength did urge; (sheet,
But the billows that beat were their winding And in a vassal's garb disguised,
And the winds sung their funeral dirge.

Unto the knight she sues,

And tells him she from Britain comes,
She threw the infant's hair in the fire,

And brings unwelcome news.
The red flame flamed high,
And round about the cauldron stout

That three days ere she had embark'd,
They danced right merrily.

His love had given her hand

Unto a wealthy Thane :-and thought
The second begun : She said she had done

Him dead in holy land.
The task that Queen Hecat' had set her,
And that the devil, the father of evil,

And to have seen how he did writhe.
Had never accomplish'd a better.

When this her tale she told,

It would have made a wizard's blood he said, there was an aged woman,

Within his heart run cold.
And she had a daughter fair,
Whose evil habits fill'd her heart

Then fierce he spurr'd his warrior steed,
With misery and care.

And sought the battle's bed :

And soon all mangled o'er with wounds,
The daughter had a paramour,

He on the cold turf bled.
A wicked man was he,
And oft the woman him against

And from his smoking corse she tore
Did murmur grievously.

His head, half clove in two.

She ceased, and from beneath her garb
And the bag had work'd the daughter up

The bloody trophy drew.
To murder her old mother,
That then she might seize on all her goods,

The eyes were starting from their socks,
And wanton with her lover.

The mouth it ghastly grinn com

And there was a gash across the brow,

And gives a shadowy glimpse of future bliss.
The scalp was nearly skinn'd.

Oh! what is man, when at ambition's height,

What even are kings, when balanced in the scale Twas Bertrand's Head! With a terrible scream Of these stupendous worlds! Almighty God! The maiden gave a spring,

Thou, the dread author of these wondrous works! And from her fearful hiding place

Say, canst thou cast on me, poor passing worm, She fell into the ring.

One look of kind benevolence ?-t'hou canst ;

For Thou art full of universal love,
The lights they fled--the cauldron sunk,

And in thy boundless goodness wilt impart
Deep thunders shook the dome,

Thy beams as well to me as to the proud,
And hollow peals of laughter came

The pageant insects of a glittering hour.
Resounding through the gloom.

Oh! when reflecting on these truths sublime, Insensible the maiden lay

How insignificant do all the joys,
Upon the hellish ground,

The gaudes, and honours of the world appear ! And still mysterious sounds were heard

How vain ambition! Why has my wakeful lamp. At intervals around.

Outwatch'd the slow-paced night ?-Why on the

page, She woke-she half arose,--and wild,

The schoolman's labour'd page, have I employ'd She cast a horrid glare,

The hours devoted by the world to rest, The sounds had ceased, the lights had fled, And needful to recruit exhausted nature ? And all was stillness there.

Say, can the voice of narrow Fame repay

The loss of health? or can the hope of glory
And through an awning in the rock,

Lend a new throb unto my languid heart,
The moon it sweetly shone

Cool, even now my feverish aching brow,
And show'd a river in the cave

Relume the fires of this deep-sunken eye,
Which dismally did moan.

Or paint new colours on this pallid cheek?
The stream was black, it sounded deep,

Say, foolish one-can that unbodied fame,
As it ruoh'd the rocks between,

For which thou barterest health and happiness, It offer'd well, for madness fired

Say, can it soothe the slumbers of the grave ?
The breast of Gondoline.

Give a new zest to bliss, or chase the pangs

Of everlasting punishment condign?
She plunged in, the torrent moan'd

Alas' how vain are mortal man's desires !
With its accustom'd sound,

How fruitless his pursuits ! Eternal God!
And hollow peals of laughter loud

Guide Thou my footsteps in the way of truth,
Again rebellow'd round.

And oh ! assist me so to live on earth,

That I may die in peace, and claim a place
The maid was seen no more.-B

In thy high dwelling: - All but this is folly,
Her ghost is known to glide,

The vain illusions of deceitful life.
At midnight's silent, solemn hour,

Along the ocean's side.

In the Morning before Day-break.

YE many twinkling stars, who yet do hold
Your brilliant places in the sable vault
Of night's dominions - Planets, and central orbs
Of other systems :-big as the burning sun
Which lights this nether globe,-yet to our eye.
Small as the glow-worm's lamp -To you I raise
My lowly orisons, while, all bewilder'd,
My vision strays o'er your ethereal hosts;
Too vast, too boundless for our narrow mind,
Warp'd with low prejudices, to unfold,
And sagely comprehend. Thence higher soaring,
Through ye I raise my solemn thoughts to Him,
The mighty Founder of this wondrous maze,
The great Creator! Him! who now sublime,
Wrapt in the solitary amplitude
Of boundless space, above the rolling spheres
Sits on his silent throne, and meditates.

The angelic hosts, in their inferior Heaven,
Hymn to the golden harps his praise sublime,
Repeating loud, "The Lord our God is great,'
In varied harmonies.-The glorious sounds
Roll o'er the air serene-The Æolian spheres,
Harping along their viewless boundaries,
Catch the full note, and cry, “The Lord is great,
Responding to the Seraphim-O'er all
From orb to orb, to the remotest verge
Of the created world, the sound is borne,
Till the whole universe is full of Him.

MARY, the moon is sleeping on thy grave,
And on the turf thy lover sad is kneeling,
The big tear in his eye.-Mary, awake,
From thy dark house arise, and bless his sight
On the pale moonbeam gliding.. Soft, and low,
Pour on the silver ear of night thy tale
Thy whisper'd tale of comfort and of love,
To soothe thy Edward's lorn, distracted soul,
And cheer his breaking heart.-Come, as thou

didst,
When o'er the barren moors the night wind howl'd,
And the deep thunders shook the ebon throne
Of the startled night. -0! then, as lone reclining,
I listen'd sadly to the dismal storm,
Though on the lambent lightnings wild careering
Didst strike my moody eye ;-dead pale thou wert,
Yet passing lovely.--Thou didst smile upon me,
And oh! thy voice it rose so musical,
Betwixt the hollow pauses of the storm,
That at the sound the winds forgot to rave,
And the steru demon of the tempest, charm'd,
Sunk on his rocking throne to still repose,
Lock'd in the arms of silence,

Spirit of her
My only love!-0! now again arise,
And let once more thint aery accents fall
Soft on my listening ear. The night is calm,
The gloomy willows wave in sinking cadence
With the stream that sweeps below. Divinely swell.

ing
On the still air, the distant waterfall
Mingles its melody ;-and, high above,
The pensive empress of the solemn night,
Fitful, emerging from the rapid clouds,
Shows her chaste face in the meridian sky.
No wicked elves upon the Warlock-knoll
Dare now assemble at their mystic revels;

Oh! 'tis this heavenly harmony which now
In fancy strikes upon my listening ear,
And thrills my inmost soul. It bids me smile
On the vain world, and all its bustling cares,

It is a night, when from their primrose beds, But who it was the able master
The gentle ghosts of injured innocents

Had moulded in the mimic plaster,
Are known to rise, and wander on the breeze, Whether 'twas Pope, or Coke, or Burn,
Or take their stand by the oppressor's couch,

I never yet could justly learn: And strike grim terror to his guilty soul.

But knowing well, that any head The spirit of my love might now awake,

Is made to answer for the dead, And hold its custom'd converse.

(And sculptors first their faces frame,
Mary, lo!

And after pitch upon a name,
Thy Edward kneels upon thy verdant grave, Nor think it aught of a misnomer
And calls upon thy name. The breeze that blows To christen Chaucer's busto Homer,
On his wan cheek will soon sweep over him

Because they both have beards, which, you know, In solemn music, a funereal dirge,

Will mark them well from Joan, and Juno)
Wild and most sorrowful.--His cheek is pale, For some great man, I could not tell
The worm that play'd upon thy youthful bloom, But Neck might answer just as well,
It canker'd green on his.--Now lost he stands, So perch'd it up, all in a row
The ghost of what he was, and the cold dew

With Chatham and with Cicero,
Which bathes his aching temples gives sure omen
Of speedy dissolution.--Mary, soon

Then all around in just degree,
Thy love will lay his pallid cheek to thine,

A range of portraits you may see,
And sweetly wil he sleep with thee in death. Of mighty men and eke of women,

Who are no whit inferior to men.
With these fair dames, and heroes round,
I call my garret classic ground.

For though confined, t'will well contain
MY STUDY,

The ideal flights of Madam Brain.
No dungeon's walls, no cell confined,

Can cramp the energies of mind!
A Letter in Hudibrastic Verse.

Thus, though my heart may seem so small,
I've friends, and twill contain them all;

And should it e'er become so cold
YOU bid me, Ned, describe the place

That these it will no longer hold, Where I, one of the rhyming race,

Nor more may Heaven her blessings give,
Pursue my studies con amore,

I shall not then be fit to live.
And wanton with the muse in glory.
Well, figure to your senses straight,
Upon the house's topmost height,
A closet, just six feet by four,

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.
With white-wash'd walls and plaster floor,
So noble large, 'tis scarcely able
To admit a single chair and table:

MILD offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
And (lest the muse should die with cold)

Whose modest form, so delicately fine, smoky grate my fire to hold :

Was nursed in whirling storms,
So wondrous small, 'twould much it pose

And cradled in the winds.
To melt the ice-drop on one's nose;
And yet so big, it covers o'er

Thee when young Spring first question'd Winter's Full half the spacious room and more.

sway, And dared the

sturdy blusterer to the fight, A window vainly stuff'd about,

Thee on this bank he threw
To keep November's breezes out,

To mark his victory.
So crazy, that the panes proclaim,
That soon they mean to leave the frame.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,

Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale, My furniture I sure may crack

Unnoticed and alone,
A broken chair without a back;

Thy tender elegance.
A table wanting just two legs,
One end sustain'd by wooden pegs;

So virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms A desk-of that I am not fervent,

Of chill adversity, in some lone walk The work of, Sir, your humble servant;

Of Life she rears her head, (Who, though I sayt, am no such fumbler ;)

Obscure and unobserved ; A glass decanter and a tumbler, Prom which my night-parch'd throat I lave, While every bleaching breeze that on her blows, Luxurious, with the limpid wave.

Chastens her spotless purity of breast, A chest of drawers, in antique sections,

And hardens her to bear,
And saw'd by me in all directions;

Serene the ills of life.
So small, Sir, that whoever views 'em,
Swears nothing but a doll could use 'em.
To these, if you will add a store
Of oddiries upon the floor,
A pair of globes, electric balls,

SONNET I.
Scales, quadrants, prisms, and cobbler's awls,
And crowds of books, on rotten shelves,

TO THE RIVER TRENT.
Octavos, folios, quartos, twelves;
I think, dear Ned, you curious dog,
You'll have my earthly catalogue.

Written on Recovery from Sickness.
But stay, I nearly had left out
My bellows destitute of snout;

ONCE more, o Trent ! along thy pebbly marge
And on the walls --Good Heaven's! why there A pensive invalid, reduced and pale,
I've such a load of precious ware,

From the close sick-room newly let at large, Of heads, and coins, and silver medals,

Wooes to his wan-worn cheek the pleasant gale. And organ works, and broken pedals;

O! to his ear how musical the tale (For I was once a-building music,

Which fills with joy the throstle's little throat: Though soon of that employ I grew sick ;)

And all the sounds which on the fresh breeze sail, And skeletons of laws which shoot

How wildly novel on his senses float! All out of one primordial root;

It was on this that many a sleepless night, That you, at such a sight, would swear

As lone, he watch'd the taper's sickly gleam, Confusion's self had settled there.

And at his casement heard, with wild atfright, There stands, just by a broken sphere,

The owl's dull wing and melancholy scream, A Cicero without an ear,

On this he thought, this, this his sole desire, A neck, on which, by logic good,

Thus once again to hear the warbling woodland I know for sure a head once stood;

SONNET IT.

Will often ring appalling-I portend

A dismal night--and on my wakeful bed

Thoughts, Traveller, of thee will fill my head, GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild, And him who rides where winds and waves contend,

Where, far from cities, I may spend my days, And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide And, by the beauties of the scene beguiled, His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide.

May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways. While on the rock I mark the browsing goat,

List to the mountain-torrent's distant noise, Or the hoarse bittern's solitary note,

I shall not want the world's delusive joys ;
But with my little scrip, my book, my lyre,

SONNET VI.
Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more;
And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire,

BY CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.
I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore,
And lay me down to rest where the wild wave

This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave.

Volume, and was occasioned by several little Qua. torzains, misnomered Sonnets, which he pub

lished in the Monthly Mirror. He begs leave to SONNET III.

return his thanks to the much respected writer, Supposed to have been addressed by a female lunatic

for the permission so politely granted to insert to a Lady.

it here, and for the good opinion he has been

pleased to express of his productions. LADY, thou weepest for the Maniac's wo,

And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young; Oh! may thy bosom never, never know

YE, whose aspirings court the muse of lays, The pangs with which my wretched heart is

“ Severest of those orders which belong,

Distinct and separate, to Delphic song, wrung. I had a mother once-a brother too

Why shun the Sonnet's undulating maze ? (Beneath yon yew my father rests his head:

And why its name, boast of Petrarchian days, I had a lover once, and kind, and true,

Assume,its rules disown'd? whom from the throng But mother, brother, lover, all are fled !

The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys Yet, whence the tear which dims thy lovely eye?

Of its full harmony :-they fear to wrong Oh! gentle lady-not for me thus weep,

The Sonnet, by adorning with a name The green sod soon upon my breast will lie,

Of that distinguish'd import, lays, though sweet, And soft and sound will be my peaceful sleep.

Yet not in magic texture taught to meet Go thou and pluck the roses while they bloom

Of that so varied and peculiar frame. My hopes lie buried in the silent tomb.

O think! to vindicate its genuine praise (swars. Those it beseems, whose Lyre a favouring impulse

SONNET IV.

SONNET VII.

Supposed to be written by the unhappy Poet Dermody,

in a Storm, while on board a Ship in his Majesty's Service.

Recantatory, in reply to the foregoing clegant

Admonition.

LO' o'er the welkin the tempestuous clouds

Successive fly, and the loud-piping wind Rocks the poor sea-boy on the dripping shrouds,

While the pale pilot, o'er the helm reclined, Lists to the changeful storm: and as he plies

His wakeful task, he oft bethinks him sad,

Of wife and little home, and chubby lad,
And the half strangled tear bedews his eyes;
I, on the deck musing on themes forlorn,

View the drear tempest, and the yawning deep,
Nought dreading in the green sea's caves to sleep,
For not for me shall wife or children mourn,
And the wild winds will ring my funeral knell
Sweetly, as solemn peal of pious passing-bell.

LET the sublimer muse, who, wrapp'd in night,

Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,

Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm, Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight, Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,

Disdain the plaintive Sonnet's little form,

And scorn to its wild cadence to conform
The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight.
But me, far lowest of the sylvan train, [shade

Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest

With wildest song ;-Me, much, behoves thy aid
Of mingled melody, to grace my strain,
And give it power to please, as soft it flows
Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent ciose.

SONNET VIII.

SONNET V.

On hearing the Sounds of an Æolian

Harp.

THE WINTER TRAVELLER.

GOD help thee, Traveller, on thy journey far; So ravishingly soft upon the tide
The wind is bitter keen,-the snow o'erlays

Of the infuriate gust, it did career,
The hidden pits, and dangerous hollow ways, It might have sooth'd its rugged charioteer,
And darkness will involve thee.-No kind star And sunk him to a zephyr ;-then it died,
To-night will guide thee, Traveller, and the war Melting in melody;--and i descried,
Of winds and elements on thy head will break,

Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear And in thy agonizing ear the shriek

Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Of spirits howling on their stormy car,

Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge rep'ied;
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,

Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds, • This Quatorzain had its rise from an elegant By unseen beings sung; or are these scunda Sonnet, occasioned by seeing a young Female Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell Lunatic," written by Mrs. Lofft, and published in By startled shepherd on the lonely heat i, the Monthly Mirror.

Keeping his night-watch sad portending deain?