With no beloved face at my bed-side, To fix the last glance of my closing eye, Methinks, such strains, breathed by my angel

guide, Would make me pass

the

сир of anguish by, Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died !

ADDRESSED Τ Ο
A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE,

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND

CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear ! To plundered Want's half-sheltered hovel go,

Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear

Moan haply in a dying mother's ear: Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves

strewed, Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part

Was slaughtered, where o'er his uncoffined limbs The flocking flesh-birds screamed! Then, while thy

heart Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims, Know (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind) What nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!

O abject ! if, to sickly dreams resigned, All effortless thou leave life's common-weal

A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,

But oh ! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,

My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,

But to be still and patient, all I can:
And haply by abstruse research to steal

From my own nature all the natural man

This was my sole resource, my only plan : Till that which suits a part infects the whole, And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.

Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,

Reality's dark dream!
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,

Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out,
That lute sent forth ! Thou Wind, that ravest

without,
Bare craig, or mountain-tairn,* or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches' home,

Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak'st Devils' yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.

Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
* Tairn is a small lake, generally, if not always applied
to the lakes up in the mountains, and which are the feeders
of those in the valleys. This address to the Stormwind
will not appear extravagant to those who have heard it at
night, and in a mountainous country.

Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold !

What tell’st thou now about?

'Tis of the rushing of a host in rout, With groans of trampled men, with smarting

woundsAt once they groan with pain, and shudder with the

cold ! But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence !

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd, With groans, and tremulous shudderings-all is

over

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and

loud!
A tale of less affright,

And tempered with delight,
As Otway's self had framed the tender lay,

'Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild, Not far from home, but she hath lost her And now moans low in bitter grief and fear, And now screams loud, and hopes to make her

mother hear.

way:

VIII.

'Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep: Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep! Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,

And may this storm be but a mountain-birth, May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling, Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!

With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,
Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice,
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul !

O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.

ODE TO GEORGIANA, DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE, ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH STANZA IN HER 6 PASSAGE OVER MOUNT GOTHARD.":

“And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild!

Where Tell directed the avenging dart,
With well strung arm, that first preserved his child,

Then aimed the arrow at the tyrant's heart."

SPLENDOR’S fondly fostered child !

And did you hail the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learned you

that heroic measure ?

Light as a dream your days their circlets ran,
From all that teaches brotherhood to Man
Far, far removed ! from want, from hope, from fcar !
Enchanting music lulled your infant ear,
Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart'

Emblazonments and old ancestral crests,
With many a bright obtrusive form of art,

Detained your eye from nature; stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, Rich viands and the pleasurable wine, Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted child, You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell!
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure,
Whence learn’d you that heroic measure ?

There crowd your finely-fibred frame

All living faculties of bliss ; And Genius to your

cradle came, His forehead wreathed with lambent flame,

And bending low, with godlike kiss

Breath'd in a more celestial life; But boasts not many a fair compeer,

A heart as sensitive to joy and fear ?
And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife,
Some few, to nobler being wrought,
Corrivals in the nobler gift of thought.

Yet these delight to celebrate
Laurelled war and plumy state ;
Or in verse and music dress

Tales of rustic happiness -
Pernicious tales ! insidious strains !

That steel the rich man's breast,

And mock the lot unblest,
The sordid vices and the abject pains,
Which evermore must be

The doom of ignorance and penury !
But you, free Nature's uncorrupted child,
You hailed the chapel and the platform wild,

Where once the Austrian fell

Beneath the shaft of Tell !
O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learn'd you that heroic measure ?

You were a mother! That most holy name
Which Heaven and Nature bless,