THE ALPS

AT DAY-BREAK.

THE sun-beams streak the azure skies, And line with light the mountain's brow : With hounds and horns the hunters rise,

And chase the roebuck thro' the snow.

From rock to rock, with giant-bound,
High on their iron poles they pass ;

Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound,
Rend from above a frozen mass. *

The goats wind slow their wonted way,
Up craggy steeps and ridges rude;
Marked by the wild wolf for his prey,
From desert cave or hanging wood.

And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning-cloud,
Perched, like an eagle's nest, on high.

* There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above.

IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET.

Love, under Friendship's vesture white,

Laughs, his little limbs concealing;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,

Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles thro' his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!

He fowns, and tempests shake his frame !Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,

'Tis Love; and Love is still the same.

TO THE

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER

OF

LADY **.

AH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal *

What most her blushes would conceal?
Why lift that modest veil to trace

The seraph-sweetness of her face?
Some fairer, better sport prefer ;
And feel for us, if not for her.

For this presumption, soon or late,

Know thine shall be a kindred fate.
Another shall in vengeance rise-
Sing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes;
And, echoing back her wood-notes wild,
-Trace all the mother in the child!

* Alluding to some verses which she had written on an elder sister.

AN EPITAPH *

ON A ROBIN-REDBREAST.

TREAD lightly here, for here, 'tis said,
When piping winds are hushed around,
A small note wakes from underground,
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,
With ruffled wing and faded breast,
His friendless, homeless spirit roves ;

-Gone to the world where birds are blest!
Where never cat glides o'er the green,

Or school-boy's giant form is seen;

But Love, and Joy, and smiling Spring
Inspire their little souls to sing!

* Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod.

C