THE DESERTED MAID. SHE once was beautiful-but secret shame, Have wrought a fearful change! The ceaseless flow And made her heart a ruin. Still the flame Of quenchless passion lights her pallid brow She haunts the scenes where first the false youth came TO CALUMNY. Oн, hideous Fiend! at whose malignant breath Dread minister of sorrow and dismay! The chords of Love, or tear the wreath of Fame. In proud defiance to the battle's brunt, HOME-YEARNINGS. [WRITTEN IN INDIA, IN SICKNESS AND AFFLICTION.] IN I. every change of fortune or of clime, In every stage of man's uncertain lot, The more endeared by distance and by time, Affection's sacred home is unforgot. There lives the spell that wakes the sweetest tear In feeling's eye, and cheers the troubled brow; There dwells each joy the tender heart holds dear; There ties are formed that none may disavow ; And cold is he to nature's finer sway, Who doomed to wander, weeps not on his way! II. From that dear circle peace will never fly, While love and tender sympathy remain To foil the glance of care's malignant eye, And render powerless the hand of pain. The restless throng that haunt ambition's shrine, And madly scorn the sweet domestic sphere, Condemned ere long, in shame and grief to pine, And curse their wild and profitless career, From envy's scowl, and flattery's hollow strain, Turn in despair, and seek repose in vain! III. Queen of the Nations! Island of the brave! My boundless love shall but with life depart. Yet farewell all that brightens and endears! These withered plains but wake my ceaseless tears; IV. Star of the wanderer's soul! Unrivalled Land! Hallowed by many a dream of days gone by! Though distant far, thy charms my thoughts command, And gleam on fancy's sad reverted eye. And though no more my weary feet may stray V. Vain, faithless visions! 'Mid each earthly ill, The soul can darken, or the bosom wring, Why haunt ye thus the lonely mourner still, And fitful radiance o'er life's ruins fling? Meteors that cross my solitary way, Oh! cease to mock the tempest of despair! Scourge of the clime! pale Sickness holds her sway, And bids my lacerated heart prepare To meet in foreign lands the wanderer's doom An early fate, and unlamented tomb! SONNET-LIFE. OH! what a fearful mystery is life When dark unuttered thoughts to bliss succeed! I dare not look before me nor behind, SONNET*. WELL may that gentle Mother's heart be proud, Her heart need sigh while richly thus endowed. Let but the sun of joy serenely shine On those sweet human flowers, and Fortune's brow May change unheeded-she can ne'er repine ; While thus their bright eyes gleam, their fresh cheeks glow, Her bliss maternal seemeth half-divine The holiest that a mortal breast may know! * Written to illustrate an engraving in the Bengal Annual of a mother surrounded by her children. POLITICAL SKETCHES. TORYISM-RADICALISM-WHIGGISM. [The following Sketches were written for a Calcutta Periodical, and were intended as a kind of squib or satire to illustrate the violent prejudices of Political parties against each other. I should be sorry to be thought to write in my own character in either of these sketches. Each article is to be regarded as the production of an hostile party.] TORYISM. By a Whig. A TORY has no public virtue. He is selfish, mercenary and illiberal. He has no generous impulses, for they are inconsistent with his duty. He is like a man who has sold himself to the devil. His soul is not his own. He must watch the countenance of Power, and make his features obedient to the emotions of other men. He has no opinions. He "thinks that he is thinking," when he is only acting as a bare recipient of the thoughts of others. In the late King's* time a Tory's countenance was the glass of Royalty. As his Majesty could turn to no side of his state apartments, without finding his figure fifty times repeated in the mirrored walls, so the Royal mind in all its different moods was reflected in the faces of his parasites. A Tory is of necessity a slave, for who but a slave could look upon a fellow-creature, however high his political position, with that utter prostration of spirit which is required in the worshipper of Princes. A King according to a Tory, can do no wrong. He is infallible in all things. It is blasphemy even to speak of a King's natural infirmities. Lord Castlereagh was shocked at the Examiner for denying that a Prince of 50 years of age was an Adonis; and the Editor was cast into a jail for two years, as a slight punishment * George the Fourth. |