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THE WINTER TRAVELLER.

GOD help thee, traveller, on thy journey far;
The wind is bitter keen, the snow o'erlays
The hidden pits and dangerous hollow ways,
And darkness will involve thee. No kind star
To-night will guide thee, traveller; and the war
Of winds and elements on thy head will break,
And in thy agonizing ear the shriek

Of spirits howling on their stormy car
Will often ring appalling! I portend
A dismal night; and on my wakeful bed
Thoughts, traveller, of thee will fill my head,
And him who rides where winds and waves contend,
And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide
His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide..

WHAT art Thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And Thou dost bear within Thine awful hands

The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
Stern on Thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or on the red wings of the fierce monsoon

Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span
Dost Thou repose? or in the solitude

Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?

Vain thought! the confines of His throne to trace,

Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

SWEET to the gay of heart is Summer's smile,
Sweet the wild music of the laughing Spring;
But ah! my soul far other scenes beguile,
Where gloomy storms their sullen shadows fling.
Is it for me to strike the Idalian string-
Raise the soft music of the warbling wire,
While in my ears the howls of furies ring,

And melancholy wastes the vital fire?

Away with thoughts like these!-To some lone cave, Where howls the shrill blast, and where sweeps the wave, Direct my steps; there, in the lonely drear,

I'll sit remote from wordly noise, and muse

Till through my soul shall peace her balm infuse,
And whisper sounds of comfort in mine ear.

ON HEARING THE SOUNDS OF AN EOLIAN HARP.

So ravishingly soft upon the tide

Of the infuriate gust it did career,

It might have soothed its rugged charioteer,

And sunk him to a zephyr: then it died,

Melting in melody; and I descried,

Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear

Poured his lone song, to which the surge replied :
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?

YE unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,
At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,
Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
As by the woodspring stretched supine he lies;
When he who now invokes you, low is laid,
His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed,
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;
And often by the haunted stream, that laves
The dark sequestered woodland's inmost caves,
Would sit and listen to the dying falls,

Till the full tear would quiver in his eye,

And his big heart would heave with mournful ecstasy.

GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,
Where, far from cities, I may spend my days,
And, by the beauties of the scene beguiled,
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,
Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more;
And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire,
I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore,
And lay me down to rest where the wild wave
Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave.

TO MY TAPER.

'Tis midnight. On the globe dead slumber sits, And all is silence-in the hour of sleep,

Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits,
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 think of days that never can return.
By thy pale ray I raise my languid head,
My eye surveys the solitary gloom;
And the sad meaning tear, unmixed with dread,
Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb.
Like thee I wane! like thine my life's last ray
Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away.

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 mountain 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 the silent grave.
God of the just, Thou gav'st the bitter cup;
I bow to Thy behest, and drink it up.

TO CONSUMPTION.

GENTLY, most gently, on thy victim's head,
Consumption, lay thine hand! Let me decay,
Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away,
And softly go to slumber with the dead.
And if 'tis true what holy men have said,
That strains angelic oft foretell the day

Of death, to those good men who fall thy prey,
O let the aërial music round my bed,

Dissolving sad in dying symphony,

Whisper the solemn warning in mine ear;
That I may bid my weeping friends good bye
Ere I depart upon my journey drear;
And, smiling faintly on the painful past,
Compose my decent head, and breathe my last.

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