A BEAM of tranquillity smiled in the west,

The storms of the morning pursued us no more,
And the wave, while it welcomed the moment of rest,
Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o'er !

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,

Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead,
And the spirit becalmed but remembered their power,
As the billow the force of the gale that was fled!

I thought of the days, when to pleasure alone
My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known
Was pity for those who were wiser than I !

I felt how the pure intellectual fire

In luxury loses its heavenly ray;

How soon, in the lavishing cup of desire,

The pearl of the soul may be melted away!

And I prayed of that Spirit who lighted the flame,
That pleasure no more might its purity dim,
And that sullied but little, or brightly the same,
I might give back the gem I had borrowed from him!
The thought was ecstatic! I felt as if Heaven
Had already the wreath of eternity shown;
As if, passion all chastened and error forgiven,
My heart had begun to be purely its own!

1 From Captain Cockburn, who commanded the Phaeton, I received such kind attentions as I must ever remember with gratitude. As some of the journalists have gravely asserted that I went to America to speculate in lands, it may not

be impertinent to state, that the object of this voyage across the Atlantic was my appointment to the office of Registrar of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Bermuda

I looked to the west, and the beautiful sky Which morning had clouded, was clouded no more: 'Oh! thus,' I exclaimed, can a heavenly eye

Shed light on the soul that was darkened before !'

THE TELL-TALE LYRE.

I've heard, there was in ancient days
A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas Heaven to hear its fairy lays,
If half be true that legends tell.

"Twas played on by the gentlest sighs,
And to their breath it breathed again
In such entrancing melodies

As ear had never drunk till then!

Not harmony's serenest touch

So stilly could the notes prolong,
They were not heavenly song so much
As they were dreams of heavenly song!

If sad the heart, whose murmuring air
Along the chords in languor stole,
The soothings it awakened there
Were eloquence from pity's soul !

Or if the sigh, serene and light,

Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
Soon whispered it to kind repose!

And oh when lovers talked alone,

If 'mid their bliss the Lyre was near,
It made their murmurs all its own,

And echoed notes that Heaven might hear!

There was a nymph, who long had loved,
But dared not tell the world how well;
The shades, where she at evening roved,
Alone could know, alone could tell.

'Twas there, at twilight time, she stole
So oft, to make the dear one blest,
Whom love had given her virgin soul,
And nature soon gave all the rest!

It chaneed that in the fairy bower

Where they had found their sweetest shed,
This Lyre, of strange and magie power,
Hung gently whispering o'er their head.

And while, with eyes of mingling fire,
They listened to each other's vow,
The youth full oft would make the Lyre
A pillow for his angel's brow!

And while the melting words she breathed
On all its echoes wantoned round,
Her hair, amid the strings enwreathed,
Through golden mazes charmed the sound!
Alas! their hearts but little thought,
While thus entranced they listening lay,
That every sound the Lyre was taught
Should linger long, and long betray!

So mingled with its tuneful soul

Were all their tender murmurs grown,
That other sighs unanswered stole,

Nor changed the sweet, the treasured tone.

Unhappy nymph! thy name was sung

To every passing lip that sighed :

The secrets of thy gentle tongue

On every ear in murmurs died!

The fatal Lyre, by Envy's hand
Hung high amid the breezy groves,
To every wanton gale that fanned

Betrayed the mystery of your loves!
Yet, oh! not many a suffering hour,
Thy cup of shame on earth was given :
Benignly came some pitying power,

And took the Lyre and thee to heaven!
There, as thy lover dries the tear

Yet warm from life's malignant wrongs,
Within his arms, thou lov'st to hear

The luckless Lyre's remembered songs!

Still do your happy souls attune

The notes it learned, on earth, to move;
Still breathing o'er the chords, commune
In sympathies of angel love!

TO THE FLYING-FISH.1

WHEN I have seen thy snowy wing
O'er the blue wave at evening spring,

1 It is the opinion of St. Austin, upon Genesis, and I believe of nearly all the Fathers, that birds, like fish, were originally produced from the waters; in defence of which idea they have collected every fanciful circumstance which can tend to prove a kindred similitude between

them: ovyyevelaV TOLS TETOμEVOUS TROS TA VAKTа. With this thought in our minds when we first see the Flying-Fish, we could almost fancy that we are present at the moment of crea tion, and witness the birth of the first bird from the waves.

And give those scales, of silver white,
So gaily to the eye of light,

As if thy frame were formed to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh! it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that scorns to rest
Upon the world's ignoble breast,
But takes the plume that God has given,
And rises into light and Heaven!

But when I see that wing, so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again;
Alas! the flatter ng pride is o'er;
Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink!

Oh virtue! when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak:
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkle in the solar glow,
And plunge again to depths below;
But when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me, in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And, panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once and fix me there!

EPISTLE II.

TO MISS MOORE.

FROM NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 1803.

IN days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lulled with innocence and you,
I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When every night my weary head
Sunk on its own unthorned bed,
And, mild as evening's matron hour
Looks on the faintly shutting flower,
A mother saw our eyelids close,
And blessed them into pure repose!
Then, haply if a week, a day,
I lingered from your arms away,

How long the little absence seemed!
How bright the look of welcome beamed,
As mute you heard, with eager smile,
My tales of all that passed the while!
Yet now, my Kate, a gloomy sea
Rolls wide between that home and me;
The moon may thrice be born and die,
Ere even your seal can reach mine eye;
And oh! even then, that darling seal
(Upon whose print I used to feel
The breath of home, the cordial air
Of loved lips, still freshly there!)
Must come, alas! through every fate
Of time and distance, cold and late,
When the dear hand whose touches filled
The leaf with sweetness may be chilled!
But hence that gloomy thought! At last,
Beloved Kate! the waves are passed:
I tread on earth securely now,
And the green cedar's living bough
Breathes more refreshment to my eyes
Than could a Claude's divinest dyes!
At length I touch the happy sphere
To Liberty and Virtue dear,

Where man looks up, and, proud to claim
His rank within the social frame,
Sees a grand system round him roll,
Himself its centre, sun, and soul!
Far from the shocks of Europe; far
From every wild, elliptic star
That, shooting with a devious fire,
Kindled by Heaven's avenging ire,
So oft hath into chaos hurled
The systems of the ancient world!

The warrior here, in arms no more
Thinks of the toil, the conflict o'er,
And glorying in the rights they won
For hearth and altar, sire and son,
Smiles on the dusky webs that hide
His sleeping sword's remembered pride
While Peace, with sunny cheeks of toil,
Walks o'er the free unlorded soil,
Effacing with her splendid share

The drops that War had sprinkled there!
Thrice happy land! where he who flies

From the dark ills of other skies,

From scorn, or want's unnerving woes,
May shelter him in proud repose!
Hope sings along the yellow sand
His welcome to a patriot land;

The mighty wood, with pomp, receives
The stranger in its world of leaves,