And the grass shall wave O’er many a grave Consumption. I will furnish food for thee, And the grass shall wave O’er many a grave Melancholy. She is mine, And she is thine, Consumption. The worm it will riot On heavenly diet THE SHIPWRECKED SOLITARY'S SONG TO THE NIGHT. Thou spirit of the spangled night! Of lonely mariner. A melancholy song! That marks thy mournful reign. A solitary man. To sing my evening song. To hymns of harmony. I hail'd thy starbeam mild. My woes are mix'd with joy. And then I talk, and often think A solitary man. And when the blust'ring winter winds And pleasant are my dreams. And all its placid joys. The same dull sounds again. The condor's hollow scream. THE LULLABY OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD THE NIGHT PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION. SLEEP, baby mine, enkerchief'd on my bosom, Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast ; Sleep, baby mine, not long thou'st have a mother To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest. Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers Hed; Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning, And I would fain compose my aching head. Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weep ing, When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be? Who then will sooth thee when thy mother's sleep In her low grave of shame and infamy? And I would snatch an interval of rest: For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast. [ing SONNET. 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; I'll raise my pillow on the desert shore, Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave. I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling, I've tasted her favours and felt her decay; Sweet is her blessing, and kind her caressing, But soon it is fled-it is fled far away. I've seen the forest adorn’d of the foremost, With flowers of the fairest, both pleasant and gay: Full sweet was their blooming, their scent the air perfuming, But now they are wither'd, and a' wede awae. I've seen the morning with gold the hills adorning, And the red storm roaring before the parting day; I've seen Tweed's silver streams, glittering in the sunny beams, Turn drumly and dark as they rolled on their way. Oh fickle Fortune! why this cruel sporting ? Why thus perplex us poor sons of a day? [me, Thy frowns cannot fear me, thy smiles cannot cheer Since the flowers of the forest are a' wede awae. JOHN LEYDEN. 1800. SCOTTISH MUSIC. AGAIN, sweet siren! breathe again Whose melting tones of tender wo, Which in the vales of Tiviot blow. Such was the song that sooth'd to rest, The Celtic warrior's parted shade ; Where shipwreck'd mariners are laid. |