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And the grass shall wave
O'er many a grave

Where youth and beauty sleep together.
Consumption.

Come, let us speed our way!
Join our hands, and spread our tether!
I will furnish food for thee,
Thou shalt smooth the way for me;
And the grass shall wave

O'er many a grave

Where youth and beauty sleep together.
Melancholy.

Hist! sister, hist! who comes here?
Oh! I know her by that tear,
By that blue eye's languid glare,

By her skin and by her hair;
She is mine,

And she is thine,

Now the deadliest draught prepare.

Consumption.

In the dismal night-air dress'd,
I will creep into her breast!

Flush her cheek, and bleach her skin,
And feed on the vital fire within.
Lover, do not trust her eyes:
When they sparkle most, she dies!
Mother, do not trust her breath:
Comfort she will breathe in death!
Father, do not strive to save her:
She is mine, and I must have her!
The coffin must be her bridal bed,
The winding-sheet must wrap her head;
The whispering winds must o'er her sigh,
For soon in the grave the maid must lie;
The worm it will riot

On heavenly diet

When death has deflower'd her eye.

THE SHIPWRECKED SOLITARY'S SONG TO THE NIGHT.

THOU spirit of the spangled night!

I woo thee from the watch-tower high,
Where thou dost sit to guide the bark
Of lonely mariner.

The winds are whistling o'er the wolds,
The distant main is moaning low;
Come, let us sit and weave a song!
A melancholy song!

Sweet is the scented gale of morn,
And sweet the noontide's fervid beam,
But sweeter far the solemn calm

That marks thy mournful reign.

I've pass'd here many a lonely year,
And never human voice have heard;
I've pass'd here many a lonely year,
A solitary man.

And I have linger'd in the shade,
From sultry noon's hot beam; and I
Have knelt before my wicker door,
To sing my evening song.

And I have hail'd the gray morn high
On the blue mountain's misty brow,
And tried to tune my little reed
To hymns of harmony.

But never could I tune my reed,
At morn, or noon, or eve so sweet,
As when upon the ocean shore
I hail'd thy starbeam mild.

The day-spring brings not joy to me,
The moon it whispers not of peace!
But, oh! when darkness robes the heav'ns,
My woes are mix'd with joy.

And then I talk, and often think
Aërial voices answer me;

And, oh! I am not then alone-
A solitary man.

And when the blust'ring winter winds
Howl in the woods that clothe my cave,
I lay me on my lonely mat,

And pleasant are my dreams.

And Fancy gives me back my wife;
And Fancy gives me back my child;
She gives me back my little home,
And all its placid joys.

Then hateful is the morning hour,
That calls me from the dream of bliss
To find myself still lone, and hear
The same dull sounds again.

The deep-toned winds, the moaning sea,
The whisp'ring of the boding trees,
The brook's eternal flow, and oft
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'lt have a mother
To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.

Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining,
Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled;
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 sleepIn her low grave of shame and infamy?

[ing Sleep, baby mine; to-morrow I must leave thee, And I would snatch an interval of rest:

Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee, For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.

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;
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.

MRS. COCKBURN. 1679-1749.

THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.

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.

[me,

Oh fickle Fortune! why this cruel sporting?
Why thus perplex us poor sons of a day?
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
That deep, pathetic, powerful strain;
Whose melting tones of tender wo,
Fall soft as evening's summer dew,
That bathes the pinks and harebells blue,
Which in the vales of Tiviot blow.

Such was the song that sooth'd to rest,
Far in the green isle of the west,

The Celtic warrior's parted shade;
Such are the lonely sounds that sweep
O'er the blue bosom of the deep,

Where shipwreck'd mariners are laid.

Ah! sure, as Hindú legends tell,
When music's tones the bosom swell,

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