The owl now haunts thee, and oblivion's plant, The creeping ivy, has o'er-veil'd thy towers;

And Rother, looking up with eye askant, Recalling to his mind thy brighter hours,

Laments the time when, fair and elegant, Beauty first laugh'd from out thy joyous bowers!

LEIGH HUNT.

TO HIS SON, SIX YEARS OLD, DURING A SICKNESS.
SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,

My little patient boy;
And balmy rest about thee
Smooths off the day's annoy.

I sit me down, and think

Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,.

That I had less to praise.
Thy sidelong pillow'd meekness,

Thy thanks to all that aid,
Thy heart, in pain and weakness,
Of fancied faults afraid ;

The little trembling hand

That wipes thy quiet tears,
These, these are things that may demand

Dread memories for years.
Sorrows I've had, severe ones,

I will not think of now;
And calmly, mid my dear ones,
Have wasted with dry brow;

But when thy fingers press

And pat my stooping head,
I cannot bear the gentleness,

The tears are in their bed.

To say,

Ah, first-born of thy mother,

When life and hope were new,
Kind playmate of thy brother,
Thy sister, father too;

My light where'er I go,

My bird when prison-bound,
My hand-in-hand companion-no,
My prayers shall hold thee round.

“ He has departed,”
6 His voice-his face-is gone;"
To feel impatient-hearted,
Yet feel we must bear on;

Ah! I could not endure

To whisper of such wo,
Unless I felt this sleep ensure

That it will not be so.
Yes, still he's fix'd and sleeping !

This silence, too, the while-
Its very hush and creeping
Seem whispering us a smile:

Something divine and dim

Seems going by one's ear, Like parting wings of Cherubim,

Who say, “We've finished here."

CHARLES DIBDIN. 1745–1814.

TOM BOWLING.

HERE, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,

The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,

For death has broach'd him to.
His form was of the manliest beauty,

His heart was kind and soft ;
Faithful below he did his duty,

And now he's gone aloft.

Tom never from his word departed,

His virtues were so rare ;
His friends were many and true-hearted,

His Poll was kind and fair.
And then he'd sing so blithe and jolly,

Ah! many's the time and oft ;
But mirth is turn'd to melancholy,

For Tom is gone aloft.
Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather,

When He who all commands
Shall give, to call life's crew together,

The word to pipe all hands.
Thus death, who kings and tars despatches,

In vain Tom's life has doff'd;
For, though his body's under hatches,

His soul is gone aloft.

ROBERT SOUTHEY.

NIGHT.

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,

Breaks the serene of Heaven:
In full-orb'd glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.

Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.

How beautiful is night!

Who at this untimely hour
Wanders o'er the desert sands?

No station is in view,
Nor palm-grove islanded amid the waste.

The mother and her child,
The widow'd mother and the fatherless boy,

They at this untimely hour
Wander o'er the desert sands.

PARADISE.

Where'er his eye could reach,

Fair structures, rainbow-hued, arose ; And rich pavilions through the opening woods Gleam'd from their waving curtains sunny gold; And winding through the verdant vale

Flow'd streams of liquid light;
And Auted cypresses rear'd up

Their living obelisks;
And broad-leaved plane-trees in long colonnades

O'er-arched delightful walks,
Where round their trunks the thousand-tendrill'd vine
Wound up and hung the boughs with greener wreaths,

And clusters not their own.
Wearied with endless beauty, did his eyes
Return for rest? beside him teems the earth
With tuiips, like the ruddy evening streak’d;
And here the lily hangs her head of snow;

And here, amid her sable cup,
Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star,

The solitary twinkler of the night;

And here the rose expands

Her paradise of leaves.
Then on his ear what sounds

Of harmony arose!
Far music and the distance-mellow'd song

From bowers of merriment;

The waterfall remote;
The murmuring of the leafy groves;

The single nightingale
Perch'd in the rosier by, so richly toned,

That never from that most melodious bird,
Singing a love-song to his brooding mate,

Did Thracian shepherd by the grave

Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody,
Though there the Spirit of the Sepulchre
Al his own power infuse, to swell

The incense that he loves.

THE APPARITION OF YEDILLIAN.

Oh happy sire, and happy daughter!
Ye on the banks of that celestial water
Your resting-place and sanctuary have found.
What! hath not, then, their mortal taint defiled

The sacred, solitary ground ?
Vain thought! the Holy Valley smiled

Receiving such a sire and child ;
Ganges, who seem'd asleep to lie,
Beheld them with benignant eye,

And rippled round melodiously,
And roll'd her little waves to meet

And welcome their beloved feet.

The gales of Swerga thither fled,
And heavenly odours there were shed

About, below, and overhead;
And earth, rejoicing in their tread,
Hath built them up a blooming bower,

Where every amaranthine flower
Its deathless blossom interweaves
With bright and undecaying leaves.
Three happy beings are there here,
The sire, the maid, the Glendoveer;
A fourth approaches : who is this
That enters in the Bower of Bliss ?

No form so fair might painter find
Among the daughters of mankind;
For death her beauties hath refined,