Born on the stage—through every shifting scene,

CAPTIVITY. Obscure or bright, tempestuous or serene, Still has your smile her trembling spirit fired! Caged in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake And can she act, with thoughts like these inspired ? When the hern screams along the distant lake, Thus from her mind all artifice she flings,

Her little heart oft flutters to be free,
All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things ! Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key.
To you, uncheck’d, each genuine feeling flows; In vain! the nurse that rusted relic wears,
For all that life endears—to you she owes. Nor moved by gold-nor to be moved by tears;

And terraced walls their black reflection throw
On the green mantled moat that sleeps below.

SLEEP on, and dream of heaven a while.
Though shut so close thy laughing eyes,

THE SAILOR.
Thy rosy lips still wear a smile,
And move, and breathe delicious sighs - The sailor sighs as sinks his native shore,

As all its lessening turrets bluely fade;
Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks, He climbs the mast to feast his eye once more,
And mantle o'er her neck of snow.

And busy fancy fondly lends her aid.
Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks
What most I wish—and fear to know.

Ah! now each dear, domestic scene he knew,

Recall'd and cherish'd in a foreign clime, She starts, she trembles, and she weeps! Charms with the magic of a moonlight view; Her fair hands folded on her breast.

Its colours mellow'd, not impair'd, by time. -And now,

how like a saint she sleeps! A seraph in the realms of rest!

True as the needle, homeward points his heart,

Through all the horrors of the stormy main; Sleep on secure! Above control,

This, the last wish that would with life depart, Thy thoughts belong to heaven and thee!

To see the smile of her he loves again.
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

When morn first faintly draws her silver line,
Or eve's gray cloud descends to drink the wave;
When sea and sky in midnight darkness join,

Still, still he views the parting look she gave.
TO

Her gentle spirit, lightly hovering o'er,
Go-you may call it madness, folly;

Attends his little bark from pole to pole;
You shall not chase my gloom away.

And when the beating billows round him roar,
There's such a charm in melancholy,

Whispers sweet hope to soothe his troubled soul. I would not, if I could, be gay.

Carved is her name in many a spicy grove, 0, if you knew the pensive pleasure

In many a plantain forest, waving wide;

Where dusky youths in painted plumage rove,
That fills my bosom when I sigh,
You would not rob me of a treasure

And giant palms o’erarch the golden tide.
Monarchs are too poor to buy.

But lo, at last he comes with crowded sail
Lo, o'er the cliff what eager figures bend!
And hark, what mingled murmurs swell the gale!

In each he hears the welcome of a friend.
FROM EURIPIDES.

—'Tis she, 'tis she herself! she waves her hand!
THERE is a streamlet issuing from a rock. Soon is the anchor cast, the canvass furl'd;
The village girls, singing wild madrigals,

Soon through the whitening surge he springs to Dip their white vestments in its waters clear,

land, And hang them to the sun. There first I saw And clasps the maid he singled from the world.

her. Her dark and eloquent eyes, mild, full of fire, 'Twas heaven to look upon; and her sweet voice, As tunable as harp of many strings,

TO AN OLD OAK. At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul !

Immota manet; multosque nepotes,

Multir virûm volvens durando sæcula, vincit.- Virg. Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees ; And all, who know it, come and come again. The small birds build there; and, at summer Round thee, alas, no shadows move! noon,

From thee no sacred murmurs breathe ! Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers,

Yet within thee, thyself a grove, As in the shining grass she sate conceal’d,

Once did the eagle scream above, Sing to herself

And the wolf howl beneath.

There once the steel-clad knight reclined, Sweet drop of pure and pearly light !
His sable plumage tempest toss'd ;

In thee the rays of virtue shine;
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,

More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
From towers long fled by human kind

Than any gem that gilds the mine.
His brow the hero cross'd !

Benign restorer of the soul !
Then culture came, and days serene;

Who ever fly'st to bring relief, And village sports, and garlands gay.

When first we feel the rude control
Full many a pathway cross'd the green ;

Of love or pity, joy or grief.
And maids and shepherd youths were seen
To celebrate the May.

The sage's and the poet's theme,

In every clime, in every age; Father of many a forest deep,

Thou charm'st in fancy's idle dream,
Whence many a navy thunder fraught

In reason's philosophic page.
Erst in thy acorn-cells asleep,
Soon destined o'er the world to sweep,

That very law* which moulds a tear,
Opening new spheres of thought !

And bids it trickle from its source,
Wont in the night of woods to dwell,

That law preserves the earth a sphere,
The holy Druid saw thee rise ;

And guides the planets in their course.
And, planting there the guardian spell,
Sung forth, the dreadful pomp to swell
Of human sacrifice !

TO A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST.
Thy singed top and branches bare
Now straggle in the evening sky ;

Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor ? And the wan moon wheels round to glare

Aëris et linguæ sum filia; On the long corse that shivers there

Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. ---Ausonius.
Of him who came to die !

ONCE more, enchantress of the soul,
Once more we hail thy soft control.

-Yet whither, whither didst thou fly?
TO TWO SISTERS.*

To what bright region of the sky?

Say, in what distant star to dwell ? WELL may you sit within, and, fond of grief,

(Of other worlds thou seem'st to tell) Look in each other's face, and melt in tears.

Or trembling, fluttering here below, Well may you shun all counsel, all relief.

Resolved and unresolved to go, O, she was great in mind, though young in years ! In secret didst thou still impart Changed is that lovely countenance, which shed

Thy raptures to the pure in heart? Light when she spoke, and kindled sweet surprise,

Perhaps to many a desert shore, As o'er her frame each warm emotion spread,

Thee, in his rage, the tempest bore ; Play'd round her lips, and sparkled in her eyes.

Thy broken murmurs swept along,

'Mid echoes yet untuned by song ; Those lips so pure, that moved but to persuade,

Arrested in the realms of frost, Still to the last enliven'd and endear'd.

Or in the wilds of ether lost. Those eyes at once her secret soul convey'd,

Far happier thou ! 'twas thine to soar And ever beam'd delight when you appear’d.

Careering on the winged wind.
Yet has she fled the life of bliss below,

Thy triumphs who shall dare explore ?
That youthful hope in bright perspective drew? Suns and their systems left behind.
Faise were the tints ! false as the feverish glow No tract of space, no distant star,
That o'er her burning cheek distemper threw ! No shock of elements at war,
And now in joy she dwells, in glory moves !

Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire (Glory and joy reserved for you to share.)

Bore thee amidst the cherub-choir ; Far, far more blest in blessing those she loves

And there a while to thee 'twas given Than they, alas ! unconscious of her care.

Once more that voicet beloved to join,

Which taught thee first a flight divine,
And nursed thy infant years with many a strain

from heaven!
ON A TEAR.
0! That the chymist's magic art

FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM.
Could crystallize this sacred treasure !
Long should it glitter near my heart

WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels, A secret source of pensive pleasure.

And the blue vales a thousand joys recall, The little brilliant, ere it fell,

See, to the last, last verge her infant steals! Its lustre caught from Chloe's eye;

O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall. Then, trembling, left its coral cell

Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,

And the fond boy springs back to nestle there. The spring of sensibility!

* The law of gravitation. + In the winter of 1803. * On the death of a younger sister.

Mrs. Sheridan's.

TO THE

THE BOY OF EGREMOND.* FRAGMENT OF A STATUE OF HERCULES,

“ Say, what remains when hope is filed ?” COMMONLY CALLED THE TORSO.

She answerd, “ Endless weeping !” And dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone, For in the herdsman's eye she read (Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurld,)

Who in his shroud lay sleeping. Still sit as on the fragment of a world ;

At Embsay rung the matin-bell, Surviving all, majestic and alone ?

The stag was roused on Barden fell; What though the spirits of the north, that swept The mingled sounds were swelling, dying, Rome from the earth, when in her pomp she slept, And down the Wharfe a hern was flying ; Smote thee with fury, and thy headless trunk

When near the cabin in the wood, Deep in the dust 'mid tower and temple sunk;

In tartan clad and forest green, Soon to subdue mankind 'twas thine to rise,

With hound in leash and hawk in hood, Still, still unquell'd thy glorious energies !

The Boy of Egremond was seen, Aspiring minds, with thee conversing, caught*

Blithe was his song, a song of yore; Bright revelations of the good they sought;

But where the rock is rent in two, By thee that long-lost spellt in secret given,

And the river rushes through,
To draw down gods, and lift the soul to heaven! His voice was heard no more!

'Twas but a step! the gulf he pass'd
But that step-it was his last !

As through the mist he wing'd his way,
TO

(A cloud that hovers night and day,)

The hound hung back, and back he drew Ah! little thought she, when, with mild delight,

The master and his merlin too. By many a torrent's shining track she flew,

That narrow place of noise and strife When mountain-glens and caverns full of night

Received their little all of life! O’er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

There now the matin-bell is rung;
That in her veins a secret horror slept,

The “ Miserere !” duly sung;
That her light footsteps should be heard no more, And holy men in cowl and hood
That she should die-nor watch'd, alas! nor wept Are wandering up and down the wood.
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

But what avail they? Ruthless lord,

Thou didst not shudder when the sword Yet round her couch indulgent fancy drew

Here on the young its fury spent, The kindred forms her closing eye required.

The helpless and the innocent. There didst thou stand—there, with the smile she

Sit now and answer groan for groan, knew,

The child before thee is thy own. She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired.

And she who wildly wanders there And now to thee she comes; still, still the same

The mother in her long despair, As in the hours gone unregarded by !

Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping, To thee, how changed ! comes as she ever came

Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping; Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

Of those who would not be consoled
Nor less, less oft, as on that day, appears,

When red with blood the river roll'd.
When lingering, as prophetic of the truth,
Ry the way-side she shed her parting tears-
For ever lovely in the light of youth!

TO A FRIEND ON HIS MARRIAGE.
On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers

The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew. WRITTEN IN A SICK CHAMBER. Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers; THERE, in that bed so closely curtain'd round,

Thine be the joys to firm attachment due. Worn to a shade, and wan with slow decay, As on she moves with hesitating grace, A father sleeps! O hush'd be every sound ! She wins assurance from his soothing voice; Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away! And, with a look the pencil could not trace, He stirs—yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams Smiles through her blushes, and confirms the choice. Long o'er his smooth and settled pillow rise ;

* In the twelfth century William Fitz-Duncan laid Till through the shutter'd pane the morning streams

waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword; and And on the hearth the glimmering rushlight dies. was afterward established there by his uncle, David,

King of Scotland. * In the gardens of the Vatican, where it was placed by He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called Julius II., it was long the favourite study of those great the Boy of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here men to whom we owe the revival of the arts, Michael related; when a priory was removed from Embsay to Angelo, Raphael, and the Carracci.

Bolion, that it might be as near as possible to the place + Once in the possession of Praxiteles, if we may be where the accident happened. That place is still known lieve an ancient epigram on the Guidian Venus.-Ana- by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as lecta Vet. Poetarum, III. 200.

given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in On the death of her sister.

Wharfedale. -See Whit:aker's Hist. of Craven.

TO THE

Spare the fine tremors of her feeling frame !
To thee she turns-forgive a virgin's fears !
To thee she turns with surest, tenderest claim :

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF LADY ****, Weakness that charms, reluctance that endears !

Ay, why with tell-tale tongue reveal* At each response the sacred rite requires,

What most her blushes would conceal ? From her full bosom bursts th’ unbidden sigh.

Why lift that modest veil to trace A strange, mysterious awe the scene inspires;

The seraph sweetness of her face ? And on her lips the trembling accents die.

Some fairer, better sport prefer ;

And feel for us, if not for her. O’er her fair face what wild emotions play!

For this presumption, soon or late, What lights and shades in sweet confusion blend ! Know thine shall be a kindred fate. Soon shall they fly, glad harbingers of day,

Another shall in vengeance riseAnd settled sunshine on her soul descend !

Sing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes;

And, echoing back her wood-notes wild, Ah soon, thine own confest, ecstatic thought!

-Trace all the mother in the child !
That hand shall strew thy summer path with flowers ;
And those blue eyes, with mildest lustre fraught,
Gild the calm current of domestic hours !

AN EPITAPH+ ON A ROBIN-REDBREAST.

THE ALPS AT DAYBREAK.
The sunbeams streak the azure skies,
And line with light the mountain's brow:
With hounds and horns the hunters rise,
And chase the roe-buck through the snow.
From rock to rock, with giant bound,
High on their iron poles they pass ;
Mute, lest the air, convulsed by sound,
Rend from above a frozen mass.
The goats wind slow their wonted way,
Up craggy steeps and ridges rude ;
Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey,
From desert cave or hanging wood.
And while the torrent thunders loud,
And as the echoing cliffs reply,
The huts peep o'er the morning cloud,
Perch’d, like an eagle's nest, on high.

TREAD lightly here ; for here, 'tis said,
When piping winds are hush'd around,
A small note wakes from under ground,
Where now bis tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,
With ruffled wing and faded breast,
His friendless, homeless spirit roves ;
-Gone to the world where birds are blest !
Where never cat glides o’er the green,
Or schoolboy's giant form is seen ;
But love, and joy, and smiling spring,
Inspire their little souls to sing !

IMITATION OF AN ITALIAN SONNET.

Love, under friendship’s vesture white,
Laughs, his little limbs concealing ;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,
Like pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles through his tears revealing.

But now as rage the god appears !
He frowns, and tempests shake his frame ! -
Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,
'Tis love; and love is still the same.

TO THE GNAT.
WHEN by the greenwood side, at summer eve,
Poetic visions charm my closing eye;
And fairy scenes, that fancy loves to weave,
Shift to wild notes of sweetest minstrelsy ;
'Tis thine to range in busy quest of prey,
Thy feathery antlers quivering with delight,
Brush from my lids the hues of heaven away,
And all is solitude, and all is night!
-Ah now thy barbed shaft, relentless fly,
Unsheathes its terrors in the sultry air ;
No guardian sylph, in golden panoply,
Lifts the broad shield, and points the glittering spear.
Now near and nearer rush thy whirring wings,
Thy dragon scales still wet with human gore.
Hark, thy shrill horn its fearful larum flings !
-I wake in horror, and dare sleep no more !

A WISH.

A CHARACTER.
As through the hedge-row shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals ;
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.

Mine be a cot beside the hill,
A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear ;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.

* There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell Alluding to some verses which she had written on an you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agi- elder sister. tation of the air should loosen the snows above.

+ Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod.