"E'er yet, o'er mortal brow, let shine "Such effluence of Love Divine, "As shall to-night, blest maid, o'er thine."

Happy the maid, whom heaven allows To break for heaven her virgin vows! Happy the maid!-her robe of shame Is whiten'd by a heavenly flame, Whose glory, with a ling'ring trace, Shines through and deifies her race!1

FRAGMENT.

PITY me, love! I'll pity thee,
If thou indeed hast felt like me.
All, all my bosom's peace is o'er!

At night, which was my hour of calm,
When, from the page of classic lore,
From the pure fount of ancient lay
My soul has drawn the placid balm,
Which charm'd its every grief away,
Ah! there I find that balm no more.
Those spells, which make us oft forget
The fleeting troubles of the day,
In deeper sorrows only whet
The stings they cannot tear away
When to my pillow rack'd I fly,
With wearied sense and wakeful eye:
While my brain maddens, where, oh, where
Is that serene consoling prayer,
Which once has harbinger'd my rest,
When the still soothing voice of Heaven
Hath seem'd to whisper in my breast,
"Sleep on, thy errors are forgiven!"
No, though I still in semblance pray,
My thoughts are wand'ring far away,
And ev'n the name of Deity
Is murmur'd out in sighs for thee.

A NIGHT THOUGHT. How oft a cloud, with envious veil, Obscures yon bashful light, Which seems so modestly to steal Along the waste of night!

1 Fontenelle, in his playful rifacimento of the learned materials of Van-Dale, has related in his own inimitable manner an adventure of this kind which was detected and exposed at Alexandria. See L'Histoire des Oracles, dissert. 2.

"Tis thus the world's obtrusive wrongs Obscure with malice keen

Some timid heart, which only longs To live and die unseen.

THE KISS.

GROW to my lip, thou sacred kiss,
On which my soul's beloved swore
That there should come a time of bliss,
When she would mock my hopes no more.
And fancy shall thy glow renew,
In sighs at morn, and dreams at night,
And none shall steal thy holy dew
Till thou'rt absolved by rapture's rite.
Sweet hours that are to make me blest,
Fly, swift as breezes, to the goal,
And let my love, my more than soul
Come blushing to this ardent breast.
Then, while in every glance I drink
The rich o'erflowings of her mind,
Oh! let her all enamor'd sink
In sweet abandonment resign'd,
Blushing for all our struggles past,
And murmuring, "I am thine at last!"

SONG.

THINK on that look whose melting ray
For one sweet moment mix'd with mine,
And for that moment seem'd to say,
"I dare not, or I would be thine !"

Think on thy ev'ry smile and glance, On all thou hast to charm and move; And then forgive my bosom's trance, Nor tell me it is sin to love.

Oh, not to love thee were the sin; For sure, if Fate's decrees be done, Thou, thou art destined still to win, As I am destined to be won!

chap. vii. Crebillon, too, in one of his most amusing little stories, has made the Génie Mange-Taupes, of the Isle Jonquille, assert this privilege of spiritual beings in a manner rather formidable to the husbands of the island.

SONG.

ON THE BIRTHDAY OF MRS.

WRITTEN IN IRELAND. 1799.

Or all my happiest hours of joy,

And even I have had my measure, When hearts were full, and ev'ry eye

Hath kindled with the light of pleasure, An hour like this I ne'er was given,

So full of friendship's purest blisses;
Young Love himself looks down from heaven,
To smile on such a day as this is.

Then come, my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love

Be thus with joy remember'd ever!

Oh! banish ev'ry thought to-night,

Which could disturb our soul's communion; Abandon'd thus to dear delight,

We'll ev'n for once forget the Union!

On that let statesmen try their pow'rs,

And tremble o'er the rights they'd die for;

The union of the soul be ours,

And ey y union else we sigh for.

Then come, my friends, &c.

In ev'ry eye around I mark

The feelings of the heart o'erflowing;

From ev'ry soul I catch the spark

Of sympathy, in friendship glowing.

Oh! could such moments ever fly;

Oh! that we ne'er were doom'd to lose 'em ; And all as bright as Charlotte's eye, And all as pure as Charlotte's bosom.

Then come, my friends, &c.

For me, whate'er my span of years,
Whatever sun may light my roving;
Whether I waste my life in tears,

Or live, as now, for mirth and loving;
This day shall come with aspect kind,
Wherever fate may cast your rover;
He'll think of those he left behind,

And drink a health to bliss that's over!
Then come, my friends, &c.

SONG.'

MARY, I believed thee true,

And I was bless'd in thus believing;

1 These words were written to the pathetic Scotch air "Galla Water."

But now I mourn that e'er I knew A girl so fair and so deceiving. Fare thee well.

Few have ever loved like me,

Yes, I have loved thee too sincerely! And few have e'er deceived like thee,Alas! deceived me too severely.

Fare thee well!—yet think awhile

On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee; Who now would rather trust that smile, And die with thee than live without thee.

Fare thee well! I'll think of thee,
Thou leav'st me many a bitter token;
For see, distracting woman, see,
My peace is gone, my heart is broken!—
Fare thee well!

MORALITY.

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE.

ADDRESSED TO

J. AT-NS-N, ESQ. M. R. I. A.

THOUGH long at school and college dosing,
O'er books of verse and books of prosing,
And copying from their moral pages
Fine recipes for making sages;
Though long with those divines at school,
Who think to make us good by rule;
Who, in methodic forms advancing,
Teaching morality like dancing,
Tell us, for Heaven or money's sake,
What steps we are through life to take:
Though thus, my friend, so long employ'd,
With so much midnight oil destroy'd,

I must confess, my searches past,
I've only learn'd to doubt at last.
I find the doctors and the sages
Have differ'd in all climes and ages,
And two in fifty scarce agree
On what is pure morality.

"Tis like the rainbow's shifting zone,
And every vision makes its own.

The doctors of the Porch advise, As modes of being great and wise, That we should cease to own or know The luxuries that from feeling flow:"Reason alone must claim direction, "And Apathy's the soul's perfection.

But thus it is, all sects we see
Have watchwords of morality:
Some cry out Venus, others Jove;
Here 'tis Religion, there 'tis Love.
But while they thus so widely wander,
While mystics dream, and doctors ponder;
And some, in dialectics firm,

Seek virtue in a middle term;

While thus they strive, in Heaven's defiance,
To chain morality with science;
The plain good man, whose actions teach
More virtue than a sect can preach,
Pursues his course, unsagely bless'd,
His tutor whisp'ring in his breast;
Nor could he act a purer part,
Though he had Tully all by heart.
And when he drops the tear on wo,
He little knows or cares to know

1 Aristippus.

That Epictetus blamed that tear,
By Heaven approved, to virtue dear!

Oh! when I've seen the morning beam Floating within the dimpled stream; While Nature, wak'ning from the night, Has just put on her robes of light, Have I, with cold optician's gaze, Explored the doctrine of those rays? No, pedants, I have left to you Nicely to sep'rate hue from hue. Go, give that moment up to art, When Heaven and nature claim the heart; And, dull to all their best attraction, Go-measure angles of refraction. While I, in feeling's sweet romance, Look on each daybeam as a glance From the great eye of Him above, Wak'ning his world with looks of love!

THE

TELL-TALE LYRE.

I've heard, there was in ancient days A Lyre of most melodious spell; "Twas heav'n to hear its fairy lays,

If half be true that legends tell.

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

As ears had never drunk til 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 murm'ring air
Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awaken'd 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 whisper'd it to kind repose.

And when young lovers talk'd alone,
If, 'mid their bliss that Lyre was near,

It made their accents all its own,

And sent forth notes that Heaven might hear.