Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

SNOWDROPS.

"Wan heralds of the fun and summer gale!
That feem just fallen from infant zephyrs' wing;
Not now, as once, with heart reviv'd I hail
Your modeft buds, that for the brow of spring
Form the first simple garland-Now no more
Escaping for a moment all my cares,
Shall I, with pensive, filent, step explore

The woods yet leafless; where to chilling airs
Your green and pencil'd blossoms, trembling, wave.
Ah, ye soft, tranfient, children of the ground,
More fair was the on whose untimely grave
Flow my unceasing tears! Their varied round
The seasons go; while I through all repine:
For fixt regret, and hopeless grief, are mine."

TO THE INVISIBLE MOON*.

"Dark and conceal'd art thou, soft evening's queen,
And melancholy's votaries that delight
To watch thee, gliding through the blue serene,
Now vainly feek thee on the brow of night
Mild forrow, fuch as hope has not forsook,
May love to muse beneath thy filent reign;
But I prefer from some steep rock to look
On the obfcure and fluctuating main,
What time the martial star with lurid glare,
Portentous, gleams above the troubled deep;
Or the red comet shakes his blazing hair;
Or, on the fire-ting'd waves the lightnings leap;
While thy fair beams illume another sky,
And shine for beings less accurst than I."

* I know not whether this is correctly expressed-I suspect that it is not.-What I mean, however, will surely be understood--I address the moon when not visible at night in our hemisphere.

TO TO THE SHADE OF BURNS.

"Mute is thy wild harp, now, O bard fublime!
Who amid Scotia's mountain solitude,
Great nature taught to "build the lofty rhyme,"
And even beneath the daily pressure, rude,
Of labouring poverty, thy generous blood,
Fired with the love of freedom-Not fubdued

Wert thou by thy low fortune: but a time
Like this we live in, when the abject chime
Of echoing parafite is best approv'd,

Was not for thee. Indignantly is fled
Thy noble spirit; and no longer moved
By all the ills o'er which thine heart has bled,
Associate, worthy of the illustrious dead,
Enjoys with them "the liberty it loved."

An instance of the fublime we shall take from a descriptive ode, first published in Marchmont.

UNDER THE RUINS OF RUFUS'S CASTLE, ISLE

OF PORTLAND.

Chaotic pile of barren stone,
That nature's hurrying hand has thrown,

Half finish'd, from the troubled waves;
On whose rude brow the rifted tower
Has frown'd, through many a stormy hour,
On this drear fite of tempest-beaten graves.
Sure defolation loves to shroud
His giant form within the cloud

That hovers round thy rugged head;
And as through broken vaults beneath,
The future storms low-muttering breathe,
Hears the complaining voices of the dead.
Here marks the fiend with eager eyes,
Far out at fea the fogs arife

That dimly shade the beacon'd strand,

And liftens the portentous roar

Of fullen waves, as on the shore,

Monotonous, they burit, and tell the storm at hand.

Hence

Hence the dire spirit oft surveys
The ship, that to the western bays

With favouring gales purfues its course;
Then calls the vapour dark that blinds
The pilot-calls the felon winds

That heave the billows with refistless force.

Commixing with the blotted skies,
High and more high the wild waves rise,
Till, as impetuous torrents urge,
Driven on yon fatal bank accurst,
The vessel's massy timbers burst,

And the crew finks beneath the infuriate furge."

We have read the Alonzo of Lewis, and the Mary of Southey, and this Forest Boy will not lose by comparifon:

THE FOREST BOY.

"Among all the lads of the plough or the fold,
Best esteem'd by the fober and good,
Was Will of the woodlands; and often the old
Would tell of his frolics, for active and bold
Was William, the boy of the wood.

Yet gentle was he, as the breath of the May,
And when fick and declining was laid
The Woodman his father, young William away
Would go to the foreft to labour all day,

And perform his hard task in his stead.
And when his poor father, the forester, died,
And his mother was sad, and alone,
He toil'd from the dawn, and at evening he hied,
In storm or in snow, or whate'er might betide,
To fupply all her wants from the town.

One neighbour they had on the heath, to the west,
And no other the cottage was near,

But she would fend Phœbe, the child she lov'd best,
To stay with the widow, thus sad and distrest,
Her hours of dejection to cheer.

As

As the buds of wild roses, the cheeks of the maid
Were just tinted with youth's lovely hue,
Her form like the aspen, wild graces display'd,
And the eyes, over which her luxuriant locks stray'd,
As the skies of the fummer were blue!

At the town was a market-and now for supplies,
Such as needed her humble abode,
Young William went forth; and his mother with fighs
Watch'd long at the window, with tears in her eyes,
Till he turn'd through the fields, to the road.

Then darkness came on; and she heard with affright
The wind every moment more high;
She look'd from the door; not a star lent its light,
But the tempest redoubled the gloom of the night,
And the rain pour'd in sheets from the sky.

The clock in her cottage now mournfully told
The hours, that went heavily on;
Twas midnight; her spirits funk hopeless and cold,
And it seem'd as each blast of wind fearfully told,
That long, long, would her William be gone.

Then heart-sick and cold, to her sad bed she crept,
Yet first made up the fire in the room
To guide his dark steps; but she listen'd and wept,
Or if for a moment, forgetful she slept,

Soon she started!-and thought he was come.
'Twas morn; and the wind with a hoarse sullen moan,
Now seem'd dying away in the wood,
When the poor wretched mother still drooping, alone,
Beheld on the threshold a figure unknown,
In gorgeous apparel who stood.

"Your fon is a soldier,, abruptly cried he,
"And a place in our corps has obtain'd;
"Nay, be not cast down; you perhaps may soon fee
" Your William a captain! he now sends by me
"The purse he already has gain'd."

So

So William entrapp'd, 'twixt perfuafion and force,
Is embark'd for the ifles of the Weft;
But he seem'd to begin with ill omens his course,
And felt recollection, regret, and remorse,
Continually weigh on his breast.

With useless repentance he eagerly eyed
The coast as it faded from view,

And saw the green hills, on whose nothernmost side
Was his own fylvan home: and he falter'd and cried,
"Adieu! ah! for ever adieu!

"Who, now, my poor mother, thy life shall sustain,
"Since thy fon has thus left thee forlorn?
"Ah! can't thou forgive me? And not in the pain
" Of this cruel desertion, of William complain,
"And lament that he ever was born?
"Sweet Phœbe!-if ever thy lover was dear,
"Now forsake not the cottage of woe;
"But comfort my mother, and quiet her fear,
"And help her to dry up the vain fruitless tear,
"That too long for my absence will flow.
"Yet what if my PhϾbe another should wed,
"And lament her loft William no more ?"
The thought was too cruel; and anguish now sped
The dart of disease-with the brave numerous dead
He has fallen on the plague-tainted shore.

In the lone village church-yard, the chancel-wall near,
High grass now waves over the Ipot,
Where the mother of William, unable to bear
His loss, who to her widow'd heart was so dear,
Has both him and her forrows forgot!

By the brook, where it winds through the wood of Arbeal;

Or amid the deep forest, to moan,

The poor wandering PhϾbe will filently steal;
The pain of her bosom no reason can heal,
And she loves to indulge it alone.

Her senses are injured; her eyes dim with tears;
She fits by the river and weaves

Reed garlands, against her dear William appears,
Then breathlessly listens, and fancies the hears,
His step in the half-wither'd leaves.

Ah

« ForrigeFortsæt »