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The scalps that we number'd in triumph were there,
And the musket that never was levell'd in vain,-
What a leap has it given to my heart
To see thee suspend it in peace!

When the black and blood-banner was spread to the gale,

When thrice the deep voice of the war-drum was heard, I remember thy terrible eyes

How they flash'd the dark glance of thy joy.

I remember the hope that shone over thy cheek
As thy hand from the pole reach'd its doers of death;
Like the ominous gleam of the cloud
Ere the thunder and lightning are born.

He went, and ye came not to warn him in dreams,
Kindred Spirits of him who is holy and great!
And where was thy warning, O Bird,
The timely announcer of ill?

Alas! when thy brethren in conquest return'd;
When I saw the white plumes bending over their heads
And the pine-boughs of triumph before,
Where the scalps of their victory swung,—

The war-hymn they pour'd, and thy voice was not there!

I call'd thee,-alas, the white deer-skin was brought;
And thy grave was prepared in the tent
Which I had made ready for joy!

Ollanahta, all day by thy war-pole I sit,

Ollanahta, all night I weep over thy grave!
To-morrow the victims shall die,
And I shall have joy in revenge.

1799.

THE OLD CHIKKASAH TO HIS GRANDSON.

And the youth of the nation were told
To respect him and tread in his path.

My Boy! I have seen, and with hope,
The courage that rose in thine eye
When I told thee the tale of his death.
His war-pole now is grey with moss,
His tomahawk red with rust;
His bowstring whose twang was death
Now sings as it cuts the wind!
But his memory is fresh in the land,
And his name with the names that we love.

Go now and revenge him, my Boy! That his Spirit no longer may hover by day O'er the hut where his bones are at rest, Nor trouble our dreams in the night. My Boy, I shall watch for the warriors' return, And my soul will be sad

Till the steps of thy coming I see.

INSCRIPTIONS.

1799.

The three utilities of Poetry: the praise of Virtue and Goodness, the memory of things remarkable, and to invigorate the Affections. -Welsh Triad.

FOR A COLUMN AT NEWBURY.
ART thou a Patriot, Traveller?-On this field
Did FALKLAND fall, the blameless and the brave,
Beneath a Tyrant's banners-Dost thou boast
Of loyal ardour? HAMBDEN perished here,
The rebel HAMBDEN, at whose glorious name
The heart of every honest Englishman

Beats high with conscious pride. Both uncorrupt,
Friends to their common country both, they fought,
They died in adverse armies. Traveller!

If with thy neighbour thou shouldst not accord,
In charity remember these good men,
And quell all angry and injurious thoughts.

Now go to the battle, my Boy!

Dear child of my son,

There is strength in thine arm,

There is hope in thy heart,

Thou art ripe for the labours of war.
Thy Sire was a stripling like thee
When he went to the first of his fields.
He return'd, in the glory of conquest return'd;
Before him his trophies were borne,

These scalps that have hung till the Sun and the Rain
Have rusted their raven locks.

Here he stood when the morn of rejoicing arrived, The day of the warrior's reward;

When the banners sun-beaming were spread, And all hearts were dancing in joy To the sound of the victory drum. The Heroes were met to receive their reward; But distinguish'd among the young Heroes that day, The pride of his nation, thy Father was seen: The swan-feathers hung from his neck, His face like the rainbow was tinged, And his eye,-how it sparkled in pride! The Elders approach'd, and they placed on his brow The crown that his valour had won, And they gave him the old honour'd name. They reported the deeds he had done in the war,

1796.

FOR A CAVERN THAT OVERLOOKS THE
RIVER AVON.

ENTER this cavern, Stranger! the ascent
Is long and steep and toilsome; here awhile
Thou mayst repose thee, from the noontide heat
Shelter'd beneath this bending vault of rock.
Round the rude portal clasping with rough arms,
The antique ivy spreads a canopy,

From whose grey blossoms the wild bees collect
Their last autumnal stores. No common spot
Receives thee, for the power who prompts the song
Loves this secluded cell. The tide below
Scarce sends the sound of waters to thine ear;

And yon high-hanging forest to the wind
Varies its many hues. Gaze, Stranger, here!

And let thy soften'd heart intensely feel

How good, how lovely, Nature! When from hence Departing to the city's crowded streets,

Thy sickening eye at every step revolts

From scenes of vice and wretchedness; reflect
That Man creates the evil he endures.

1796.

FOR A TABLET AT SILBURY-HILL.'
THIS mound in some remote and dateless day
Rear'd o'er a Chieftain of the Age of Hills,
May here detain thee, Traveller! from thy road
Not idly lingering. In his narrow house
Some Warrior sleeps below, whose gallant deeds
Haply at many a solemn festival

The Bard hath harp'd; but perish'd is the song
Of praise, as o'er these bleak and barren downs
The wind that passes and is heard no more.
Go, Traveller, and remember when the pomp
Of earthly Glory fades, that one good deed,
Unseen, unleard, unnoted by mankind,
Lives in the eternal register of Heaven.

1796.

FOR A MONUMENT IN THE NEW FOREST.
This is the place where William's kingly power
Did from their poor and peaceful homes expel,
Unfriended, desolate, and shelterless,
The habitants of all the fertile track

Far as these wilds extend. He levell'd down
Their little cottages, he bade their fields.
Lie barren, so that o'er the forest waste
He might more royally pursue his sports!
If that thine heart be human, Passenger!
Sure it will swell within thee, and thy lips
Will mutter curses on him. Think thou then
What cities flame, what hosts unsepulchred
Pollute the passing wind, when raging Power
Drives on his blood-hounds to the chase of Man;
And as thy thoughts anticipate that day
When God shall judge aright, in charity
Pray for the wicked rulers of mankind.

His relics rest, there by the giddy throng
With blind idolatry alike revered!
Wiselier directed have thy pilgrim feet
Explored the scenes of Ermenonville. RouSSEAU
Loved these calm haunts of Solitude and Peace;
Here he has heard the murmurs of the lake,
And the soft rustling of the poplar grove,
When o'er their bending boughs the passing wind
Swept a grey shade. Here, if thy breast be full,
If in thine eye the tear devout should gush,
HIS SPIRIT shall behold thee, to thine home
From hence returning, purified of heart.

1796.

FOR A MONUMENT AT OXFORD.

HERE Latimer and Ridley in the flames
Bore witness to the truth. If thou hast walk'd
Uprightly through the world, proud thoughts of joy
Will fill thy breast in contemplating here
Congenial virtue. But if thou hast swerved
From the right path, if thou hast sold thy soul,
And served, with hireling and apostate zeal,
The cause thy heart disowns,-oh! cherish well
The honourable shame that sure this place
Will wake within thee, timely penitent,
And let the future expiate the past.

1797

FOR A MONUMENT IN THE VALE OF EWIAS.

HERE was it, Stranger, that the patron Saint
Of Cambria past his age of penitence,

A solitary man; and here he made

His hermitage, the roots his food, his drink

Of Hodney's mountain stream. Perchance thy youth

FOR A TABLET ON THE BANKS OF A STREAM. Has read with eager wonder how the Knight

STRANGER! awhile this
upon
bauk
mossy
Recline thee. If the Sun rides high, the breeze,
That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet,
Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound
Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear
It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold
Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed
Yon glossy insect, on the sand below

llow the swift shadow flits. The stream is pure
In solitude, and many a healthful herb
Bends o'er its course and drinks the vital wave:
But passing on amid the haunts of man,
It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence
A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for HAPPINESS?
Go, Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot
OF INNOCENCE, and thou shalt find her there.

1796.

FOR THE CENOTAPH AT ERMENONVILLE. STRANGER! the MAN OF NATURE lies not here: Enshrined far distant by the Scoffer's 2 side

1 The northern nations distinguished the two periods when the bodies of the dead were consumed by fire, and when they were buried beneath the tumuli so common in this country, by the Age of Fire and the Age of Hills.

* Voltaire.

Of Wales in Ormandine's enchanted bower,
Slept the long sleep: and if that in thy veins
Flow the pure blood of Britain, sure that blood
Hath flow'd with quicker impulse at the tale
Of David's deeds, when through the press of war
His gallant comrades follow'd his green crest
To conquest. Stranger! Batterill's mountain heights
And this fair vale of Ewias, and the stream
Of Hodney, to thine after-thoughts will rise
More grateful, thus associate with the name
Of David and the deeds of other days.

1798.

EPITAPH ON ALGERNON SIDNEY.

HERE Sidney lies, he whom perverted law,
The pliant jury and the bloody judge,
Doom'd to the traitor's death. A tyrant King
Required, an abject country saw and shared
The crime. The noble cause of Liberty
He loved in life, and to that noble cause
In death bore witness. But his Country rose
Like Sampson from her sleep, and broke her chains,
And proudly with her worthies she enroll'd
Her murder'd Sidney's name. The voice of man
Gives honour or destroys; but earthly power
Gives not, nor takes away, the self-applause

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JOHN rests below. A man more infamous
Never hath held the sceptre of these realms,
And bruised beneath the iron rod of Power
The oppressed men of England. Englishman!
Curse not his memory. Murderer as he was,
Coward and slave, yet he it was who sign'd

That Charter which should make thee morn and night
Be thankful for thy birth-place:-Englishman!
That holy Charter, which, shouldst thou permit
Force to destroy, or Fraud to undermine,
Thy children's groans will persecute thy soul,
For they must bear the burthen of thy crime.

IN A FOREST.

1798.

STRANGER! Whose steps have reach'd this solitude, Know that this lonely spot was dear to one Devoted with no unrequited zeal

To Nature. Here, delighted he has heard

The rustling of these woods, that now perchance
Melodious to the gale of summer move;
And underneath their shade on yon smooth rock,
With grey and yellow lichens overgrown,
Often reclined; watching the silent flow
Of this perspicuous rivulet, that steals
Along its verdant course,-till all around
Had fill'd his senses with tranquillity,
And ever sooth'd in spirit he return'd

A happier, better man. Stranger! perchance,
Therefore the stream more lovely to thine eye
Will glide along, and to the summer gale

The woods wave more melodious. Cleanse thou then
The weeds and mosses from this letter'd stone.

1798.

FOR A MONUMENT AT TORDESILLAS.
SPANIARD! if thou art one who bows the knee
Before a despot's footstool, hie thee hence!
This ground is holy; here Padilla died,
Martyr of Freedom. But if thou dost love
Her cause, stand then as at an altar here,

And thank the Almighty that thine honest heart,
Full of a brother's feelings for mankind,
Rebels against oppression. Not unheard
Nor unavailing shall the grateful prayer
Ascend; for loftiest impulses will rise
To elevate and strengthen thee, and prompt
To virtuous action. Relics silver-shrined,
And chaunted mass, would wake within the soul
Thoughts valueless and cold compared with these.

1796.

FOR A COLUMN AT TRUXILLO.

PIZARRO here was born; a greater name
The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain,
Famine and hostile Elements, and Hosts
Embattled, fail'd to check him in his course,

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FOR THE CELL OF HONORIUS, AT THE CORK
CONVENT, NEAR CINTRA.

HERE cavern'd like a beast Honorius dwelt
In self-denial, solitude, and prayer,
Long years of penance. He had rooted out
All human feelings from his heart, and fled
With fear and loathing from all human joys
As from perdition. But the law of Christ
Enjoins not this. To aid the fatherless,
Comfort the sick, and be the poor man's friend,
And in the wounded heart pour gospel-balm;
These are the active duties of that law,
Which whoso keeps shall have a joy on earth,
Calm, constant, still increasing, preluding

The eternal bliss of Heaven. Yet mock not thou,
Stranger, the Anchorite's mistaken zeal!
He paiufully his painful duties kept,

Sincere though erring: Stranger, do thou keep
Thy better and thine easier rule as well.

1798.

FOR A MONUMENT AT TAUNTON.

THEY suffer'd here whom Jefferies doom'd to death
In mockery of all justice, when the Judge
Unjust, subservient to a cruel King,
Perform'd his work of blood. They suffer'd here,
The victims of that Judge, and of that King,
In mockery of all justice here they bled,
Unheard! But not unpitied, nor of God
Unseen, the innocent suffered! not in vain
The innocent blood cried vengeance! for at length,
The indignant Nation in its power arose,
Resistless. Then that wicked Judge took flight,
Disguised in vain:-not always is the Lord
Slow to revenge! a miserable man

He fell beneath the people's rage, and still
The children curse his memory. From his throne
The lawless bigot who commission'd him,
Inhuman James, was driven. He lived to drag
Long years of frustrate hope, he lived to load
More blood upon his soul. Let tell the Boyne,
Let Londonderry tell his guilt and shame;
And that immortal day when on thy shores,
La Hogue, the purple ocean dash'd the dead!

1798.

FOR A TABLET AT PENSHURST. ARE days of old familiar to thy mind, O Reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour

Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived
With high-born beauties and enamour'd chiefs,
Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy
Whose expectation touch'd the verge of pain,
Following their dangerous fortunes? If such lore
Hath ever thrill'd thy bosom, thou wilt tread,
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts,
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born,
Sidney, than whom no gentler, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feign'd,
Illustrating the vales of Arcady

With courteous courage and with royal loves.
Upon his natal day the acorn here
Was planted. It grew up a stately oak,
And in the beauty of its strength it stood
And flourish'd, when his perishable part
lad moulder'd dust to dust. That stately oak
Itself hath moulder'd now, but Sidney's fame
Endureth in his own immortal works.

To prey upon her, frequent in attack,
Yet with such flattering intervals as mock
The hopes of anxious love, and most of ali
The sufferer, self-deceived. During those days
Of treacherous respite, many a time hath he,
Who leaves this record of his friend, drawn back
Into the shadow from her social board,
Because too surely in her cheek he saw

The insidious bloom of death; and then her smiles
And innocent mirth excited deeper grief
Than when long-look'd-for tidings came at last,
That, all her sufferings ended, she was laid
Amid Madeira's orange groves to rest.

O gentle Emma! o'er a lovelier form

Than thine, Earth never closed; nor e'er did Heaven Receive a purer spirit from the world!

1810.

ЕРІТАРН.

THIS to a mother's sacred memory

1799

Her son hath hallow'd. Absent many a year
Far over sea, his sweetest dreams were still
Of that dear voice which soothed his infancy:
And after many a fight against the Moor
And Malabar, or that fierce Cavalry
Which he had seen covering the boundless plain
Even to the utmost limits where the eye

Could pierce the far horizon,-his first thought
In safety was of her, who when she heard
The tale of that day's danger, would retire
And pour her pious gratitude to Heaven
In prayers and tears of joy. The lingering hour
Of his return, long-look'd-for, came at length,
And full of hope he reach'd his native shore.
Vain hope that puts its trust in human life!
For ere he came the number of her days
Was full. O Reader, what a world were this,
How unendurable its weight, if they

Whom Death hath sunder'd did not meet again!

EPITAPH.

1810.

HERE in the fruitful vales of Somerset
Was Emma bore, and here the Maiden grew
To the sweet season of her womanhood
Beloved and lovely, like a plant whose leaf
And bud and blossom all are beautiful.
In peacefulness her virgin years were past;
And when in prosperous wedlock she was given,
Amid the Cumbrian mountaius far away
She had her summer bower. 'T was like a dream
Of old Romance to see her when she plied
Her little skiff on Derwent's glassy lake;
The roseate evening resting ou the hills,
The lake returning back the hues of heaven,
Mountains and vales and waters all imbued
With beauty and in quietness; and she,
Nymph-like, amid that glorious solitude
A heavenly presence, gliding in her joy.
But soon a wasting malady began

ENGLISH EGLOGUES.

The following Eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in Germany, and I was induced to attem t it by an account of the German Idylls given me in conversation. They cannot properly be styled imitations, as I am ignorant of that language at present. and have never seen any translations or specimens in this kind.With bad Eclogues I am sufficiently acquainted, from Tityrus and Corydon down to our English Strephons and Thirsisses. No kind of poetry can boast of more illustrious names, or is more distinguished by the servile dulness of imitated nonsense. Pastoral writers, more silly than their sheep, have, like their sheep, gone on in the same track one after another. Gay stumbled into a new path. His i eclogues were the only ones which interested me when I was a boy, and did not know they were burlesque. The subject would furnish matter for an essay, but this is not the place for it.-1799.

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My grandfather could just remember back
When they were planted there. It was my task
To keep them trimm'd, and 't was a pleasure to me;
All straight and smooth, and like a great green wall!
My poor old Lady many a time would come
And tell me where to shear, for she had play'd
In childhood under them, and 't was her pride
To keep them in their beauty. Plague, I say,
On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have
A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon
Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them down!

STRANGER.

But 't will be lighter and more cheerful now;
A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road
Round for the carriage,-now it suits my taste.

I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh;
And then there's some variety about it.
In spring the lilac and the snow-ball flower,
And the laburnum with its golden strings
Waving in the wind: And when the autumn comes
The bright red berries of the mountain-ash,
With pines enough in winter to look green,

And show that something lives. Sure this is better
Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look
All the year round like winter, and for ever
Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs
Wither'd and bare!

OLD MAN.

Ah! so the new Squire thinks, And pretty work he makes of it! what 't is To have a stranger come to an old house!

STRANGER.

It seems you know him not?

OLD MAN.

No, Sir, not I.

They tell me he's expected daily now;
But in my Lady's time he never came
But once, for they were very distant kin.

If he had play'd about here when a child
In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries,

And sate in the porch threading the jessamine flowers
Which fell so thick, he had not had the heart
To mar all thus!

STRANGER.

Come-come! all is not wrong;

Those old dark windows

OLD MAN.

They 're demolish'd too,

As if he could not see through casement glass!

The very red-breasts, that so regular
Came to my Lady for her morning crumbs,
Wo'n't know the window now!

STRANGER.

Nay they were small, And then so darken'd round with jessamine, Harbouring the vermin;-yet I could have wish'd That jessamine had been saved, which canopied And bower'd and lined the porch.

OLD MAN.

It did one good To pass within ten yards when 't was in blossom. There was a sweet-briar too that grew beside; My Lady loved at evening to sit there

And knit; and her old dog lay at her feet

And slept in the sun; 't was an old favourite dog,

She did not love him less that he was old
And feeble, and he always had a place
By the fire-side: and when he died at last
She made me dig a grave in the garden for him.
Ah! she was good to all! a woeful day

T was for the poor when to her grave she went!

STRANGER.

They lost a friend then?

OLD MAN.

You're a stranger here,

Or you wouldn't ask that question. Were they sick?
She had rare cordial waters, and for herbs
She could have taught the Doctors. Then at winter,
When weekly she distributed the bread

In the poor old porch, to see her and to hear
The blessings on her! and I warrant them
They were a blessing to her when her wealth
Had been no comfort else. At Christmas, Sir!
It would have warm'd your heart if you had seen
Her Christmas kitchen,-how the blazing fire
Made her fine pewter shine, and holly boughs
So cheerful red,-and as for miseltoe,-
The finest bough that grew in the country round
Was mark'd for Madam. Then her old ale went
So bountiful about! a Christmas cask,
And 't was a noble one!-God help me, Sir!
But I shall never see such days again.

STRANGER.

Things may be better yet than you suppose, And you should hope the best.

OLD MAN.

It don't lock well,

These alterations, Sir! I'm an old man,
And love the good old fashions; we don't find
Old bounty in new houses. They 've destroy'd
All that my Lady loved; her favourite walk
Grubb'd up,--and they do say that the great row
Of elms behind the house, which meet a-top,
They must fall too. Well! well! I did not think
To live to see all this, and 't is perhaps

A comfort I sha'n't live to see it long.

STRANGER.

But sure all changes are not needs for the worse, My friend?

OLD MAN.

May-hap they mayn't, Sir;-for all that
I like what I've been used to. I remember
All this from a child up, and now to lose it,
'Tis losing an old friend. There 's nothing left
As 't was;-I go abroad and only meet

With men whose fathers I remember boys;
The brook that used to run before my door,
That's gone to the great pond; the trees I learnt
To climb are down; and I see nothing now
That tells me of old times,-except the stones
In the church-yard. You are young, Sir, and I hope
Have many years in store,-but pray to God
You mayn't be left the last of all your friends.

STRANGER.

Well! well! you've one friend more than you're aware of
If the Squire's taste don't suit with yours, I warrant
That's all you'll quarrel with: walk in and taste
His beer, old friend! and see if your old Lady
E'er broach'd a better cask. You did not know me,
But we 're acquainted now.
'T would not be easy
To make you like the outside; but within,

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