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To deathless resurrection. Heaven and earth
Shall pass away, but that which thinks within me
Must think for ever; that which feels must feel;
-I am, and I can never cease to be.

O thou that readest! take this parable

Home to thy bosom; think as I have thought,
And feel as I have felt, through all the changes

Which Time, Life, Death, the world's great actors, wrought,

While centuries swept like morning dreams before me,
And thou shalt find this moral to my song:
-Thou art, and thou canst never cease to be:

What then are time, life, death, the world, to thee?
I may not answer;-ask Eternity.

PRISON AMUSEMENTS.

WRITTEN DURING NINE MONTHS OF CONFINEMENT IN THE CASTLE OF YORK, IN THE YEARS 1795 AND 1796.

PREFACE.

HE circumstances to which the following effusions owed their existence were briefly these: - When

Montgomery took up his abode in Sheffield, and became the clerk of Joseph Gales, the printer, the heat of parties raged violently; and Gales, as the publisher of the "Sheffield Register," was at the mercy of all the bad passions of the town. This newspaper had a large circulation, which proved fatal to the proprietor by drawing the "notice" of the Government. A letter from a printer at Sheffield, found in the possession of "Citizen Hardy," was falsely attributed to Gales, who sought safety by flight. Montgomery, then twenty-three years of age, reigned in his stead; and on July 4th, 1794, the first number of the "Iris," in succession to the "Register," was published. But his own hour was at hand. For an offence hardly appreciable by judicial analysis, the printing of a patriotic song for a street hawker, he was twice sentenced to the penalties of fine and imprisonment; in January, 1795, and in January, 1796; the first time, a fine of twenty pounds and three months' confinement; the second, six months' confinement and a fine of thirty pounds.

The Author, in the original Preface to these "trifles," as he calls them, touchingly says:

"These Pieces were composed in bitter moments, amid the horrors of a gaol, under the pressure of sickness. They were the transcripts of melancholy feelings-the warm effusions of a bleeding heart. The writer amused his imagination with attiring his sorrows in verse, that, under the romantic appearance of fiction, he might sometimes forget that his misfortunes were real."

PRISON AMUSEMENTS.

VERSES TO A ROBIN REDBREAST,
WHO VISITS THE WINDOW OF MY PRISON EVERY DAY.

WELCOME, pretty little stranger!
Welcome to my lone retreat!
Here, secure from every danger,
Hop about, and chirp, and eat.
Robin! how I envy thee,
Happy child of liberty!

Now though tyrant Winter, howling,
Shakes the world with tempests round,
Heaven above with vapours scowling,
Frost imprisons all the ground ;-
Robin! what are these to thee?
Thou art blest with liberty.

---

Though yon fair majestic river*
Mourns in solid icy chains;
Though yon flocks and cattle shiver
On the desolated plains ;—
Robin! thou art gay and free,
Happy in thy liberty.

Hunger never shall distress thee,

While my cates one crumb afford;
Colds nor cramps shall e'er oppress thee;
Come and share my humble board.
Robin! come and live with me,
Live-yet still at liberty.

Soon shall Spring, in smiles and blushes,
Steal upon the blooming year;

Then, amid th' enamoured bushes
Thy sweet song shall warble clear;

* The Ouse.

Then shall I too, joined with thee,
Swell the hymn of liberty.

Should some rough unfeeling Dobbin,
In this iron-hearted age,

Seize thee on thy nest, my Robin !
And confine thee in a cage,

Then, poor pris'ner! think of mc,
Think—and sigh for liberty.

MOONLIGHT.

GENTLE Moon! a captive calls:
Gentle Moon! awake, arise;
Gild the prison's sullen walls;
Gild the tears that drown his eyes.

Throw thy veil of clouds aside;

Let those smiles, that light the pole, Through the liquid æther glide,—Glide into the mourner's soul.

Cheer his melancholy mind;

Soothe his sorrows, heal his smart: Let thine influence, pure, refined, Cool the fever of his heart.

Chase despondency and care,

Fiends that haunt the guilty breast: Conscious virtue braves despair;

Triumphs most when most oppressed.

Now I feel thy power benign

Swell my bosom, thrill my veins;
As thy beams the brightest shine
When the deepest midnight reigns.

Say, fair shepherdess of night!
Who thy starry flock dost lead

Unto rills of living light,

On the blue ethereal mead;

At this moment, dost thou see,
From thine elevated sphere,
One kind friend who thinks of me,-
Thinks, and drops a feeling tear?

On a brilliant beam convey
This soft whisper to his breast:
"Wipe that generous drop away;
He for whom it falls is blest:

"Blest with freedom unconfined,--
Dungeons cannot hold the soul;
Who can chain the immortal mind?-
None but He who spans the pole."

Fancy, too, the nimble fairy,
With her subtle magic spell,
In romantic visions airy

Steals the captive from his cell.

On her moonlight pinions borne,
Far he flies from grief and pain;
Never, never to he torn

From his friends and home again.

Stay, thou dear delusion! stay;

Beauteous bubble! do not break;-

Ah! the pageant flits away :

Who from such a dream would wake?

THE CAPTIVE NIGHTINGALE.

NOCTURNAL silence reigning,
A nightingale began,
In his cold cage, complaining
Of cruel-hearted man;
His drooping pinions shivered
Like withered moss so dry;
His heart with anguish quivered,
And sorrow dimmed his eye.

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