Ye battlements! that look to heav'n,
That in your wrecks your grandeur show,
In vain six hundred years have striven,
To lay in dust that grandeur low:
And yet, full many an age must flow,

Ere shall these long arch'd vistas fall,
Tho' where chiefs sat, now thistles grow,
And nettles hide the sculptur'd wall;
And holy men have led the sacred mass,
Where the rank hemlock waves, o'er the thick-tufted

grass.

Be mine, when evening's lively hues

Paint thy long aisles with glowing red,
Dundrennan! thro' thy courts to muse,
Where sleep the long forgotten dead.
Since were thy deep foundations laid
By Gallovidian Fergus' hands *,
Have twice twelve powerful monarchs sway'd
The sceptre o'er these smiling lands;

Yet thou must sink at last, destroy'd by years,

And the plow tear the soil which thy proud structures

bears.

BANKS OF THE KEN.

W. G.

*The Abbey of Dundrennan, in the stewarty of Galloway, was founded by Fergus the first Lord of Galloway, who flourished in the end of the reign of Malcolm Kenmore, and lived till near the end of Malcolm IV. who died in the year 1165. Fergus founded the monastery of Dundrennan in 1142. Some chiefs are entombed in this antient structure, who fought under the banners of the cross in Palestine, during some of the crusades. It was here also that Queen Mary slept the night before she set sail for Mary-port, in Cumberland, after the unfortunate battle of Langside. This abbey is one of the most picturesque and venerable ruins in the south of Scotland.

THE THUNDER STORM.

FOR Evening's brownest shade! Where the breezes play by stealth

In the forest-cinctured glade,

Round the hermitage of Health;
While the noon-bright mountains blaze
In the sun's tormenting rays.

O'er the sick and sultry plains,
Thro' the dim delirious air,
Agonizing Silence reigns,

And the wanness of Despair:

Nature faints with fervent heat,

-Ah! her pulse hath ceased to beat!

Now in deep and dreadful gloom,

Clouds on clouds portentous spread,

Black, as if the day of doom

Hung o'er Nature's shrinking head: Lo! the lightning breaks from high, -God is coming!-God is nigh!

Hear ye not his chariot wheels,
As the mighty thunder rolls?
Nature, startled Nature reels,

From the centre to the poles;
Tremble!-Ocean, Earth and Sky!
Tremble!-God is passing by!

Darkness, wild with horror, forms
His mysterious hiding place;
Should He, from his ark of storms,
Rend the veil, and shew his face,
At the judgment of his eye,
All the Universe would die.

Brighter, broader lightnings flash,
Hail and rain tempestuous fall;
Louder, deeper thunders crash,
Desolation threatens all;
Struggling nature gasps for breath,
In the agony of death.

God of vengeance! from above,
While thine awful bolts are hurl'd,
O remember Thou art Love!

Spare!-O spare a guilty world!
Stay thy flaming wrath awhile,
-See thy bow of promise smile!

Welcome, in the eastern cloud,
Messenger of mercy still!
Now, ye winds proclaim aloud,
"Peace on earth, to man good-will!??
Nature, God's repenting child,

See thy Parent reconciled!

Hark! the nightingale, afar,
Sweetly sings the sun to rest,
And awakes the evening star
In the rosy-tinted west;
While the moon's enchanting eye
Opens paradise on high!

Cool and tranquil is the night,
Nature's sore afflictions cease,
For the storm, that spent it's might,
Was a covenant of peace:
Vengeance drops her harmless rod;
-Mercy is the POWER OF GOD!

A WISH.

ALCEUS.

BY DR. HAWKESWORTH.

THROUGH groves sequester'd, dark, and still,
Low vales, and mossy cells among,
In silent paths, the nameless rill,
With liquid murmurs, steals along:

Awhile it plays with circling sweep,
And lingering winds its native plain,
Then pours impetuous down the steep,
And mingles with the boundless main.

O! let my years thus devious glide,

Through silent scenes obscurely calm; Nor Wealth nor Strife pollute the tide, Nor Honour's sanguinary palm.

When Labour tires, and Pleasure palls,

Still let the stream untroubled lie :
As down the steep of age it falls,
And mingle with eternity.

ADDRESS

To the Subscribers and Friends to the Literary Fund, at their Anniversary Dinner, April 1, 1802.

BY WILLIAM BOSCAWEN, ESQ.

IN hardy Chivalry's advent'rous days,
At solemn feasts the Minstrel waked his lays:
Each trophy'd hall with tuneful echoes rung,
While godlike Chiefs and godlike deeds he sung;
Sung those famed fields where patriot Valour bled,
Where the Cross triumphed, and the Crescent fled;
Where Europe's sons, in Freedom's generous pride,
With dauntless breasts repell'd Invasion's tide.
Rapt with the strain, each Knight in Fancy's eye
Again beheld the hostile banners fly;

Again in thought, he grasp'd bright Valour's meed,
Resolved to vanquish, or resign'd to bleed.

Less proud our boast-though still Britannia's name, Fill the wide-echoing trump of martial Fame, Though late her gen'rous warriors, calmly brave, Alike have triumph'd on the land and wave, Yet oft at social boards, where Temperance reigns, Far gentler powers attune her festive strains: There Bounty sits enthroned; while Mirth, enshrined With Virtue's self, conspires to bless mankind. Then, if in nobler verse those Bards sublime, Who told the warlike feats of elder time,