The shuddering void, the awful blank-futurity.
Ay, I had plann'd full many a sanguine scheme
Of earthly happiness-romantic schemes,
And fraught with loveliness; and it is hard
To feel the hand of Death arrest one's steps,
Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding hopes,
And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades,
Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion.
Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry?
Oh! none;-another busy brood of beings
Will shoot up in the interim, and none
Will hold him in remembrance. I shall sink,
As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets
Of busy London:-Some short bustle's caused,
A few inquiries, and the crowds close in,
And all's forgotten.-On my grassy grave
The men of future times will careless tread,
And read my name upon the sculptured stone;
Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears,
Recall my vanish'd memory.-I did hope
For better things!-I hoped I should not leave
The earth without a vestige;-Fate decrees
It shall be otherwise, and I submit.
Henceforth, O world, no more of thy desires!
No more of Hope! the wanton vagrant Hope!
I abjure all.-Now other cares engross me,
And my tired soul, with emulative haste,

Looks to its God, and plumes its wings for Heaven.

To hear the forest bee on wing,
Or by the stream, or woodland spring,
To lie and muse alone-alone,
While the tinkling waters moan,
Or such wild sounds arise, as say,
Man and noise are far away.

Now, surely, thought I, there's enow
To fill life's dusty way;
And who will miss a poet's feet,

Or wonder where he stray?
So to the woods and waste I'll go:

And I will build an osier bower:
And sweetly there to me shall flow
The meditative hour.

And when the Autumn's withering hand
Shall strew with leaves the sylvan land,
I'll to the forest caverns hie:
And in the dark and stormy nights,
I'll listen to the shrieking sprites,
Who, in the wintry wolds and floods,
Keep jubilee, and shred the woods:
Or, as it drifted soft and slow,
Hurl in ten thousand shapes the snow.

*

*

PASTORAL SONG.

COME, Anna! come, the morning dawns,
Faint streaks of radiance tinge the skies:
Come, let us seek the dewy lawns,
And watch the early lark arise;

While Nature, clad in vesture gay,
Hails the loved return of day.

Our flocks, that nip the scanty blade

Upon the moor, shall seek the vale;
And then, secure beneath the shade,
We'll listen to the throstle's tale;

And watch the silver clouds above,
As o'er the azure vault they rove.

Come, Anna! come, and bring thy lute,
That with its tones, so softly sweet,
In cadence with my mellow flute,
We may beguile the noontide heat;
While near the mellow bee shall join,
To raise a harmony divine.

And then at eve, when silence reigns,
Except when heard the beetle's hum,
We'll leave the sober-tinted plains,

To these sweet heights again we'll come;
And thou to thy soft lute shall play
A solemn vesper to departing day.

VERSES.

WHEN pride and envy, and then scorn
Of wealth, my heart with gall imbued,
I thought how pleasant were the morn
Of silence, in the solitude;

EPIGRAM

ON ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. BLOOMFIELD, thy happy-omen'd name Insures continuance to thy fame; Both sense and truth this verdict give, While fields shall bloom, thy name shall live!

ODE TO MIDNIGHT.

SEASON of general rest, whose solemn still
Strikes to the trembling heart a fearful chill,
But speaks to philosophic souls delight,
Thee do I hail, as at my casement high,
My candle waning melancholy by,

I sit and taste the holy calm of night.

Yon pensive orb, that through the ether sails,
And gilds the misty shadows of the vales,

Hanging in thy dull rear her vestal flame,
To her, while all around in sleep recline,
Wakeful I raise my orisons divine,

And sing the gentle honors of her name :

While Fancy lone o'er me her votary bends,
To lift my soul her fairy visions sends,

And pours upon my ear her thrilling song,
And Superstition's gentle terrors come,
See, see yon dim ghost gliding through the gloom!
See round yon church-yard elm what spectres
throng!

Meanwhile I tune, to some romantic lay,
My flageolet-and, as I pensive play,

The sweet notes echo o'er the mountain scene:
The traveller late journeying o'er the moors,
Hears them aghast-(while still the dull owl pours
Her hollow screams each dreary pause betwee

473

I HAVE a wish, and near my heart
That wish lies buried;

To keep it there's a foolish part,
For, oh! it must not be,

It must not, must not be.

Why, my fond heart, why beat'st thou so?

The dream is fair to see

But, did the lovely flatterer go;
It must not, must not be,
Oh! no, it must not be.

"T is well this tear in secret falls,
This weakness suits not me ;

I know where sterner duty calls-
It must not, cannot be,
Oh no, it cannot be.

ONCE more his beagles wake the slumb'ring morn,
And the high woodland echoes to his horn,
As on the mountain cliff the hunter band
Chase the fleet chamois o'er the unknown land;
Or sadly silent, from some jutting steep,
He throws his line into the gulfy deep,
Where, in the wilderness grotesque and drear,
The loud Arve stuns the eve's reposing ear;
Or, if his lost domestic joys arise,
Once more the prattler its endearments tries-
It lisps, "My father!" and as newly prest
Its close embraces meet his lonely breast.
His long-lost partner, too, at length restored,
Leans on his arm, and decks the social board.
Yet still, mysterious on his fever'd brain
The deep impressions of his woes remain;
He thinks she weeps." And why, my love, so pale?
What hidden grief could o'er thy peace prevail,
Or is it fancy-yet thou dost but **;"

And then he weeps, and weeps, he knows not why.

DREAR winter! who dost knock

So loud and angry on my cottage roof,

In the loud night-storm wrapt, while drifting snows The cheerless waste invest, and cold, and wide, Seen by the flitting star, the landscape gleams; With no unholy awe I hear thy voice, As by my dying embers, safely housed, I, in deep silence, muse. Though I am lone. And my low chimney owns no cheering voice Of friendly converse; yet not comfortless Is my long evening, nor devoid of thoughts To cheat the silent hours upon their way. There are, who in this dark and fearful night. Houseless, and cold of heart, are forced to bide These beating snows, and keen relentless winds— Wayfaring men, or wanderers whom no home Awaits, nor rest from travel, save the inn Where all the journiers of mortal life Lie down at last to sleep. Yet some there be Who merit not to suffer.-Infancy, And sinew-shrinking age, are not exempt From penury's severest, deadliest gripe. Oh! it doth chill the eddying heart's blood to see The guileless cheek of infancy turn'd blue With the keen cold.-Lo, where the baby hangs On his wan parent's hand; his shiv'ring skin Half bare, and opening to the biting gale. Poor shiverer, to his mother he upturns A meaning look in silence! then he casts Askance, upon the howling waste before, A mournful glance upon the forward way— But all lies dreary, and cold as hope In his forsaken breast.

BEHOLD the shepherd boy, who bomeward tends, Finish'd his daily labor.-O'er the path, Deep overhung with herbage, does he stroll With pace irregular: by fits he runs, Then sudden stops with vacant countenance, And picks the pungent herb, or on the stile Listlessly sits and twines the reedy whip, And carols blithe his short and simple song. Thrice happy idler!-thou hast never known Refinement's piercing pang; thy joys are small, Yet are they unalloy'd with bitter thought And after misery. As I behold Thy placid, artless countenance, I feel Strange envy of thy state, and fain would change These short, uncommon hours of keener bliss For thy long day of equal happiness.

Heaven grant no after trials may imprint Trouble's deep wrinkle on thine open face, And cloud thy generous features.-May'st thou tread In the calm paths through which thy fathers trod, To their late graves of honorable rest: So will thy lot be happy. So the hour Of death come clad in loveliness and joy; Beneath the narrow mound, affection's hand And as thou lay'st down thy blanched head Will bend the osier o'er thy peaceful grave, But, oh! may Heaven avert from thee the curse And bid the lily blossom on thy turf. Of mad fanaticism: away, away!Let not the restless monster dare pollute The calm abodes of rural innocence! Oh! if the wide contagion reach thy breast,

- Unhappy peasant! peace will vanish thence,
And raging turbulence will rack thy heart
With feverish dismay: then discontent
Will prey upon thy vitals, then will doubt
And sad uncertainty in fierce array,
With superstition's monstrous train, surround
Thy dreadful death-bed; and no soothing hand
Will smooth the painful pillow, for the bonds
Of tender amity are all consumed

By the prevailing fire. They all are lost
In one ungovernable, selfish flame.
Where has this pestilence arisen ?—where
The Hydra multitude of sister ills,
Of infidelity, and open sin,
Of disaffection, and repining gall?
Oh, ye revered, venerable band,
Who wear religion's ephod, unto ye
Belongs with wakeful vigilance to check
The growing evil. In the vicious town
Fearless, and fix'd, the monster stands secure;
But guard the rural shade! let honest peace
Yet hold her ancient seats, and still preserve
The village groups in their primeval bliss.
Such was, Placidio, thy divine employ,
Ere thou wert borne to some sublimer sphere
By death's mild angel.

WHERE yonder woods in gloomy pomp arise,
Embower'd, remote, a lowly cottage lies:
Before the door a garden spreads, where blows
Now wild, once cultivate, the brier rose;
Though choked with weeds, the lily there will peer,
And early primrose hail the nascent year;
There to the walls did jess'mine wreaths attach,
And many a sparrow twitter'd in the thatch,
While in the woods that wave their heads on high
The stock-dove warbled murmuring harmony.

There, buried in retirement, dwelt a sage,
Whose reverend locks bespoke him far in age:
Silent he was, and solemn was his mien,
And rarely on his cheek a smile was seen.
The village gossips had full many a tale
About the aged "hermit of the dale."
Some call'd him wizard, some a holy seer,
Though all beheld him with an equal fear,
And many a stout heart had he put to flight,
Met in the gloomy wood-walks late at night.

Yet well I ween, the sire was good of heart,
Nor would to aught one heedless pang impart;
His soul was gentle, but he 'd known of woe,
Had known the world, nor longer wish'd to know.
Here, far retired from all its busy ways,
He hoped to spend the remnant of his days;
And here, in peace, he till'd his little ground,
And saw, unheeded, years revolving round.
Fair was his daughter, as the blush of day,
In her alone his hopes and wishes lay:
His only care, about her future life,
When death should call him from the haunts of strife.
Sweet was her temper, mild as summer skies
When o'er their azure no thin vapor flies:

And but to see her aged father sad,

No fear, no care, the gentle Fanny had.

WITH slow step, along the desert sand,
Where o'er the parching plains broods red dismay,
The Arab chief leads on his ruthless band.
And, lo! a speck of dust is seen to play,
On the remotest confines of the day.
Arouse! arouse! fierce does the chieftain cry,
Death calls! the caravan is on its way!
The warrior shouts. The Siroc hurries by,
Hush'd is his stormy voice, and quench'd his mur-
derous eye.

These lines might appear, by the metre, to have been intended for a stanza of the "Christiad," perhaps to have been introduced as a simile; but though the conception is striking, the composition is far more incorrect than that of that fine fragment.

TO A FRIEND.

To you these pensive lines I fondly send,
Far distant now, my brother, and my friend.
If, 'mid the novel scene, thou yet art free
To give one silent, museful hour to me,
Turn from the world, and fancy, whisp'ring near,
Thou hear'st the voice thou once didst love to hear.
Can time and space, howe'er with anguish fraught,
Damp the warm heart, or chain the soaring thought?
Or, when most dread, the nascent joy they blast,
Chase from the mind the image of the past?
Ah, no! when death has robb'd her hoard of bliss,
What stays to soothe the widow's hours, but this?-
This cheers her dreams, and cheats the ling'ring time
Till she shall reach

On! had the soul's deep silence power to speak;
Could the warm thought the bars of distance break!
Could the lone music to thine ear convey
Each rising sigh, and all the heart can say!
477