IX.

'Tis He whose yester-evening's high disdain
Beat back the roaring storm--but how subdued
His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!

Does the hour's drowsy weight his glee restrain?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein
Pleased to renounce, does this dear Thrush attune
His voice to suit the temper of yon Moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy Sun! and let the Songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn
No longer) with what ecstacy upborne

He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true gladness
Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.

FAILING impartial measure to dispense

To every suitor, Equity is lame;

And social Justice, stript of reverence

For natural rights, a mockery and a shame ;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence,

ROD

If, guarding grossest things from common claim
Now and for ever, She, to works that came
From mind and spirit, grudge a short-lived fence.
"What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie

LE

For books!" Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved
That 'tis a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;

No public harm that Genius from her course

Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at their

source!

XI.

A POET TO HIS GRANDCHILD.

(Sequel to the foregoing.)

"SON of my buried Son, while thus thy hand

"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think

"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink

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Thy Children left unfit, through vain demand

“Of culture, even to feel or understand

"My simplest Lay that to their memory

"May cling;-hard fate! which haply need not be "Did Justice mould the Statutes of the Land. "A Book time-cherished and an honoured name "Are high rewards; but bound they nature's claim "Or Reason's? No-hopes spun in timid line. "From out the bosom of a modest home

“Extend through unambitious years to come,

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My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!"

MAY 23RD.

1

D D

XII.

VALEDICTORY SONNET,

AT THE CLOSE OF THE VOLUME OF SONNETS.

SERVING no haughty Muse, my hands have here

Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots)

Each kind in several beds of one parterre ;
Both to allure the casual Loiterer,

And that, so placed, my nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But, metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them be,
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!

NOTES.

Page 391.

'Protest against the Ballot,'

HAVING in this notice alluded only in general terms to the mischief which, in my opinion, the Ballot would bring along with it, without especially branding its immoral and anti-social tendency, (for which no political advantages, were they a thousand times greater than those presumed upon, could be a compensation,) I have been impelled to subjoin a reprobation of it upon that score. In no part of my writings have I mentioned the name of any contemporary, that of Buonaparte only excepted, but for the purpose of eulogy; and therefore, as in the concluding verse of what follows, there is a deviation from this rule (for the blank will be easily filled up) I have excluded the Sonnet from the body of the collection, and placed it here as a public record of my detestation, both as a man and a citizen, of the proposed contrivance :

Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud

Falsehood and Treachery, in close council met,
Deep under ground, in Pluto's cabinet,

"The frost of England's pride will soon be thawed;

"Hooded the open brow that overawed

"Our schemes; the faith and honour, never yet

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By us with hope encountered, be upset;—

"For once I burst my bands, and cry, applaud!"