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LOVE.-SOUTHEY.

THEY sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.

In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell.
Earthly these passions, as of earth,
They perish where they have their birth.
But Love is indestructible;

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,

At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,

And hath in heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the anxious night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight!

THE KITTEN.*-JOANNA BAILLIE.

FROM THE ENGLISH MINSTRELSY.

WANTON drole, whose harmless play
Beguiles the rustic's closing day,
When drawn the ev❜ning fire about,
Sit aged Crone, and thoughtless Lout,
And child upon his three-foot stool,

Waiting till his supper cool;

And maid, whose cheek outblooms the rose,

* Though this Poem was written before the publication of Mr Wordsworth's last volumes, no part of which, either in manuscript or any other form, the writer of this had ever seen, there is certainly a similarity in some of its thoughts to his very pleasing poem of the Kitten and the Fallen Leaves.

As bright the blazing faggot glows,
Who, bending to the friendly light,
Plies her task with busy sleight;

Come, show thy tricks and sportive graces,
Thus circled round with merry faces.

Backward coil'd, and crouching low,
With glaring eye-balls watch thy foe,
The housewife's spindle whirling round,
Or thread, or straw, that on the ground
Its shadow throws, by urchin sly
Held out to lure thy roving eye;
Then, onward stealing, fiercely spring
Upon the futile, faithless thing.

Now, wheeling round, with bootless skill,

Thy bo-peep tail provokes thee still,

As oft beyond thy curving side

Its jetty tip is seen to glide;

Till, from thy centre starting far,
Thou sidelong rear'st, with rump in air,
Erected stiff, and gait awry,

Like madam in her tantrums high:
Though ne'er a madam of them all
Whose silken kirtle sweeps the hall,
More varied trick and whim displays,
To catch the admiring stranger's gaze.

Doth power in measured verses dwell, All thy vagaries wild to tell?

Ah no! the start, the jet, the bound,
The giddy scamper round and round,
With leap, and jerk, and high curvet,
And many a whirling somerset,
(Permitted be the modern muse
Expression technical to use)

These mock the deftest rhymester's skill,
But poor in art, though rich in will.

The featest tumbler, stage-bedight, To thee is but a clumsy wight, Who every limb and sinew strains To do what costs thee little pains, For which, I trow, the gaping crowd Requites him oft with plaudits loud. But, stopped the while thy wanton play, Applauses, too, thy feats repay: For then, beneath some urchin's hand, With modest pride thou tak'st thy stand,

While many a stroke of fondness glides
Along thy back and tabby sides.
Dilated swells thy glossy fur,
And loudly sings thy busy pur;
As, timing well the equal sound,
Thy clutching feet bepat the'ground,
And all their harmless claws disclose,
Like prickles of an early rose;

While softly from thy whiskered cheek
Thy half-closed eyes peer mild and meek.
But, not alone by cottage fire
Do rustics rude thy feats admire;
The learned sage, whose thoughts explore
The widest range of human lore,
Or, with unfettered fancy, fly
Through airy heights of poesy,
Pausing, smiles with altered air.
To see thee climb his elbow chair,
Or, struggling on the mat below,
Hold warfare with his slipper'd toe.
The widow'd dame, or lonely maid,
Who in the still, but cheerless shade
Of home unsocial, spends her age,
And rarely turns a lettered page;
Upon her hearth for thee lets fall
The rounded cork, or paper ball,
Nor chides thee on thy wicked watch
The ends of ravell'd skein to catch,
But lets thee have thy wayward will,
Perplexing oft her sober skill.
Even he, whose mind of gloomy bent,
In lonely tower or prison pent,
Reviews the coil of former days,
And loaths the world and all its ways;
What time the lamp's` unsteady gleam
Doth rouse him from his moody dream,
Feels, as thou gambol'st round his seat,
His heart with pride less fiercely beat,
And smiles, a link in thee to find
That joins him still to living kind.

Whence hast thou then, thou witless puss,
The magic power to charm us thus ?
Is it, that in thy glaring eye,
And rapid movements, we descry,
While we at ease, secure from ill,
The chimney corner snugly fill,

VOL. I. PART II.

A lion, darting on the prey,
A tyger, at his ruthless play?
Or, is it, that in thee we trace,
With all thy varied wanton grace,
An emblem view'd with kindred eye,
Of tricksy, restless infancy?
Ah! many a lightly-sportive child,
Who hath, like thee, our wits beguil❜d,
To dull and sober manhood grown,
With strange recoil our hearts disown.
Even so, poor Kit! must thou endure,
When thou becom'st a cat demure,
Full many a cuff and angry word,
Chid roughly from the tempting board.
And yet, for that thou hast, I ween,
So oft our favoured playmate been,
Soft be the change which thou shalt prove,
When time hath spoiled thee of our love;
Still be thou deem'd, by housewife fat,
A comely, careful, mousing cat,
Whose dish is, for the public good,
Replenish'd oft with sav'ry food.

Nor, when thy span of life is past,
Be thou to pond or dunghill cast;
But gently borne on good man's spade,
Beneath the decent sod be laid,

And children show, with glist'ning eyes,
The place where poor old Pussy lies.

THE HEATHCOCK.* JOANNA BAILLIE.

Good morrow to thy sable beak,
And glossy plumage, dark and sleek,
Thy crimson moon, and azure eye,
Cock of the Heath, so wildly shy!
I see thee, slyly cowering through
The wiry web of silver dew,
That twinkles in the morning air,
Like casement of my lady fair.

Music for this and the succeeding Song by Miss Baillie, will be found in Mc Thomson's Collection of Welch Airs, adapted by Haydn.

A maid there is in yonder tower,
Who, peeping from her early bower,
Half shows, like thee with simple wile,
Her braided hair, and morning smile.
The rarest things, with wayward will,
Beneath the covert hide them still;
The rarest things to light of day,
Look shortly forth, and shrink away.
A fleeting moment of delight,
I sunn'd me in her cheering sight;
And short, I ween, the time will be,
That I shall parley hold with thee.
Through Snowdon's mist red beams the day,
The climbing herd-boy chaunts his lay,
The gnat-flies dance their sunny ring,
Thou art already on the wing.

SONG JOANNA BAILLIE.

O! WELCOME bat, and owlet grey,
Thus winging low your airy way;
And welcome moth, and drowsy fly,
That to mine ear come humming by;
And welcome shadows long and deep,
And stars that from the blue sky peep;
Oh, welcome all! to me ye say,
My woodland love is on her way.
Upon the soft wind floats her hair,
Her breath is in the dewy air,
Her steps are in the whisper'd sound
That steals along the stilly ground.
Oh, dawn of day, in rosy bower,
What art thou to this witching hour!
Oh, noon of day, in sunshine bright,
What art thou to this fall of night!

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