Melting in melody;-and I descried,
Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?
WHAT art thou, MIGHTY ONE! and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud, and wind,
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,
Or on the red wing of the fierce Monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span
Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan
Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood? Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.
BE hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,
Ye pelting rains a little rest;
Lie still, lie still, ye busy thoughts,
That wring with grief my aching breast.
Oh, cruel was my faithless love,
To triumph o'er an artless maid:
Oh, cruel was my faithless love,
To leave the breast by him betray'd.
When exil'd from my native home,
He should have wip'd the bitter tear;
Nor left me faint and lone to roam,
A heart-sick weary wand'rer here.
My child moans sadly in my arms,
The winds they will not let it sleep;
Ah, little knows the hapless babe
What makes its wretched mother weep!
Now lie thee still, my infant dear,
I cannot bear thy sobs to see, Harsh is thy father, little one, And never will he shelter thee. 10
Oh, that I were but in my grave,
And winds were piping o'er me loud,
And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,
Were nestling in thy mother's shroud!
OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD, THE NIGHT PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION.
SLEEP, Baby mine,* enkerchieft on my bosom,
Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast;
Sleep, Baby mine, not long thou❜lt have a mother
To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.
Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining,
Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled;
Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning,
And I would fain compose my aching head.
Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weeping,
When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be:
Who then will sooth thee, when thy mother's sleeping
In her low grave of shame and infamy!
* Sir Philip Sidney has a poem beginning," Sleep, Baby mine."
Sleep, Baby mine-To-morrow I must leave thee, And I would snatch an interval of rest;
Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee,
For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.
WRITTEN DURING, OR SHORTLY AFTER, THE PUBLICATION OF
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