Yet still Content with him may dwell
Whom Hymen will not bless,

And Virtue sojourn in the cell
Of hermit Happiness.

Bristol, 1793.

REMEMBRANCE.

The remembrance of Youth is a sigh.

ALI.

MAN hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends,
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends;
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,

And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.

To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms,..

What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemn'd to suffer through the day

Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,
Hope lengthens as she counts the hours
Before his wish'd return.

From hard controul and tyrant rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
In thought he loves to roam,
And tears will struggle in his eye
While he remembers with a sigh

The comforts of his home.

Youth comes; the toils and cares of life
Torment the restless mind;

Where shall the tired and harass'd heart
Its consolation find?

Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah no! for hopes too long delay'd
And feelings blasted or betray'd,
It's fabled bliss destroy ;
And Youth remembers with a sigh
The careless days of Infancy.

Maturer Manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of Youth
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of Youth.

So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await,
And old Experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.

Life's vain delusions are gone by

Its idle hopes are o'er,

Yet age remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.

Westbury, 1798.

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.

DACTYLICS.

WEARY way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart,
Travelling painfully over the rugged road,
Wild-visaged Wanderer! God help thee wretched
one!

Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed, Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back, Meagre and livid and screaming for misery.

* Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony, As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe, Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy hagged face.

Ne'er will thy husband return from the war again,
Cold is thy heart and as frozen as Charity!
Cold are thy children.--Now God be thy comforter !
Bristol, 1795.

* This Stanza was written by S. T. COLERIDGE.

THE WIDOW.

SAPPHICS.

COLD was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell, Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked, When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey, Weary and way-sore.

Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflections;
Cold was the night-wind, colder was her bosom :
She had no home, the world was all before her,
She had no shelter.

Fast o'er the heath a chariot rattled by her,
"Pity me!" feebly cried the lonely wanderer;

Pity me, strangers! lest with cold and hunger
Here I should perish.

"Once I had friends,— though now by all forsaken!
Once I had parents,-they are now in Heaven!
I had a home once-I had once a husband-
Pity me, strangers!

I had a home once-I had once a husbandI am a widow, poor and broken-hearted!" Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining, On drove the chariot.