The pledge we wore-I wear it still,

But where is thine ?-ah, where art thou? On have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now! Well hast thou left in life's best bloom

The cup of woe for me to drain. If rest alone be in the lomb,

I would not wish thee here again; But if in worlds more blest than this

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere, Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me—too early tanghe by thee !

To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me,

It fain would form my hope in heaven!

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;

Man was not form'd to live alone: I'll be that light unmeaning thing

That smiles with all and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou Hast fied, and left me lonely here;

Thou 'rt nothing, all are nothing now. In vain my lyre would lightly breathe !

The smile that sorrow fain would wear, But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,

Like roses o'er a scpulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl

Dispel a while the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,

The heart-the heart is lonely suli! On many a lone and lovely night

It soothed to gaze upon the sky; For then I decm'd the heavenly light

Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye; And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,

When sailing o'er the Ægean wave, “Now Thyrza gazes on that moon—"

Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

a

STANZAS. Away, away, ye notos of woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing strain, Or I must fee from hence, for, oh!

I dare not trust those sounds again. To me they speak of brighter days

But lull the chords, for now, alas! I must not think, I may not gaze

On what I am, on what I was. I'he voice that made those sounds more sweet

Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled;
And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead!
Ses, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,

Beloved dust! since dust thou art;
And all that once was harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart ! Tis silent all !—but on my ear

The well-remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still ; Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake:

Even slumber owns its gentle tone, Till consciousness will vainly wake

To listen, though the dream be flown. Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep,

Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he who through life's dreary way

Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.

When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,

And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, " "T is comfort still," I faintly said,

“That Thyrza cannot know my pains :" Like freedom to the time-worn slave,

A boon 't is idle then to give, Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life when Thyrza ceased to live! My Thyrza's pledge in better days,

When love and life alike were new, How different now thou nicet'st my gaze!

How tinged by time with sorrow's hue! The heart that gave itself with thee

Is silent-ah, were mine as still ! Though cold as even the dead can be,

It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!

Though painful, welcome to my breast! Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou 'rt prest' Time tempers love, but not removes,

More hallow'd when its hope is fled: Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

TO THYRZA. ONE struggle more, and I am freo

From pangs that rend my heart in twain, One last long sigh to love and thee,

Thien back 10 busy life again. It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

EUTHANASIA. When time, or soon or late, shall bring

The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion ! may thy languid wing

Wave gently o'er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there,

To wecp or wish the coming blow; No maiden, with dishevell d hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to earth,

With no officious mourners near : I would not mar one hour of mirth,

Nor starile friendship with a fear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour

Could nobly check ils useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives and him who dics. T were sweet, my Psyche, to the last

Thy features still serene to see : Forgetful of its struggles past,

Even Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish--for Beauty stiil

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will,

Deceive in life, unman in death.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine;
The sun that cheers, the storm that lours,

Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.
The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd

Must fall the earliest prey ;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,

The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,

Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.
I know not if I could have borne

To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed ;
Το gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan ! For thousands death hath ceased to lour,

And pain been transient or unknown. " Ay, but to die, and go,” alas !

Where all have gone, and all must go ! To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,

Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been,

'T is something better not to be.

Yet how much less it were to gain,

Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain,

Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread eternity,

Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

STANZAS.
Hes! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!"
And thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth ;
And form so sofi, and charms so rare,

Too soon relurn'd to earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread

In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low,

Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:
li is enough for me to prove
That what I loved, and long must .ove,

Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
"T is nothing that I loved so wel.
Yet did I love thee to the last

As servently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,

And canst not alter now.
The love where death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:
And what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

STANZAS.

If sometimes in the haunts of men

Thine image from my breast may fade, The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentlc shade: And now that sad and silent hour

Thus much of thee can still restore, And sorrow unobserved may pour

The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile,

I waste one tlmught I owe to thee, And, self-condemu'd, appear to smile.

Unfaithful to thy memory!

Nor deem that memory less dear,

That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear

One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If so, it never shall be mine

To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fauli, not thine,

Which made thee fickle as thou art.

As rolls the ocean's changing tide,

So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide

Where stormy passions ever glow?

If not the goblet pass unquaff’d,

It is not drain'd to banish care,
The cup must hold a deadlier draught

That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free, I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl

That drown'd a single thought of thee. For wert thou banish'd from my mind,

Where could my vacant bosom turn? And who would then remain behind

To honour thine abandon'd urn ? No, no—it is my sorrow's pride

That last dear duty to fulfil; Though all the world forget beside,

'Tis mect that I remember still.

It boots not that, together bred,

Our childish days were days of joy; My spring of life has quickly fled;

Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy.

And when we bid adieu to youth,

Slaves to the specious world's control, We sigh a long farewell to truth;

That world corrupts the noblest soul. Ah, joyous season! when the mind

Dares all things boldly but to lie; When thoughi, ere spoke, is unconfined,

And sparkles in the placid eye.

For well I know, that such had been

Thy gentle care for him, who now Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene,

Where none regarded him, but thou : And, oh! I feel in that was given

A blessing never meant for me; Thou wert loo like a dream of heaven,

For earthly love to merit thee. Alarch 14th, 1812.

Not so in man's maturer years,

When man himself is but a tool; When interest sways our hopes and fears,

And all must love or hate by rule.

With fools in kindred vice the same,

We learn at length our faults to blend, And those, and those alonc, may claim

The prostituted name of friend.

ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS

BROKEN,
ILL-FATED heart! and can it be

That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain?
Have years of care for thine and thee

Alike been all employ'd in vain ?

Such is the common lot of man:

Can we then 'scape from folly free? Can we reverse the general plan,

Nor be what all in turn must be?

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part,

And every fragment dearer grown, Since he who wcars thee feels thou art

A fitter emblem of his own.

No, for myself, so dark my fate

Through every turn of life hath been; Man and the world I so much hate,

I care not when I quit the scene.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,

Wilt shine awhile, and pass away; As glow-worms sparkle through the night

But dare not stand the test of day.

TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND.
This poem and the following were written some years ago.)
Few years have pass'd since thou and I

Were firmest friends, at least in name,
And childhood's gay sincerity

Preserved our feelings long the same.

Alas! whenever folly calls

Where parasites and princes meet, (For cherish'd first in royal halls,

The welcome vices kindly greet),

But now, like me, too well thou know'st

What trifles of the heart recall; And those who once have loved the most

Too soon forget they loved at all.

Even now tnou 'rt nightly seen to add

One insect to the fluttering crowd; And still thy trifling heart is glad,

To join the vain and court the proud,

And such the change the heart displays,

So irail is early friendship's reign, A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's,

Will view thy mind estranged again.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,

Still simpering on with eager baste, As flies along the gay parterre,

That taint the flowers they scarcely taste. But say,

To death even hours like these must rola;

Ah! then repeat those accents never; Or change “my lite" into "my soul!"

Which, like my love, exists for ever.

what nymph will prize the flame Which seems, as marshy vapours move, To flit along from dame to dame,

An ignis-fatuus gleam of love? What friend for thee, howe'er inclined,

Will deign to own a kindred care? Who will debase his manly mind,

For friendship every fool may share? In time forbear; amidst the throng

No more so base a thing be seen; No more so idly pass along:

Be something, any thing, but—mean.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND. WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits,

Her dusky shadow mounts too higa, And o'er the changing aspect fits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that groom, which soon shall sink :

My thoughts their dungeon know loo well; Back to my breast the wanderers shrink

And droop within their silent cell.

TO *****
WELL! thou art happy, and I feel

That I should thus be happy tov;
For still my heart regards thy weal

Warmly, as it was wont to do.
Thy husband's blest—and 't will impart

Some pangs to view his happier lot:
But let them pass-Oh! how my heart

Would hate him, if he loved thee not ! When late I saw thy favourite child,

I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled,

I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake.
I kiss'd it, and repress’d my sighs,

Its father in its face to see ;
But then it had its mother's eyes,

And they were all to love and me.
Mary, adieu! I must away :

While thou art blest, I 'll not repine; Bore near thee I can never stay ;

My hcart would soon again bc thine. I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride

Had quench'd at length my boyish flame; Nor knew, till sea:ed by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same. Yet was I calm : I knew the time

My breast would thrill before thy look; But now to tremble were a crime

We met, and not a nerve was shook. I saw thee gaze upon my face,

Yet meet with no confusion there: One only feeling couldst thou trace

The sulien calmness of despair. Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream?

My foolish heart, be still, or break.

ADDRESS,
SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LAXE

THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.
In one dread night our city saw, and sigh’d,
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride :
In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.
Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd,

Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!)
Through clouds of fire, the massy fragments riven,
Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven;
Saw the long column of revolving flames
Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,
While thousands, throng'd around the burning done,
Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home,
As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shonn
The skies with lightnings awful as their own,
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall

Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall;
Say-shah this new, nor less aspiring pile,
Reard where once rose the mightiest in our isle,
Know the same favour which the former knew,
A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you ?

Yes—it shall be—the magic of that name Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame; On the same spot still consecrates the scene, And bids the Drama be where she hath been : This fabric's birth attests the potent spellIndulge our honest pride, and say, How well !

As soars this fane to emulate the last,
Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast
Names such as hallow still the donne we lost,
On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art
O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest lienri.
On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew;
Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,
Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu

But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom
That only waste their odours v'er the tomb.
Such Drury claim's and claims-por you refuse
One tribute to vive his slumbering muse;
With garlands deck your own Menander's head!
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead !

FROM THE PORTUGUESE. Is moments to delig!it devoted,

“My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words on which my heart had doted, If you:h could neither fade nor die.

2 x ? 72