O GIVE me music -for

my

soul doth faint;

I'm sick of noise and care, and now mine ear
Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint,
That may the spirit from its cell unsphere.

Hark how it falls! and now it steals along,
Like distant bells upon the lake at eve,
When all is still; and now it grows more strong,
As when the choral train their dirges weave,
Mellow and many-voiced; where every close,
O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves re-
flows.

Oh! I am wrapt aloft. My spirit soars

Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind.
Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,
And floating paæans fill the buoyant wind.

Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed,
Far from its clayey cell it springs,—

AND must thou go, and must we part?
Yes, Fate decrees, and I submit ;
pang that rends in twain my heart,
Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it?

The

Thy sex is fickle, when away,

Some happier youth may win thy

АH! who can say, however fair his view,
Through what sad scenes his path may lie?
Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh,
Secure his own will never need it too?

Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue,
Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye
The illusive past and dark futurity;

The low and pensive wires,

Robbed of its cunning, from the task retires.

The spirit which its slumbers broke

Hath passed away,- and that weak hand that woke

Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.

Yet I would press you to my lips once more,
Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poesy;
Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours: for to me
Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy,
As in the wood-paths of my native —

WHEN high romance o'er every wood and stream
Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire,
Spell-struck, and filled with many a wondering dream
First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre.
All there was mystery then, the gust that woke
The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge,
And unseen fairies would the moon invoke
To their light morrice by the restless surge.
Now to my sobered thought with life's false smiles,
Too much

The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.

ONCE more, and yet once more,

I give unto my harp a dark-woven lay;

I heard the waters roar,

I heard the flood of ages pass away.

O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell
In thine eternal cell,

Noting, gray chronicler! the silent years,

I saw thee rise,-I saw the scroll complete ;
Thou spakest, and at thy feet

The universe gave way.

FRAGMENT OF AN ECCENTRIC DRAMA.

WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.

THE DANCE OF THE CONSUMPTIVES.

DING-DONG! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells,
Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Over the heath, over the moor, and over the dale, "Swinging slow with sullen roar,"

Dance, dance away the jocund roundelay!
Ding-dong, ding-dong calls us away.

Round the oak, and round the elm,

Merrily foot it o'er the ground!

The sentry ghost it stands aloof,
So merrily, merrily foot it round.
Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells,
Swelling in the nightly gale,

The sentry ghost,

It keeps its post,

And soon, and soon our sports must fail:

But let us trip the nightly ground,

While the merry, merry bells ring round.

Hark! Hark! the deathwatch ticks!
See, see, the winding-sheet!

Our dance is done,

Our race is run,

And we must lie at the alder's feet!

Ding-dong! ding-dong!

Merry, merry go the bells, Swinging o'er the weltering wave! And we must seek

Our deathbeds bleak,

Where the green sod grows upon the

grave.

They vanish-The Goddess of Consumption descends, habited in a sky-blue robe, attended by mournful music.

Come, Melancholy, sister mine!

Cold the dews, and chill the night!

Come from thy dreary shrine!

The wan moon climbs the heavenly height,

And underneath her sickly ray

Troops of squalid spectres play,

And the dying mortals' groan

Startles the night on her dusky throne.

Come, come, sister mine!

Gliding on the pale moonshine:

We'll ride at ease

On the tainted breeze,

And oh! our sport will be divine.

The Goddess of Melancholy advances out of a deep glen in the rear, habited in black, and covered with a thick veil. speaks.

She