SONNET TO THE MOON.

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.

SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge
Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
As, sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale
Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge.
Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight,
And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way,
Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night,
With double joy my homage do I pay.
When clouds disguise the glories of the day,
And stern November sheds her boisterous blight,
How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray
Shoot through the mist from the ethereal height,
And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring
The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.

SONNET WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE OF
A FRIEND.

FAST from the west the fading day-streaks fly,
And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway,

Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,

And o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay. Oh! 'tis not long since, George, with thee I wooed The maid of musings by yon moaning wave;

And Lail'd the moon's mild beam, which, now re

newed,

Seems sweetly sleeping on thy silent grave!
The busy world pursues its boisterous way,
The noise of revelry still echoes round,
Yet I am sad while all beside is gay;

Yet still I weep o'er thy deserted mound.
Oh! that, like thee, I might bid sorrow cease,
And 'neath the greensward sleep the sleep of peace.

SONNET TO MISFORTUNE.

MISFORTUNE, I am young, my chin is bare,
And I have wondered much when men have told,
How youth was free from sorrow and from care,
That thou shouldst dwell with me, and leave the
old.

Sure dost not like me!. Shrivelled hag of hate,
My phiz, (and thanks to thee,) is sadly long;
I am not either, beldame, over strong;
Nor do I wish at all to be thy mate,
For thou, sweet Fury, art my utter hate.
Nay, shake not thus thy miserable pate;
I am yet young, and do not like thy face;
And, lest thou shouldst resume the wild-goose chase,
I'll tell thee something all thy heat to assuage,
-Thou wilt not hit my fancy in my age.

SONNET.

As thus oppressed with many a heavy care,
(Though young yet sorrowful), I turn my feet
To the dark woodland, longing much to greet
The form of Peace, if chance she sojourn there;
Deep thought and dismal, verging to despair,

Fills my sad breast; and, tired with this vain coil,
I shrink dismayed before life's upland toil.

And as, amid the leaves, the evening air

Whispers still melody, — I think ere long,

When I no more can hear, these woods will speak; And then a sad smile plays upon my cheek, And mournful phantasies upon me throng, And I do ponder, with most strange delight, On the calm slumbers of the dead man's night.

SONNET TO APRIL.

EMBLEM of life! see changeful April sail
In varying vest along the shadowy skies,
Now bidding summer's softest zephyrs rise,
Anon recalling winter's stormy gale,

And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail;

Then, smiling through the tear that dims her eyes, While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes, Promise of sunshine, not so prone to fail.

So, to us, sojourners in life's low vale,

The smiles of fortune flatter to deceive,

While still the fates the web of misery weave.
So Hope exultant spreads her aëry sail,
And from the present gloom the soul conveys
To distant summers and far happier days.

SONNET.

YE unseen spirits, whose wild melodies,
At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear,
Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear,
As by the wood-spring stretched supine he lies;
When he, who now invokes you, low is laid,

His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed; Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head,

And chant a dirge to his reposing shade!

For he was wont to love your madrigals;
And often by the haunted stream, that laves
The dark sequestered woodland's inmost caves,
Would sit and listen to the dying falls,

Till the full tear would quiver in his eye,

And his big heart would heave with mournful

ecstasy.

SONNET TO A TAPER.

"TIS midnight. On the globe dead slumber sits,
And all is silence - in the hour of sleep;
Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits,
In the dark wood roars fearfully and deep.
I wake alone to listen and to weep,

To watch my taper, thy pale beacon burn;
And, as still Memory does her vigils keep,

To think of days that never can return. By thy pale ray I raise my languid head, My eye surveys the solitary gloom; And the sad meaning tear, unmixed with dread, Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb. Like thee I wane; like thine my life's last ray Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away.

SONNET TO MY MOTHER.

AND canst thou, Mother, for a moment think That we, thy children, when old age shall shed Its blanching honours on thy weary head,

Could from our best of duties ever shrink? Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, To pine in solitude thy life away,

Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink.