ON A TEAR.

OH! that the Chemist's magic art Could crystallize this sacred treasure! Long should it glitter near my heart, A secret source of pensive pleasure.

The little brilliant, ere it fell,

Its lustre caught from CHLOE's eye;

Then, trembling, left its coral cell-
The spring of Sensibility!

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!
In thee the rays of Virtue shine;
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,

Than any gem that gilds the mine.

Benign restorer of the soul!

Who ever fly'st to bring relief,

When first we feel the rude controul

Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.

The sage's and the poet's theme,
In every clime, in every age;
Thou charm'st in Fancy's idle dream,
In Reason's philosophic page.

That very law * which moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source,

That law preserves the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course. *The law of gravitation.

TO

A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST.*

Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor?
Aëris et linguæ sum filia;

Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. AUSONIUS.

ONCE
NCE more, Enchantress of the soul,

Once more we hail thy soft controul.
-Yet whither, whither didst thou fly?

To what bright region of the sky?
Say, in what distant star to dwell?
(Of other worlds thou seem'st to tell)
Or trembling, fluttering here below,
Resolved and unresolved to go,
In secret dist thou still impart

Thy raptures to the pure in heart?

Perhaps to many a desert shore,

Thee, in his rage, the Tempest bore;

* In the winter of 1805.

Thy broken murmurs swept along,
Mid Echoes yet untuned by song;

Arrested in the realms of Frost,

Or in the wilds of Ether lost.

Far happier thou! 'twas thine to soar, Careering on the winged wind.

Thy triumphs who shall dare explore?

Suns and their systems left behind.

No tract of space, no distant star,

No shock of elements at war,

Did thee detain. Thy wing of fire

Bore thee amidst the Cherub-choir;
And there awhile to thee 'twas given
Once more that Voice* beloved to join,
Which taught thee first a flight divine,
And nursed thy infant years with many a

strain from Heaven!

* Mrs. Sheridan's.

WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,

And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,

See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.

Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,

And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.