Oh, that I were but in my grave,
And winds were piping o'er me loud,
And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,
Wert nestling in thy mother's shroud!

THE LULLABY

OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD, THE NIGHT PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION.

*SLEEP Baby mine, enkerchieft on my bosom,
Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast;
Sleep Baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother,
To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.

Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining,
Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled;
Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning,
And I would fain compose my aching head.

Poor wayward wretch! and who`will heed thy weeping,
When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be:
Who then will soothe thee, when thy mother's sleeping,
In her low grave of shame and infamy!

* Sir Philip Sidney has a Poem beginning "Sleep Baby mine."

Sleep, Baby mine-To-morrow I must leave thee, And I would snatch an interval of rest;

Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee,

For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.

POEMS,

WRITTEN DURING, OR SHORTLY AFTER, THE PUBLICATION

OF

CLIFTON GROVE.

ODE,

ADDRESSED TO H. FUSELI, ESQ. R. A.

On seeing Engravings from his Designs.

MIGHTY Magician! who on Torneo's brow, When sullen tempests wrap the throne of night, Art wont to sit and catch the gleam of light That shoots athwart the gloom opaque below; And listen to the distant death-shriek long

From lonely mariner foundering in the deep, Which rises slowly up the rocky steep, While the weird sisters weave the horrid song: Or when along the liquid sky

Serenely chaunt the orbs on high,

Dost love to sit in musing trance
And mark the northern meteor's dance,

(While far below the fitful oar

Flings its faint pauses on the steepy shore.)

And list the music of the breeze,

That sweeps by fits the bending seas;

And often bears with sudden swell

The shipwreck'd sailor's funeral knell,

By the spirits sung who keep

Their night watch on the treacherous deep,