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She whom in joy, in grief you nursed;

Who climbed and called you father first,
By that dear name conjures-

On her you thought-but to be kind!
When looked she up, but you inclined?
These things, for ever in her mind,
Oh are they gone from yours?

Two kneeling at your feet behold;

One-one how young;-nor yet the other old. Oh spurn them not-nor look so cold

If Jacqueline be cast away,

Her bridal be her dying day.

-Well, well might she believe in you!
She listened, and she found it true."

He shook his aged locks of snow;

And twice he turned, and rose to go.
She hung; and was St. Pierre to blame,

If tears and smiles at length together came?
"Oh no-begone! I'll hear no more."
But, as he spoke, his voice relented.

"That very look thy mother wore

When she implored, and old Le Roc consented. True, I have done, as well as suffered wrong.

Yet still I love him as my own!

-Nor can'st thou, D'Arcy, feel resentment long;
For she herself shall plead, and I atone.
Henceforth," he paused awhile, unmanned,

For D'Arcy's tears bedewed his hand;
"Let each meet each, as friend to friend,

All things by all forgot, forgiven.

And that dear Saint-may she once more descend

To make our home a heaven!

But now, in my hands, yours with hers unite.

A father's blessing on your heads alight!

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Nor let the least be sent away.

All hearts shall sing Adieu to sorrow!'

St. Pierre has found his child to-day;
And old and young shall dance to-morrow."

Had Louis* then before the gate dismounted,
Lost in the chase at set of sun;

Like Henry when he heard recounted†

The generous deeds himself had done,

*Louis the Fourteenth.

Alluding to a popular story related of Henry the Fourth of France; similar to ours of "The King and Miller of Mansfield."

(What time the miller's maid Colette

Sung, while he supped, her chansonnette)

Then when St. Pierre addressed his village-train,
Then had the monarch with a sigh confessed

A joy by him unsought and unpossessed,
-Without it what are all the rest?-

To love, and to be loved again.

ODE TO SUPERSTITION.

WRITTEN IN 1785.

I. 1.

HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence!

Thy chain of adamant can bind

That little world, the human mind,

And sink its noblest powers to impotence.
Wake the lion's loudest roar,

Clot his shaggy mane with gore,

With flashing fury bid his eyeballs shine;

Meek is his savage, sullen soul, to thine!

Thy touch, thy deadening touch, has steeled the

breast,

Whence, thro' her April shower, soft Pity smiled; Has closed the heart each godlike virtue blessed,

To all the silent pleadings of his child.*

At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, tho' Nature bids him weep!

*The sacrifice of Iphigenia.

I. 2.

When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,*

Thou dartedst thy huge head from high,

Night waved her banners o'er the sky,

And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth. Rocking on the billowy air,

Ha! what withering phantoms glare!

As blows the blast with many a sudden swell,

At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by; In every grove is felt a heavier gloom, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: The spirit of the water rides the storm, And, thro' the mist, reveals the terrors of his form.

I. 3.

O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns,

And holds each mountain-wave in chains,

The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer
By glistering starlight thro' the snow,
Breathes softly in her wondering ear
Each potent spell thou bad'st him know.

* Lucretius, I. 63.

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