TO THE GNAT.

WHEN by the green-wood side, at summer eve,

Poetic visions charm my closing eye;

And fairy-scenes, that Fancy loves to weave,

Shift to wild notes of sweetest Minstrelsy;

Tis thine to range in busy quest of prey,

Thy feathery antlers quivering with delight,

Brush from my lids the hues of heav'n away,
And all is Solitude, and all is Night!

-Ah now thy barbed shaft, relentless fly,

Unsheaths its terrors in the sultry air!

No guardian sylph, in golden panoply,

Lifts the broad shield, and points the glittering spear.

Now near and nearer rush thy whirring wings,

Thy dragon-scales still wet with human gore.
Hark, thy shrill horn its fearful larum flings!
-I wake in horror, and dare sleep no more!'

ΤΟ

THE BUTTERFLY.

CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,

Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;

And, where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold.
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening-sky,

Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!

-Yet wert thou once a worm, a thing that crept

On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept!

And such is man; soon from his cell of clay

To burst a seraph in the blaze of day!

CAPTIVITY.

CAG'D in old woods, whose reverend echoes wake

When the hern screams along the distant lake,

Her little heart oft flutters to be free,

Oft sighs to turn the unrelenting key.

In vain! the nurse that rusted relic wears,

Nor mov'd by gold-nor to be mov'd by tears;
And terrac'd walls their black reflection throw
On the green-mantled moat that sleeps below.