Thy singed top and branches bare
Now straggle in the evening-sky;
And the wan moon wheels round to glare
On the long corse that shivers there
Of him who came to die!

ΤΟ

AH! little thought she, when, with wild delight,
By many a torrent's shining track she flew,
When mountain-glens and caverns full of night
O'er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

That in her veins a secret horror slept,

That her light footsteps should be heard no more,
That she should die-nor watched, alas, nor wept
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew
The kindred forms her closing eye required.
There didst thou stand-there, with the smile she knew;
She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired.

And now to thee she comes; still, still the same
As in the hours gone unregarded by!

To thee, how changed, comes as she ever came;
Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

Nor less, less oft, as on that day, appears,
When lingering, as prophetic of the truth,
By the way-side she shed her parting tears-
For ever lovely in the light of Youth!

* On the death of her sister in 1805.

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

ONCE 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?

*In the winter of 1805.

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 didst thou still impart
Thy raptures to the pure in heart?
Perhaps to many a desert shore,
Thee, in his rage, the Tempest bore;
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 amid 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.

ΤΟ

THE YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF LADY **

1800.

AH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal*
What most her blushes would conceal ?
Why lift that modest veil to trace
The seraph-sweetness of her face?
Some fairer, better sport prefer;
And feel for us, if not for her.

For this presumption, soon or late,
Know thine shall be a kindred fate.
Another shall in vengeance rise-
Sing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes;
And, echoing back her wood-notes wild,
-Trace all the mother in the child!

* Alluding to some verses which she had written on an elder sister.