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But now,
in my hands, your's with her's unite.
A father's blessing on your heads alight!
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 2
The generous deeds himself had done,
(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.3

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 eye-balls 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.4 At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, tho' Nature bids him weep!

I. 2.

When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth5,
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 star-light thro' the snow, Breathes softly in her wondering ear Each potent spell thou bad'st him know.

1 Louis the Fourteenth.

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

3 Written in early youth. 4 The sacrifice of Iphigenia.

5 Lucretius, I. 63.

By thee inspired, on India's sands,
Full in the sun the Bramin stands ;.
And, while the panting tigress hies
To quench her fever in the stream,
His spirit laughs in agonies,

Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam.
Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,6
Blooming in her bridal vest :

She hurls the torch! she fans the fire!
To die is to be blest :

She clasps her lord to part no more,
And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar.
O'ershadowing Scotia's desert coast,
The Sisters sail in dusky state,7
And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost,
Weave the airy web of Fate;

While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,8 Sees o'er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train.

II. 1.

Thou spak'st, and lo! a new creation glowed.
Each unhewn mass of living stone
Was clad in horrors not its own,

And at its base the trembling nations bowed.
Giant Error, darkly grand,

Grasped the globe with iron hand.
Circled with seats of bliss, the Lord of Light
Saw prostrate worlds adore his golden height.
The statue, waking with immortal powers,9
Springs from its parent earth, and shakes the
spheres ;

The indignant pyramid sublimely towers,
And braves the efforts of a host of years.
Sweet Music breathes her soul into the wind;
And bright-eyed Painting stamps the image of
the mind.

II.2.

Round the rude ark old Egypt's sorcerers rise !
A timbrelled anthem swells the gale,
And bids the God of Thunders hail; 10
With lowings loud the captive God replies.
Clouds of incense woo thy smile,
Scaly monarch of the Nile!"

But ah! what myriads claim the bended knee ! 2
Go count the busy drops that swell the sea.
Proud land! what eye can trace thy mystic lore,
Locked up in characters as dark as night ?13
What eye those long, long labyrinths dare explore,14
To which the parted soul oft wings her flight;
Again to visit her cold cell of clay,
Charmed with perennial sweets, and smiling at
decay?

II. 3.

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On dazzling bursts of heavenly fire;
Start at each blue, portentous blaze,
Each flame that flits with adverse spire.
But say, what sounds my ear invade
From Delphi's venerable shade?
The temple rocks, the laurel waves !
"The God! the God!" the Sibyl cries. '
Her figure swells! she foams, she raves!
Her figure swells to more than mortal size!
Streams of rapture roll along,
Silver notes ascend the skies:
Wake, Echo, wake and catch the song,
Oh catch it, ere it dies!

The Sibyl speaks, the dream is o'er,
The holy harpings charm no more.
In vain she checks the God's controul;
His madding spirit fills her frame,
And moulds the features of her soul,
Breathing a prophetic flame.

The cavern frowns; its hundred mouths unclose!
And, in the thunder's voice, the fate of empire flows!

III. 1.

Mona, thy Druid-rites awake the dead!
Rites thy brown oaks would never dare
Even whisper to the idle air;

Rites that have chained old Ocean on his bed.
Shivered by thy piercing glance,
Pointless falls the hero's lance.

Thy magic bids the imperial eagle fly,2
And blasts the laureate wreath of victory.
Hark, the bard's soul inspires the vocal string!
At every pause dread Silence hovers o'er:
While murky Night sails round on raven-wing,
Deepening the tempest's howl, the torrent's roar;
Chased by the Morn from Snowdon's awful brow,
Where late she sate and scowled on the black wave
below.

III. 2.

Lo, steel-clad War his gorgeous standard rears!
The red-cross squadrons madly rage,3
And mow thro' infancy and age;

Then kiss the sacred dust and melt in tears.
Veiling from the eye of day,
Penance dreams her life away;

In cloistered solitude she sits and sighs,
While from each shrine still, small responses rise.
Hear with what heart-felt beat, the midnight bell
Swings its slow summons thro' the hollow pile!
The weak, wan votarist leaves her twilight cell,
To walk, with taper dim, the winding aisle;
With choral chantings vainly to aspire [fire.
Beyond this nether sphere, on Rapture's wing of

III. 3.

Lord of each pang the nerves can feel, Hence with the rack and reeking wheel. Faith lifts the soul above this little ball! While gleams of glory open round, And circling choirs of angels call, Canst thou, with all thy terrors crowned, Hope to obscure that latent spark, Destined to shine when suns are dark? Thy triumphs cease! thro' every land, Hark! Truth proclaims, thy triumphs cease!

1 Æn. VI. 46, &c.

2 See Tacitus, 1. xiv. c. 29

3 This remarkable event happened at the siege and sack of Jerusalem in the last year of the eleventh century. Matth. Paris, IV. 2.

Her heavenly form, with glowing hand,
Benignly points to piety and peace.
Flushed with youth, her looks impart
Each fine feeling as it flows;
Her voice the echo of a heart

Pure as the mountain-snows:
Celestial transports round her play,
And softly, sweetly die away.
She smiles! and where is now the cloud.
That blackened o'er thy baleful reign?
Grim darkness furls his leaden shroud,

Shrinking from her glance in vain.
Her touch unlocks the day-spring from above,
And lo! it visits man with beams of light and love.

WRITTEN TO BE SPOKEN BY

MRS. SIDDONS.4

YES, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain;
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,
With troubled step to haunt the fatal board,
Where I died last-by poison or the sword;
Blanching each honest cheek with deeds of night,
Done here so oft by dim and doubtful light.
To drop all metaphor, that little bell
Called back reality, and broke the spell.
No heroine claims your tears with tragic tone;
A very woman-scarce restrains her own!
Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind,
When to be grateful is the part assigned?
Ah, no! she scorns the trappings of her Art;
No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart!
But, Ladies, say, must I alone unmask?
Is here no other actress, let me ask.
Believe me, those, who best the heart dissect,
Know every Woman studies stage-effect.
She moulds her manners to the part she fills,
As Instinct teaches, or as Humour wills;
And, as the grave or gay her talent calls,
Acts in the drama, till the curtain falls.

First, how her little breast with triumph swells,
When the red coral rings its golden bells!
To play in pantomime is then the rage,
Along the carpet's many-coloured stage;
Or lisp her merry thoughts with loud endeavour,
Now here, now there,-in noise and mischief ever!

A school-girl next, she curls her hair in papers, And mimics father's gout, and mother's vapours; Discards her doll, bribes Betty for romances; Playful at church, and serious when she dances; Tramples alike on customs and on toes, And whispers all she hears to all she knows ; Terror of caps, and wigs, and sober notions! A romp! that longest of perpetual motions! -Till tamed and tortured into foreign graces, She sports her lovely face at public places; And with blue, laughing eyes, behind her fan, First acts her part with that great actor, MAN.

Too soon a flirt, approach her and she flies! Frowns when pursued, and, when entreated, sighs! Plays with unhappy men as cats with mice; Till fading beauty hints the late advice. Her prudence dictates what her pride disdained, And now she sues to slaves herself had chained!

4 After a Tragedy, performed for her benefit, at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, April 27, 1795.

Then comes that good old character, a Wife, With all the dear, distracting cares of life; A thousand cards a day at doors to leave, And, in return, a thousand cards receive; Rouge high, play deep, to lead the ton aspire, With nightly blaze set PORTLAND-PLACE on fire; Snatch half a glimpse at Concert, Opera, Ball, A meteor, traced by none, tho' seen by all; And, when her shattered nerves forbid to roam, In very spleen-rehearse the girls at home.

Last the grey Dowager, in ancient flounces, With snuff and spectacles the age denounces; Boasts how the Sires of this degenerate Isle Knelt for a look, and duelled for a smile. The scourge and ridicule of Goth and Vandal, Her tea she sweetens, as she sips, with scandal; With modern Belles eternal warfare wages, Like her own birds that clamour from their cages; And shuffles round to bear her tale to all, Like some old Ruin," nodding to its fall!"

Thus WOMAN makes her entrance and her exit; Not least an actress when she least suspects it. Yet Nature oft peeps out and mars the plot, Each lesson lost, each poor pretence forgot; Full oft, with energy that scorns controul, At once lights up the features of the soul; Unlocks each thought chained down by coward Art, And to full day the latent passions start! -And she, whose first, best wish is your applause, Herself exemplifies the truth she draws, Born on the stage-thro' every shifting scene, Obscure or bright, tempestuous or serene, Still has your smile her trembling spirit fired! And can she act, with thoughts like these inspired? Thus from her mind all artifice she flings, All skill, all practice, now unmeaning things! To you, unchecked, each genuine feeling flows; For all that life endears-to you she owes.

FROM EURIPIDES.

THERE is a streamlet issuing from a rock.
The village-girls singing wild madrigals,
Dip their white vestments in its waters clear,
And hang them to the sun. There first I saw her;
There on that day. Her dark and eloquent eyes
'Twas heaven to look upon; and her sweet voice
As tuneable as harp of many strings,

At once spoke joy and sadness to my soul!

Dear is that valley to the murmuring bees;
And all, who know it, come and come again.
The small birds build there; and, at summer-noon,
Oft have I heard a child, gay among flowers,
As in the shining grass she sate concealed,
Sing to herself.

FROM AN ITALIAN SONNET.

LOVE, under Friendship's vesture white,
Laughs, his little limbs concealing;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,
Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles thro' his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!
He frowns, and tempests shake his frame!—
Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,
'Tis Love; and Love is still the same.

A CHARACTER.

As thro' the hedge-row shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.

ASLEEP.

ON.. SLEEP on, and dream of Heaven awhile. Tho' shut so close thy laughing eyes, Thy rosy lips still wear a smile, And move, and breathe delicious sighs!— Ah, now soft blushes tinge her cheeks, And mantle o'er her neck of snow. Ah, now she murmurs, now she speaks What most I wish-and fear to know.

She starts, she trembles, and she weeps!
Her fair hands folded on her breast.
-And now, how like a saint she sleeps!
A seraph in the realms of rest!

Sleep on secure! Above controul,
Thy thoughts belong to Heaven and thee!
And may the secret of thy soul
Remain within its sanctuary!

FROM A GREEK EPIGRAM.

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.

CAPTIVITY.

CAGED 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 moved by gold-nor to be moved by tears;
And terraced walls their black reflection throw
On the green-mantled moat that sleeps below.

WRITTEN AT MIDNIGHT.
1786.

WHILE thro' the broken pane the tempest sighs,
And my step falters on the faithless floor,
Shades of departed joys around me rise,
With many a face that smiles on me no more;
With many a voice that thrills of transport gave,
Now silent as the grass that tufts their grave!

A FAREWELL. 1800.

ONCE more, enchanting maid, adieu!
I must be gone while yet I may.
Oft shall I weep to think of you;
But here I will not, cannot stay.

The sweet expression of that face,
For ever changing, yet the same,
Ah no, I dare not turn to trace-
It melts my soul, it fires my frame!

Yet give me, give me, ere I go,
One little lock of those so blest,
That lend your cheek a warmer glow,
And on your white neck love to rest.

-Say, when, to kindle soft delight,
That hand has chanced with mine to meet,
How could its thrilling touch excite
A sigh so short and yet so sweet?

O say--but no, it must not be.
Adieu! A long, a long adieu!

-Yet still, methinks, you frown on me ; Or never could I fly from you.

THE SAILOR.

THE Sailor sighs as sinks his native shore,
As all its lessening turrets bluely fade;
He climbs the mast to feast his eye once more,
And busy fancy fondly lends her aid.

Ah! now, each dear, domestic scene he knew,
Recalled and cherished in a foreign clime,
Charms with the magic of a moon-light view;
Its colours mellowed, not impaired, by time.

True as the needle, homeward points his heart,
Thro' all the horrors of the stormy main;
This, the last wish that would with life depart,
To meet the smile of her he loves again.

When Morn first faintly draws her silver line,
Or Eve's grey cloud descends to drink the wave;
When sea and sky in midnight-darkness join,
Still, still he sees the parting look she gave.

Her gentle spirit, lightly hovering o'er,
Attends his little bark from pole to pole;
And, when the beating billows round him roar,
Whispers sweet hope to soothe his troubled soul.
Carved is her name in many a spicy grove,
In many a plantain-forest, waving wide;
Where dusky youths in painted plumage rove,
And giant palms o'er-arch the golden tide.

But lo, at last he comes with crowded sail!
Lo, o'er the cliff what eager figures bend!
And hark, what mingled murmurs swell the gale!
In each he hears the welcome of a friend.

-"Tis she, 'tis she herself! she waves her hand!
Soon is the anchor cast, the canvas furled;
Soon thro' the whitening surge he springs to land,
And clasps the maid he singled from the world.

TO AN OLD OAK.

TRUNK of a Giant now no more!
Once did thy limbs to heaven aspire;
Once, by a track untried before,
Strike as resolving to explore
Realms of infernal fire,1

1 Radice in Tartara tendit.-VIRG.

Round thee, alas, no shadows move!

From thee no sacred murmurs breathe!
Yet within thee, thyself a grove,
Once did the eagle scream above,

And the wolf howl beneath.

There once the steel-clad knight reclined,
His sable plumage tempest-tossed;
And, as the death-bell smote the wind,
From towers long fled by human kind,
His brow the hero crossed!

Then Culture came, and days serene;
And village-sports, and garlands gay.
Full many a pathway crossed the green;
And maids and shepherd-youths were seen
To celebrate the May.

Father of many a forest deep,
Whence many a navy thunder-fraught!
Erst in thy acorn-cells asleep,
Soon destined o'er the world to sweep,
Opening new spheres of thought!

Wont in the night of woods to dwell,
The holy Druid saw thee rise;
And, planting there the guardian-spell,
Sung forth, the dreadful pomp to swell
Of human sacrifice!

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!

TO TWO SISTERS.2

WELL may you sit within, and, fond of grief,
Look in each other's face, and melt in tears;
Well may you shun all counsel, all relief—
Oh she was great in mind, tho' young in years!

Changed is that lovely countenance, which shed Light when she spoke; and kindled sweet surprise,

As o'er her frame each warm emotion spread, Played round her lips, and sparkled in her eyes.

Those lips so pure, that moved but to persuade,
Still to the last enlivened and endeared;
Those eyes at once her secret soul conveyed,
And ever beamed delight when you appeared.

Yet has she fled the life of bliss below,
That youthful Hope in bright perspective drew?
False were the tints! false as the feverish glow
That o'er her burning cheek Distemper threw !

And now in joy she dwells, in glory moves!
(Glory and joy reserved for you to share ;)
Far, far more blest in blessing those she loves,
Than they, alas! unconscious of her care.

2 On the death of a younger sister.

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.

TO A VOICE THAT HAD BEEN LOST.2 Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor? Aëris et linguæ sum filia;

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?
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 Voices beloved to join,
Which taught thee first a flight divine,
And nursed thy infant years with many a strain
from Heaven!

1 The law of gravitation.

2 In the winter of 1805.

3 Mrs. Sheridan's.

THE BOY OF EGREMOND

"SAY what remains when Hope is fled?"
She answered, "Endless weeping!"
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.

At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest-green,
With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The boy of Egremond was seen.*
Blithe was his song, a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,
His voice was heard no more!
"Twas but a step! the gulf he passed;
But that step-it was his last!
As through the mist he winged his way,
(A cloud that hovers night and day,)
The hound hung back, and back he drew
The Master and his merlin too.
That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of Life!

There now the matin-bell is rung;
The "Miserere!" duly sung;
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they! Ruthless Lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the innocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan.
The child before thee is thy own.
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,

Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,

Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;
Of those who would not be consoled
When red with blood the river rolled.

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4 In the twelfth century, William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword; and was afterwards established there by his uncle, David King of Scotland.

He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here related; when a Priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened. That place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in Wharfedale.-See WHITAKER'S Hist. of Craven.

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