THE ALPS

AT DAY-BREAK.

THE sun-beams streak the azure skies,

And line with light the mountain's brow:

With hounds and horns the hunters rise,

And chase the roebuck thro' the snow.

From rock to rock, with giant-bound,

High on their iron poles they pass;

Mute, lest the air, convuls'd by sound,

Rend from above a frozen mass.*

* There are passes in the Alps, where the guides tell you to move on with speed, and say nothing, lest the agitation of the air should loosen the snows above. GRAY, sect. v. let. 4.

The goats wind slow their wonted way,

Up craggy steeps and ridges rude;

Mark'd by the wild wolf for his prey,

From desert cave or hanging wood.

And while the torrent thunders loud,

And as the echoing cliffs reply,

The huts peep o'er the morning-cloud,

Perch'd, like an eagle's nest, on high.

AN EPITAPH*

ON A ROBIN RED-BREAST.

TREAD lightly here, for here, 'tis said,
When piping winds are hush'd around,
A small note wakes from underground,
Where now his tiny bones are laid.
No more in lone and leafless groves,

With ruffled wing and faded breast,

His friendless, homeless spirit roves;

-Gone to the world where birds are blest!

Where never cat glides o'er the green,

Or school-boy's giant form is seen;

But Love, and Joy, and smiling Spring

Inspire their little souls to sing!

* Inscribed on an urn in the flower-garden at Hafod.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,

And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers,

That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours

With my lov'd lute's romantic sound;

Or crowns of living laurel weave,

For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,

The ballet danc'd in twilight glade,

The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent green-wood shade;

These simple joys, that never fail,

Shall bind me to my native vale.