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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.

On the death of her sister in 1805.

U

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!

TO THE FRAGMENT OF

A STATUE OF HERCULES,

COMMONLY CALLED

THE TORSO.

AND dost thou still, thou mass of breathing stone,
(Thy giant limbs to night and chaos hurled)
Still sit as on the fragment of a world;
Surviving all, majestic and alone?

What tho' the Spirits of the North, that swept
Rome from the earth when in her pomp she slept,
Smote thee with fury, and thy headless trunk
Deep in the dust mid tower and temple sunk;
Soon to subdue mankind 'twas thine to rise,
Still, still unquelled thy glorious energies!
Aspiring minds, with thee conversing, caught
Bright revelations of the Good they sought;*
By thee that long-lost spell in secret given,
To draw down Gods, and lift the soul to Heaven! +

* In the gardens of the Vatican, where it was placed by Julius II., it was long the favourite study of those great men to whom we owe the revival of the arts, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and the Caracci.

+ Once in the possession of Praxiteles, if we may believe an ancient epigram on the Gnidian Venus.-Analecta Vet. Poetarum, III. 200.

AN EPITAPH

ON A ROBIN-REDBREAST.*

TREAD lightly here, for here, 'tis said,
When piping winds are hushed 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 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.*

* 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