ODE TO SUICIDE. BY THE REV. J. WHITEHOUSE. DARK, sullen power! Whom oft beside some ruined wall I've seen, With stolen step, and clouded mien, Gathering the night-shade's juices pale, When shadows dimmed the moon, and midnight hour Tolled from some steeple nigh! And downy sleep Refused to steep In opiate dews thy ghastly-glaring eye! While at thy elbow stood Despair, Grim-visaged man! with bristled hair, Shaking aloft his iron flail! And in the blasted vale The raven shrieked with funeral cry, A choral dirge the Furies sung, And while Fate's solemn knell was rung, Thy voice of dreary dole still bade the wretched die. Hence away!-thou fiend forlorn! Hears the hoarse surge, and the wild tempest borne, Rush by with hideous sweep! Nor whisper in my startled ear Thy murmured woes, whose accents drear Till from her anchor Hope reluctant driven, Foregoes her firm support, and quits her hold on heaven. Nor yet, where thick-incumbent shadows scowl, When night comes lowering on, and the winds howl Bereft, and wildered more, as thy dim form While Death, half-seen, amidst the twilight storm Sails by on dusky wing; Aghast, and vanquish'd by thy potent spells, I drop into the gulph where Frenzy dwells! THE DISCOVERY. BY MISS PEARSON. 'Tis said the witching power of Love While o'er the soul the Tyrant sways, On the poor Lover's dazzled sight, Altho' those eyes no language speak, Nor rose, nor dimple bless the cheek, Nor common sense one phrase indite. But when the magic medium fades, Thro' which the form so brightly shone, And made each excellence its own, O! what a change in Men and Maids! This Edward to Maria prov'd Full of the little God he sail'd, And many a foreign port he hail'd, Far from the angel girl he lov'd. At length he sought his native shore: Six tedious years had seen him roam, The seventh brought the Wanderer home To fond, expecting Mary's door, But Absence, love's inveterate foe, The spell that bound him was no more! How chang'd, he cry'd, in form and face! The poor girl heaving piteous sighs, EPIGRAM, On a Lady of execrable Temper being burnt out by a late Fire. THIS Dame, of a temper infernally hot, A scorching perhaps in this world she has got, SCANDINAVIA, DEC. 3, 1804. G. H. D. LINES Addressed to the Duchess of Bolton, as an Excuse for not undertaking the Part of Alicia, which the Authoress was solicited to act in the private Exhibition of the Play of Jane Shore, at Hackwood, in 1787. BY MRS. LEFROY. ALL to the part unus'd, my faltering tongue As mad Alicia teach my heart to beat? When lovely Katherine † asks, and you command! Lady Caroline Barry. + Lady Katherine Powlett. |