PAGE.

To Miss Catherine Mallet,

Impromptu, written in the blank leaves of Miss

370

....

373

Anna Burt's Repository of Friendship, .

Elegy, written as from a French Lady, whose

husband had been three years prisoner of war

at Lichfield,

To Miss Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge,

Address to the Young Roscius,

A favourite Cat's Dying Soliloquy,

380

382

386

......

To Little Catherine Harper, aged three years,

presenting her with a blue Sattin Bonnet,

Inscribed on the blank leaves of the Poem Madoc,

389

891

To F. N. C. Mundy, Esq, on his Poem the Fall

POEMS

BY

ANNA SEWARD.

EYAM.*

For one short week I leave, with anxious heart,
Source of my filial cares, the Full of Days,
Lur'd by the promise of Harmonic Art

To breathe her Handel's soul-exalting lays.

* This poem was written August 1788, on a journey through Derbyshire, to a music-meeting at Sheffield. The author's father was then Rector of EYAM, an extensive village, that runs along a mountainous terrace, in one of the highest parts of the Peak. She was born there, and there past the first seven years VOL. III.

Pensive I trace the Derwent's amber wave,
Foaming through umbrag'd banks, or view it lave
The soft, romantic vallies, high o'er-peer'd
By hills and rocks, in savage grandeur rear❜d.
Not two short miles from thee, can I refrain
Thy haunts, my native EYAM, long unseen?.
Thou and thy lov'd inhabitants, again
Shall meet my transient gaze.-Thy rocky screen,
Thy airy cliffs I mount; and seek thy shade,
Thy roofs, that brow the steep, romantic glade ;
But, while on me the eyes of Friendship glow,
Swell my pain'd sighs, my tears spontaneous flow.

In scenes paternal, not beheld through years,
Nor view'd, till now, but by a Father's side,
Well might the tender, tributary tears,
From keen regrets of duteous fondness glide!
Its pastor, to this human-flock no more
Shall the long flight of future days restore!

of her life, and often, in future periods of her youth and riper years, visited the place with her father, on several weeks residence. The middle part of the village is built on the edge of a deep dell, which has very picturesque and beautiful features.

1. 1. Amber wave-From the peculiar nature of the clay on the mountains from which it descends, the river DERWENT has a yellow tint, that well becomes the dark foliage on its banks, and the foam produced by a rocky channel.

Distant he droops, and that once gladdening eye Now languid gleams, e'en when his friends are nigh.

Through this known walk, where weedy gravel lies,
Rough, and unsightly-by the long, coarse grass
Of the once smooth, and vivid green, with sighs
To the deserted Rectory I pass;-

Stray through the darken'd chambers' naked bound,
Where childhood's earliest, liveliest bliss I found;
How chang'd, since erst, the lightsome walls beneath,
The social joys did their warm comforts breathe!

Ere yet 1 go,
I who may return no more,
That sacred pile, 'mid yonder shadowy trees,
Let me revisit!Ancient, massy door,
Thou gratest hoarse !-my vital spirits freeze,
Passing the vacant pulpit, to the space
Where humble rails the decent altar grace,
And where my infant sister's ashes sleep,
Whose loss I left the childish sport to weep.

Now the low beams, with paper garlands hung,
In memory of some village youth, or maid,

1. 19. Now the low beams-The ancient custom of hanging a garland of white roses, made of writing paper, and a pair of white gloves, over the pew of the unmarried villagers, who die in the flower of their age, is observed to this day in the village of EYAM, and in most other villages and little towns in the Peak,