On heavenly winds that waft her to the sky, Soul of the just! companion of the dead! And doomed, like thee, to travel, and return.— On bickering wheels, and adamantine car; Eternal hope! when yonder spheres sublime Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time, Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade- And light thy torch at nature's funeral pile! Campbell. THE CONVICT. The glory of evening was spread through the west, While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest 'And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?' And with a deep sadness I turned to repair The thick-ribbed walls that o'ershadow the gate, I pause, and at length through the glimmering grate His black matted head on his shoulder is bent, And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent 'Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze, But my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays His bones are consumed, and his life-blood is dried, With wishes the past to undo; And his crime, through the pains that o'erwhelm him descried, Still blackens and grows on the view. When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field, To his chamber the monarch is led, All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield, And quietness pillow his head. But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze, 'Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose When his fetters at night have so pressed on his limbs, While the gaol mastive howls at the dull clanking chain, A thousand sharp punctures of cold sweating pain, But now he half raises his deep-sunken eye, And the motion unsettles a tear; The silence of sorrow it seems to supply, ‹ Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood, With o'erweening complacence our state to compare, But one whose first wish is the wish to be good, Is come as thy brother thy sorrows to share. At thy name, though compassion her nature resign, Though in virtue's proud mouth thy report be a stain, My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine, Should place thee where yet thou may'st blossom again.' BALLAD, IN IMITATION OF THE ANCIENT STYLE. Why dost thou weepe, O gentle Ladye? Why dost thou grieve, O Ladye fayre? Why is thy lovelye baby presste In anguish to thye throbbing breaste? And why that look of black despayre ? Why dost thou sit forlorne and sigh? Sweetest Ladye, tell me why. I have cause to weepe, kind stranger, It is an orphan babe that's presste Nathless comfort take, fayre Ladye, |