SONNET VII.

Recantatory, in reply to the foregoing elegant Admonition.

LET the sublimer muse, who, wrapt in night,

Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,

Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm, Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight; Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,

Disdain the plaintive Sonnet's little form,

And scorn to its wild cadence to conform, The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight. But me, far lowest of the sylvan train,

Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest-shade

With wildest song ;-Me, much behoves thy aid Of mingled melody, to grace my strain, And give it power to please, as soft it flows Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent close.

SONNET VIII.

On hearing the Sounds of an Æolian Harp.

SO ravishingly soft upon the tide

Of the enfuriate gust, it did career,

It might have sooth'd its rugged charioteer, And sunk him to a zephyr ;-then it died,

Melting in melody ;-and Í descried
Borne to some wizard stream, the form

appear
Of Druid sage, who on the far-off ear
Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,

Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,

By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds,
Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?

SONNET IX.

WHAT art thou, MIGHTY ONE! and where thy seat ?

Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands.

And thou dost beat within thine awful hands,
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet.
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud, and wind,

Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon,

Or on the red wing of the fierce Monsoon,
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost thou repose ? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood,
Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

A BALLAD.

BE hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,

Ye pelting rains a little rest; Lie still, lie still, ye busy thoughts,

That wring with grief my aching breast.

Oh, cruel was my faithless love,

To triumph o'er an artless maid; Oh, cruel was my faithless love,

To leave the breast by him betray'd.

When exil'd from my native home,

He should have wip'd the bitter tear; Nor left me faint and loan to roam,

A heart-sick weary wand'rer here.

My child moans sadly in my arms,

The winds they will not let it sleep; Ah, little knows the hapless babe;

What makes its wretched mother weep!

Now lie thee still, my infant dear,

I cannot bear thy sobs to see, Harsh is thy father, little one,

And never will he shelter thee.

Oh, that I were but in my grave,

And winds were piping o'er me loud, And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,

Wert nestling in thy mother's shroud!

THE LULLABY

OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD, THE NIGHT

PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION.

*SLEEP Baby mine, enkerchieft on my bosom,

Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast; Sleep Baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother,

To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.

Baby, wly dost thou keep this sad complaining,

Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled; Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning,

And I would fain coinpose my aching head.

Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weeping,

When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be: Who then will soothe thee, when thy mother's sleeping,

In her low grave of shame and infamy!

* Sir Philip Sidney has a Poem begiuning “ Sleep Baby mine.” Sleep, Baby mine-To-morrow I must leave thee,

And I would snatch an interval of rest; Sleep these last moments, ere the laws bereave thee,

For never more thou'lt press a mother's breast.