A BALLAD.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA.

"They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never after. wards heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."

Anon.

La Poesie a ses monstres comme la nature.

D'Alembert.

"They made her a grave, too cold and damp "For a soul so warm and true;

"And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,*

"Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,

"She paddles her white canoe.

"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
"And her paddle I soon shall hear;
"Long and loving our life shall be,
"And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
"When the footstep of death is near !"

The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond

Awaytothe Dismal Swamp he speeds→→→
His path was rugged and sore,

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Thro' many a fen, where the serpent feeds;
And man never trod before!

And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr'd the brake,
And the copper-snake breath'd in his ear,
Till he starting cried from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
"And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface play'd-

"Welcome," he said, "my dear-one's light!!! And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid!

Till he hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore;

Far he follow'd the meteor spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat return'd no more.

But oft from the Indian hunter's camp

This lover and maid so true

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp+
To cross the lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!

EPISTLE III.

TO THE

MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF D--LL

TO THE

MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF D-LL.

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY 1804.

Lady! where'er you roam, whatever beam Of bright creation warms your mimic dream ; Whether you trace the valley's golden meads,

Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads ;*

Enamour'd catch the mellow hues that sleep, At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;

Or musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on the holy shrine,
Where, many a night, the soul of Tell com
plains

Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the tablet that creative eye,
And let its splendour, like the morning ray
Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay!

Yet, Lady! no-for song so rude as mine, Chase not the wonders of your dream divine; Still, radiant eye! upon the tablet.dwell; Still, rosy finger! weave your pictur'd spell

*Lady D. I supposed, was at this time still in Switzerland, where the powers of her pencil must have been frequently awakened

†The chapel of William Tell on the Lake of Lucerne.