And in thy agonizing ear the shriek Of spirits howling on their stormy car Will often ring appalling-I portend

A dismal night-and on my wakeful bed Thoughts, Traveller, of thee will fill my head, And him who rides where wind and waves contend, And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide.

SONNET.

BY CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.

This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this volume, and was occasioned by several little Quatorzains, misnomered Sonnets, which he published in the Monthly Mirror. He begs leave to return his thanks to the much respected writer, for the permission so politely granted to insert it here, and for the good opinion he has been pleased to express of his productions.

YE whose aspirings court the muse of lays, "Severest of those orders which belong, Distinct and separate, to Delphic song," Why shun the sonnet's undulating maze? And why its name, boast of Petrarchian days, Assume, its rules disown'd? whom from the throng

The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys

Of its full harmony:-they fear to wrong

The sonnet, by adorning with a name

Of that distinguish'd import, lays, though sweet,
Yet not in magic texture taught to meet
Of that so varied and peculiar frame.

O think! to vindicate its genuine praise
Those it beseems, whose lyre a favouring impulse

sways.

SONNET.

RECANTATORY, IN REPLY TO THE FOREGOING ELEGANT

ADMONITION.

LET the sublimer muse, who, wrapp'd 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 ON HEARING THE SOUNDS OF AN EOLIAN HARP.

So ravishingly soft upon the tide
Of the infuriate 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 I 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 lonely heath, Keeping his night-watch sad, portending death?

:

SONNET.

WHAT art thou, Mighty One! and where thy seat? Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands. And thou dost bear within thine awful hands The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet. Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind, Thou guidest 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.

SONNET TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.

LOFFT, unto thee one tributary song

The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring; She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng, And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring. Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth, Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild, Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth, And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child : Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal, Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire, Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the lyre,

And show thy labours for the public weal,

Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme, But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.

SONNET TO THE MOON.

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.

SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge
Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
As sweeping o'er the leafless grove, the gale
Seems to repeat the year's funereal dirge.
Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight,
And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way,
Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night,
With double joy my homage do I pay.

When clouds disguise the glories of the day, And stern November sheds her boisterous blight, How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray Shoot through the mist from the ethereal height, And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.

SONNET WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.

FAST from the West the fading day-streaks fly, And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway, Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,

And o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay. Oh! 'tis not long since, George, with thee I woo'd The maid of musings by yon moaning wave;