Yet, oh!-not many a suffering hour, Thy cup of shame on earth was given: Benignly came some pitying power,

And took the Lyre and thee to heaven!

There, as thy lover dries the tear

Yet warm from life's malignant wrongs, Within his arms, thou lovest to hear

The luckless Lyre's remember'd songs!

Still do your happy souls attune

The notes it learn'd, on earth, to move; Still breathing o'er the chords, commune In sympathies of angel love!

TO THE FLYING-FISH.'
WHEN I have seen thy snowy wing
O'er the blue wave at evening spring,
And give those scales, of silver white,
So gaily to the eye of light,

As if thy frame were form'd to rise,
And live amid the glorious skies;
Oh! it has made me proudly feel,
How like thy wing's impatient zeal
Is the pure soul, that scorns to rest
Upon the world's ignoble breast,

But takes the plume that God has given,
And rises into light and Heaven!

But when I see that wing, so bright,
Grow languid with a moment's flight,
Attempt the paths of air in vain,
And sink into the waves again:
Alas! the flattering pride is o'er;
Like thee, awhile, the soul may soar,
But erring man must blush to think,
Like thee, again, the soul may sink!

Oh virtue! when thy clime I seek,
Let not my spirit's flight be weak:
Let me not, like this feeble thing,
With brine still dropping from its wing,
Just sparkle in the solar glow,
And plunge again to depths below;
But, when I leave the grosser throng
With whom my soul hath dwelt so long,
Let me, in that aspiring day,
Cast every lingering stain away,
And, panting for thy purer air,
Fly up at once and fix me there!

EPISTLE II.

TO MISS M-—E.

FROM NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER, 1803.
Ix days, my Kate, when life was new,
When, lull'd with innocence and you,

It is the opinion of St Austin, upon Genesis, and I believe of nearly all the Fathers, that birds, like fish, were originally produced from the waters, in defence of which idea they have collected every fanciful circumstance which can tend to prove a kindred similitude between them, συγγένειαν τους πετομένοις προς τα νηκτα. With this thought in our minds when we first see the Fiving-Fish, we could almost fancy that we are present at the moment of creation, and witness the birth of the first bird from the waves.

I heard, in home's beloved shade,
The din the world at distance made;
When every night my weary head
Sunk on its own unthorned bed,
And, mild as evening's matron hour
Looks on the faintly shutting flower,
A mother saw our eyelids close,
And bless'd them into pure repose!
Then, haply if a week, a day,

I linger'd from your arms away,
How long the little absence seem'd!
How bright the look of welcome beam'd,
As mute you heard, with eager smile,
My tales of all that pass'd the while'
Yet now, my Kate, a gloomy sea
Rolls wide between that home and me;
The moon may thrice be born and die,
Ere even your seal can reach mine eye;
And oh! even then, that darling seal
(Upon whose print I used to feel
The breath of home, the cordial air
Of loved lips, still freshly there!)
Must come, alas! through every fate
Of time and distance, cold and late,
When the dear hand whose touches fill'd
The leaf with sweetness may be chill'd!
But hence that gloomy thought! At last,
Beloved Kate! the waves are pass'd:
I tread on earth securely now,
And the green cedar's living bough
Breathes more refreshment to my eyes
Than could a Claude's divinest dyes!
At length I touch the happy sphere
To Liberty and Virtue dear,

Where man looks up, and, proud to claim

His rank within the social frame,
Sees a grand system round him roll,
Himself its centre, sun, and soul !
Far from the shocks of Europe; far
From every wild, elliptic star
That, shooting with a devious fire,
Kindled by Heaven's avenging ire,
So oft hath into chaos huri'd
The systems of the ancient world!

The warrior here, in arms no more,
Thinks of the toil, the conflict o'er,
And glorying in the rights they won
For hearth and altar, sire and son,
Smiles on the dusky webs that hide
His sleeping sword's remember'd pride!
While Peace, with sunny cheeks of toil,
Walks o'er the free unlorded soil,
Effacing with her splendid share
The drops that War had sprinkled there!
Thrice happy land! where he who flies
From the dark ills of other skies,
From scorn, or want's unnerving woes,
May shelter him in proud repose!
Hope sings along the yellow sand
His welcome to a patriot land;
The mighty wood, with pomp, receives
The stranger in its world of leaves,
Which soon their barren glory yield
To the warm shed and cultured field;

And he, who came, of all bereft,

To whom malignant Fate had left
Nor home nor friends nor country dear,
Finds home and friends and country here!

Such is the picture, warmly such,
That long the spell of Fancy's touch
Hath painted to my sanguine eye
Of man's new world of liberty!

Oh! ask me not if Truth will seal
The reveries of Fancy's zeal,

If yet my charmed eyes behold

These features of an age of gold-
No-yet, alas! no gleaming trace!'
Never did youth, who loved a face
From portrait's rosy, flattering art,
Recoil with more regret of heart,
To find an owlet eye of gray,
Where painting pour'd the sapphire's ray,
Than I have felt, indignant felt,

To think the glorious dreams should melt,
Which oft, in boyhood's witching time,
Have wrapt me to this wondrous clime!

But, courage yet, my wavering heart!
Blame not the temple's meanest part, z
Till you have traced the fabric o'er :-
As yet, we have beheld no more
Than just the porch to Freedom's fane,
And, though a sable drop may stain
The vestibule, 'tis impious sin
To doubt there's holiness within!
So here I pause-and now, my Kate,
To you (whose simplest ringlet's fate
Can claim more interest in my soul
Than all the Powers from pole to pole)
One word at parting-in the tone
Most sweet to you, and most my own.
The simple notes I send you here, 3
Though rude and wild, would still be dear,
If you but knew the trance of thought
In which my mind their murmurs caught.
'T was one of those enchanting dreams,
That lull me oft, when Music seems
Το pour the soul in sound along,
And turn its every sigh to song!

I thought of home, the according lays
Respired the breath of happier days;
Warmly in every rising note
I felt some dear remembrance float,
Till, led by Music's fairy chain,
I wander'd back to home again!

Oh! love the song, and let it oft
Live on your lip, in warble soft!
Say that it tells you, simply well,
All I have bid its murmurs tell,

Of memory's glow, of dreams that shed
The tinge of joy when joy is fled,
And all the heart's illusive hoard
Of love renew'd and friends restored!
Now, sweet, adieu-this artless air,
And a few rhymes, in transcript fair,'
Are all the gifts I yet can boast
To send you from Columbia's coast;
But when the sun, with warmer smile,
Shall light me to my destined Isle, 2
You shall have many a cowslip-bell
Where Ariel slept, and many a shell
In which the gentle spirit drew
From honey flowers the morning dew!

TO CARA,

AFTER AN INTERVAL OF ABSENCE.

CONCEAL'D within the shady wood A mother left her sleeping child, And flew to cull her rustic food,

The fruitage of the forest wild.

But storms upon her path-way rise,

The mother roams, astray and weeping, Far from the weak appealing cries

Of him she left so sweetly sleeping.

She hopes, she fears-a light is seen,

And gentler blows the night-wind's breath; Yet no-t is gone-the storms are keen, The baby may be chill'd to death!

Perhaps his little eyes are shaded

Dim by Death's eternal chillAnd yet, perhaps, they are not faded; Life and love may light them still.

Thus, when my soul with parting sigh,

Hang on thy hand's bewildering touch, And, timid, ask'd that speaking eye,

If parting pain'd thee half so much:

I thought, and, oh! forgive the thought,
For who, by eyes like thine inspired,
Could e'er resist the flattering fault
Of fancying what his soul desired?

Yes-I did think, in Cara's mind,
Though yet to Cara's mind unknown,
I left one infant wish behind,
One feeling, which I call'd my own!

Oh blest though but in fancy blest,
How did I ask of pity's care,
To shield and strengthen in thy breast
The nursling I had cradled there.

The poems which immediately follow. 2 Bermuda.

And, many an hour beguiled by pleasure,
And many an hour of sorrow numbering,
I ne'er forgot the new-born treasure
I left within thy bosom slumbering.

Perhaps, indifference has not chill'd it, Haply, it yet a throb may give— Yet no-perhaps, a doubt has kill'd it! Oh, Cara!-does the infant live?

TO CARA,

ON THE DAWNING OF A NEW YEAR'S DAY.

WHEN midnight came to close the year, We sigh'd to think it thus should take The hours it gave us-hours as dear

As sympathy and love could make Their blessed moments! every sun Saw us, my love, more closely one!

But, Cara, when the dawn was nigh

Which came another year to shed, The smile we caught from eye to eye Told us those moments were not fled; Oh no!-we felt, some future sun Should see us still more closely one!

Thus may we ever, side by side,
From happy years to happier glide;
And still, my Cara, may the sigh

We give to hours that vanish o'er us,

Be follow'd by the smiling eye

That Hope shall shed on scenes before us!

TO THE INVISIBLE GIRL.

THEY try to persuade me, my dear little sprite,
That you are not a daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;

That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your breast
As mortal as ever were tasted or press'd!
But I will not believe them--no, Science! to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu :
Still flying from Nature to study her laws,

And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,

Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.
Oh! who, that has ever had rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
How rays are confused, or how particles fly
Through the medium refined of a glance or a sigh!

Is there one, who but once would not rather have known it,

Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?

| No, no—but for you, my invisible love,

I will swear you are one of those spirits that rove
By the bank where at twilight the poet reclines,
When the star of the west on his solitude shines,
And the magical fingers of Fancy have hung
Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue!
Oh! whisper him then, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone;
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen,

And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres,
Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears!
Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love,
In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,
To have you for ever invisibly nigh,
Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!

Mid the crowds of the world and the murmurs of care,
I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the air,
And turn with disgust from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.

Oh! come and be near me, for ever be mine,
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as, of old, was imagined to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.
And oft, at those lingering moments of night,
When the heart is weigh'd down and the eyelid is light,
You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above!
Oh spirit!—and then, could you borrow the tone
Of that voice, to my ear so bewitchingly known,
The voice of the one upon earth, who has twined
With her essence for ever my heart and my mind!
Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
And exile and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment that voice on my ear,
I will think at that moment my Cara is near,

That she comes with consoling enchantment to speak,
And kisses my eyelid and sighs on my cheek,
And tells me, the night shall go rapidly by,
For the dawn of our hope, of our heaven is nigh!
Sweet spirit! if such be your magical power,

It will lighten the lapse of full many an hour;
And let Fortune's realities frown as they will,
Hope, Fancy, and Cara may smile for me still!

PEACE AND GLORY.

WRITTEN AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRESENT WAR.

WHERE is now the smile that lighten'd

Every hero's couch of rest?

Where is now the hope that brighten'd

Honour's eye and Pity's breast?

Have we lost the wreath we braided
For our weary warrior men?

Is the faithless olive faded?

Must the bay be pluck'd again?

Passing hour of sunny weather,

Lovely, in your light awhile, Peace and Glory, wed together,

Wander'd through the blessed isle. And the eyes of Peace would glisten, Dewy as a morning sun,

When the timid maid would listen To the deeds her chief had done.

Is the hour of dalliance over?

Must the maiden's trembling feet Waft her from her warlike lover

To the desert's still retreat? Fare you well! with sighs we banish Nymph so fair and guest so bright; Yet the smile, with which you vanish, Leaves behind a soothing light!

Soothing light! that long shall sparkle
O'er your warrior's sanguine way,
Through the field where horrors darkle,
Shedding Hope's consoling ray!
Long the smile his heart will cherish,
To its absent idol true,

While around him myriads perish,
Glory still will sigh for you!

A BALLAD.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

WRITTEN AT NORFOLK IN VIRGINIA.

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to Fancy's power,
When her soft magic fills the mind

With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear!
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remember'd oft and well

By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,

Can proudly still aspire to know
The feeling soul's divinest glow!
If thus to live in every part

Of a lone weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ

Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it, Mary! oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
When passion doth not first betray
And tinge the thought upon its way!
In pleasure's dream or sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be,
For ever, to remember thee!

And though that heart be dead to mine,
Since love is life and wakes not thine,
I'll take thy image, as the form
Of something I should long to warm,
Which, though it yield no answering thrill,
Is not less dear, is lovely still!
I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,
The bright, cold burthen of my way!
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its glowing tomb,
And love shall lend his sweetest care,
With memory to embalm it there!

SONG.

TAKE back the sigh, thy lips of art

In passion's moment breathed to me; Yet, no-it must not, will not part, 'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,

And has become too pure for thee!
Take back the kiss, that faithless sigh
With all the warmth of truth imprest;
Yet, no-the fatal kiss may lie,
Upon thy lip its sweets would die,
Or bloom to make a rival blest!

Take back the vows that, night and day,
My heart received. I thought, from thine;
Yet, no-allow them still to stay,
They might some other heart betray,
As sweetly as they 've ruin'd mine'

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

La Poésie a ses monstres comme la Nature-D'ALENBERT.

« 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!»>

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through 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 breathed in his car,
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!

The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant fram Vươ olk, and the Lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long * called Drummonds Pond.

EPISTLE III.

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 complains
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 pictured spell;
And, while I sing the animated smiles
Of fairy nature in these sun-born isles,

Oh! might the song awake some bright design,
Inspire a touch, or prompt one happy line,
Proud were my soul to see its humble thought
On painting's mirror so divinely caught,
And wondering Genius, as he lean'd to trace
The faint conception kindling into grace,
Might love my numbers for the spark they threw,
And bless the lay that lent a charm to you!

Have you not oft, in nightly vision, stray'd
To the pure isles of ever-blooming shade,
Which bards of old, with kindly magic, placed
For happy spirits in the Atlantic waste?3
There, as eternal gales, with fragrance warm,
Breathed from Elysium through each shadowy form
In eloquence of eye, and dreams of song,
They charm'd their lapse of nightless hours along!
Nor yet in song that mortal ear may suit,
For every spirit was itself a lute,

Where Virtue waken'd, with elysian breeze,
Pure tones of thought and mental harmonies!
Believe me, Lady, when the zephyrs bland
Floated our bark to this enchanted land,
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown,
Like studs of emerald o'er a silver zone;
Not all the charm that ethnic fancy gave
To blessed arbours o'er the western wave,
Could wake a dream more soothing or sublime,
Of bowers ethereal and the spirit's clime!

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

1 The chapel of William Tell, on the Lake of Lucerne.

The morn was lovely, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar-hill
Sweetly awaked us, and with smiling charms
The fairy harbour woo'd us to its arms.1
Gently we stole before the languid wind,
Through plantain shades that like an awning twined,
And kiss'd on either side the wanton sails,
Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While far reflected, o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island sheds so soft a green,
That the enamour'd keel, with whispering play,
Through liquid herbage seem'd to steal its way!
Never did weary bark more sweetly glide,
Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide!
Along the margin many a brilliant dome,
White as the palace of a Lapland gnome,
Brighten'd the wave; in every myrtle grove
Secluded bashful, like a shrine of love,
Some elfin mansion sparkled through the shade;
And, while the foliage interposing play'd,
Wreathing the structure into various grace,
Fancy would love in many a form to trace
The flowery capital, the shaft, the porch,
And dream of temples, till her kindling torch
Lighted me back to all the glorious days
Of Attic genius; and I seem'd to gaze
On marble, from the rich Pentelic mount,
Gracing the umbrage of some Naiad's fount.
Sweet airy being!3 who, in brighter hours,
Lived on the perfume of these honey'd bowers,
In velvet buds, at evening loved to lie,
And win with music every rose's sigh!
Though weak the magic of my humble strain
To charm your spirit from its orb again,
Yet, oh! for her, beneath whose smile I sing,
For her (whose pencil, if your rainbow wing
Were dimm'd or ruffled by a wintry sky,
Could smooth its feather and relume its dye),
A moment wander from your starry sphere,
And if the lime-tree grove that once was dear,
The sunny wave, the bower, the breezy hill,
The sparkling grotto, can delight you still,
Oh! take their fairest tint, their softest light,
Weave all their beauty into dreams of night,
And, while the lovely artist slumbering lies,
Shed the warm picture o'er her mental eyes;
Borrow for sleep her own creative spells,
And brightly show what song but faintly tells!

Nothing can be more romantic than the little harbour of St George The number of beautiful islets, the singular clearness of the water, and the animated play of the graceful little boats, gliding for ever between the islands, and seeming to sail from one cedargrove into another, form altogether the sweetest miniature of nature that can be imagined.

↑ This is an allusion which, to the few who are fanciful enough to indulge in it, renders the scenery of Bermuda particularly interesting In the short but beautiful twilight of their spring evenings, the white cottages scattered over the islands, and but partially seen through the trees that surround them, assume often the appearance of little Grecian temples, and faucy may embell sl the poor bisherman's but with columns which the pencil of Claude might imitate. I bad one favourite object of this kind in my walks, which the hospitality of its owner robbed me of, by asking me to visit him. He was a plain good man, and received me well and warmly, but I never could tura bis house into a Grecian temple again.

1 Ariel. Among the many charms which Bermuda bas for a poetic eye, we cannot for an instant forget that it is the scene of SHAL

who alone is worth the whole heaven of ancient mythology.