This song I found on a blank leaf of an old copy-book, when I had lost all recollection of it. From the hand in which it was written, I could not be fourteen at the time of its composition.
SOFTLY, softly, blow ye breezes,
Gently o'er my Edwy fly!
Lo! he slumbers, slumbers sweetly,
Softly zephyrs pass him by!
My love is asleep,
He lies by the deep,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
I have cover'd him with rushes,
Water-flags and branches dry;
Edwy long have been thy slumbers,
Edwy, Edwy, ope thine eye!
My love is asleep,
He lies by the deep,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
Still he sleeps; he will not waken,
Fastly closed is his eye;
Paler is his cheek, and chiller
Than the icy moon on high.
Alas! he is dead,
He has chose his death-bed,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
Is it, is it so my Edwy?
Will thy slumbers never fly?
Could'st thou think I would survive thee?
No, my love, thou bid'st me die.
Thou bid'st me seek,
Thy death-bed bleak,
All along where the salt waves sigh.
I will gently kiss thy cold lips,
On thy breast I'll lay my head, And the winds shall sing our death-dirge, And our shroud the waters spread; The moon will smile sweet,
And the wild wave will beat,
Oh! so softly o'er our lonely bed.
WHEN the winter wind whistles along the wild moor,
And the cottager shuts on the beggar his door;
When the chilling tear stands in my comfortless eye,
Oh how hard is the lot of the wandering boy.
The winter is cold, and I have no vest,
And my
heart it is cold as it beats in my breast;
No father, no mother, no kindred have I,
For I am a parentless wandering boy.
Yet I had a home, and I once had a sire,
A mother, who granted eath infant desire;
Our cottage it stood in a wood-embower'd vale, Where the ring-dove would warble its sorrowful tale.
But my father and mother were summon'd away,
And they left me to hard-hearted strangers a prey;
I fled from their rigour with many a sigh,
And now I'm a poor little wandering boy.
The wind it is keen, and the snow loads the gale, And no one will list to my innocent tale,
I'll go to the grave, where my parents both lie, And death shall befriend the poor wandering boy,
THE western gale,
Mild as the kisses of contubiai love,
Plays round my languid limbs, as all dissolv'd,
Beneath the ancient elm's fantastic shade
I lie, exhausted with the noon-tide heat;
While rippling o'er its deep-worn pebble bed,
The rapid rivulet rushes at my feet,
Dispensing coolness.-On the fringed marge
Full many a flow'ret rears its head,—or piuk,
Or gaudy daffodil.-'Tis here, at noon,
The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire,
And lave them in the fountain; here, secure
From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport,
Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet-turf,
Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly,
Invoke the God of slumber.
And hark, how merrily, from distant tow'r,
Ring round the village bells, now on the gale
They rise with gradual swell, distinct and loud,
Anon they die upon the pensive ear,
Melting in faintest music.-They bespeak
A day of jubilee, and oft they bear
Commixt along the unfrequented shore,
The sound of village dance and tabor loud,
Startling the musing ear of solitude.
Such is the jocund wake of Whitsuntide,
When happy superstition, gabbling eld;
Holds her unhurtful gambols-all the day
The rustic revellers ply the mazy dance,
On the smooth shaven green, and then at eve
Commence the harmless rites and auguries;
And many a tale of ancient days goes round.
They tell of wizard seer, whose potent spells
Could hold in dreadful thrall the labouring moon,
Or draw the fix'd stars from their eminence,
And still the midnight tempest.-Then anon,
Tell of uncharnel'd spectres, seen to glide
Along the lone woods' unfrequented path,
Startling the nighted traveller; while the sound
Of undistinguish'd murmurs, heard to come
From the dark centre of the deep'ning glen,
Struck on his frozen ear.
Thou art fall'n man's best friend! With thee he speeds
|