Oh! I do feel the spell with which I'm tied; And though our annals fearful stories tell, How Savage languished, and how Otway died, Yet must I persevere, let whate'er will betide.
WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
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 covered 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 deathbed
All along where the salt waves sigh.
Is it, is it so, my Edwy?
Will thy slumbers never fly?
Couldst thou think I would survive thee?
No, my love, thou bidst me die.
Thou bidst me seek
Thy deathbed 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 once had a home, and I once had a sire,
A mother, who granted each infant desire;
Our cottage it stood in a wood-embowered vale,
Where the ringdove would warble its sorrowful tale.
But my father and mother were summoned away,
And they left me to hardhearted strangers a prey;
I fled from their rigor 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 connubial love,
Plays round my languid limbs, as all dissolved,
Beneath the ancient elm's fantastic shade
I lie, exhausted with the noontide 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 pink,
Or gaudy daffodil.-'Tis here, at noon,
The buskined wood-nymphs from the heat retire,
And lave them in the fountain; here secure
From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport;
Or stretched supinely on the velvet turf,
Lulled by the laden bee, or sultry fly,
Invoke the God of slumber.
And hark, how merrily, from distant tower,
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 laboring moon,
Or draw the fixed stars from their eminence,
And still the midnight tempest.-Then anon,
Tell of uncharnelled spectres, seen to glide
Along the lone wood's unfrequented path,
Startling the 'nighted traveller; while the sound
Of undistinguished 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 In frigid apathy along his way,
And never does the tear of agony
Burn down his scorching cheek; or the keen steel
Of wounded feeling penetrate his breast.
E'en now, as leaning on this fragrant bank,
I taste of all the keener happiness
Which sense refined affords-e'en now my heart
Would fain induce me to forsake the world,
Throw off these garments, and in shepherd's weeds,
With a small flock, and short suspended reed,
To sojurn in the woodland.-Then my thought
Draws such gay pictures of ideal bliss,
That I could almost err in reason's spite,
And trespass on my judgment.
The distant prospect always seems more fair,
And when attained, another still succeeds
Far fairer than before,―yet compassed round
With the same dangers, and the same dismay.
And we poor pilgrims in this dreary maze,
Still discontented, chase the fairy form
Of unsubstantial happiness, to find,
When life itself is sinking in the strife,
'Tis but an airy bubble and a cheat.
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