VI.

Then whence it is I cannot tell,
But there is some mysterious spell

That holds me when I'm glad;
And so the tear-drop fills my eye,
When yet in truth I know not why,
Or wherefore I am sad.

SOLITUDE.

It is not that my lot is low,
That bids this silent tear to flow;
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home,
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When pale the star looks on its breast.

Yet when the silent evening sighs,
With hallowed airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.

The autumn leaf is sere and dead,
It floats upon the water's bed;

I would not be a leaf, to die
Without recording sorrow's sigh!

The woods and winds, with sudden wail, Tell all the same unvaried tale;

I've none to smile when I am free,
And when I sigh, to sigh with me.

Yet in my dreams a form I view,
That thinks on me and loves me too;
I start, and when the vision's flown,
I weep that I am all alone.

IF far from me the Fates remove
Domestic peace, connubial love;
The prattling ring, the social cheer,
Affection's voice, affection's tear;
Ye sterner powers that bind the heart,
To me your iron aid impart!
O teach me, when the nights are chill,
And my fireside is lone and still;
When to the blaze that crackles near,
I turn a tired and pensive ear,
And nature conquering bids me sigh,
For love's soft accents whispering nigh;
O teach me on that heavenly road,
That leads to Truth's occult abode,
To wrap my soul in dreams sublime,
Till earth and care no more be mine.
Let blest Philosophy impart,
Her soothing measures to my heart;
And while, with Plato's ravished ears,
I list the music of the spheres;
Or on the mystic symbols pore,
That hide the Chald's sublimer lore;
I shall not brood on summers gone,
Nor think that I am all alone.

FANNY! upon thy breast I may not lie!

Fanny! thou dost not hear me when I speak!
Where art thou, love?-Around I turn my eye,
And as I turn, the tear is on my cheek.
Was it a dream? or did my love behold

Indeed my lonely couch?-Methought the breath
Fanned not her bloodless lip; her eye was cold
And hollow, and the livery of death

Invested her pale forehead.-Sainted maid,

My thoughts oft rest with thee in thy cold grave, Through the long wintry night, when wind and wave Rock the dark house where thy poor head is laid. Yet hush! my fond heart, hush! there is a shore Of better promise; and I know at last, When the long sabbath of the tomb is past, We two shall meet in Christ-to part no more.

VERSES.

THOU base repiner at another's joy,

Whose eye turns green at merit not thine own; Oh far away from generous Britons fly,

And find in meaner climes a fitter throne!

Away, away, it shall not be,

That thou shalt dare defile our plains;
The truly generous heart disdains

Thy meaner, lowlier fires, while he

Joys at another's joy, and smiles at others' jollity.

Triumphant monster!-though thy schemes succeed,Schemes laid in Acheron, the brood of night,

Yet, but a little while, and nobly freed,

Thy happy victim will emerge to light;

When o'er his head in silence that reposes,
Some kindred soul shall come to drop a tear,
Then will his last cold pillow turn to roses,

171

Which thou hadst planted with the thorn severe; Then will thy baseness stand confessed, and all Will curse the ungenerous fate that bade a poet fall.

Yet ah! thy sorrows are too keen, too sure!
Couldst thou not pitch upon another prey?
Alas! in robbing him thou robb'st the poor,

Who only boast what thou wouldst take away.
See the lone bard at midnight study sitting;

O'er his pale features streams his dying lamp;
While o'er fond fancy's pale perspective flitting,
Successive forms their fleet ideas stamp.
Yet, say, is bliss upon his brow impressed?

Does jocund health in thought's still mansion live? Lo, the cold dews that on his temples rest,

That short quick sigh-their sad responses give! And canst thou rob a poet of his song;

Snatch from the bard his trivial meed of praise? Small are his gains, nor does he hold them long; Then leave, O leave him to enjoy his lays

While yet he lives,-for, to his merits just,

Though future ages join his fame to raise, Will the loud trump awake his cold unheeding dust?

EPIGRAM ON ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

BLOOMFIELD, thy happy omened name

Insures continuance to thy fame:

Both sense and truth this verdict give,

Whilst fields shall bloom thy name shall live.

FRAGMENTS.

These fragments are the author's latest compositions; and were, for the most part, written upon the back of his mathematical papers, during the few moments of the last year of his life, in which he suffered himself to follow the impulse of his genius.

I.

"SAW'ST thou that light?" exclaimed the youth, and paused;

"Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream
That skirts the woods, it for a moment played.
Again, more light it gleamed,—or does some sprite
Delude mine eyes with shapes of wood and streams,
And lamp far beaming through the thicket's gloom,
As from some bosomed cabin, where the voice
Of revelry, or thrifty watchfulness,

Keeps in the lights at this unwonted hour?

No sprite deludes mine eyes,-the beam now glows
With steady lustre.-Can it be the moon,

Who, hidden long by the invidious veil

That blots the heavens, now sets behind the woods?""No moon to-night has looked upon the sea Of clouds beneath her," answered Rudiger, "She has been sleeping with Endymion."

THE pious man,

In this bad world, when mists and couchant storms,

Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith