And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale,
Starts as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale;
Where now, shut out from every still retreat,
Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat,
Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood,

Retire, o'er all her pensive stores to brood?
Shivering and blue, the peasant eyes askance
The drifted fleeces that around him dance;
And hurries on his half-averted form,

Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm.

Him soon shall greet his snow-topped [cot of thatch],
Soon shall his 'numbed hand tremble on the latch;
Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame
Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame.
Round the light fire, while roars the north wind loud,
What merry groups of vacant faces crowd;
These hail his coming-these his meal prepare,
And boast in all that cot no lurking care.
What, though the social circle be denied,

Even Sadness brightens at her own fireside;
Loves, with fixed eye, to watch the fluttering blaze,
While musing Memory dwells on former days;
Or Hope, blessed spirit! smiles-and, still forgiven,
Forgets the passport, while she points to Heaven.
Then heap the fire-shut out the biting air,
And from its station wheel the easy chair:
Thus fenced and warm, in silence fit, 'tis sweet
To hear without the bitter tempest beat,
And, all alone, to sit, and muse, and sigh,
The pensive tenant of obscurity.

VERSES.

WHEN pride and envy, and the scorn
Of wealth, my heart with gall imbued,
I thought how pleasant were the morn
Of silence in the solitude;

To hear the forest bee on wing;

Or by the stream, or woodland spring,
To lie and muse alone-alone,
While the tinkling waters moan,
Or such wild sounds arise, as say,
Man and noise are far away.

Now, surely, thought I, there's enow
To fill life's dusty way;

And who will miss a poet's feet,
Or wonder where he stray?
So to the woods and waste I'll go,

And I will build an osier bower;

And sweetly there to me shall flow
The meditative hour.

And when the Autumn's withering hand
Shall strew with leaves the sylvan land,
I'll to the forest caverns hie:

And in the dark and stormy nights
I'll listen to the shrieking sprites,
Who, in the wintry wolds and floods,
Keep jubilee, and shred the woods;
Or, as it drifted soft and slow,

Hurl in ten thousand shapes the snow.

ON WHIT-MONDAY.

HARK! how the merry bells ring jocund round,
And now they die upon the veering breeze;
Anon they thunder loud,

Full on the musing ear.

Wafted in varying cadence by the shore
Of the still twinkling river, they bespeak
A day of jubilee—

An ancient holyday.

And lo! the rural revels are begun,
And gaily echoing to the laughing sky,
On the smooth shaven green

Resounds the voice of Mirth.

Alas! regardless of the tongue of Fate

That tells them 'tis but as an hour, since they

Kept up the Whitsun dance;

And that another hour, and they must fall
Like those who went before, and sleep as still

Beneath the silent sod,

A cold and cheerless sleep.

Yet why should thoughts like these intrude to scare
The vagrant Happiness, when she will deign
To smile upon us here,

A transient visitor?

Mortals! be gladsome while ye have the power, And laugh and seize the glittering lapse of joy; In time the bell will toll

That warns ye to your graves.

I to the woodland solitude will bend

My lonesome way, where Mirth's obstreperous shout Shall not intrude to break

The meditative hour.

There will I ponder on the state of man,

Joyless and sad of heart, and consecrate
This day of jubilee

To sad Reflection's shrine;

And I will cast my fond eye far beyond

This world of care, to where the steeple loud
Shall rock above the sod,

Where I shall sleep in peace.

ON THE DEATH OF DERMODY, THE POET.

CHILD of misfortune! offspring of the Muse!
Mark like the meteor's gleam, his mad career:
With hollow cheeks and haggard eye,

Behold, he shrieking passes by;

That hollow scream, that deepening groan :

It rings upon mine ear.

Oh come, ye thoughtless, ye deluded youth,

Who clasp the siren Pleasure to your breast;
Behold the wreck of Genius here;

And drop, oh drop the silent tear

For Dermody at rest;

His fate is yours, then from your loins
Tear quick the silken vest.

Saw'st thou his dying bed! Saw'st thou his eye,
Once flashing fire, despair's dim tear distil;
How ghastly did it seem;
And then his dying scream;
Oh God! I hear it still:

It sounds upon my fainting sense,
It strikes with deathly chill.

Say, didst thou mark the brilliant poet's death;
Saw'st thou an anxious father by his bed,
Or pitying friends around him stand?
Or didst thou see a mother's hand
Support his languid head?

Oh none of these-no friend o'er him
The balm of pity shed.

Now come around, ye flippant sons of wealth,
Sarcastic smile on genius fallen low;

Now come around who pant for fame,
And learn from hence, a poet's name
Is purchased but by woe;

And when ambition prompts to rise,
Oh think of him below.

For me, poor moralizer, I will run,
Dejected, to some solitary state:
The Muse has set her seal on me,
She set her seal on Dermody,

It is the seal of fate:

In some lone spot my bones may lie,
Secure from human hate.

Yet ere I go I'll drop one silent tear,
Where lies unwept the poet's fallen head:

May peace her banners o'er him wave;