All cold the hand that sooth'd Woe's weary head! And quench'd the eye, the pitying tear that shed! And mute the voice, whose pleasing accents stole, Infusing balm, into the rankled soul!

O Death, why arm with cruelty thy power,
And spare the idle weed, yet lop the flower?
Why fly thy shafts in lawless error driven?
Is Virtue then no more the care of Heaven?
But peace, bold thought! be still my bursting heart!
We, not Eliza, felt the fatal dart.

'Scap'd the dark dungeon, does the slave complain,
Nor bless the hand that broke the galling chain?
Say, pines not Virtue for the lingering morn,
On this dark wild condemn'd to roam forlorn?
Where Reason's meteor-rays, with sickly glow,
O'er the dun gloom a dreadful glimmering throw?
Disclosing dubious to the' affrighted eye
O'erwhelming mountains tottering from on high,
Black billowy seas in storm perpetual toss'd,
And weary ways in wildering labyrinths lost.
O happy stroke! that burst the bonds of clay,.
Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day,
And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar,
Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more.
Transporting thought! here let me wipe away
The tear of grief, and wake a bolder lay.
But ah! the swimming eye o'erflows anew,-
Nor check the sacred drops to pity due;
Lo, where in speechless, hopeless anguish, bend
O'er her low'd dust, the Parent, Brother, Friend!
How vain the hope of man!-But cease thy strains
Nor Sorrow's dread solemnity profane ;

Mix'd with yon drooping Mourners, on her bier
In silence shed the sympathetic tear.

EPITAPH:

BEING PART OF AN INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT,

To be erected by a Gentleman to the Memory of his Lady.

FAREWELL, my best-belov'd; whose heavenly mind Genius with virtue, strength with softness join'd; Devotion, undebas'd by pride or art,

With meek simplicity, and joy of heart;
Though sprighly, gentle; though polite, sincere;
And only of thyself a judge severe;

Unblam'd, unequall'd in each sphere of life,
The tenderest Daughter, Sister, Parent, Wife.
In thee their Patroness the' afflicted lost;
Thy friends, their pattern, ornament, and boast;
And I—but ah, can words my loss declare,
Or paint the' extremes of transport and despair!
O Thou, beyond what verse or speech can tell,
My guide, my friend, my best-belov'd, farewell!

THE HERMIT.

Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove:
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a Hermit began;
No more with himself, or with nature at war,
He thought as a Sage, though he felt as a Man.

"Ah why, all abandon'd to darkness and woe,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For Spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And Sorrow no longer thy bosom inthral.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, Man calls thee to

mourn;

O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away. Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The Moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays :
But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again :
But Man's faded glory what change shall renew?
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more; I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, Perfum'd with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.

Nor yet for the ravage of Winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo-blossom will save.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!"

'Twas thus, by the glare of false Science betray'd, That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind; My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,

Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.

"O pity, great Father of light! (then I cried) Thy creature, who fain would not wander from Thee!

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride;

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."

And darkness and doubt are now flying away;
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn :
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn :
See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom?
On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are
blending,

And Beauty Immortal awakes from the tomb.

EPITAPH ON THE AUTHOR.

BY HIMSELF.

ESCAP'D the gloom of mortal life, a soul

Here leaves its mouldering tenement of clay, Safe, where no cares their whelming billows roll, No doubts bewilder, and no hopes betray.

Like thee, I once have stem'd the sea of life; Like thee, have languish'd after empty joys; Like thee, have labour'd in the stormy strife; Been griev'd for trifles, and amus'd with toys.

Yet, for awhile, 'gainst passion's threatful blast Let steady reason urge the struggling oar; Shot through the dreary gloom, the morn at last Gives to thy longing eye the blissful shore.

Forget my frailties, thou art also frail;

Forgive my lapses, for thyself may'st fall:
Nor read, unmov'd, my artless tender tale,
I was a friend, oh man! to thee, to all.