Where never day-light's dazzling ray
Comes to disturb thy dismal sway;

And there amid unwholesome damps dost sleep,
In such forgetful slumbers deep,

That all thy senses stupified,
Are to marble petrified.

Sleepy death, I welcome thee!
Sweet are thy calms to misery.
Poppies I will ask no more,
Nor the fatal hellebore;
Death is the best, the only cure,
His are slumbers ever sure.
Lay me in the Gothic tomb,
In whose solemn fretted gloom
I may lie in mouldering state,
With all the grandeur of the great:
Over me, magnificent,

Carve a stately monument:
Then thereon my statue lay,

With hands in attitude to pray,
And angels serve to hold my head,
Weeping o'er the father dead.
Duly too, at close of day,

Let the pealing organ play;

And while th' harmonious thunders roll

Chant a vesper to my soul:

Thus how sweet my sleep will be,

Shut out from thoughtful misery!

ATHANATOS.

Away with death-away

With all her sluggish sleeps and chilling damps,

Impervious to the day,

Where nature sinks into inanity.

How can the soul desire
Such hateful nothingness to crave,
And yield with joy the vital fire,
To moulder in the grave!

Yet mortal life is sad,

Eternal storms molest its sullen sky;

And sorrows ever rife
Drain the sacred fountain dry-

Away with mortal life!

But, hail the calm reality,

The seraph Immortality!

Hail the heavenly bowers of peace!
Where all the storms of passion cease.
Wild Life's dismaying struggle o'er,
The wearied spirit weeps no more;
But wears the eternal smile of joy,
Tasting bliss without alloy.
Welcome, welcome, happy bowers,
Where no passing tempest lowers;
But the azure heavens display
The everlasting smile of day;
Where the choral seraph choir,
Strike to praise the harmonious lyre;
And the spirit sinks to ease,

Lull'd by distant symphonies.
Oh! to think of meeting there

The friends whose graves received our

tear,

The daughter lov'd, the wife adored,

To our widow'd arms restored;

And all the joys which death did sever,

Given to us again for ever!

Who would cling to wretched life,

And hug the poison'd thorn of strife:

Who would not long from earth to fly,
A sluggish senseless lump to lie,
When the glorious prospect lies
Full before his raptured eyes?

MUSIC.

Written between the Ages of Fourteen and Fifteen,
with a few subsequent verbal Alterations.

Music, all powerful o'er the human mind,

Can still each mental storm, each tumult calm, Soothe anxious Care on sleepless couch reclined, And e'en fierce Anger's furious rage disarm. At her command the various passions lie; She stirs to battle, or she lulls to peace; Melts the charm'd soul to thrilling ecstacy, And bids the jarring world's harsh clangour cease. Her martial sounds can fainting troops inspire With strength unwonted, and enthusiasm raise; Infuse new ardour, and with youthful fire

Urge on the warrior gray with length of days.

Far better she when with her soothing lyre
She charms the falchion from the savage grasp,
And melting into pity vengeful Ire,

Looses the bloody breastplate's iron clasp.
With her in pensive mood I long to roam,
At midnight's hour or evening's calm decline,
And thoughtful o'er the falling streamlet's foam,
In calm Seclusion's hermit-walks recline.
Whilst mellow sounds from distant copse arise,
Of softest flutes or reeds harmonic join'd,
With rapture thrill'd each worldly passion dies,
And pleased Attention claims the passive mind.

Soft through the dell the dying strains retire,
Then burst majestic in the varied swell;
Now breathe melodious as the Grecian lyre,
Or on the ear in sinking cadence dwell.

Romantic sounds! such is the bliss ye give,

That heaven's bright scenes seem bursting on the With joy I'd yield each sensual wish, to live

For ever 'neath your undefiled control.

Oh! surely melody from heaven was sent,

To cheer the soul when tired with human strife,
To soothe the wayward heart by sorrow rent,
And soften down the rugged road of life.

ODE. TO THE HARVEST MOON.

-Cum ruit imbriferum ver:

Spicea jam campis cum messis inhorruit, et cum
Frumenta in viridi stipula lactentia turgnet:

[soul,

Cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret.

Virgil.

MOON of Harvest, herald mild
Of plenty, rustic labour's child,
Hail! oh hail! I greet thy beam,
As soft it trembles o'er the stream,

And gilds the straw-thatched hamlet wide,
Where Innocence and Peace reside;

'Tis thou that gladd'st with joy the rustic throng, Promptest the tripping dance, th' exhilarating song.

Moon of Harvest, I do love
O'er the uplands now to rove,
While thy modest ray serene
Gilds the wide surrounding scene;
And to watch thee riding high
In the blue vault of the sky,

Where no thin vapour intercepts thy ray,

But in unclouded majesty thou walkest on thy way.

Pleasing 'tis, oh, modest Moon!
Now the night is at her noon,
'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
While around the zephyrs sigh,
Fanning soft the sun-tann'd wheat,
Ripen'd by the summer's heat;

Picturing all the rustic's joy
When boundless plenty greets his eye,
And thinking soon,

Oh, modest Moon!

How many a female eye will roam
Along the road,

To see the load,

The last dear load of harvest-home.

Storms and tempests, floods and rains,
Stern despoilers of the plains,
Hence away, the season flee,
Foes to light-heart jollity:
May no winds careering high,
Drive the clouds along the sky,

But may all nature smile with aspect boon,
When in the Heavens thou show'st thy face, oh,
Harvest Moon!

'Neath yon lowly roof he lies,

The husbandman, with sleep-seal'd eyes;
He dreams of crowded barns, and round

The yard he hears the flail resound;

Oh! may no hurricane destroy

His visionary views of joy!