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Mingles its melody;-and, high above,
The pensive empress of the solemn night,
Fitful, emerging from the rapid clouds,
Shews her chaste face in the meridian sky.
No wicked elves upon the Warlock-knoll
Dare now assemble at their mystic revels;
It is a night, when from their primrose beds
The gentle ghosts of injured innocents
Are known to rise, and wander on the breeze,
Or take their stand by th' oppressor's couch,
And strike grim terror to his guilty soul:
The spirit of my love might now awake,
And hold its custom'd converse.

Mary, lo!

Thy Edward kneels upon thy verdant grave,
And calls upon thy name.- -The breeze that blows
On his wan cheek will soon sweep over him
In solemn music, a funereal dirge,

Wild and most sorrowful.--His cheek is pale;
The worm that prey'd upon thy youthful bloom
It canker'd green on his.-Now lost he stands,
The ghost of what he was, and the cold dew
Which bathes his aching temples gives sure omen
Of speedy dissolution.-Mary, soon

Thy love will lay his pallid cheek to thine,
And sweetly will he sleep with thee in death.

MY STUDY.

IN HUDIBRASTIC VERSE.

You bid me, Ned, describe the place
Where I, one of the rhyming race,
Pursue my studies con amore,
And wanton with the muse in glory.

Well, figure to your senses straight,
Upon the house's topmost height,
A closet, just six feet by four,

With white-wash'd walls and plaster floor,
So noble large, 'tis scarcely able
T'admit a single chair or table:
And (lest the muse should die with cold)
A smoky grate my fire to hold:

So wondrous small, 'twould much it pose
To melt the ice-drop on one's nose;
And yet so big, it covers o'er

Full half the spacious room and more.
A window vainly stuff'd about,
To keep November's breezes out,
So crazy, that the panes proclaim
That soon they mean to leave the frame.
My furniture I sure may crack-

A broken chair without a back;
A table wanting just two legs,
One end sustain'd by wooden pegs;
A desk-of that I am not fervent,
The work of, Sir, your humble servant;
(Who, though I say't, am no such fumbler;)
A glass decanter and a tumbler,

From which my night-parch'd throat I lave,
Luxurious with the limpid wave.

A chest of drawers, in antique sections,
And saw'd by me in all directions;
So small, Sir, that whoever views 'em
Swears nothing but a doll could use 'em.

To these, if you will add a store

Of oddities upon the floor,

A pair of globes, electric balls,

Scales, quadrants, prisms, and cobbler's awls,

E

And crowds of books on rotten shelves,
Octavos, folios, quartos, twelves;
I think, dear Ned, you curious dog,
You'll have my earthly catalogue.
But stay, I nearly had left out
My bellows, destitute of snout;

And on the walls,-Good Heavens! why there
I've such a load of precious ware, a way,
Of heads, and coins, and silver medals,
And organ works, and broken pedals;
(For I was once a-building music,
Though soon of that employ I grew sick;
And skeletons of laws which shoot
All out of one primordial root;

That you, at such a sight, would swear
Confusion's self had settled there.

There stands, just by a broken sphere,
A Cicero without an ear,

A neck, on which, by logic good,
I know for sure a head once stood:
But who it was the able master
Had moulded in the mimic plaster,
Whether 'twas Pope, or Coke, or Burn,
I never yet could justly learn:
But knowing well, that any head
Is made to answer for the dead,
(And sculptors first their faces frame,
And after pitch upon a name,
Nor think it aught of a misnomer

To christen Chaucer's busto Homer,

Because they both have beards, which, you know,

Will mark them well from Joan and Juno,)

For some great man, I could not tell

But NECK might answer just as well,

So perch'd it up, all in a row
With Chatham and with Cicero,
Then all around, in just degree,
A range of portraits you may see
Of mighty men, and eke of women,
Who are no whit inferior to men.

With these fair dames, and heroes round,
I call my garret classic ground:
For, though confined, 'twill well contain
The ideal flights of Madam Brain.
No dungeon's walls, no cell confined,
Can cramp the energies of mind!

Thus, though my heart may seem so small,
I've friends, and 't will contain them all;
And should it e'er become so cold
That these it will no longer hold,

No more may Heaven her blessings give,-
I shall not then be fit to live.

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

MILD offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,
Was nursed in whirling storms,

And cradled in the winds.

Thee, when young Spring first question'd Winter's sway,

And dared the sturdy blusterer to the fight,

Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed and alone,
Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity: in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,
And hardens her to bear
Serene the ills of life.

SONNETS.

I.

To the river Trent. Written on recovery from sickness.
ONCE more, O Trent! along thy pebbly marge
A pensive invalid, reduced and pale,

From the close sick-room newly let at large,

Wooes to his wan-worn cheek the pleasant gale.
O! to his ear how musical the tale

Which fills with joy the throstle's little throat!
And all the sounds which on the fresh breeze sail,
How wildly novel on his senses float!

It was on this that many a sleepless night,

As, lone, he watch'd the taper's sickly gleam, And at his casement heard with wild affright, The owl's dull wing and melancholy scream, On this he thought, this, this his whole desire, Thus once again to hear the warbling woodland choir.

II.

GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,
Where far from cities I may spend my days,
And by the beauties of the scene beguiled,
May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways.

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