Wafted from the plain below;
Or the heifer's frequent low ;
Or the milkmaid in the grove,
Singing of one that died for love.
Or when the noontide-heats oppress,
We will seek the dark recess,

Where, in th'embower'd translucent stream,
The cattle shun the sultry beam,
And o'er us on the marge reclined,
The drowsy fly her horn shall wind,
While Echo, from her ancient oak,
Shall answer to the woodman's stroke;
Or the little peasant's song,
Wandering lone the glens among,
His artless lip with berries dyed,
And feet through ragged shoes descried.

But oh! when evening's virgin queen
Sits on her fringed throne serene,
And mingling whispers rising near
Still on the still reposing ear:
While distant brooks decaying round,
Augment the mix'd dissolving sound,
And the zephyr flitting by,
Whispers mystic harmony,
We will seek the woody lane,
By the hamlet, on the plain,
Where the weary rustic nigh,
Shall whistle his wild melody,
And the croaking wicket oft

Shall echo from the neighbouring croft;
And as we trace the green path lone,
With moss and rank weeds overgrown,
We will muse on pensive lore
Till the full soul brimming o'er,
Shall in our upturn'd eyes appear,
Embodied in a quivering tear.
Or else, serenely silent, set
By the brawling rivulet,
Which on its calm unruffled breast,
Bears the old mossy arch impress'd,
That clasps its secret stream of glass
Half hid in shrubs and waving grass,
The wood-nymph's lone secure retreat,
Unpress'd by fawn or sylvan's feet,
We'll watch in eve's ethereal braid,
The rich vermilion slowly fade;
Or catch, faint twinkling from afar,
The first glimpse of the eastern star,
Fair Vesper, mildest lamp of light,
That heralds in imperial night;
Meanwhile, upon our wandering car,
Shall rise, though low, yet sweetly clear,
The distant sounds of pastoral lute,
Invoking soft the sober suit

Of dimmest darkness-fitting well
With love, or sorrow's pensive spell;
(So erst did music's silver tone
Wake slumbering Chaos on his throne)
And haply then, with sudden swell,
Shall roar the distant curfew-bell,
While in the castle's mouldering tower,
The hooting owl is heard to pour
Her melancholy song, and scare
Dull Silence brooding in the air.

Meanwhile her dusk and slumbering car
Black-suited Night drives on from far,
And Cynthia, 'merging from her rear,
Arrests the waxing darkness drear,
And summons to her silent call,
Sweeping, in their airy pall,
The unshrived ghosts, in fairy-trance,
To join her moonshine morrice-dance;
While around the mystic ring
The shadowy shapes elastic spring.
Then with a passing shriek they fly
Wrapp'd in mists, along the sky,
And oft are by the shepherd seen,
In his lone night-watch on the green.

Then, hermit, let us turn our feet
To the low abbey's still retreat,
Embower'd in the distant glen,
Far from the haunts of busy men,
Where, as we sit upon the tomb.
The glow-worm's light may gild the gloom.
And show to Fancy's saddest eye,
Where some lost hero's ashes lie.
And oh, as through the mouldering arch.
With ivy fill'd and weeping larch,
The night-gale whispers sadly clear,
Speaking drear things to Fancy's ear,
We'll hold communion with the shade
Of some deep-wailing, ruin'd maid—
Or call the ghost of Spenser down,
To tell of wo and Fortune's frown;
And bid us cast the eye of hope
Beyond this bad world's narrow scope.
Or, if these joys to us denied,
To linger by the forest's side;
Or in the meadow, or the wood,
Or by the lone, romantic flood ;
Let us in the busy town,
When sleep's dull streams the people drown
Far from drowsy pillows flee,
And turn the church's massy key;
Then, as through the painted glass
The moon's faint beams obscurely pass
And darkly on the trophied wall,
Her faint, ambiguous shadows fall;
Let us, while the faint winds wail,
Through the long reluctant aisle
As we pace with reverence meet,
Count the echoings of our feet;
While from the tombs, with confess'd breath,
Distinct responds the voice of death.
If thou, mild sage, wilt condescend,
Thus on my footsteps to attend,
To thee my lonely lamp shall burn
By fallen Genius' sainted urn,
As o'er the scroll of Time 1 pore,
And sagely spell of ancient lore,
Till I can rightly guess of all
That Plato could to memory call.
And scan the formless views of things,
Or, with old Egypt's fetter'd kings,
Arrange the mystic trains that shine
In night's high philosophic mine;
And to thy name shall e'er belong
The honours of undying song.

MRS. HEMANS.

TO THE IVY.

On! how could Fancy crown with thee,
In ancient days, the god of wine,
And bid thee at the banquet be

Companion of the vine?

Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound
Of revelry hath long been o'er,
Where song's full notes once peal'd around,
But now are heard no more.

The Roman, on his battle-plains, Where kings before his eagles bent, Entwined thee, with exulting strains,

Around the Victor's tent;

Yet there, though fresh in glossy green Triumphally thy boughs might wave, Better thou lov'st the silent scene,

Around the Victor's grave.

Where sleep the sons of ages flown,
The bards and heroes of the past-
Where, through the halls of glory gone,
Murmurs the wintry blast;
Where years are hastening to efface
Each record of the grand and fair,
Thou in thy solitary grace,

Wreath of the tomb! art there.

Thoa, o'er the shrines of fallen gods,
On classic plains dost mantling spread,
And veil the desolate abodes,

And cities of the dead.
Deserted palaces of kings,

Arches of triumph, long o'erthrown, And all once glorious earthly things, At length are thine alone.

Oh! many a temple, once sublime,
Beneath the blue Italian sky,
Hath nought of beauty left by time,

Save thy wild tapestry:

And, rear'd 'midst crags and clouds, 'tis thine To wave where banners waved of yore, O'er mouldering towers, by lovely Rhine, Cresting the rocky shore.

High from the fields of air look down
Those eyries of a vanish'd race,
Homes of the mighty, whose renown

Hath pass'd, and left no trace.
But thou art there-thy foliage bright
Unchanged the mountain-storm can brave;
Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height,
And deck the humblest grave.

The breathing forms of Parian stone,

That rise round grandeur's marble halls,' The vivid hues by painting thrown

Rich o'er the glowing walls;
Th' Acanthus, on Corinthian fanes,
In sculptured beauty waving fair;
These perish all-and what remains?
Thou, thou alone art there!

'Tis still the same-where'er we tread, The wrecks of human power we see, The marvels of all ages fled,

Left to decay and thee! And still let man his fabrics rear, August in beauty, grace, and strength, Days pass-Thou, "Ivy never sere," And all is thine at length!

GEORGE CANNING.

NEW MORALITY.

FROM mental mists to purge a nation's eyes;
To animate the weak, unite the wise;
To trace the deep infection that pervades
The crowded town, and taints the rural
shades;

To mark how wide extends the mighty waste
O'er the fair realms of science, learning, taste;
To drive and scatter all the brood of lies,
And chase the varying falsehood as it flies;
The long arrears of ridicule to pay,
To drag reluctant Dulness back to day;
Much yet remains.—To you these themes
belong,

Ye favour'd sons of virtue and of song!

Say, is the field too narrow? Are the times Barren of folly, and devoid of crimes?

Yet, venial vices, in a milder age, Could rouse the warmth of Pope's satiric rage: The doating miser, and the lavish heir, The follies and the foibles of the fair, Sir Job, Sir Balaam, and old Euclio's thrift, And Sappho's diamonds with her dirty shift, Blunt, Charters, Hopkins,—ineaner subjects fired

The keen-eyed poet; while the Muse inspired Her ardent child,--entwining, as he sate, His laurelled chaplet with the thorns of hate.

But say, indignant does the Muse retire, Her shrine deserted, and extinct its fire? No pious hand to feed the sacred flame, No raptured soul a poet's charge to claim?

Bethink thee, Gifford; when some future age Shall trace the promise of thy playful page ;—

away

prey!

Think then, will pleaded indolence excuse The tame secession of thy languid muse?

Ah! where is now that promise? why so

long

Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song?
Oh! come, with taste and virtue at thy side,
With ardent zeal inflamed, and patriot pride;
With keen poetic glance direct the blow,
And empty all thy quiver on the foe:-
No pause no rest-'till weltering on the
ground

The poisonous hydra lies, and pierced with many a wound.

Thou, too!—the nameless bard, whose honest zeal

For law, for morals, for the public weal, Pours down impetuous on thy country's foes The stream of verse, and many-languaged prose;

Thou, too! though oft thy ill-advised dislike The guiltless head with random censure strike,

Though quaint allusions, vague and undefined, Play faintly round the car, but mock the mind ;

Through the mix'd mass yet truth and learn ing shine, And manly vigour stamps the nervous line: And patriot warmth the generous rage inspires,

And wakes and points the desultory fires!

Yet more remain unknown: for who can tell
What bashful genius, in some rural cell,
As year to year, and day succeeds to day,
In joyless leisure wastes his life away?
In him the flame of early fancy shone;
His genuine worth his old companions own;
In childhood and in youth their chief con-
fess'd,

His master's pride, his pattern to the rest.
Now, far aloof retiring from the strife
Of busy talents, and of active life,
As, from the loop-holes of retreat, he views
Our stage, verse, pamphlets, politics, and

news,

He loathes the world,—or with reflection sad
Concludes it irrecoverably mad

Of taste, of learning, morals, all bereft,
No hope, no prospect to redeem it left.

Awake! for shame! or ere thy nobler sense Sink in th' oblivious pool of indolence! Must wit be found alone on falsehood's side, Unknown to truth, to virtue unallied? Arise! nor scorn thy country's just alarms; Wield in her cause thy long-neglected arms: Of lofty satire pour th' indignant strain, Leagued with her friends, and ardent to maintain

If vice appal thee; if thou view with awe Insults that brave, and crimes that 'scape the law;

Yet may the specious bastard brood, which claim

A spurious homage under virtue's name, Sprung from that parent of ten thousand crimes,

The new philosophy of modern times,— Yet these may rouse thee!-With unsparing hand

Oh lash the vile impostures from the land!

First, stern Philanthropy:—not she who dries The orphan's tears, and wipes the widow's eyes;

Not she, who, sainted Charity her guide, Of British bounty pours the annual tide:But French Philanthropy;-whose boundless mind

Glows with the general love of all mankind: Philanthropy,-beneath whose baneful sway Each patriot passion sinks, and dies away Taught in her school t' imbibe the mawkish strain,

Condorcet filter'd through the dregs of Paine, Each pert adept disowns a Briton's part. And plucks the name of England from his heart.

What! shall a name, a word, a sound control

Th' aspiring thought, and cramp th' expar sive soul?

Shall one half-peopled island's rocky round A love that glows for all creation bound? And social charities contract the plan Framed for thy freedom, universal man? No-through th' extended globe his feel ings run,

As broad and general as th' unbounded sun! No narrow bigot he; his reason'd view Thy interests, England, ranks with thine Peru!

France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh But heaves for Turkey's woes th' impartia sigh;

A steady patriot of the world alone,
The friend of every country-but his own

Next comes a gentler virtue. Ah! bewar Lest the harsh verse her shrinking softnew

scare.

Visit her not too roughly ;-the warm sigi Breathes on her lips; the tear-drop gem her eye.

Sweet Sensibility, who dwells enshrined In the fine foldings of the feeling mind: With delicate mimosa's sense endued, Who shrinks instinctive from a hand to rude;

Or like the anagallis, prescient flower, Shuts her soft petals at th' approaching shower.

Sweet child of sickly Fancy! Her of yore From her loved FranceRousseau to exile bore; And, while 'midst lakes and mountains wild he ran,

Full of himself, and shunned the haunts of

man,

Taught her o'er each lone vale and Alpine steep

To lisp the story of his wrongs, and weep;
Taught her to cherish still, in either eye,
Of tender tears a plentiful supply,
And pour them in the brooks that babbled by;
Taught by nice scale to mete her feelings
strong,

False by degrees, and exquisitely wrong;
For the crush'd beetle, first, the widow'd dove,
And all the warbled sorrows of the grove;
Next for poor suffering guilt; and, last of all,
For parents, friends, a king and country's fall.

Mark her fair votaries, prodigal of grief, With cureless pangs, and woes that mock relief,

Justice, whose blood-stain'd book one sole decree,

One statute fills-"The people shall be free.” Free by what means? by folly, madness,guilt; By boundless rapine, blood in oceans spilt; By confiscation, in whose sweeping toils The poor man's pittance with the rich man's spoils,

Mix'd in one common mass, are swept away, To glut the short-lived tyrant of the day;— By laws, religion, morals all o'erthrown:-Rouse then, ye sovereign people, claim your own;—

The license that enthrals, the truth that blinds,

The wealth that starves you, and the power that grinds.

-So Justice bids.-'Twas her enlighten'd doom,

Louis, thy holy head devoted to the tomb! 'Twas Justice claim'd, in that accursed hour, The fatal forfeit of too lenient power. -Mourn for the man we may;-but for the king,

Freedom, oh! Freedom's such a charming thing!

"Much may be said on both sides."-Hark! I hear

flood,

Choak'd up with slain; of Lyons drench'd in blood;

Of crimes that blot the age, the world, with

shame,

Foul crimes, but sicklied o'er with Freedom's name;

Altars and thrones subverted, social life Trampled to earth;-the husband from the wife,

car,

tell

Of talents, honour, virtue, wit, forlorn,
In friendless exile;-of the wise and good
Staining the daily scaffold with their blood;
Of savage cruelties, that scare the mind,
The rage of madness with hell's lusts

combined

Of hearts torn reeking from the mangled breast,

They hear—and hope that all is for the best.

Fond hope! but Justice sanctifies the

prayer

Justice! Here, Satire, strike; 't were sin
to spare!
Not she in British courts that takes her stand,
The dawdling balance dangling in her hand,
Adjusting punishments to fraud and vice,
With scrupulous quirks and disquisition nice:
But firm, erect, with keen reverted glance,
Th' avenging angel of regenerate France,
Who visits ancient sins of modern times,
And punishes the Pope for Caesar's crimes.
Such is the liberal Justice which presides
In these our days, and modern patriots guides;

And finds, with keen discriminating sight, Black's not so black;- nor white so very

white.

"Fox, to be sure, was vehement and wrong:But then Pitt's words, you'll own, were rather

strong. Both must be blamed, both pardon'd ;—'t was just so

With Fox and Pitt full forty years ago; So Walpole, Pulteney ;—factions in all times Have had their follies, ministers their crimes." Give me th' avow'd, the erect, the manly foc, Bold I can meet,-perhaps may turn his blow; But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,

Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend!

"Barras loves plunder, Merlin takes a bribe,What then?-Shall Candour these good men proscribe?