And adjurations of the God in Heaven),
We send our mandates for the certain death
Of thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls,
And women, that would groan to see a child
Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,
The best amusement for our morning-meal!
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough
To ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father,
Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
And technical in victories and defeats,
And all our dainty terms for fratricide;
Terms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues
Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which
We join no feeling and attach no form'
As if the soldier died without a wound;
As if the fibres of this godlike frame
were gored without a pang; as if the wretch,
Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds,
Pass'd off to Heaven, translated and not kill'd ;
As though he had no wife to pine for him,
No God to judge him Therefore, evil days
Are coning on us, O my countrymen!
And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony
Of our fierce doings'

Impious and false, a light yet cruel race,

Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth
With deeds of murder; and still promising
Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free,
Poison life's ainities, and cheat the heart
Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes
And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;
Render them back upon the insulted ocean,
And let them toss as idly on its waves
As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast
Swept from our shores! And oh! may we return
Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear,
Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung
So fierce a foe to frenzy!

: As if a Government had been a robe,
On which our vice and wretchedness were taggd
Like fancy points and fringes, with the robe
Pull'd off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
A radical causation to a few
Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
Who borrow all their hues and qualities
From our own folly and rank wickedness,
Which gave them birth and nursed them. Others,

meanwhile,
Dote with a mad idolatry; and all
Who will not fall before their images,
And yield them worship, they are enemies
Even of their country!

Such have I been deem’d— But, O dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy To me, a son, a brother, and a friend, A husband, and a father! who revere All bonds of natural love, and find them all Within the limits of thy rocky shores. 0 native Britain! O my Mother Isle! How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and holy To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills, Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and seas, Have drunk in all my intellectual life, All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts, All adoration of the God in nature, All lovely and all honourable things, Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel The joy and greatness of its future being? There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul Unborrow'd from my country. O divine And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole And most magnificent temple, in the which I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs, Loving the God that made me!

May my fears, My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts And menace of the vengeful enemy Pass like the gust, that roar'd and died away In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass.

Fine. Sisters! I from Ireland came! Hedge and corn-fields all on flame, I triumph'd o'er the setting sun And all the while the work was done, On as I strode with my huge strides, I flung back my head and I held my sides, It was so rare a piece of fun To see the swelter'd cattle run With uncouth gallop through the night, Scared by the red and noisy light! By the light of his own blazing cot Was many a naked rebel shot: The house-stream met the flame and hiss'd, While crash fell in the roof, I wist, On some of those old bed-rid nurses, That deal in discontent and curses.

us in all directions, he should presume to offer to the public a silly tale of old-fashioned love: and five years ago, I own I should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But, alas' explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases to appear new ; and it is possible that now even a simple story, wholly uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention amid the hubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time by the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinctly audible. S. T. C. Dec. 21, 1799.

O leave the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;

O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle-bough
This morn around my harp you twined,

Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a Tale of Love and Woe, A woeful Tale of Love I sing;

Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!

O come, and hear what cruel wrongs
Befel the Dark Ladie.

Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope, my joy, my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene'er 1 sing The songs that make her grieve.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stir this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oh! ever in my waking dreams,
I dwell upon that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I sate,

II. LOVE POEMS.

Quas humilis tenero stylus olim effudit in a vo.
Perlegis hic lacrymas, et quod pharetratus acuta
ille puer puero fecit mihi cuspide vulnus,
omnia Paulatim consumit longior aetas,
Vivendoque simul morimur, rapimurque manendo.
Ipse mibi collatus enim non ille widebor:
Frons alia est, moresque alii, nova mentis imago,
Voxque aliud sonat-
Pectore nunc gelido calidos miseremur amantes.
Jamaue arsisse pudet. Veteres tranquilla tumulta,
Men's horret relegensque alium putatista locutum.
Piraakcm.

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.

The following Poem is intended as the introduction to a some

Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She lean'd against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listen'd to my harp, | Amid the ling ring light.

I play’d a sad and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—

An old rude song, that fitted well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen’d with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not chuse

what longer one. The use of the old Ballad word Laute for Lady, * the only piece of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a *le of ancient times, I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity (as Camden says) will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties explode around

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand;

And how for ten long years he wood The Ladie of the Land :

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sung another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listen’d with a flitting blush;
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed,
Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed this bold and lovely Knight,

And how he roam'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day or night.

And how he cross'd the woodman's paths, Through briars and swampy mosses beat;

How boughs rebounding scourged his limbs, And low stubs gored his feet;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade;

There came and look'd him in the face
An Angel beautiful and bright;

And how he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And how, unknowing what he did,
He leapt amid a lawless band,

And saved from outrage worse than death
The Ladie of the Land

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain—

And meekly strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain :

And how she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words—but when I reach'd That tend rest strain of all the ditty,

My faltring voice and pausing harp Disturb’d her soul with pity'

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes and fears that kindle hope, An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherish'd long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blush'd with love and maiden-shame

And, like the murmurs of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

I saw her bosom heave and swell,
Heave and swell with inward sighs-

I could not chuse but love to see
Her gentle bosom rise.