A LAKE AND A FAIRY BOAT.

A LAKE and a fairy boat

To sail in the moonlight clear;
And merrily we would float

From the dragons that watch us here!

Thy gown should be snow-white silk,
And strings of orient pearls,
Like gossamers dipped in milk,
Should twin with thy raven curls!
Red rubies should leck thy hands,
And diamonds should be thy dower;
But fairies have broke their wand-
And wishing has lost its power!

THE THANKLESS GIRL

SHE'S up and gone, the graceless gir.!
And robbed my failing years;
My blood before was thin and cold,
But now 'tis turned to tears.
My shadow falls upon my grave,
So near the brink I stand;
She might have stayed a little yet,
And led me by the hand!

Ay, call her on the barren moor,
And call her on the hill;
"Tis nothing but the heron's cry,
And plover's answer shrill.
My child is flown on wilder wings
Than they have ever spread;
And I may even walk a waste
That widened when she fled.

Full many a thankless child has been,
But never one like mine;

Her meat was served on plates of gold,
Her drink was rosy wine;
But how she'll share the robin's food,
And sup the common rill,
Before her feet will turn again
To meet her father's will!

RUTH.

SHE stood breast high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush
Deeply ripened;—such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell;
But long lashes veiled a light,
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks.
"Sure," I said, "heaven did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean:
Lay thy sheaf adown, and come
Share my harvest and my home."

Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings
On crowded carcasses-sa' passive things
That wore the thin gray surface, like a veil
Over the calmness of their features pale.

And there were spring-faced cherubs, that did sleep
Like water-lilies on that motionless deep-
How beautiful! with bright unruffled hair
On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were
Buried n marble tombs, a pale eclipse!

And sn ile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips,
Meekly apart, as if the soul intense
Spake out in dreams of its own innocence

And so they lay in loveliness, and kept

The birth-night of their peace, that Life c'en wept With very envy of their happy fronts;

For there were neighbor brows, scarred by the brunts
Of strife and sorrowing-where Care had set
His crooked autograph, and marred the jet
Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn,
And lips that curled in bitterness and scorn-
Wretched as they had breathed of this world's pain,
And so bequeathed it to the world again,
Through the beholder's heart in heavy sighs.

So lay they garmented in torpid light,
Under the pall of a transparent night,
Like solemn apparitions lulled sublime
To everlasting rest; and with them Time
Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face
Of a dark dial in a sunless place.

THE EXILE.

THE Swallow with summer
Will wing o'er the seas,
The wind that I sigh to
Will visit thy trees,
The ship that it hastens
Thy ports will contain,
But me-I must never
See England again!

There's many that weep there,
But one weeps alone,
For the tears that are falling

So far from her own;
So far from thy own, love.

We know not our pain;
If death is between us,
Or only the main.

When the white clond reclines
On the verge of the sea,

I fancy the white cliffs,
And dream upon thee;
But the cloud spreads its wings
To the blue heaven and flies.
We shall never meet, love,
Except in the skies!

TO AN ABSENTEE.

O'ER hill, and dale, and distant sea,
Through all the miles that stretch between,
My thought must fly to rest on thec,
And would, though worlds should intervena

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks
The farther we are forced apart,
Affection's firm elastic links

But bind the closer round the heart.

For now we sever each from each,
I learn what I have lost in thee;
Alas, that nothing less could teach,
How great indeed my love should be!

Farewell! did not know thy worth,
But thou art gok, and now 'tis prized:
So angels walked unknown on earth,
But when they flew were recognised'

A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturned a sailor's shroudStill flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run; Behold yon fatal billow rise-ten billows heaped in one! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling fast,

As if the scooping sea contained one only wave at last!
Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave;
It seemed as though some cloud had turned as hugeness to
a wave!

Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face-
I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base!
I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine!
Another pulse-and down it rushed-an avalanche of brine;
Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and
home;

The waters closed-and when I shrieked, I shrieked below the foam!

Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed— For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed.

trong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spiteDetested features, hardly dimmed and banished by the light! Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs

All phantasies and images that flit in midnight gloomsHags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast,But nothing like that GRIMLY ONE who stood beside the mast!

His cheek was black-his brow was black-his eyes and hair as dark:

His hand was black, and where it touched, it left a sable

mark;

What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any ecail It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has won my soal! Oh, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows the beguiled

My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child: My mother dear-my native fields, I never more shall see I'm sailing in the Devil's Ship, upon the Devil's Sea!" Loud laughed that SABLE MARINER, and loudly in return His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem t

THE FORSAKEN.

THE dead are in their silent graves,
And the dew is cold above,
And the living weep and sigh,
Over dust that once was love.

Once I only wept the dead,

But now the living cause my pain:
How couldst thou steal me from my tears,
To leave me to my tears again?

My mother rests beneath the sod,-
Her rest is calm and very deep:

I wished that she could see our loves,-
But now I gladden in her sleep.

Last night unbound my raven locks,
The morning saw them turned to gray,
Once they were black and well-beloved,
But thou art changed-and so are they!
The useless lock I gave thee once,
To gaze upon and think of me,
Was ta'en with smiles,-but this was torn
In sorrow that I send to thee!

THE STARS ARE WITH THE VOYAGER
THE stars are with the voyager
Wherever he may sail;
The moon is constant to her time;
The sun will never fail;
But follow, follow round the world,
The green earth and the sea;
So love is with the lover's heart,
Wherever he may be.

Wherever he may be, the stars

Must daily lose their light;
The moon will veil her in the shade;
The sun will set at night.
The sun may set but constant love
Will shine when he's away;
So that dull night is never night,
And day is brighter day.

ODE TO MELANCHOLY.

COME, let us set our careful breasts,
Like Philomel, against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief,
That makes her accents so forlorn;
The world has many cruel points,

hereby our bosoms have been torn,
And there are dainty themes of grief,
In sadness to outlast the morn,—
True honor's dearth, affection's death,
Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn
With all the piteous tales that tears
Have watered since the world was born.

The world!-it is a wilderness,
Where tears are hung on every tree;
For thus my gloomy phantasy
Makes all things weep with me!
Come, let us sit and watch the sky,
And fancy clouds, where no clouds be;
Grief is enough to blot the eye,
And make heaven black with misery.
Why should birds sing such merry notes,
Unless they were more blest than we?
No sorrow ever chokes their throats,
Except sweet nightingale; for she
Was born to pain our hearts the more
With her sad melody.

Why shines the sun, except that he
Makes gloomy nooks is Grief to hide,
And pensive shades for Melancholy,
When all the earth is bright beside?

Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave,
Mirth shall not win us back again,
While man is made of his own grave,
And fairest clouds but gilded rain!

I saw my mother in her shroud,
Her cheek was cold and very pale;
And ever since I've looked on all
As creatures doomed to fail!
Why do buds ope, except to die?
Ay, let us watch the roses wither,
And think of our loves' cheeks;
And oh, how quickly time doth fly
To bring death's winter hither!
Minutes, hours, days, and weeks,
Months, years, and ages, shrink to naught;
An age past is but a thought!

Ay, let us think of him a while,
l'hat, with a coffin for a boat,
Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat,
And for our table choose a tomb:
There's dark enough in any skull
To charge with black a raven plume;
And for the saddest funeral thoughts
A winding sheet hath ample room,
Where Death, with his keen-pointed style,
Hath writ the common doom.

How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom,
And o'er the dead lets fall its dew,

As if in tears it wept for them,

The many human families

That sleep around its stem!

How cold the dead have inade these stones,
With natural drops kept ever wet!
Lo! her the best, the worst, the world
Doth now remember or forget,
Are in one common ruin hurled,
And love and hate are calmly met;
The loveliest eyes that ever shone,
The fairest hands, and locks of jet.
Is 't not enough to vex our souls,
And fill our eyes, that we have set
Our ove upon a rose's leaf,
Our hearts upon a violet ?

Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet;
And sometimes at their swift decay
Beforehand we must fret.

The roses bud and bloom again;
But love may haunt the grave of love,
And watch the mould in vain.

O clasp me, sweet, while thou art mine,
And do not take my tears amiss;
For tears must flow to wash away

A thought that shows so stern as this:
Forgive, if somewhat I forget,

In wo to come, the present bliss,
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis,
E'en so the dark and bright will kiss.
The sunniest things throw sternest shade,
And there is e'en a happiness
That makes the heart afraid!

Now let us with a spell invoke
The full-orbed moon to grieve our eyes;
Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud
Lapped all about her, let her rise
All pale and dim, as if from rest
The ghost of the late-buried sun
Had crept into the skies.

The Moon! she is the source of sighs,
The very face to make us sad;
If but to think in other times
The same calm quiet look she had,
As if the world held nothing base,
Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad;
The same fair light that shone in streams,
The fairy lamp that charmed the lad;
For so it is, with spent delights

She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad.

All things are touched with melancholy,
Born of the secret soul's mistrust,
To feel her fair ethereal wings

Weighed down with vile degraded dust;
Even the bright extremes of joy
Bring on conclusions of disgust,
Like the sweet blossoms of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must.

O give her, then, her tribute just,
Her sighs and tears, and musings holy!
There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There's not a string attuned to mirth,
But has its chord in melancholy.

ΤΟ

WELCOME, dear Heart, and a most kind good morrow;
The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine :—
Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow
Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine.

Here are red roses, gathered at thy cheeks,-
The white were all too happy to look white:
For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks;
It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright!

Dost love sweet Hyacinth? Its scented leaf Curls manifold,-all love's delights blow double: 'Tis said this floweret is scribed with grief,But let that hint of a forgotte. trouble.

I plucked the Primrose at night dewy noon; Like Hope, it showed its blossoms in the night; 'Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon! And here are Sun-flowers, amorous of light!

These golden Buttercups are April's seal,The Daisy stars her constellations be: These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, Therefore I pluck no Daisies but for thee!

Here's Daisies for the morn, Primrose for gloom,
Pansies and Roses for the noontide hours:

A wight once made a dial of their bloom,-
So may thy life be measured out by flowers!

SIGH ON, SAD HEARI

SGH on, sad heart, for Love's eclipse,

And Beauty's fairest queen,
Though 'tis not for my peasant lips

To soil her name between:
A king might lay his sceptre down,
But I am poor and nought,

The brow should wear a golden crown,
That wears her in its thought.

The diamonds glancing in her hair,
Whose sudden beams surprise,
Might bid such humble hopes beware
The glancing of her eyes;
Yet looking once, I looked too long,
And if my love is sin,

Death follows on the heels of wrong,

And kills the crime within.

Her dress seemed wove of lily leaves,
It was so pure and fine,

O lofty wears, and lowly weaves,
But hoddan gray is mine;
And homely hose must step apart,
Where gartered princes stand,
But may he wear my love at heart
That wins her lily hand!

Alas! there's far from russet frieze
To silks and satin gowns,

But I doubt if God made like degrees,
In courtly hearts and clowns.
My father wronged a maiden's mirth,
And brought her cheeks to blame,
And all that's lordly of my birth,
Is my reproach and shame!

Tis vain to weep, 'tis vain to sigh,
'Tis vain this idle speech,

For where her happy pearls do lie,
My tears may never reach;
Yet when I'm gone, e'en lofty pride
May say of what has been,
His love was nobly born and died,
Though all the rest was mean!

My speech is rude-but speech is weak
Such love as mine to tell,

Yet had I words, I dare not speak,
So Lady, fare thee well;

I will not wish thy better state
Was one of low degree,

But I must weep that partial fate
Made such a churl of me.

THE WATER LADY.

ALAS, the moon should ever beam

To show what man should never see!
I saw a maiden on a stream,
And fair was she!

I stayed awhile to see her throw
Her tresses back, that all beset
The fair horizon of her brow
With clouds of jet.

I stayed a little while to view

Her cheek, that wore in place of re
The bloom of water, tender blue,
Daintily spread.

I stayed to watch a little space,
Her parted lips if she would sing;
The waters closed above her face
With many a ring.

And still I stayed a little more,
Alas! she never comes again;
I throw my flowers from the shore,
And watch in vain.

I know my life will fade away, I know that I must vainly pine, For I am made of mortal clay, But she's divine!

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The liburnam on his birth-day-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresk
To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,

The fir-trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven Than when I was a boy.

SILENCE.

THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert, where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep proforma
No voice is hushed-no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground;
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

Of antique palaces, where man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyena calls,

And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, There the true silence is, self-conscious and alone.

TO AN ENTHUSIAST.

YOUNG ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's truth,
Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind,
And still a large late love of all thy kind,
Spite of the world's cold practice, and Time's tooth
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth,
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind
Thine eyes with tears-that thou hast not resigned
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth:
For as the current of thy life shall flow,
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stained,
Through flowery valley or unwholesome fen,
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy wo
Thrice cursed of thy race-thou art ordained
To share beyond the lot of common men.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.*

TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

DEAR SIR: I can have no expectations, in an address of this kind, either to add to your reputation, or to estabsh my own. You can gain nothing from my admiration, as I am ignorant of that art in which you are said to excel; and I may lose much by the severity of your judgment, as few have a juster taste in poetry than you. Setting interest, therefore, aside, to which I never paid much attention, I must be indulged at present in following my affections. The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most other men. He is since Jead. Permit me to inscribe this Poem to you.

How far you may be pleased with the versification and mere mechanical parts of this attempt, I do not pretend to inquire: but I know you will object (and indeed several of our best and wisest friends concur in the opinion) that the depopulation it deplores is nowhere to be seen, and the disorders it laments are only to be found in the poet's own imagination. To this I can scarcely make any other answer, than that I sincerely believe what I have written; that I have taken all possible pains, in my country excursions, for these four or five years past, to be certain of what I allege; and that all my views and inquiries have led me to believe those miseries real, which I here attempt to display. But this is not the place to enter into an inquiry whether the country be depopulating or not: the discussion would take up much room, and I should prove myself, at best, an indifferent politician, to tire the reader with a long preface, when I want his unfatigued attention to a long poem.

In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consiler luxury as one of the greatest national advantages; and all the wisdom of antiquity in that particular as erroneous. Still, however, I must remain a professed ancient on that head, and continue to think those luxuries prejudicial to states by which so many vices are introduced, and so many kingdoms have been undone. Indeed, so much has been poured out of late on the other side of the question, that merely for the sake of novelty and variety, one would sometimes wish to be in the right.

I am, dear sir,

Your sincere friend, and ardent admirer, OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed:
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
beats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!

The locality of this poem is supposed to be Lissoy, near Ballymahan, where the poet's brother Henry had his living. As usual in such cases, the place afterward became the fashionable resort of poetical pilgrims, and paid the customary penalty of furnishing relics for the curious. The hawthorn bush has been converted into snuff19, and now adorns the cabinets of poetical virtuosi.

How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farin,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topt the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blest the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its turn to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree;
While many a pastime circled in the shade,
The young contending as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round;
And still as each repeated pleasure tired,
Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired;
The dancing pair that simply sought renown,
By holding out to tire cach other down;
The swain mistrustless of his smutted face,
While secret laughter tittered round the place;
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love,
The matron's glance that would those looks reprove:
These were thy charms, sweet village! sports like these,
With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please;
These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed,
These were thy charms-but all these charins are flec.
Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn !
Amid thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen
And Desolation saddens all thy green:
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain.
No more thy grassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest;
Amid thy desert walks the lapwing flies,
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries;
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all,
And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall;
And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand,
Far, far away thy children leave the land.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

A time there was, ere England's griefs began,
When every rood of ground maintained its man:
For him light Labor spread her wholesome store,
Just gave what life required, but gave no more;
His best companions, innocence and health,
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
But times are altered trade's unfeeling train
Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain;
Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,
Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose,
And every want to luxury allieu,

And every pang that folly pays to pride.
Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom,
Those calm desires that asked but little room,
Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene,
Lived in each look, and brightened all the green,~
These, far departing, seek a kinder shore,
And rural mirth and manners are no more