TO MISS BRUNTON,

WITH THE PRECEDING TRANSLATION.*

THAT darling of the Tragic Muse-
When Wrangham sung her praise,

Thalia lost her rosy hues

And sicken'd at his lays :

But transient was th' unwonted sigh ;
For soon the Goddess spied

A sister form of mirthful eye

And danced for joy and cried :

"Meek Pity's sweetest child, proud dame,

The fates have given to you

!

Still bid your Poet boast her name ;

I

I have my Brunton too."

THE MAD MONK.†

HEARD a voice from Etna's side;
Where, o'er a cavern's mouth

That fronted to the south

A chestnut spread its umbrage wide :
A hermit, or a monk, the man might be ;
But him I could not see:

And thus the music flow'd along,

In melody most like to old Sicilian song :

* Printed in Wrangham's Poems, 1795, p. 83, note.

+ Printed in The Wild Wreath, edited by M. E. Robinson. Lond. Rich. Phillips, 1804, 8vo, pp. 142-144.

"There was a time when earth, and sea, and skies, The bright green vale, and forest's dark recess, With all things, lay before mine eyes

In steady loveliness:

But now I feel, on earth's uneasy scene,
Such sorrows as will never cease ;—

I only ask for peace ;

If I must live to know that such a time has been!"

A silence then ensued:

Till from the cavern came

A voice; it was the same!

And thus, in mournful tone, its dreary plaint renewed :

"Last night, as o'er the sloping turf I trod,

The smooth green turf, to me a vision gave Beneath mine eyes, the sod

The roof of Rosa's grave!

My heart has need with dreams like these to strive,
For, when I woke, beneath mine eyes I found
The plot of mossy ground,

On which we oft have sat when Rosa was alive.—
Why must the rock, and margin of the flood,
Why must the hills so many flowerets bear,
Whose colours to a murder'd maiden's blood
Such sad resemblance wear?—

"I struck the wound,—this hand of mine!
For oh, thou maid divine,

I loved to agony !

The youth whom thou call'd'st thine

Did never love like me?

"Is it the stormy clouds above That flashed so red a gleam?

On yonder downward trickling stream ?— 'Tis not the blood of her I love.

The sun torments me from his western bed:
Oh, let him cease for ever to diffuse

Those crimson spectre hues !

Oh, let me lie in peace, and be for ever dead!”
Here ceased the voice. In deep dismay,
Down thro' the forest I pursued my way.