Of joys, that glimmered in hope's twilight ray,
Then left me darkling in a vale of tears.
O pleasant days of hope-for ever gone!—
Could I recall you!—But that thought is vain.
Availeth not persuasion's sweetest tone

To lure the fleet-winged travellers back again :
Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam
Like the bright rainbow on an evening stream.

SONNET IX.

ALE Roamer through the night! thou poor Forlorn!

Remorse that man on his death-bed

possess,

Who in the credulous hour of tenderness

Betrayed, then cast thee forth to want and scorn!
The world is pitiless: the chaste one's pride
Mimic of virtue scowls on thy distress:

Thy loves and they, that envied thee, deride:
And vice alone will shelter wretchedness!
O! I am sad to think that there should be
Cold-bosomed lewd ones, who endure to place
Foul offerings on the shrine of misery,
And force from famine the caress of Love;
May He shed healing on thy sore disgrace
He, the great Comforter that rules above

SONNET X.

WEET Mercy! how my very heart has bled To see thee, poor Old Man! and thy gray hairs

Hoar with the snowy blast: while no one

cares

To clothe thy shrivelled limbs and palsied head.
My Father! throw away this tattered vest

That mocks thy shivering! take my garment-use
A young man's arm! I'll melt these frozen dews
That hang from thy white beard and numb thy breast.
My Sara too shall tend thee, like a child:
And thou shalt talk in our fireside's recess,
Of purple pride, that scowls on wretchedness.
He did not scowl, the Galilean mild,

Who met the Lazar turned from rich man's doors,
And called him friend, and wept upon his sores!

SONNET XI.

HOU bleedest, my poor heart! and thy distress

Reasoning I ponder with a scornful smile,

And probe thy sore wound sternly, though the while

Swoln be mine eye and dim with heaviness.

Why didst thou listen to hope's whisper bland?

Or, listening, why forget the healing tale,
When jealousy with feverous fancies pale
Jarred thy fine fibres with a maniac's hand?
Faint was that hope, and rayless!—Yet 'twas fair,
And soothed with many a dream the hour of rest:
Thou shouldst have loved it most, when most opprest,
And nursed it with an agony of care,

Even as a mother her sweet infant heir
That wan and sickly droops upon her breast!

SONNET XII.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE

"ROBBERS."

CHILLER! that hour I would have wished to die,

If through the shuddering midnight I had

sent

From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent
That fearful voice, a famished father's cry-
That in no after moment aught less vast
Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
Black horror screamed, and all her goblin rout
From the more withering scene diminished past!
Ah! Bard tremendous in sublimity!

Could I behold thee in thy loftier mood
Wandering at eve with finely frenzied eye
Beneath some vast old tempest-swinging wood!
Awhile with mute awe gazing I would brood:
Then weep aloud in a wild ecstasy!

LINES

COMPOSED WHILE CLIMBING THE LEFT ASCENT OF

BROCKLEY COOMB, SOMERSETSHIRE,

MAY, 1795.

ITH many a pause and oft reverted eye
I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet song-

sters near

Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o'er precipices browse: From the forced fissures of the naked rock The yew tree bursts! Beneath its dark green boughs ('Mid which the May-thorn blends its blossoms white) Where broad smooth stones jut out in mossy seats, I rest-and now have gained the topmost site. Ah! what a luxury of landscape meets

My gaze! Proud towers, and cots more dear to me, Elm-shadowed fields, and prospect-bounding sea! Deep sighs my lonely heart: I drop the tear: Enchanting spot! O were my Sara here!

LINES

IN THE MANNER OF SPENSER.

PEACE, that on a lilied bank dost love
To rest thine head beneath an olive tree,
I would, that from the pinions of thy dove
One quill withouten pain yplucked might
be!

For O! I wish my Sara's frowns to flee,
And fain to her some soothing song would write,
Lest she resent my rude discourtesy,

Who vowed to meet her ere the morning light, But broke my plighted word—ah! false and recreant wight!

Last night as I my weary head did pillow With thoughts of my dissevered Fair engrost, Chill fancy drooped wreathing herself with willow, As though my breast entombed a pining ghost. "From some blest couch, young rapture's bridal Rejected slumber! hither wing thy way; [boast, But leave me with the matin hour, at most! As night-closed floweret to the orient ray, My sad heart will expand, when I the Maid survey."

But Love, who heard the silence of my thought,
Contrived a too successful wile, I ween:
And whispered to himself, with malice fraught—
"Too long our slave the Damsel's smiles hath seen:
To-morrow shall he ken her altered mien!"