Oh! come and be near me, for ever be mine,
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as, of old, was imagined to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.

And oft, at those lingering moments of night,

When the heart is weighed down and the eyelid is light,
You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above!
O spirit!—and then, could you borrow the tone
Of that voice, to my ear so bewitchingly known,
The voice of the one upon earth who has twined
With her essence for ever my heart and my mind!
Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
An exile and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment that voice on my ear,
I will think at that moment my Cara is near,

That she comes with consoling enchantment to speak,
And kisses my eyelid and sighs on my cheek,
And tells me, the night shall go rapidly by,

For the dawn of our hope, of our heaven, is nigh!

Sweet spirit! if such be your magical power, It will lighten the lapse of full many an hour; And let fortune's realities frown as they will, Hope, fancy, and Cara, may smile for me still!

PEACE AND GLORY.

WHERE is now the smile that lightened
Every hero's couch of rest?

Where is now the hope that brightened
Honour's eye and pity's breast?

Have we lost the wreath we braided
For our weary warrior men?

Is the faithless olive faded?

Must the bay be plucked again?

Passing hour of sunny weather,
Lovely, in your light awhile,
Peace and Glory, wed together,
Wandered through the blessed isle.
And the eyes of Peace would glisten,
Dewy as a morning sun,

When the timid maid would listen
To the deeds her chief had done.

Is the hour of dalliance over?
Must the maiden's trembling feet
Waft her from her warlike lover
To the desert's still retreat?

Fare you well! with sighs we banish
Nymph so fair and guest so bright;

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to fancy's power,
When her soft magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind.
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcomed with a tear!
In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remembered oft and well

By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguiled,
Can proudly still aspire to know
The feeling soul's divinest glow!
If thus to live in every part

Of a lone weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ

Can give thee one faint gleam of joy,
Believe it, Mary! oh, believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
When passion doth not first betray
And tinge the thought upon its way!
In pleasure's dream or sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be
For ever to remember thee!

And though that heart be dead to minc
Since love is life and wakes not thine,
I'll take thy image, as the form

Of something I should long to warm,
Which, though it yield no answering thrill.
Is not less dear, is lovely still!

I'll take it, wheresoe'er I stray,

The bright, cold burthen of my way!
To keep this semblance fresh in bloom.
My heart shall be its glowing tomb,
And Love shall lend his sweetest care.
With memory to embalm it there!

SONG.

TAKE back the sigh thy lips of art
In passion's moment breathed to me;
Yet no- -it must not, will not part;
'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,

And has become too pure for thee!

Take back the kiss, that faithless sigh
With all the warmth of truth impressed :
Yet no-the fatal kiss may lie,
Upon thy lip its sweets would die,

Or bloom to make a rival blest!

Take back the vows that, night and day,
My heart received, I thought, from thine;
Yet no-allow them still to stay,-
They might some other heart betray
As sweetly as they've ruined mine!

A BALLAD.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

Written at Norfolk, in Virginia.

"They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses." -Anon.

La Poésie a ses monstres comme la Nature.-D'Alembert.

"THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;

And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,*
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.

"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our life shall be,
And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree,
When the footstep of Death is near!"

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds
And man never trode before !

The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond.

And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear, and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake,
And the copper-snake breathed in his ear,
Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,
"Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface played-

"Welcome," he said, " 'my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed, for many a night,
The name of the death-cold maid!

Till he hollowed a boat of the birchen bark,
Which carried him off from shore;

Far he followed the meteor spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark,
And the boat returned no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp
This lover and maid so true

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp,
To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,
And paddle their white canoe!

TO THE

MARCHIONESS DOWAGER OF DONEGALL.
From Bermuda, January 1804.

LADY! where'er you roam, whatever beam
Of bright creation warms your mimic dream;
Whether you trace the valley's golden meads'
Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads:*
Enamoured catch the mellow hues that sleep,
At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;
Or musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on the holy shrine +
Where, many a night, the soul of Tell complains
Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the tablet that creative eye,

And let its splendour, like the morning ray

Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay!

*Lady D., I supposed, was at this time still in Switzerland, where the powers

of her pencil must have been frequently awakened.

The chapel of William Tell on the Lake of Lucerne.

Yet, Lady, no-for song so rude as mine,
Chase not the wonders of your dream divine;
Still, radiant eye! upon the tablet dwell;
Still, rosy finger! weave your pictured spell;
And, while I sing the animated smiles
Of fairy nature in these sun-born isles,

Oh! might the song awake some bright design,
Inspire a touch, or prompt one happy line,
Proud were my soul to see its humble thought
On painting's mirror so divinely caught,
And wondering Genius, as he leaned to trace
The faint conception kindling into grace,
Might love my numbers for the spark they throw,
And bless the lay that lent a charm to you!

Have you not oft, in nightly vision, strayed
To the pure isles of ever-blooming shade
Which bards of old, with kindly magic, placed
For happy spirits in th' Atlantic waste?
There as eternal gales, with fragrance warm,
Breathed from elysium through each shadowy form
In eloquence of eye, and dreams of song,
They charmed their lapse of nightless hours along!
Nor yet in song that mortal ear may suit,
For every spirit was itself a lute,
Where virtue wakened, with elysian breeze,
Pure tones of thought and mental harmonies!
Believe me, Lady, when the zephyrs bland
Floated our bark to this enchanted land,
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown,
Like studs of emerald o'er a silver zone;
Not all the charm that ethnic fancy gave
To blessed arbours o'er the western wave
Could wake a dream more soothing or sublime
Of bowers ethereal and the spirit's clime!

The morn was lovely, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar-hill

Sweetly awaked us, and with smiling charms,
The fairy harbour wooed us to its arms.

Gently we stole, before the languid wind,

Through plantain shades taat like an awning twined

And kissed on either side the wanton sails,

Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While, far reflected o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island shed so soft a green

Nothing can be more romantic than the little harbour of St. George's. The number of beautiful islets, the singular clearness of the water, and the animated play of the graceful little boats, gliding for ever between the islands, and seeming to sail from one cedar-grove into another, form all together the sweetest miniature of nature that can be imagined.