though prudence might have dictated gentler language, truth, I think, would have justified severer.

I went to America with prepossessions by no means unfavourable, and, indeed, rather indulged in many of those illusive ideas with respect to the purity of the government, and the primitive happiness of the people, which I had early imbibed in my native country, where, unfortunately, discontent at home enhances every distant temptation, and the Western world has long been looked to as a retreat from real or imaginary oppression, as the elysian Atlantis, where persecuted patriots might find their visions realized, and be welcomed by kindred spirits to liberty and repose. I was completely disappointed in every flattering expectation which I had formed, and was inclined to say to America, as Horace says to his mistress, intentata nites.' Brissot, in the preface to his Travels, observes, that 'freedom in that country is carried to so high a degree as to border upon a state of nature;' and there certainly is a close approximation to savage life, not only in the liberty which they enjoy, but in the violence of party spirit and of private animosity which results from it. This illiberal zeal embitters all social intercourse; and though I scarcely could hesitate in selecting the party whose views appeared the more pure and rational, yet I was sorry to observe that, in asserting their opinions, they both assume an equal share of intolerance; the Democrats, consistently with their principles, exhibiting a vulgarity of rancour which the Federalists too often are so forgetful of their cause as to imitate.

The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and, indeed, the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement, which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. But when we find them arrived at maturity in most of the vices and all the pride of civilization, while they are still so remote from its elegant characteristics, it is impossible not to feel that this youthful decay, this crude anticipation of the natural period of corruption, represses every sanguine hope of the future energy and greatness of America.

I am conscious that, in venturing these few remarks, I have said just enough to offend, and by no means sufficient to convince; for the limits of a preface will not allow me to enter into a justification of my opinions, and I am committed on the subject as effectually as if I had written volumes in their defence. My reader, however, is apprised of the very cursory observation upon which these opinions are founded, and can easily decide for himself upon the degree of attention or confidence which they merit.

With respect to the poems in general which occupy the following pages, I know not in what manner to apologize to the public for intruding upon their notice such a mass of unconnected trifles, such a world of epicurean atoms, as I have here brought in conflict together. To say that I have been tempted by the liberal offers of my bookseller, is an excuse which can hope for but little indulgence from the critic; yet I own that, without this seasonable inducement, these poems very possibly would never have been submitted to the world. The glare of publication is too strong for such imperfect productions: they should be shown but to the eye of friendship, in that dim light of privacy, which is as favourable to poetical as to female beauty, and serves as a veil for faults, while it enhances every charm which it displays. Besides, this is not a period for the idle occupations of poetry, and times like the present require talents more active and more useful. Few have now the leisure to read such trifles, and I sincerely regret that I have had the leisure to

write them,

EPISTLES, ODES, AND OTHER POEMS.

EPISTLE I.

TO LORD VISCOUNT STRANGFORD.

ABOARD THE PHAETON FRIGATE, OFF THE AZORES, BY MOONLIGHT.

SWEET moon! if like Crotona's sage,1

By any spell my hand could dare

To make thy disk its ample page,

And write my thoughts, my wishes there;

How many a friend, whose careless eye

Now wanders o'er that starry sky,

Should smile, upon thy orb to meet
The recollection, kind and sweet,
The reveries of fond regret,
The promise never to forget,
And all my heart and soul would send
To many a dear-loved, distant friend!

Oh, Strangford! when we parted last,
I little thought the times were past,
For ever past, when brilliant joy
Was all my vacant heart's employ:
When, fresh from mirth to mirth again,
We thought the rapid hours too few,
Our only use for knowledge then
To turn to rapture all we knew!
Delicious days of whim and soul !

When, mingling lore and laugh together,
We leaned the book on pleasure's bowl,
And turned the leaf with folly's feather!
I little thought that all were fled,
That, ere that summer's bloom was shed,
My eye should see the sail unfurled
That wafts me to the western world!

And yet 'twas time-in youthful days,
To cool the season's burning rays,
The heart may let its wanton wing
Repose awhile in pleasure's spring,
But, if it wait for winter's breeze,

The spring will dry, the heart will freeze!

Pythagoras, who was supposed to have a power of writing upon the moon by the means of

a magic mirror. See Bayle, art. Pythag.

And then, that Hope, that fairy Hope,
Oh! she awaked such happy dreams,
And gave my soul such tempting scope
For all its dearest, fondest schemes,
That not Verona's child of song,

When flying from the Phrygian shore,
With lighter hopes could bound along,
Or pant to be a wanderer more!1

Even now delusive hope will steal
Amid the dark regrets I feel,
Soothing as yonder placid beam
Pursues the murmurs of the deep,
And lights them with consoling gleam,
And smiles them into tranquil sleep!
Oh! such a blessed night as this,

I often think, if friends were near,
How we should feel, and gaze with bliss
Upon the moon-bright scenery here!
The sea is like a silvery lake,

And o'er its calm the vessel glides
Gently, as if it feared to wake

The slumber of the silent tides !
The only envious cloud that lowers,

Hath hung its shade on Pico's height,"
Where dimly, 'mid the dusk, he towers,
And, scowling at this Heaven of light,
Exults to see the infant storm
Cling darkly round his giant form!

Now, could I range those verdant isles
Invisible, at this soft hour,

And see the looks, the melting smiles,
That brighten many an orange bower;
And could I lift each pious veil,

And see the blushing cheek it shades,
Oh! I should have full many a tale
To tell of young Azorian maids."

Dear Strangford at this hour, perhaps,
Some faithful lover (not so blest
As they who in their ladies' laps
May cradle every wish to rest)
Warbles, to touch his dear one's soul,
Those madrigals, of breath divine,
Which Camoens' harp from rapture stole,
And gave, all glowing warm, to thine !

Alluding to these animated lines in the 44th It is said by some to be as high as the peak of Carmen of this poet (Catullus):

Teneriffe.

3 I believe it is Guthrie who says, that the inhabitants of the Azores are much addicted to gallantry. This is an assertion in which even Guthrie may be credited.

These islands belong to the Portuguese.

A BEAM of tranquillity smiled in the west,

The storms of the morning pursued us no more,
And the wave, while it welcomed the moment of rest,
Still heaved, as remembering ills that were o'er!

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,

Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead,
And the spirit becalmed but remembered their power,
As the billow the force of the gale that was fled!

I thought of the days, when to pleasure alone
My heart ever granted a wish or a sigh;
When the saddest emotion my bosom had known
Was pity for those who were wiser than I!

I felt how the pure intellectual fire
In luxury loses its heavenly ray;

How soon, in the lavishing cup of desire,
The pearl of the soul may be melted away!

And I prayed of that Spirit who lighted the flame,
That pleasure no more might its purity dim,
And that sullied but little, or brightly the same,
I might give back the gem I had borrowed from him!
The thought was ecstatic! I felt as if Heaven
Had already the wreath of eternity shown;
As if, passion all chastened and error forgiven,
My heart had begun to be purely its own!

1 From Captain Cockburn, who commanded the Phaeton, I received such kind attentions as I must ever remember with gratitude. As some of the journalists have gravely asserted that I went to America to speculate in lands, it may not

be impertinent to state, that the object of this voyage across the Atlantic was my appointment to the office of Registrar of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Bermuda,

I looked to the west, and the beautiful sky
Which morning had clouded, was clouded no more:
Oh! thus,' I exclaimed, can a heavenly eye

Shed light on the soul that was darkened before!'

THE TELL-TALE LYRE.

I'VE heard, there was in ancient days
A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas Heaven to hear its fairy lays,
If half be true that legends tell.

'Twas played on by the gentlest sighs,
And to their breath it breathed again
In such entrancing melodies

As ear had never drunk till then!

Not harmony's serenest touch

So stilly could the notes prolong,
They were not heavenly song so much
As they were dreams of heavenly song!

If sad the heart, whose murmuring air
Along the chords in languor stole,
The soothings it awakened there
Were eloquence from pity's soul !

Or if the sigh, serene and light,

Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
Soon whispered it to kind repose!

And oh when lovers talked alone,
If 'mid their bliss the Lyre was near,
It made their murmurs all its own,

And echoed notes that Heaven might hear!

There was a nymph, who long had loved,
But dared not tell the world how well;
The shades, where she at evening roved,
Alone could know, alone could tell.

'Twas there, at twilight time, she stole
So oft, to make the dear one blest,
Whom love had given her virgin soul,
And nature soon gave all the rest!

It chanced that in the fairy bower

Where they had found their sweetest shed,
This Lyre, of strange and magic power,
Hung gently whispering o'er their head.