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To-night will guide thee, Traveller, and the war
Of winds and elements on thy head will break,
And in thy agonizing ear the shriek
Of spirits howling on their stormy car,
Will often ring appalling-I portend

A dismal night-and on my wakeful bed

Thoughts, Traveller, of thee will fill my head, And him who rides where winds and waves contend,

And strives, rude cradled on the seas, to guide
His lonely bark through the tempestuous tide.

SONNET VI.

BY CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.

This Sonnet was addressed to the Author of this Volume, and was occasioned by several little Quatorzains, misnomered Sonnets, which he published in the Monthly Mirror. He begs leave to return his thanks to the much respected writer, for the permission so politely granted to insert it here, and for the good opinion he has been pleased to express of his productions.

Ye, whose aspirings court the muse of lays,
"Severest of those orders which belong,
Distinct and separate, to Delphic song,"
Why shun the Sonnet's undulating maze?
And why its name, boast of Petrarchian days,
Assume, its rules disown'd? whom from the

throng

The muse selects, their ear the charm obeys

Of its full harmony:-they fear to wrong

The Sonnet, by adorning with a name
Of that distinguish'd import, lays, though sweet,
Yet not in magic texture taught to meet

Of that so varied and peculiar frame.
O think! to vindicate its genuine praise
Those it beseems, whose Lyre a favouring im-
pulse sways

SONNET VII.

Recantatory, in reply to the foregoing elegant Admonition.

LET the sublimer muse, who, wrapt in night,
Rides on the raven pennons of the storm,
Or o'er the field, with purple havoc warm,
Lashes her steeds, and sings along the fight,
Let her, whom more ferocious strains delight,
Disdain the plaintive Sonnet's little form,
And scorn to its wild cadence to conform
The impetuous tenor of her hardy flight.
But me, far lowest of the sylvan train,

Who wake the wood-nymphs from the forest

shade

[aid

With wildest song;-Me, much behoves thy

Of mingled melody, to grace my strain,

And give it power to please, as soft it flows. Through the smooth murmurs of thy frequent close.

SONNET VIII.

On hearing the Sounds of an Eolian Harp.

So ravishingly soft upon the tide

Of the infuriate gust, it did career,

It might have sooth'd its rugged charioteer, And sunk him to a zephyr ;-then it died, Melting in melody ;—and I descried,

Borne to some wizard stream, the form appear
Of druid sage, who on the far-off ear

Pour'd his lone song, to which the surge replied:
Or thought I heard the hapless pilgrim's knell,
Lost in some wild enchanted forest's bounds,
By unseen beings sung; or are these sounds
Such, as 'tis said, at night are known to swell
By startled shepherd on the lonely heath,
Keeping his night-watch sad portending death?

SONNET IX.

WHAT art thou, MIGHTY ONE! and where thy seat?

Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands, And thou dost bear within thine awful hands The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet, Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind, 'Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead

noon,

Or on the red wing of the fierce Monsoon, Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.

In the drear silence of the polar span
Dost thou repose? or in the solitude
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood? Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace, Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

A BALLAD.

BE hush'd, be hush'd, ye bitter winds,
Ye pelting rains a little rest:

Lie still, lie still, ye busy thoughts,

That wring with grief my aching breast.

Oh! cruel was my faithless love,
To triumph o'er an artless maid;
Oh! cruel was my faithless love,
To leave the breast by him betray'd.

When exiled from my native home,
He should have wiped the bitter tear;
Nor left me faint and lone to roam,
A heart-sick weary wanderer here.

My child moans sadly in my arms,
The winds they will not let it sleep:

Ah, little knows the hapless babe

What makes its wretched mother weep!

Now lie thee still, my infant dear,
I cannot bear thy sobs to see,
Harsh is thy father, little one,

And never will he shelter thee.

Oh, that I were but in my grave.
And winds were piping o'er me loud,
And thou, my poor, my orphan babe,
Were nestling in thy mother's shroud!

THE LULLABY.

OF A FEMALE CONVICT TO HER CHILD, THE NIGHT PREVIOUS TO EXECUTION.

SLEEP, baby mine,* enkerchieft on my bosom, Thy cries they pierce again my bleeding breast Sleep, baby mine, not long thou'lt have a mother To lull thee fondly in her arms to rest.

Baby, why dost thou keep this sad complaining, Long from mine eyes have kindly slumbers fled, Hush, hush, my babe, the night is quickly waning, And I would fain compose my aching head.

Poor wayward wretch! and who will heed thy weeping,

When soon an outcast on the world thou'lt be:

*Sir Phillip Sidney has a poem beginning, "Sleep, Baby mine."

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