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FRAGMENT.

LOUD rage the winds without.-The wintry cloud
O'er the cold north star casts her flitting shroud;
And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale,
Starts as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale;
Where now, shut out from every still retreat,
Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat,
Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood,

Retire o'er all her pensive stores to brood?
Shivering and blue the peasant eyes askance
The drifted fleeces that around him dance,
And hurries on his half-averted form,
Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm.
Him soon shall greet his snow-topt [cot of thatch,]
Soon shall his 'numb'd hand tremble on the latch,
Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame
Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame;
Round the light fire, while roars the north wind
loud,

What merry groups of vacant faces crowd;
These hail his coming-these his meal prepare,
And boast in all that cot no lurking care.

What, though the social circle be denied,
Even Sadness brightens at her own fire-side,
Loves, with fixed eye, to watch the fluttering blaze,
While musing Memory dwells on former days;
Or Hope, bless'd spirit! smiles—and still forgiven,
Forgets the passport, while she points to Heaven.

Then heap the fire-shut out the biting air,
And from its station wheel the easy chair:
Thus fenced and warm, in silent fit, 'tis sweet
To hear without the bitter tempest beat
All, all alone-to sit, and muse, and sigh,
The pensive tenant of obscurity.

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OH! thou most fatal of Pandora's train,
Consumption! silent cheater of the eye;
Thou com'st not robed in agonizing pain,
Nor mark'st thy course with Death's delusive
dye,

But silent and unnoticed thou dost lie;

O'er life's soft springs thy venom dost diffuse,

And, while thou giv'st new lustre to the eye, While o'er the cheek are spread health's ruddy hues,

Even then life's little rest thy cruel power subdues.

Oft I've beheld thee, in the glow of youth

Hid 'neath the blushing roses which there bloom'd,

And dropp'd a tear, for then thy cankering tooth
I knew would never stay, till all consumed,
In the cold vault of death he were entomb'd.
But oh! what sorrow did I feel, as swift,
Insidious ravager, I saw thee fly

Through fair Lucina's breast of whitest snow,
Preparing swift her passage to the sky.
Though still intelligence beam'd in the glance,
The liquid lustre of her fine blue eye;
Yet soon did languid listlessness advance,
And soon she calmly sunk in death's repugnant

trance.

Even when her end was swiftly drawing near
And dissolution hover'd o'er her head:
Even then so beauteous did her form appear
That none who saw her but admiring said,
Sure so much beauty never could be dead.
Yet the dark lash of her expressive eye,
Bent lowly down upon the languid-

*

*

SONNETS.

TO CAPEL LOFFT, ESQ.

LOFFT, unto thee one tributary song

The simple Muse, admiring, fain would bring; She longs to lisp thee to the listening throng,

And with thy name to bid the woodlands ring.

Fain would she blazon all thy virtues forth,

Thy warm philanthropy, thy justice mild, Would say how thou didst foster kindred worth,

And to thy bosom snatch'd Misfortune's child; Firm she would paint thee, with becoming zeal, Upright, and learned, as the Pylian sire, Would say how sweetly thou couldst sweep the lyre,

And show thy labours for the public weal.

Ten thousand virtues tell with joys supreme, But ah! she shrinks abash'd before the arduous theme.

TO THE MOON.

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.

SUBLIME, emerging from the misty verge
Of the horizon dim, thee, Moon, I hail,
As sweeping o'er the leafless grove the gale
Seems to repeat the year's funeral dirge.
Now Autumn sickens on the languid sight,
And leaves bestrew the wanderer's lonely way,
Now unto thee, pale arbitress of night,

With double joy my homage do I pay.
When clouds disguise the glories of the day,
And stern November sheds her boisterous blight,
How doubly sweet to mark the moony ray
Shoot through the mist from the ethereal height,
And, still unchanged, back to the memory bring
The smiles Favonian of life's earliest spring.

LINES

WRITTEN AT THE GRAVE OF A ERIEND.

FAST from the West the fading day-streaks fly, And ebon Night assumes her solemn sway, Yet here alone, unheeding time, I lie,

And o'er my friend still pour the plaintive lay. Oh! 'tis not long since, George, with thee I woo'd The maid of musings by yon moaning wave, And hail'd the moon's mild beam, which now re

new'd,

Seems sweetly sleeping on thy silent grave!
The busy world pursues its boisterous way
The noise of revelry still echoes round,
Yet I am sad while all beside is gay;

Yet still I weep o'er thy deserted mound.
Oh! that, like thee, I might bid sorrow cease,
And 'neath the green-sward sleep the sleep of peace.

TO MISFORTUNE.

MISFORTUNE, I am young, my chin is bare, [told, And I have wonder'd much when men have How youth was free from sorrow and from care, That thou shouldst dwell with me and leave the

old.

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