From his bosom that heaved the last torrent was streaming,
And pale was his visage deep marked with a scar!
And dim was that eye once expressively beaming,
That melted in love and that kindled in war!

How smit was poor Adelaide's heart at the sight!
How bitter she wept o'er the victim of war!

"Hast thou come, my fond Love, this last sorrowful night, To cheer the lone heart of your wounded Hussar ?”

"Thou shalt live," she replied, "Heaven's mercy relieving Each anguishing wound shall forbid me to mourn!" "Ah no! the last pang of my bosom is heaving! No light of the morn shall to Henry return!

"Thou charmer of life, ever tender and true!
Ye babes of my love, that await me afar!"
His faltering tongue scarce could murmur adieu,
When he sunk in her arms-the poor wounded Hussar!

THE HARPER.

On the green banks of Shannon when Sheelah was nigh,
No blithe Irish lad was so happy as I;

No harp like my own could so cheerily play,
And wherever I went was my poor dog Tray.

When at last I was forced from my Sheelah to part,
She said (while the sorrow was big at her heart),
"Oh! remember your Sheelah, when far, far away:
And be kind, my dear Pat, to our poor dog Tray."

Poor dog! he was faithful and kind to be sure,
And he constantly loved me although I was poor;
When the sour-looking folks sent me heartless away,
I had always a friend in my poor dog Tray.

When the road was so dark, and the night was so cold,
And Pat and his dog were grown weary and old,
How snugly we slept in my old coat of gray,
And he licked me for kindness-my poor dog Tray.

Though my wallet was scant, I remembered his case,
Nor refused my last crust to his pitiful face;
But he died at my feet on a cold winter day,
And I played a sad lament for my poor dog Tray.

Where now shall I go, poor, forsaken, and blind?
Can I find one to guide me, so faithful and kind?
To my sweet native village, so far, far away,
I can never more return with my poor dog Tray.

LOVE AND MADNESS.

AN ELEGY.

WRITTEN IN 1795.

HARK! from the battlements of yonder tower*
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour!
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Bk wakes-in solitude to weep!

66 Cease, Memory, cease (the friendless mourner cried) To probe the bosom too severely tried!

Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through the bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the music of the mind,

Tuned all its charms, and E- -n was kind!

"Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling frame, In sighs to speak thy melancholy name!

I hear thy spirit wail in every storm!

In midnight shades I view thy passing form!
Pale as in that sad hour when doomed to feel,
Deep in thy perjured heart, the bloody steel!

Warwick Castle.

"Demons of Vengeance! ye at whose command
I grasped the sword with more than woman's hand,
Say ye, did Pity's trembling voice control,
Or horror damp the purpose of my soul?
No! my wild heart sat smiling o'er the plan,
Till Hate fulfilled what baffled Love began!

"Yes; let the clay-cold breast that never knew
One tender pang to generous Nature true,
Half-mingling pity with the gall of scorn,
Condemn this heart, that bled in love forlorn!

"And ye, proud fair, whose soul no gladness warms, Save Rapture's homage to your conscious charms! Delighted idols of a gaudy train,

Ill can your blunter feelings guess the pain,
When the fond faithful heart, inspired to prove
Friendship refined, the calm delight of Love,
Feels all its tender strings with anguish torn,
And bleeds at perjured Pride's inhuman scorn.

"Say, then, did pitying Heaven condemn the deed, When Vengeance bade thee, faithless lover! bleed? Long had I watched thy dark foreboding brow, What time thy bosom scorned its dearest vow! Sad, though I wept the friend, the lover changed, Still thy cold look was scornful and estranged, Till from thy pity, love, and shelter thrown,

I wandered hopeless, friendless, and alone!

"Oh! righteous Heaven! 'twas then my tortured soul First gave to wrath unlimited control!

Adieu the silent look! the streaming eye!

The murmured plaint! the deep heart-heaving sigh!
Long-slumbering Vengeance wakes to better deeds;
He shrieks, he falls, the perjured lover bleeds!
Now the last laugh of agony is o'er,

And pale in blood he sleeps, to wake no more!

“'Tis done! the flame of hate no longer burns:
Nature relents, but, ah! too late returns!
Why does my soul this gush of fondness feel?
Trembling and faint I drop the guilty steel!
Cold on my heart the hand of terror lies,
And shades of horror close my languid eyes!
Oh! 'twas a deed of murder's deepest grain !
Could B- -k's soul so true to wrath remain ?
A friend long true, a once fond lover fell!-
Where love was fostered could not Pity dwell?

66

Unhappy youth! while yon pale crescent glows To watch on silent Nature's deep repose,. Thy sleepless spirit, breathing from the tomb, Foretells my fate, and summons me to come! Once more I see thy sheeted spectre stand, Roll the dim eye, and wave the paly hand!

"Soon may this fluttering spark of vital flame Forsake its languid melancholy frame! Soon may these eyes their trembling lustre close, Welcome the dreamless night of long repose! Soon may this woe-worn spirit seek the bourne Where, lulled to slumber, Grief forgets to mourn!"

LINES

ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER.

AND call they this improvement ?—to have changed,
My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore,
Where Nature's face is banished and estranged,
And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more;

Whose banks, that sweetened May-day's breath before,
Lie sere and leafless now in summer's beam,

With sooty exhalations covered o'er;

And for the daisied greensward, down thy stream Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam.

Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains;
One heart free tasting Nature's breath and bloom
Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon's gains.
But whither goes that wealth, and gladdening whom?
See, left but life enough and breathing-room
The hunger and the hope of life to feel,

Yon pale mechanic bending o'er his loom,
And childhood's self as at Ixion's wheel,

From morn till midnight tasked to earn its little meal.

Is this improvement ?-where the human breed
Degenerates as they swarm and overflow,

Till toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed,
And man competes with man, like foe with foe,
Till death, that thins them, scarce seems public woe?
Improvement!-smiles it in the poor man's eyes,
Or blooms it on the cheek of labour?-No-
To gorge a few with trade's precarious prize,
We banish rural life and breathe unwholesome skies.

Nor call that evil slight; God has not given
This passion to the heart of man in vain,

For earth's green face, the untainted air of heaven,
And all the bliss of nature's rustic reign,

For not alone our frame imbibes a stain

From fetid skies; the spirit's healthy pride

Fades in their gloom-And therefore I complain,

That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde !

CAROLINE.

PART I.

I'LL bid the hyacinth to blow,

I'll teach my grotto green to be;
And sing my true love, all below
The holly bower and myrtle tree.