Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove, TO A FRIEND. TOGETHER WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM. THUS far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme She loved me dearly, and I doted on her! I've view'd-her soul affectionate yet wise, THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN ABSENCE. DIM hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar, O rise and yoke the turtles to thy car! * I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the lines Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love Aught to implore were impotence of mind, it being written in Scripture, "Ask, and it shall be given you," and my human reason being moreover convinced of the propriety of offering petitions as well as thanksgiv ings to the Deity. LINES TO JOSEPH COTTLE. My honour'd friend! whose verse concise, yet clear, Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense, Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky. Circling the base of the poetic mount A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlabouring feet. Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast, ween, you wander'd-there collecting flowers Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers! There for the monarch-murder'd soldier's tomb * War, a fragment. + John the Baptist, a poem. Monody on John Henderson. soar, my friend, those richer views among, ng, rapid, fervent flashing fancy's beam! irtue and truth shall love your gentler song; But poesy demands th' impassion'd theme: innocence of his own heart still mistaking her in creasing fondness for motherly affection; she, at length, overcome by her miserable passion, after much abuse of Mary's temper and moral tendencies, Waked by heaven's silent dews at eve's mild exclaimed with violent emotion-"O Edward! in gleam, What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around! IV. ODES AND MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. THE THREE GRAVES. A FRAGMENT OF A SEXTON'S TALE. [THE author has published the following humble fragment, encouraged by the decisive recommendation of more than one of our most celebrated living poets The language was intended to be dramatic; that is, suited to the narrator: and the metre corresponds to the homeliness of the diction. It is therefore presented as the fragment, not of a poem, but of a common ballad tale. Whether this is sufficient to justify the adoption of such a style, in any metrical composition not professedly ludicrous, the author is himself in some doubt. At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no way connected with the author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its merits, if any, are exclusivley psychological. The story, which must be supposed to have been narrated in the first and second parts, is as follows. deed, indeed, she is not fit for you-she has not a heart to love you as you deserve. It is I that love you! Marry me, Edward! and I will this very eyes were now opened; and thus taken by surprise, day settle all my property on you."-The lover's whether from the effect of the horror which he felt, acting as it were hysterically on his nervous system, or that at the first moment he lost the sense of the proposal in the feeling of its strangeness and absurdity, he flung her from him and burst into a fit of laughter. Irritated by this almost to frenzy, the woman fell on her knees, and in a loud voice that approached to a scream, she prayed for a curse both on him and on her own child. Mary happened to be in the room directly above them, heard Edward's laugh and her mother's blasphemous prayer, and fainted away. He, hearing the fall, ran up stairs, and taking her in his arms, carried her off to Ellen's home; and after some fruitless attempts on her part toward a reconciliation with her mother, she was married to him.-And here the third part of the tale begins. I was not led to choose this story from any partiality to tragic, much less to monstrous events, (though at the time that I composed the verses, somewhat more than twelve years ago, I was less averse to such subjects than at present,) but from finding in it a striking proof of the possible effect on the imagination, from an idea violently and suddenly impressed on it. I had been reading Bryan Edwards's account of the effect of the Oby Witchcraft on the Negroes in the West Indies, and Hearne's deeply interesting anecdotes of similar Edward, a young farmer, meets, at the house of workings on the imagination of the Copper Indians, Ellen, her bosom friend, Mary, and commences an (those of my readers who have it in their power acquaintance, which ends in a mutual attachment. will be well repaid for the trouble of referring to With her consent, and by the advice of their comthose works for the passages alluded to,) and I conmon friend Ellen, he announces his hopes and in-ceived the design of showing that instances of this tentions to Mary's mother, a widow woman border-kind are not peculiar to savage or barbarous tribes, ing on her fortieth year, and from constant health, and of illustrating the mode in which the mind is the possession of a competent property, and from affected in these cases, and the progress and symphaving had no other children but Mary and another toms of the morbid action on the fancy from the daughter, (the father died in their infancy,) retain- beginning. ing, for the greater part, her personal attractions and comeliness of appearance; but a woman of low education and violent temper. The answer which she at once returned to Edward's application was remarkable: "Well! Edward, you are handsome young fellow, and you shall have my daughter." From this time all their wooing passed under the mother's eye; and, in fine, she became herself enamoured of her future son-in-law, and practised every art, both of endearment and of calumny, to transfer his affections from her daughter to herself. (The outlines of the tale are positive facts, and of no very distant date, though the author has purposely altered the names and the scene of action, as well as invented the characters of the parties and the detail of the incidents.) Edward, however, though perplexed by her strange detracon from her daughter's good qualities, yet in the a [The tale is supposed to be narrated by an old sexton, in a country churchyard, to a traveller whose curiosity had been awakened by the appearance of three graves, close by each other, to two only of which there were grave-stones. On the first of these were the name, and dates, as usual: on the second no name but only a date, and the words, The mercy of God is infinite.] PART III. THE grapes upon the vicar's wall And once her both arms suddenly Round Mary's neck she flung, And her heart panted, and she felt The words upon her tongue. She felt them coming, but no power So gentle Ellen now no more Could make this sad house cheery; And Mary's melancholy ways Drove Edward wild and weary. Lingering he raised his latch at eve, Though tired in heart and limb: He loved no other place, and yet Home was no home to him. One evening he took up a book, And nothing in it read; Then flung it down, and groaning, cried, "O! Heaven! that I were dead." Mary look'd up into his face, And nothing to him said; She tried to smile, and on his arm Mournfully lean'd her head. And he burst into tears, and fell Upon his knees in prayer; "Her heart is broke! O God! my grief, It is too great to bear!" 'Twas such a foggy time as makes Old sextons, sir! like me, Rest on their spades to cough; the spring Was late uncommonly. And then the hot days, all at once, It happen'd then, ('twas in the bower I scarce know how you should,) No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh To any pasture plot; But cluster'd near the chattering brook, Lone hollies mark'd the spot. Those hollies of themselves a shape As of an arbour took, A close, round arbour; and it stands Not three strides from a brook. Within this arbour, which was still With scarlet berries hung, Were these three friends, one Sunday morn, Just as the first bell rung. "Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet To hear the Sabbath bell, "Tis sweet to hear them both at once, Deep in a woody dell. His limbs along the moss, his head With shut-up senses, Edward lay, And talk'd as 'twere by stealth. "The sun peeps through the close thick leaves, See, dearest Ellen! see! 'Tis in the leaves, a little sun, No bigger than your e'e; "A tiny sun, and it has got A perfect glory, too; Ten thousand threads and hairs of light, Round that small orb, so blue." And then they argued of those rays, Says this, "They're mostly green;" says that So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts But soon they heard his hard quick pants, His face was drawn back on itself, With horror and huge pain. Both groan'd at once, for both knew well That hath been just struck blind. He sat upright; and ere the dream "O God, forgive me!" he exclaim'd, Then Ellen shriek'd, and forthwith burst And Mary shiver'd, where she sat, And never she smiled after. Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To morrow! and to-morrow! and to-morrow !— DEJECTION; AN ODE. Late, late yestreen, I saw the new Moon, Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. I. WELL! if the bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade |