The rugged metal of the mine

Must burn before its surface shine,

But plung'd within the furnace-flame,

It bends and melts-though still the same;

Then tempered to thy want, or will,

"Twill serve thee to defend or kill;

A breast-plate for thine hour of need,

926

Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;

But if a dagger's form it bear,

$930

Let those who shape its edge, beware!

Thus passion's fire, and woman's art,
Can turn and tame the sterner heart;
From these its form and tone are ta'en,
And what they make it, must remain,
But break-before it bend again.

935

If solitude succeed to grief,

Release from pain is slight relief;

The vacant bosom's wilderness

Might thank the pang that made it less. 940 We loathe what none are left to share

Even bliss-'twere woe alone to bear;

The heart once left thus desolate,

Must fly at last for ease-to hate.

It is as if the dead could feel

945

The icy worm around them steal,
And shudder, as the reptiles creep

To revel o'er their rotting sleep
Without the power to scare away

The cold consumers of their clay!

950

It is as if the desart-bird, 39

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream;

To still her famish'd nestlings' scream,

Nor mourns a life to them transferr'd;

Should rend her rash devoted breast,
And find them flown her empty nest.
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void-
The leafless desart of the mind-

The waste of feelings unemploy'd-
Who would be doom'd to gaze upon
A sky without a cloud or sun?

Less hideous far the tempest's roar,

Than ne'er to brave the billows more

955

960

Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er, 965

A lonely wreck on fortune's shore,

'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,

Unseen to drop by dull decay ;

Better to sink beneath the shock

Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! 970

*

*

"Father! thy days have pass'd in peace,

"'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;

"To bid the sins of others cease,

"Thyself without a crime or care,

"Save transient ills that all must bear, 975 "Has been thy lot, from youth to age,

"And thou wilt bless thee from the rage

“Of passions fierce and uncontroul'd,

"Such as thy penitents unfold,

"Whose secret sins and sorrows rest

980

"Within thy pure and pitying breast.

"My days, though few, have pass'd below "In much of joy, but more of woe ;

"Yet still in hours of love or strife,

"I've 'scap'd the weariness of life;

985

"Now leagu'd with friends, now girt by foes, "I loath'd the languor of repose;

"Now nothing left to love or hate, "No more with hope or pride elate;

"I'd rather be the thing that crawls

990

"Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,
"Than pass my dull, unvarying days,
"Condemn'd to meditate and gaze.
"Yet, lurks a wish within my breast
"For rest-but not to feel 'tis rest.

"Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;

" And I shall sleep without the dream "Of what I was, and would be still,

66

"Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:

'My memory now is but the tomb

995

1000

"Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: