WRITTEN IN EARLY YOUTH.-THE TIME AN AUTUMNAL EVENING.

O THOU Wild FANCY, check thy wing! No more
Those thin white flakes, those purple clouds explore!
Nor there with happy spirits speed thy flight
Bathed in rich amber-glowing floods of light;
Nor in yon gleam, where slow descends the day,
With western peasants hail the morning ray!
Ah! rather bid the perished pleasures move,
A shadowy train, across the soul of Love!
O'er Disappointment's wintry desert fling
Each flower that wreathed the dewy locks of SPRING,
When blushing, like a bride, from Hope's trim bower
She leapt, awakened by the pattering shower.
Now sheds the sinking Sun a deeper gleam,
Aid, lovely Sorceress ! aid thy Poet's dream!
With faery wand O bid the MAID arise,

Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue eyes;
As erst when from the Muses' calm abode
I came, with Learning's meed not unbestowed:
When as she twined a laurel round my brow,
And met my kiss, and half returned my vow,
O'er all my frame shot rapid my thrilled heart,
And every nerve confessed the electric dart.

O dear Deceit ! I see the Maiden rise,
Chaste Joyance dancing in her bright-blue Eyes!
When first the lark high soaring swells his throat,
Mocks the tired eye, and scatters the loud note,
I trace her footsteps on the accustomed lawn,
I mark her glancing mid the gleam of dawn.
When the bent flower beneath the night dew weeps
And on the lake the silver lustre sleeps,

Amid the paly radiance soft and sad,

She meets my lonely path in moon-beams clad.
With her along the streamlet's brink I rove;
With her I list the warblings of the grove;
And seems in each low wind her voice to float
Lone whispering Pity in each soothing note!

SPIRITS of LOVE! ye heard her name! Obey
The powerful spell, and to my haunt repair.
Whether on clustering pinions ye are there,
Where rich snows blossom on the Myrtle trees,
Or with fond languishment around my fair
Sigh in the loose luxuriance of her hair;
O heed the spell, and hither wing your way,
Like far-off music, voyaging the breeze!

SPIRITS! to you the infant Maid was given
Formed by the wonderous Alchemy of Heaven!

No fairer Maid does Love's wide empire know,
No fairer Maid e'er heaved the bosom's snow.
A thousand Loves around her forehead fly;
A thousand Loves sit melting in her eye;
Love lights her smile-in Joy's red nectar dips
His myrtle flower, and plants it on her lips.
She speaks! and hark that passion warbled song-
Still, Fancy! still that voice, those notes prolong.
As sweet as when that voice with rapturous falls,
Shall wake the softened echoes of Heaven's Halls!

O (have I sighed) were mine the wizard's rod,
Or mine the power of Proteus, changeful God!
A flower-entangled ARBOUR I would seem
To shield my Love from Noontide's sultry beam :
Or bloom a MYRTLE, from whose odorous boughs
My Love might weave gay garlands for her brows.
When Twilight stole across the fading vale,
To fan my Love I'd be the EVENING GALE;
Mourn in the soft folds of her swelling vest,
And flutter my faint pinions on her breast!
On Seraph wing I'd float a DREAM by night,
To sooth my Love with shadows of delight :-
Or soar aloft to be the SPANGLED SKIES,
And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes!

As when the Savage, who his drowsy frame
Had basked beneath the Sun's unclouded flame,
Awakes amid the troubles of the air,
The skiey deluge, and white lightning's glare-
Aghast he scours before the tempest's sweep,
And sad recalls the sunny hour of sleep:-
So tossed by storms along Life's wildering way,
Mine eye reverted views that cloudless day,
When by my native brook I wont to rove
While HOPE with kisses nursed the Infant Love.

Dear native brook! like PEACE So placidly
Smoothing through fertile fields thy current meek!
Dear native brook! where first young POESY
Stared wildly-eager in her noontide dream,
Where blameless pleasures dimple QUIET'S cheek,
As water-lilies ripple thy slow stream!
Dear native haunts! where Virtue still is gay,
Where Friendship's fixed star sheds a mellowed ray,
Where LOVE a crown of thornless Roses wears,
Where softened SORROW smiles within her tears;
And MEMORY, with a VESTAL'S chaste employ,
Unceasing feeds the lambent flame of joy!

E

No more your sky-larks melting from the sight
Shall thrill the attuned heart-string with delight-
No more shall deck your pensive Pleasures sweet
With wreaths of sober hue my evening seat,
Yet dear to Fancy's eye your varied scene
Of wood, hill, dale, and sparkling brook between!
Yet sweet to Fancy's ear the warbled song,
That soars on Morning's wing your vales among.

Scenes of my Hope! the aching eye ye leave
Like yon bright hues that paint the clouds of eve!
Tearful and saddening with the saddened blaze
Mine eye the gleam pursues with wistful gaze:
Sees shades on shades with deeper tint impend,
Till chill and damp the moonless night descend.

THE KISS.

ONE kiss, dear Maid! I said and sighed→
Your scorn the little boon denied.
Ah why refuse the blameless bliss?
Can danger lurk within a kiss?

Yon viewless Wanderer of the vale,
The SPIRIT of the Western Gale,
At Morning's break, at Evening's close
Inhales the sweetness of the ROSE,
And hovers o'er the uninjured Bloom
Sighing back the soft perfume.
Vigour to the Zephyr's wing
Her nectar-breathing KISSES fling;
And He the glitter of the Dew
Scatters on the ROSE's hue.
Bashful lo! she bends her head,
And darts a blush of deeper Red!

Too well those lovely lips disclose
The Triumphs of the opening Rose;
O fair! O graceful! bid them prove
As passive to the breath of Love.
In tender accents, faint and low,
Well-pleased I hear the whispered "No!"
The whispered "No"-how little meant !
Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent !
For on those lovely lips the while
Dawns the soft relenting smile,

And tempts with feigned dissuasion coy
The gentle violence of Joy.

THE ROSE.

AS late each flower that sweetest blows
I plucked, the Garden's pride!
Within the petals of a Rose

A sleeping Love I spied.

Around his brows a beamy wreath
Of many a lucent hue;

All purple glowed his check, beneath,
Inebriate with dew.

I softly seized the unguarded Power,
Nor scared his balmy rest;

And placed him, caged within the flower,

On Spotless SARA's breast.

But when unweeting of the guile

Awoke the prisoner sweet,

He struggled to escape awhile

And stamped his faery feet.

Ah! soon the soul-entrancing sight
Subdued the impatient boy!

He gazed! he thrilled with deep delight!
Then clapped his wings for joy.

"And O!" he cried-" Of magic kind
"What charms this Throne endear!
"Some other LOVE let Venus find-
"I'll fix my empire here."

TO A YOUNG ASS.

ITS MOTHER BEING TETHERED NEAR IT.

POOR little Foal of an oppressed Race!
I love the languid Patience of thy face:
And oft with gentle hand I give thee bread,
And clap thy ragged Coat, and pat thy head.
But what thy dulled Spirits hath dismayed,
That never thou dost sport along the glade?
And (most unlike the nature of things young)
That earthward still thy moveless head is hung?
Do thy prophetic Fears anticipate,
Meek Child of Misery! thy future fate?—
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
"Which patient Merit of the Unworthy takes?"
Or is thy sad heart thrilled with filial pain
To see thy wretched MOTHER'S shortened Chain?

And truly, very piteous is her Lot

Chained to a Log within a narrow spot

Where the close-eaten Grass is scarcely seen,

While sweet around her waves the tempting Green!

Poor Ass! thy Master should have learnt to shew
Pity-best taught by fellowship of Woe!

For much I fear me that He lives, like thee,
Half famished in a land of Luxury!

How askingly its footsteps hither bend?

It seems to say, "And have I then one Friend?"
Innocent Foal! thou poor despised Forlorn!
I hail thee BROTHER-spite of the fool's scorn!
And fain would take thee with me, in the Dell,
Of Peace and mild Equality to dwell,

Where TOIL shall call the charmer HEALTH his Bride,
And LAUGHTER tickle PLENTY's ribless side!

How thou wouldst toss thy heels in gamesome play,
And frisk about, as Lamb or Kitten gay!
Yea! and more musically sweet to me

Thy dissonant harsh Bray of Joy would be,
Than warbled Melodies that soothe to rest
The aching of pale FASHION'S vacant breast!

WHEN Youth his faery reign began
Ere Sorrow had proclaimed me man;
While Peace the present hour beguiled,
And all the lovely Prospect smiled;
Then, MARY! 'mid my lightsome glee
I heaved the painless SIGH for thee.
And when, along the waves of woe,
My harassed Heart was doomed to know
The frantic Burst of Outrage keen,
And the slow Pang that gnaws unseen;
Then shipwrecked on Life's stormy sea
I heaved an anguished SIGH for thee!
But soon Reflection's power imprest
A stiller sadness on my breast;
And sickly Hope with waning eye
Was well content to droop and die
I yielded to the stern decree,
Yet heaved a languid SIGH for thee
And though in distant climes to roam,
A wanderer from my native home,
I fain would soothe the sense of Care
And lull to sleep the Joys that were!
Thy Image may not banished be--
Still, Mary! still I SIGH for thee.
June, 1794.