unworthy child-from the bed of death your last effort has been to save her. As a daughter, a wife, and a mother, how have I blighted your hopes and wounded your affections.

My sister says, that my mother blessed me with her last words, and expressed her hopes that her dying advice would snatch me from the paths of error. Those dying hopes, and that last blessing, shall be my preservatives. I will from this hour devote myself to the performance of those duties that I have so shamefully, so cruelly neglected. My husband, my children with you will I retire from those scenes of dissipation and folly, so fatal to my repose and virtue; and in retirement commune with my own heart, correct its faults, and endeavour to emulate the excellencies of my lamented mother.

Oh! may my future conduct atone for the past—but never, never let the remembrance of my errors be effaced from my mind.

HYMN

BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

Hast thou a charm to stay the Morning-Star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC!
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipp'd the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret Joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty Vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swell'd vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstacy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my Heart, awake! Green Vales and icy Cliffs, all join my Hymn.

Thou first and chief, sole Sovran of the Vale!

O struggling with the Darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the Morning-Star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's ROSY STAR, and of the dawn

Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who call'd you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns call'd you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,

For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,
And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the element ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the Avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering thro' the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast-
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bow'd low
In adoration, upward from thy base,
Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me-Rise, O ever rise,

Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
COLERIDGE