The thought was extatic! I felt as if Heaven My heart had begun to be purely its own! I look'd to the west, and the beautiful sky A BALLAD. THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP. Written at Norfolk, in Virginia. "THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp For a soul so warm and true; And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,t Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. Psalm iv. 6.-Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond. "And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall sec, Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds- And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, He lay where the deadly vine doth weep And near him the she-wolf stirred the brake, He saw the lake, and a meteor bright "Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!" And the dim shore echoed for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid 'Till he hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark, The wind was high and the clouds were dark But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, Are seen at the hour of midnight damp, LYING. I DO confess, in many a sigh Nay-look not thus, with brow reproving; If half we swear to think and do, Oh no!-believe me, lovely girl, And now, my gentle hints to clear, a TO WHEN I lov'd you, I can't but allow And oh! 'tis delicious to hate you! WELL-PEACE TO THY HEART. WELL-peace to thy heart, though another's it be, And health to thy cheek, though it bloom not for me! To-morrow I sail for those cinnamon groves,* * When I wrote these lines, I had some idea of leaving Bermuda, and visiting the West-India islands. Pinkerton has said that "a good history and description of the Bermudas might afford a pleasing addition to the geographical library;" but there certainly are not materials for such a work. The island, since the time of its discovery, has experienced so very few vicissitudes, the people have been so indolent, and their trade so limited, that there is but little which the historian could amplify into importance; and, with respect to the natural produc tions of the country, the few which the inhabitants can be induced to cultivate are so common in the West Indies, that they have been described by every naturalist who has written any account of those islands. The women of Bermuda, though not generally handsome, have an affectionate languor in their look and man. ner, which is always interesting. What the French imply by their epithet aimante seems very much the character of the young Bermudan girls-that predisposition to lov. ing, which, without being awakened by any particular object, diffuses itself through the general manner, in a tone of tenderness, which never fails to fascinate. men of the island, I confess, are not very civilized; and the old philosophers, who imagined that, after this life, men would be changed into mules and women into turtledoves, would find the metamorphosis in one degree an ticipated at Bermuda. The |