TO JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.

FROM BERMUDA.

"THE daylight is gone - but, before we depart,

"One cup

shall go

round to the friend of my heart,

“The kindest, the dearest

oh! judge by the tear "I now shed while I name him, how kind and how

dear."

'Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree, With a few, who could feel and remember like me, The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw, Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.

Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour, When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower, Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew, In blossoms of thought ever springing and new Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair, And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!

Last night, when we came from the Calabash-Tree, When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free,、

The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day
Set the magical springs of my fancy in play,
And oh,—such a vision as haunted me then
I would slumber for ages to witness again.
The many
I like, and the few I adore,
The friends who were dear and beloved before,
Bnt never till now so beloved and dear,

At the call of my Fancy, surrounded me here;
And soon,

oh, at once, did the light of their smiles To a paradise brighten this region of isles; More lucid the wave, as they look'd on it, flow'd, And brighter the rose, as they gather'd it, glow'd. Not the valleys Heræan (though water'd by rills Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills,* Where the Song of the Shepherd, primeval and wild,

Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child), Could boast such a lustre o'er land and o'er wave As the magic of love to this paradise gave.

Oh magic of love! unembellish'd by you, Hath the garden a blush or the landscape a hue? Or shines there a vista in nature or art, [heart? Like that which Love opes thro' the eye to the

Alas, that a vision so happy should fade!

That, when morning around me in brilliancy play'd,

* Mountains of Sicily, upon which Daphnis, the first inventor of bucolic poetry, was nursed by the nymphs. See the lively description of these mountains in Diodorus Siculus, lib. iv.

The rose and the stream I had thought of at night Should still be before me, unfadingly bright;

While the friends, who had seem'd to hang over the stream,

And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream.

*

But look, where, all ready, in sailing array, The bark that's to carry these pages away,* Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind, And will soon leave these islets of Ariel behind. What billows, what gales is she fated to prove, Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love! Yet pleasant the swell of the billows would be, And the roar of those gales would be music to me. Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew, Not the sunniest tears of the summer-eve dew,

Were as sweet as the storm, or as bright as the

foam

Of the surge, that would hurry your wanderer home.

A ship, ready to sail for England.

THE STEERSMAN'S SONG,

WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE 28TH APRIL.

WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;

Or when light breezes swell the sail,
And royals proudly sweep the sky;
'Longside the wheel, unwearied still
I stand, and, as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,

Port, my boy! port.

When calms delay, or breezes blow
Right from the point we wish to steer;
When by the wind close-haul'd we go,
And strive in vain the port to near;
I think 'tis thus the fates defer

My bliss with one that's far away,
And while remembrance springs to her,
I watch the sails and sighing say,

Thus, my boy! thus.

But see the wind draws kindly aft,
All hands are up the yards to square,

And now the floating stu'n-sails waft

Our stately ship through waves and air.

Oh! then I think that yet for me

Some breeze of fortune thus may spring, Some breeze to waft me, love, to thee— And in that hope I smiling sing,

Steady, boy! so.

TO THE FIRE-FLY.

AT morning, when the earth and sky
Are glowing with the light of spring,
We see thee not, thou humble fly!
Nor think upon thy gleaming wing.

But when the skies have lost their hue,
And sunny lights no longer play,
Oh then we see and bless thee too
For sparkling o'er the dreary way.

Thus let me hope, when lost to me

The lights that now my life illume, Some milder joys may come, like thee,

To cheer, if not to warm, the gloom!