With my hands I'll bind the briers,
Round his holy corse to gre,*
Elfin-fairy, light your fires,
Here my body still shall be:
My love is dead,

Gone to his death-bed,

All under the willow tree.

Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heart's blood all away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day :
My love is dead,

Gone to his death-bed,

All under the willow tree.

Water-witches, crown'd with reytes,†
Bear me to your deadly tide.
I die I come-my true-love waits.
Thus the damsel spake, and died.

SONG.

On a Young Lady going out of town in Spring.

DRYDEN.

Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
So long delays her flow'rs to rear;
The warbling birds forget to sing,
And winter storms invert the year:
Chloris is gone, and fate provides
To make it Spring where she resides.

Chloris is gone, the cruel fair,
She cast not back a pitying eye;

But left her lover in despair,

To sigh, to languish, and to die :
Ah, how can those fair eyes endure
To give the wounds they will not cure!

Great god of love, why hast thou made
A face that can all hearts command,
That all religions can invade,

And change the laws of every land? Where thou had'st plac'd such power before, Thou should'st have made her mercy more.

When Chloris to the temple comes,
Adoring crowds before her fall;
She can restore the dead from tombs,
And every life but mine recall.

I only am by Love design'd
To be the victim for mankind.

A MORTAL'S WISH.

ANN MARIA PORTER.

YE Winds, whose sounding pinions sweep
The spacious bosom of the deep,
And every shore !

Thou starry heav'n, whose sleepless eyes
This earth's remotest boundaries
Even now explore!

O tell me of some solitude,
In cavern deep, or desert rude,

Howe'er remote ;

Some place, where sound of human woe
Ne'er comes to chill youth's lively glow;
I'll bless the spot.

O tell me, if such spot there be,
Then far from sad society

These feet shall haste;

And there, to shun the sight of grief,
Since pity cannot yield relief,

My days I'll waste!

On sweep the blasts! Yet Fancy's ear Catches at times, through tempest drear, These accents stern:

"Weak Child of ignorance! refrain; Cease thus to urge a question vain ; Listen and learn!

"From pole to pole, where'er we fly,
We see no shelter 'neath the sky,
From human ill;

Sorrow and pain are virtue's soil;
Thus man is doom'd through life to toil,
Unwearied still!

"His task fulfill'd, the fruit obtain❜d,
Bliss and a bright reward are gain'd,
Eternal both.

Go-ask not then yon starry sky
For earthly spot from grief to hie,
But, nothing loth,

"Back to the world, and bravely dare Of grief and wrong thy destin'd share ; Resume life's load;

Mourn not, but aid thy kindred dust,
And for thy final blessing, trust
Safely to God!"

THE SHEPHERD.

REV. W. GILLESPIE.

FROM his cot on the plain hied the shepherd swain,
To meet his true-love on the mountain heather;
Nor was he afraid, while enwrapt in his plaid,
To cross o'er the heights where the tempests
gather.

The moon was his guide through the desert so wide; Deceitful the guide, and hopeless the lover; For the chill storms arose, and the rain-drops froze, And mantled the hills with a snowy cover.

But love nerv'd his form as he baffled the storm, And his faithful dog still leapt on before him; Till the moon hid her light in the clouds of the night,

And dark were the shades that now brooded o'er him.

"O cease, cruel wind!" cried the wandering hind, "To beat on the breast that with love is swelling; And thou, Moon so pale, lift thy cloudy veil, And lighten the way to my maiden's dwelling."

Yet, still urg'd by love, with the tempest he strove, And flounder'd along through each snowy billow, Till he sunk down to rest on the mountain's breast, The heath for his bed, and a wreath for his pillow.

Ah! woe to the wight on the lone pathless height, By the wintry storm and the night o'ertaken; Who, weary and spent, on the cold snowy bent

Lays him down to sleep, shall never awaken!

Long marvell'd the maid why her lover delay'd, And look'd from the door of her lonely dwelling; She saw but the drift, as it fell so swift,

And heard but the sprite of the tempest yelling.

Pale, pale is the snow in the moonlight glow,

And cold is the frost as it glazes the river;

But paler that form which lies stretch'd in the storm,

And colder those lips that are silent for ever.

STANZAS WRITTEN AT SUNSET.

ANONYMOUS.

How sweet, my friend, it is to rove,

Now when the gorgeous sun descending, Pours streams of gold on hill and grove, To nature richest beauty lending!

Yon clouds against the west that lie,

How bright their ample skirts are glowing! While Fancy views their magic dye,

And still some mimic form bestowing,

In mountains now beholds them tost,
Or palaces, the gaze delighting;
Or golden dells; or rocks embost;
Or fairy groves the most inviting;

Where happiness is ever found;

Where human woes, and tears, and sighing,

Can never come-but joys abound,

And soft the rosy hours are flying