Revenge, thou art mine!-Now attend haughty
"And prepare to resign thy last breath,
"No longer my soul thy indifference shall bear ; "But my Rival in turn feel the pangs of despair; "For the draught that I gave thee-was death.
"No more with soft wishes thy bosom shall heave, "Or Love dart his fires from thine eye; "No more, Hope's gay visions thy fancy deceive, "Or whisper that Mabel for Alleyn shall live; "For Mabel with Hubert shall die!
"With a ring I've espoused thee;-look round and "behold
"The bride-bed made close by thy side; "My hands have prepared it, though narrow, and
"With a winding-sheet only our limbs to infold :" "Tis there I would sleep with my Bride."
Then, frantickly laughing, a dagger he drew,
And sheath'd the keen point in his breast;
Poor Alleyn distracted, his arms fondly threw
Round his now dying Mabel, kind, lovely, and true;
And his lips to her cold lips he press'd.
On his bosom so faithful her breath she resign'd,
And her eyelids his trembling hand closed,
Two moons, the sad lover in solitude pined;
Ere the third rose full-orb'd, his pale corse was con-
sign'd
To the grave where his Mabel reposed.
At the end of the hamlet, where four roads unite,
The suicide's relicks are laid;
A stake marks the spot, half conceal'd from the sight
By nightshade, and hemlock ;—and adders delight
To lurk mid' the poisonous shade.
Now traditions report, when the year has roll'd round,
And St. Andrew's vigil returns;
The death-bell is heard deep and solemn to sound, And Hubert's thin shade thrice encircles the mound Where the lovers are buried, and mourns.
But on May's earliest morn, the fair maids of the vale
O'er the green sward bespangled with dew,
(While they weep at remembrance of Mabel's sad tale)
Strew bright purple pansies, and primroses pale,
With hare-bells and violets blue.
And at Midsummer oft' by the stars silver light,
Love-spells o'er the cold earth they weave;
The oracular herb *, with each mystical rite
On the yew boughs suspending to augur aright,
If their lovers are true, or deceive.
There too village Brides, with their Bridegrooms repair, Ere at Hymen's pure altars they bow;
Join their hands o'er the turf which conceals the fond pair,
While a soft tear to pity from rapture they spare;
And plight the reciprocal vow.
*Telephium roseum, Orpine, or rose-root. Vulg. Midsummer-men.
WHEN fiercely raves the arctic storm,
And howling winds the seas deform,
O'er shaking hills I urge my car
To rule the elemental war.
Proud Nature owns my potent sway,
And trembling bows before my throne,
While round her form the lightnings play,
I mock the feeble sufferer's groan:
'Tis mine the boundless deep to heave
In mountains to the gates of heaven,
And mine the cloud-formed gloom to weave,
Whose shades involve the polar Even.
When round the struggling vessel's keel
The ocean's maddening waves congeal,
And the dim moon, with crimsoned rays,
Upon the stiffened canvass plays,
How the blood freezes in each vein,
While they that far from home exil'd
Behold the waters of the main
In crystal mountains round them pil'd!
Yet still they hope these scenes to brave,
To tread the icy-mantled sea,-
I seal their doom, no power can save,
Or my devoted victims free!
Obedient to my dread behest,
The whirlwind's breath rends Ocean's breast,
While Ruin scorns Distraction's cry,
The frantic sufferers shriek-and die.
Lo the fond mother scales the height
Whose brow defies the tempest wild,
And there she spends the fearful night,
To hail her long expected child;
Her hoary locks float on the storm,
Fierce on her head the wild winds beat,
When from the deep her son's pale form
I toss at her convulsing feet.
While Frenzy fires her straining eye,
Her piercing accents rend the sky;
As wild she tears her silvered hair,
That falls upon her bosom bare;
Now Death smiles dimly on his prey,
As the lost maniac to her breast
Clasps the beloved insensate clay,
And plunges in the watry waste.
These are the triumphs of my reign,
And these the trophies of my power,
When riding on the wintry main
I rule Destruction's fated hour.
From the dark bosom of the cloud,
That bears my form o'er Lapland's flood,
The meteor's vivid flame I urge,
Far glittering o'er the icy surge:
Lured by its ray the native braves
The unknown horrours of the dell,
Where scowling night in gelid caves,
On darkness throned, delights to dwell.
Hear, ye fierce demons of the air,
Preserve yon savage in the wild;
For know your monarch loves to spare
The rude north's tempest-beaten child.
Where Freedom cheers her western clime,
From Andes' brow that towers sublime,
I hurl the whelming wreaths of snow
To chasmed vales that groan below.
Down his dark rocks the vapours glide,
That mingling seem a surging deep,
While o'er the troubled aërial tide,
On sable wings I proudly sweep;
The dryads of the distant wood
Awake their wildest screams of woe,
As swift I tear the storm-fraught cloud
That lays their waving kingdoms low.
When Cancer owns the solar ray,
And pours his fervors on the day,
That shines unhailed by Freedom's smile
On dark Ambition's Indian isle,
At Retribution's dread command,
The minister of wrath I fly,
To crush the dome with giant hand
That Guilt, triumphant, reared on high : Unawed the son of Afric smiles,
As Death and Ruin scour the plain, They end his long unpitied toils,
And burst his blood-encrusted chain.
Yes, the tremendous power is mine,
To shake Oppression's hated shrine;
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