Or breath of zephyr, like the mystic bark
The poet saw, in dreams divinely dark,
Borne, without sails, along the dusky flood,†
While on its deck a pilot angel stood,
And with his wings of living light unfurl'd
Coasted the dim shores of another world!

Yet, oh! believe me, in this blooming maze
Of lovely nature, where the fancy strays
From charm to charm, where every flow'ret's hue
Hath something strange, and every leaf is new!
I never feel a bliss so pure and still,

So heavenly calm, as when a stream or hill,
Or veteran oak, like those remember'd well,
Or breeze or echo or some wild-flowers smell,
(For, who can say what small and fairy ties
The memory flings o'er pleasure as it flies!)
Reminds my heart of many a sylvan dream
I once indulg'd by Trent's inspiring stream;
Of all my sunny morns and moonlight nights
On Donington's green lawns and breezy heights!

* Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani;
Si che remo non vuol, ne altro velo,
Che l'ale sue tra liti si lontani.

Vedi come l'ha dritte verso 'l cielo
Trattando l'aere con l'eterne penne;
Che non si mutan, come mortal pelo.
Dante, Purgator. Cant. ii.

Whether I trace the tranquil moments o'er,
When I have seen thee cull the blooms of lore,
With him, the polish'd warrior, by thy side,
A sister's idol and a nation's pride!

When thou hast read of heroes, trophied high
In ancient fame, and I have seen thine eye
Turn to the living hero, while it read

For pure and brightening comments on the dead!
Or whether memory to my mind recals
The festal grandeur of those lordly halls,

When guests have met around the sparkling board,
And welcome warm'd the cup that luxury pour'd;
When the bright future Star of England's Throne,
With magic smile, hath o'er the banquet shone,
Winning respect, nor claiming what he won,
But tempering greatness, like an evening sun
Whose light the eye can tranquilly admire,
Glorious but mild, all softness, yet all fire !—
Whatever hue my recollections take,
Even the regret, the very pain they wake
Is dear and exquisite!-but oh! no more-
Lady! adieu-my heart has linger'd o'er
These vanish'd times, till all that round me lies,

Stream, banks and bowers have faded on my eyes!

IMPROMPTU,

AFTER A VISIT TO MRS.

OF MONTREAL.

'TWAS but for a moment—and yet in that time She crowded th' impressions of many an hour;

Her

eye had a glow like the sun of her clime, Which wak'd every feeling at once into flower!

Oh! could we have stol'n but one rapturous day,
To renew such impressions again and again,
The things we should look, and imagine and say

Would be worth all the life we had wasted till then!

What we had not the leisure or language to speak,

We should find some more exquisite mode of revealing, And, between us, should feel just as much in a week As others would take a millennium in feeling!

WRITTEN ON PASSING

DEAD-MAN'S ISLAND,*

In the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

Late in the evening, September, 1804.

SEE

you, beneath yon cloud so dark,

Fast gliding along, a gloomy Bark?
Her sails are full, though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill !

Oh! what doth that vessel of darkness bear?

The silent calm of the

grave is there,

Save now and again a death-knell rung,

And the flap of the sails with night-fog hung!

*This is one of the Magdalen Islands, and, singularly enough, is the property of Sir Isaac Coffin. The above lines were suggested by a superstition very common among sailors, who call this ghostship, I think," the flying Dutchman."

We were thirteen days on our passage from Quebec to Halifax, and I had been so spoiled by the very splendid hospitality with which my friends of the Phaeton and Boston had treated me, that I was but ill prepared to encounter the miseries of a Canadian ship. The weather however was pleasant, and the scenery along the river delightful. Our passage through the Gut of Canso, with a bright sky and a fair wind, was particularly striking and romantic.

рр

There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador;

Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,
Full many a mariner's bones are tost!

Yon shadowy Bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire, that lights her deck,
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew
As ever yet drank the church-yard dew!

To Dead-man's Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Dead-man's Isle she speeds her fast;
By skeleton shapes her sails are furl'd,

And the hand that steers is not of this world!

Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on,
Thou terrible Bark! ere the night be gone;
Nor let morning look on so foul a sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light!