Do the locks bristle and the eye-brows arch, For grouse or partridge massacred in March ?" No, scoffer, no! Attend, and mark with awe, That awful portal, must undo each bar; Tempting occasion, habit, passion, pride, Will join to storm the breach, and force the barrier wide. That ruffian, whom true men avoid and dread, Whom bruisers, poachers, smugglers, call Black Ned, Was Edward Mansell once ;-the lightest heart, The leader he in every Christmas game, The harvest feast grew blither when he came, And liveliest on the chords the bow did glance, And if he loved a gun, his father swore, "'Twas but a trick of youth would soon be o'er, Himself had done the same some thirty years before.” But he, whose humours spurn law's awful yoke, Must herd with those by whom law's bonds are broke. The common dread of justice soon allies The clown who robs the warren or excise, Guilt leagues with guilt, while mutual motives draw, Their hope impunity, their fear the law; Their foes, their friends, their rendezvous the same, Till the revenue baulk'd, or pilfer'd game, Flesh the young culprit, and example leads To darker villainy, and direr deeds. Wild howl'd the wind the forest glades along, And oft the owl renew'd her dismal song; Around the spot where erst he felt the wound, Red William's spectre walk'd his midnight round. The watchful keeper heard, and sought the spot. Next morn a corpse was found upon the fell The rest his waking agony may tell ! SONG. Он, say not, my love, with that mortified air, Though April his temples may wreathe with the vine, Its tendrils in infancy curl'd, 'Tis the ardour of August matures us the wine Whose life-blood enlivens the world. Though thy form, that was fashion'd as light as a fay's, Has assumed a proportion more round, And thy glance, that was bright as a falcon's at gaze, Looks soberly now on the ground,- |