theme,

And talk of odors, talk of wine,

Talk of the flowers that round us bloom:
'Tis all a cloud, 'tis all a dream;
To love and joy thy thoughts confine,
Nor hope to pierce the sacred gloom.

Beauty has such resistless power,
That even the chaste Egyptian dame
Sigh'd for the blooming Hebrew boy:
For her how fatal was the hour,
When to the banks of Nilus came
A youth so lovely and so coy!

But ah! sweet maid, my counsel hear
(Youth should attend when those advise
Whom long experience renders sage):

While sparkling cups delight our eyes, Be gay, and scorn the frowns of age.

What cruel answer have I heard?
And yet, by heaven, I love thee still:
Can aught be cruel from thy lip?
Yet say, how fell that bitter word
From lips which streams of sweetness fill,
Which nought but drops of honey sip?

Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung:
Thy notes are sweet, the damsels say;
But oh! far sweeter, if they please
The nymph for whom these notes are
sung!

Jamie back;

But the wind it blew high, and the ship it was a wrack;

His ship it was a wrack-why didna Jamie dee?

Or why do I live to cry, Wae's me?

My father urgit sair: my mother didna speak;

Where other cares than those the Muse relates,

And other shepherds dwell with other mates;

By such examples taught, I paint the cot,

As Truth will paint it and as bards will not:

Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain,

To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;

O'ercome by labor, and bowed down by time,

Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,

By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed?

Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,

Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?

Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,

Lends the light turf that warms the neighboring poor;

From thence a length of burning sand appears,

Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;

Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,

Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye:

There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,

And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil;

There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;

Hardy and high, above the tender sheaf, The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf; O'er the young shoot the charlock

throws a shade,

THE CONVICT'S DREAM.
[From The Borough, Letter xxiii.]

YES! e'en in sleep the impressions all remain,

He hears the sentence and he feels the chain:

He sees the judge and jury—when he shakes,

And loudly cries "Not guilty!" and awakes:

Then chilling tremblings o'er his body

creep,

Till worn-out nature is compelled to sleep.

Now comes the dream again: it shows each scene

With each small circumstance that comes between,

The call to suffering, and the very deed

There crowds go with him, follow, and precede;

Some heartless shout, some pity, all condemn,

While he in fancied envy looks at them: He seems the place for that sad act to see,

And dreams the very thirst which then will be:

A priest attends - it seems the one he knew

In his best days, beneath whose care he grew.

At this his terrors take a sudden flight, He sees his native village with delight; The home, the chamber, where he once arrayed

His youthful person; where he knelt and prayed:

Then too the comfort he enjoyed at

home,

The days of joy; the joys themselves

are come;

The hours of innocence; the timid look Of his loved maid, when first her hand he took,

And told his hope; her trembling joy

appears,

Her forced reserve and his retreating fears.

Life's early prospects and his Fanny's smile:

Then come his sister and his village friend,

And he will now the sweetest moments spend

Life has to yield; —No! never will he find

Again on earth such pleasure in his mind:

He goes through shrubby walks these friends among,

Love in their looks and honor on the tongue :

Nay, there's a charm beyond what nature shows,

The bloom is softer and more sweetly glows.

Pierced by no crime and urged by no

The ocean smiling to the fervid sun— The waves that faintly fall and slowly

run

The ships at distance and the boats at hand;

And now they walk upon the seaside sand,

Counting the number and what kind they be,

Ships softly sinking in the sleepy sea; Now arm in arm, now parted, they behold

The glittering waters on the shingles rolled;

The timid girls, half dreading their design,

Dip the small foot in the retarded brine, And search for crimson weeds, which spreading flow,

Or lie like pictures on the sand below; With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun

Through the small waves so softly shines upon.

And those live lucid jellies which the eye Delights to trace as they swim glittering by:

Pearl shells and rubied star-fish they

Home then he walked, and found his anger rise