My lodging is the cold-cold ground;
I eat the bread of charity;

And when the kiss of love goes round,
There is no kiss of love for me.

But I will to the grave and weep,
Where late they laid my mother low,
And buried her with earth so deep,
All in her shroud as white as snow.
And there I'll call on her so loud,

All underneath the church-yard tree,
To wrap me in her snow-white shroud-
For those cold lips are dear to me.

Thelwall.

THE SOLITARY TOMB,

Not a leaf of the tree which stood near me was stirred,

Though a breath might have moved it so lightly;

Nor a farewell note from a sweet-singing bird,

Bade adieu to the suu setting brightly.

The sky was cloudless and calm, except

In the west, where the sun was descending; And there the rich tints of the rainbow slept,

As his beams with their beauty were blending.

And the evening star with its ray so clear,
So tremulous, soft, and tender,

Had lit

up

its lamp, and shot down from its sphere

Its dewy, delightful splendour.

And I stood all alone on that gentle hill,
With a landscape so lovely before me;
And its spirit and tone, so serene and still,
Seemed silently gathering o'er me.

Far off was the Deben, whose briny flood
By its windy banks was sweeping;

And close by the foot of the hill where I stood
The dead in their damp graves were sleeping.

How lonely and lovely their resting-place seemed!
An enclosure which care could not enter;
And how sweetly the grey lights of evening gleamed
On the solitary tomb in its centre !

When, at morn or at eve, I have wandered near,

And in various lights have viewed it ; With what different forms to friendship dear, Have the magic of fancy endured it!

It has sometimes seemed like a lonely sail,
A white speck on the emerald billow;
And at times like a lamb in a low grassy vale,
Stretched in peace on its verdant pillow.

But no image of gloom, or of care, or of strife,
Hath it e'er given birth to, one minute;
For lamented in death, as beloved in life,
Was he who now slumbers within it.

He was one, who, in youth, on the stormy seas,
Was a far and a fearless ranger;

Who, borne on the billow, and blown by the breeze,
Had deemed lightly of death or of danger.

Yet in this rude school had his heart still kept
All the freshness of gentlest feeling;

Nor in woman's warm eye hath a tear ever slept
More of softness and kindness revealing.

And here, when the bustle of youth was past,

He lived, and he loved, and he died too;— O! why was affection, which death could out-last, A more lengthened enjoyment denied to?

But here he slumbers! and many there are
Who love that lone tomb, and revere it;
And one far off, who, like eve's dewy star,
Though at distance, in fancy dwells near it.

Barton.

TO MY DAUGHTER, ON THE MORNING OF HER BIRTH-DAY.

Hail to this teeming stage of strife

Hail, lovely miniature of life!

Pilgrim of many cares untold!

Lamb of the world's extended fold!

Fountain of hopes, and doubts, and fears!

Sweet promise of ecstatic years!

How fainly would I bend the knee,

And turn idolater to thee!

'Tis nature's worship-felt-confest

Far as the life which warms the breast!

The sturdy savage 'midst his clan,
The rudest portraiture of man,

In trackless woods, and boundless plains,
Where everlasting wildness reigns,
Owns the still throb-the secret start-
The hidden impulse of the heart.

Dear babe! ere yet upon thy years
The soil of human vice appears—
Ere passion hath disturbed thy cheek,
And prompted what thou dar'st not speak,
Ere that pale lip is blanched with care,
Or from those eyes shoot fierce despair,
Would I could meet thine untuned ear,
And greet it with a father's prayer.

But little reck'st thou, O my child !
Of travail on life's thorny wild,
Of all the dangers, all the woes,
Each loitering footstep which inclose-
Ah! little reck'st thou of the scene
So darkly wrought, that speeds between

The little all we here can find

And the dark mystic sphere behind!