One, who strove darkly sorrow's sob to stay,
Upraised the body; thrice I bade him stay;
For still my wordless woe had much to say,
And still I bent and gazed, and gazing wept.
At last my sisters, with humane constraint,
Held me, and I was calm as dying saint;
While that stern weeper lowered into the sea
My ill-starred boy! deep-buried deep, he slept.
And then I looked to heaven in agony,

And prayed to end my pilgrimage of pain,
That I might meet my beauteous boy again!

Oh! had he lived to reach this wretched land,
And then expired, I would have blessed the strand!
But where my poor boy lies I may not lie;

I cannot come with broken heart to sigh

O'er his loved dust, and strew with flowers his turf
His pillow hath no cover but the surf;

I

may not pour the soul-drop from mine eye

Near his cold bed: he slumbers in the wave!

Oh! I will love the sea, because it is his grave!

Anon.

ON FRIENDSHIP.

The soft blooms of summer are fair to the eye,
Where brightly the soft silver Medway glides by;
And rich are the colours which autumn adorn,
Its gold-checkered leaves, and its billows of corn.

But dearer to me is the pale lonely rose,

Whose blossoms in winter's dark season unclose,
Which smiles in the region of winter's stern blast,
And smooths the rough present by signs of the past.

And thus when around us affliction's dark power
Eclipses the sunshine of life's glowing hour,
While drooping, deserted, in sorrow we bend,
O sweet is the presence of one faithful friend.

The crowds whom we smiled with, when gladness was ours,
Are summer's bright blossoms, and autumn's gay stores;
But the friend on whose breast we in sorrow repose,
That friend is the winter's lone beautiful rose.

Anon.

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS.

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,

That showest the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like thou art to joy remembered well!

So gleams the past, the light of other days,

Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;

A night-beam sorrow watcheth to behold,

Distinct, but distant; clear, but, oh, how cold!

TO A NIGHTINGALE.

The woodman lifts towards thee his thoughtful eye,
Pauses-and wonders as he passes by;

And village girls their evening walks prolong,
With hearts enamoured of thy love-taught song.

Thou fairy amorist! in the forest singing,
How sweetly wild is thy melodious strain !

Byron.

Varied in accents, tremulously flinging
Fragments of wonder on my dizzy brain.
Spirit of light! the music of thy song

I

Descends upon me, even as a dream;

pause enchanted, and would fain prolong.

Each magic note of thy impassioned theme.
Where art thou sitting ?-in the branches high
Of yon old oak, whose flower-embroidered trunk
Rests on a soft mat where the harebells lie,

Its spreading roots 'neath mossy herbage sunk?
Minstrel of heaven! is that thy leafy bower,

Where, like the queen of beauty, thou dost shade Thy gentle self in this voluptuous hour,

As in a veil of innocence arrayed?—

The feathered choir to rest their wings have made
A favourite haunt near thee, and mute, and fond,
They listen, scattered in the boughs beyond.
Hush! 'tis the mountain echoes that descend
To wander thro' the trees!-they softly blend

With every pause an answer so divine,

They emulate, sweet bird! that gentle song of thine.— Children of air! prolong the flowery tale,—

Fill every bough, touch every living leaf,

Let soft persuasive melody prevail,

That every heart, forgetful of its grief,

Like mine, exulting for an hour may be,
Uplifted on the wings of wildest ecstacy!

Alastor.

THE VASSAL'S LAMENT FOR THE FALLEN

TREE.

"Here, (at Brereton, in Cheshire,) is one thing incredibly strange, but attested, as I myself have heard, by many persons, and commonly believed. Before any heir of this family dies, there are seen, in a lake adjoining, the bodies of trees swimming on the water for several days." CAMDEN'S BRITANNIA.

Yes! I have seen the ancient oak

On the dark deep water cast,

And it was not felled by the woodman's stroke,

Or the rush of the sweeping blast;

For the axe might never touch that tree,
And the air was still as a summer-sea.

I saw it fall, as falls a chief

By an arrow in the fight;

And the old woods shook, to their loftiest leaf,

At the crashing of its might!