Her vain distress-guns hear; And when a second sheet of light Flashed o'er the blackness of the nightTo see no vessel there!

But Fancy now more gaily sings;
Or if awhile she droop her wings,
As sky-larks 'mid the corn,

On summer fields she grounds her breast:
The oblivious poppy o'er her nest

Nods, till returning morn.

O mark those smiling tears, that swell The opened rose! From heaven they fell, And with the sun-beam blend.

Blest visitations from above,

Such are the tender woes of love
Fostering the heart they bend!

When stormy midnight howling round Beats on our roof with clattering sound, To me your arms you'll stretch: Great God! you'll say-To us so kind, O shelter from this loud bleak wind The houseless, friendless wretch!

The tears that tremble down your cheek, Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek In Pity's dew divine;

And from your heart the sighs that steal

Shall make your rising bosom feel
The answering swell of mine!

How oft, my love! with shapings sweet
I paint the moment, we shall meet!
With eager speed I dart-

I seize you in the vacant air,
And fancy, with a husband's care

'Tis said, in summer's evening hour
Flashes the golden-coloured flower,
A fair electric flame:

And so shall flash my love-charged eye
When all the heart's big ecstasy
Shoots rapid through the frame!

LINES

TO A FRIEND IN ANSWER TO A MELANCHOLY

LETTER.

AWAY, those cloudy looks, that labouring sigh,
The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!
Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's power,
When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.

Yon setting sun flashes a mounful gleam Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train:

To-morrow shall the many-coloured main
In brightness roll beneath his orient beam!

Wild, as the autumnal gust, the hand of Time
Flies o'er his mystic lyre: in shadowy dance
The alternate groups of Joy and Grief advance
Responsive to his varying strains sublime!

Bears on its wing each hour a load of Fate;
The swain, who, lulled by Seine's mild murmurs, led
His weary oxen to their nightly shed,

To-day may rule a tempest-troubled state.

Nor shall not Fortune with a vengeful smile
Survey the sanguinary despots might,
And haply hurl the pageant from his height
Unwept to wander in some savage isle.

There shivering sad beneath the tempest's frown
Round his tired limbs to wrap the purple vest;
And mixed with nails and beads, an equal jest!
Barter for food the jewels of his crown.

RELIGIOUS MUSINGS;

A DESULTORY POEM, WRITTEN ON THE CHRISTMAS EVE OF 1794.

THIS is the time, when most divine to hear,
The voice of adoration rouses me,

As with a cherub's trump: and high upborne,
Yea, mingling with the choir, I seem to view
The vision of the heavenly multitude,

Who hymned the song of peace o'er Bethlehem's fields!

Yet thou more bright than all the angel blaze, That harbinger'd thy birth, Thou, Man of Woes! Despised Galilean! For the great

Invisible (by symbols only seen)

With a peculiar and surpassing light

Shines from the visage of the oppressed good man,
When heedless ef himself the scourged Saint
Mourns for the oppressor. Fair the vernal mead,
Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars;
True impress each of their creating Sire!
Yet nor high grove, nor many-coloured mead,
Nor the green Ocean with his thousand isles,
Nor the starred azure, nor the sovran sun,
E'er with such majesty of portraiture
Imaged the supreme beauty uncreate,

As thou, meek Saviour! at the fearful hour
When thy insulted anguish winged the prayer
Harped by archangels, when they sing of mercy!
Which when the Almighty heard from forth his
throne

Diviner light filled heaven with ecstasy!

Heaven's hymnings paused: and hell her yawning mouth

Closed a brief moment,

Lovely was the death

Of him whose life was Love! Holy with power
He on the thought-benighted skeptic beamed
Manifest Godhead, melting into day
What floating mists of dark idolatry
Broke and misshaped the omnipresent Sire:
And first by fear uncharmed the drowsed soul,
Till of its nobler nature it 'gan feel

Dim recollections; and thence soared to hope,
Strong to believe whate'er of mystic good
The Eternal dooms for his immortal sons.
From hope and firmer faith to perfect love
Attracted and absorbed and centred there
God only to behold, and know, and feel,
Till by exclusive consciousness of God
All self-annihilated it shall make
God its identity: God all in all!

We and our Father one!

And blest are they,