THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN, IN A CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:

Mother sits beside thee smiling:
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:

Come, soft slumber, balmily!

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

ITs balmy lips the Infant blest Relaxing from its Mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent Satiety!

And such my Infant's latest sigh! O tell, rude stone! the passer by, That here the pretty babe doth lie, Death sang to sleep with Lullaby.

THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN, IN A CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,

Inter fila cantans orat

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:

MELANCHOLY.

A FRAGMENT.

STRETCH'D on a mouldered Abbey's broadest wall,
Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep-
Her folded arms wrapping her tattered pall,
Had MELANCHOLY mus'd herself to sleep.
The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

The dark green Adder's Tongue* was there;
And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,
The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flushed: her eager look
Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,
Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

And her bent forehead worked with troubled thought.
Strange was the dream-

* A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet here describes is called the Hart's Tongue.