Thy jolly tide! The aged Friend is dead!
The Friend who mingled in my boyish sports!
The Friend who solac'd my eccentric heart!
The Friend by whose mild suffrage unimpell'd
I ne'er could taste of joy!-Yes, She is dead!
So be it! Yet 'tis hard to smile, and know
So sad a loss! I bend before my God,
And, silent at the past, commune henceforth
Of days in store, "of righteousness to come,"
Of faith, of hope, and of a better world!

A

:

THE WOODMAN.

Written July, 1797.

AH! wherefore that gibbet which dismally rocks, As the gale of the hill moans profound; While the fair spreading valley, now whitened with flocks,

Now with tufted slopes varied, and villages, mocks

The cold heathy mountains around?

There suffered poor Harry, the generous and bold!

The hamlet his virtues well knew;

His the free grace of youth; his eye always told The feelings of nature; his looks never cold,

When they promis'd the most were most true.

And he loved nor his loyal affection to bless The maiden did ever delay:

His tongue's mellow music would sweetly express,

And his eyes melting gaze, and a timid caress, That his thrilled heart was rapturously gay.

And often the sweets of a virtuous embrace,
If at evening he anxiously hied,

All faint from the copse, would his weariness chase,

In a moment enlighten his moist harass'd face With a smile of inspirited pride.

Then around the trim hearth he the eve would beguile,

Reclined on the breast of his maid;

Having wooed her to sing, he would watch all

the while,

How in her soft lip's inexpressible smile,
Love's witcheries furtively played..

And when the green mead and the full-foliaged spray

Refresh the glad eye, they would roam;

And, twining their arms, would exultingly say, That, ere the leaves fell, at the close of the day, They, wedded, should hie to one home.

D 2

Ah, bootless the thought! The prospect, though

sweet,

Was frail as the tints of the sky,

When the day's radiance fades, and the traveller to cheat,

A gleam riseth beauteous, most vivid and fleet, For the night-storm is brooding on high.

"Twas summer;—and sultry and parching noontide,

The woodman, with labour oppressed,

The ragings of thirst would relieve;-by the side
Of his path, on a sign, he unluckily spied
All the trophies of Bacchus confessed.

Might ever his breast's irresistible throe
To the o'ertakings of pleasure invite ;

He quaffs, till with passion his cheeks deeply glow,

Life's full tides through his veins more tumultuously flow ;

His heart shaped untasted delight!

And now he must go to the green coppice shade;
While o'ercharged with delirious fire,
And passionate impulse, he quickly surveyed
Where a female half-clad was alluringly laid;
And he seized her with maddened desire.

'Twas a poor wandering idiot, diffused in the

sun,

Who was basking, that there met his eye : His good angel forsook him!-Confounded, un

done,

He for ever the cause of his ruin would shun,
And wished at that moment to die.

No more on his Mary the wretched youth thought, Or thinking, he started convulsed!

He would give at that hour the whole world to have bought

The bliss which her image had formerly brought, Ere conscience that image repulsed.

And though he still loved, yet his love mix'd with shame,

Was bitter as once it was sweet,

When the innocent maiden was near him, the flame

Of tremulous agony shot through his frame,
Nor her look dared he ever to meet.

Α

Now Harry's a father. The crazed outcast sent poor babe to his cot: then he cried, my will not Justice relent?

66

My arm is

all;

"And will nothing but twenty gold pieces prevent "The idiot from being my bride?"