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On that drear spot, within whose cavern'd womb 'Emilia sleeps, and by the turf that veils * Her honour'd clay, alone and kneeling there • I found my Theodora ! thrill'd with awe, • With sacred terror, which the time, the place, • Pourd on us, sadly-solemn, I too bent . My trembling knee, and lock in her's my hand • Across her parent's grave." By this dread scene ! “ By night's pale regent! by yon glorious train “ Of ever-moving fires that round her burn !

By Death's dark empire ! by the Peeted duft “ That once was man, now mould'ring here below! “ But chief by her’s, at whose nocturnal tomb “ Rev'rent we kneel! and by her nobler part, “ Th’unbody'd spirit hov'ring near, perhaps “ As witness to our vows! nor time, nor chance, “ Nor aught but Death's inevitable hand, “ Shall e'er divide our loves !”—I led her thence, • To where, safe ftation'd in a secret bay, • Rough of descent, and brown with pendent pines • That murmur'd to the gale, our bark was moor’d. • We sail'd : But, O my father! can I speak

Ι • What yet remains ! Yon ocean, black with storm, · It's useless fails rent from the groaning pine ! • The speechless crew aghaft! and that loft fair! • Still, ftill I see her ! feel her heart

pant

thick! • And hear her voice, in ardent vows to Heav'n • For me alone preferr’d! as on my arm

Expiring, sinking with her fears, she hung! • I kiss'd her pale cold cheek; with tears adjur’d, • And won at last with sums of proffer'd gold, • The boldest mariners this precious charge • Instant to save, and in the skiff secur’d, • Their oars across the foamy flood to ply « With unremitting arm. I then prepar'd < To follow her.-That moment from the deck

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• A sea swellid o’er, and plung'd me in the gulph!

Nor me alone; it's broad and billowing sweep * Must have involv'd her too. Mysterious Heav'n!

My fatal love on her devoted head
· Drew down-it must be so !-the judgment due
• To me and mine; or was Amyntor fav’d
· For it's whole quiver of remaining wrath !
• For storms more fierce! for pains of harper sting!

And years of death to come!'-Nor farther voice
Nor flowing tear his high-wrought grief supply'd ;
With arms outspread, with eyes in hopeless gaze
To heav’n uplifted, motionless and mute
He stood, the mournful semblance of despair.

The lamp of day, tho' from mid-noon declin'd,
Still flaming with full ardour, shot on earth
Oppressive brightness round, till in soft fteam,
From Ocean's bosom his light vapours drawn,
With grateful intervention o'er the sky
Their veil diffusive spread, the scene abroad
Soft-lhadowing, vale and plain and dazzling hill.
Aurelius with his guest the western cliff
Ascending flow, beneath it's marble roof,
From whence in double stream a lucid fource
Rollid sounding forth, and where with dewy wing
Fresh breezes play'd, fought refuge and repose,
Till cooler hours arise. T'he subject isle
Her village capital, where Health and Peace
Are tutelary gods, her small domain
Of arable and pasture, vein’d with streams
That branching bear refreshful moisture on
To field and mead ; her straw-roof'd temple rood,
Where Piety, not Pride, adoring kneels;
Lay full in view : from scene to scene around
Aurelius gaz'd, and fighing, thus began.

• Not we alone ; alas ! in ev'ry clime
· The human race are suns of sorrow born;

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Heirs of transmitted labour and disease, • Of pain and grief, from fire to son deriv'd, • All have their mournful portion ; all must bear • Th’impos'd condition of their mortal state, • Vicissitude of suff'ring. Caft thine eye • Where yonder vale, Amyntor, floping spreads • Full to the noon-tide beam it's primrose lap, • From hence due east.' Amyntor look'd, and saw, Not without wonder at a fight so strange, Where thrice three females, earneit each, and arm'd With rural instruments, the foil prepar'd For future harvest. These the trenchant spade, To turn the mould, and break th' adhesive clods, Employ'd affiduous; those, with equal pace, And arm alternate, strew'd it's fresh lap white With fruitful Ceres; while, in train behind, Three more th' incumbent harrow heavy on O’er-labour'd drew, and clos’d the toilfome task.

« Behold !Aurelius thus his speech renew'd, • From that soft fex, too delicately fram'd • For toils like these, the task of rougher man, • What yet neceffity demands fevere. · Twelve funs have purpled these encircling hills «With orient beams, as many nights along • Their dewy fummits drawn th’ alternate veil • Of darkness, since, in unpropitious hour,

The husbands of those widow'd mates, who now • For both must labour, launch’d, in quest of food, • Their island-skiff advent’rous on the deep :

Them, while the sweeping net fecure they plung'd • The finny race to snare, whose foodful foals • Each creek and bay innumerable croud,

As annual on from shore to shore they move • In wat’ry caravan; them, thus intent, • Dark from the south a gust of furious wing, Upspringing, drove to fea, and left in tears

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« This little world of brothers and of friends!
• But when, at ev'ning hour, disjointed planks,
• Borne on the surging tide, and broken oars,
• To fight, with fatal certainty, reveal'd
« The wreck before furmis'd, one gen'ral groan
• To heav'n ascending, spoke the gen’ral breast
• With sharpest anguish pierc’d. Their ceaseless plaint,
« Thro' these hoarse rocks on this resounding More,
• At morn was heard ; at midnight too, were feen,
• Disconsolate on each chill mountain's height
• The mourners spread, exploring land and sea
With eager gaze;

till from

yon

lesser isle,
" Yon round of moss-clad hills, Borera nam'd,
• Full north, behold! above the foaring lark
• It's dizzy cliffs aspire, hung round and white
• With curling mifts--at last, from yon hoar hills,

Inflaming the brown air with sudden blaze
• And ruddy undulation, thrice three fires,
· Like meteors waving in a moonless sky,
• Our eyes, yet unbelieving, saw distinct,
• Successive kindled, and from night to night
• Renew'd continuous. Joy, with wild excess,
• Took her gay turn to reign; and Nature now
• From rapture wept; yet ever and anon

By sad conjecture damp'd, and anxious thought,
"" How from yon rocky prison to release
• Whom the deep sea immures (their only boat
• Destroy'd) and whom th' inevitable fiege
• Of hunger must asfault.-But hope sustains
• The human heart, and now their faithful wives,
• With love-taught skill, and vigour not their own,
· On yonder field th’autumnal year prepare *.'

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* The Author who relates this story adds, that the produce of grain that season was the most plentiful they had seen for many years before. Vide Martin's Description of the Weitern Illes of Scotland, p. 286.

Amyntor,

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Amyntor, who the tale distressful heard
With sympathizing forrow on himself,
On his feverer fate, now pond'ring deep,
Rapt by sad thought the hill unheeding left,
And reach'd, with swerving step, the distant strand.
Above, around, in cloudy circles wheeld,
Or failing level on the polar gale
That cool with ev'ning rose, a thousand wings,
The summer nations of these pregnant cliffs,
Play'd sportive round, and to the sun outspread
Their various plumage, or in wild notes hailid
His parent-beam that animates and chears
All living kinds : he, glorious from amidst
A pomp of golden clouds, th’ Atlantick flood
Beheld oblique, and o'er it’s azure breast
Wav'd one unbounded blush ; a scene to strike
Both ear and eye with wonder and delight!
But, loft to outward sense, Amyntor pafs'd
Regardless on, thro' other walks convey'd
Of baleful prospect, which pale Fancy rais’d
Incessant to herself, and fabled o'er
With darkest night, meet region for despair !
Till northward, where the rock it's sea-wash'd base
Projects athwart, and shuts the bounded scene,
Rounding it's point, he rais’d his eyes, and saw,
At distance faw, descending on the shore,
Forth from their anchor'd boat, of men unknown
A double band, who by their gestures itrange
There fix'd with wond'ring; for at once they knelt
With hands upheld; at once to Heav'n, as feemid,
One gen’ral hymn pour'd forth of vocal praise ;
Then slowly rising, forward mov'd their steps :
Slow as they mov’d, behold ! amid the train,
On either side supported, onward came,
Pale, and of pitcous look, a pensive maid,
As one by wasting sickness fore affail'd,

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Or