Till earth's remotest bound, and heaven's bright train He trace, weigh, measure, picture, and explain.

If such his toils, sure honour and regard, And wealth and fame shall be his dear reward; Sure every tongue will utter forth his praise, And blessings gild the evening of his days! Yes--blest indeed, by cold ungrateful scorn, With study pale, by daily crosses worn, Despised by those who to his labour owe All that they read, and almost all they know. Condemned, each tedious day, such cares to bear As well might drive e'en Patience to despair; The partial parent's taunt-the idler dullThe blockhead's dark impenetrable scullThe endless round of A, B, C's whole train, Repeated o'er ten thousand times in vain, Placed on a point, the object of each sneer, His faults enlarge, his merits disappear; If mild-" Our lazy master loves his ease, The boys at school do anything they please." If rigid-"He's a cross hard-hearted wretch, He drives the children stupid with his birch. My child, with gentle means, will mind a breath; But frowns and flogging frighten him to death." Do as he will his conduct is arraigned, And dear the little that he gets is gained; E'en that is given him, on the quarter day, With looks that call it-money thrown away. Just Heaven! who knows the unremitting care And deep solicitude that teachers share, If such their fate, by thy divine control, O give them health and fortitude of soul! Souls that disdain the murderous tongue of Fame, And strength to make the sturdiest of them tame; Grant this, ye powers! to dominies distrest, Their sharp-tailed hickories will do the rest.

In contrast with the Dutch boor of Northampton we may present the pleasing sketch of hospitality on the Susquehanna, with its eloquent tribute to the genius of the scene.

AT HOME ON THE SUSQUEHANNA.

Now up green banks, through level fields of grass, With heavy hearts the fatal spot we pass Where Indian rage prevailed, by murder fired, And warriors brave by savage hands expired; Where bloody Butler's iron-hearted crew, Doomed to the flames the weak submitting few; While screams of horror pierced the midnight wood,* And the dire axe drank deep of human blood, Obscured with mud, and drenched with soaking rain, Through pools of splashing mire we drove amain; Night darke ing round us; when in lucky hour, Led by its light we reached a cottage door. There welcomed in we blest our happy lot, And all the drudgery of the day forgot. A noble fire its blazing front displayed, Clean shelves of pewter dazzling round arrayed, Where rows of ruddy apples, ranged with care, With grateful fragrance filled the balmy air; Our bard (chief orator in times like these,) Though frank, yet diffi lent, and fond to please, In broken German joked with all around, Told who we were, from whence and whither bound;

The massacre here alluded to took place after the battle of 8d July, 1778, which was fought near this spot. The small body of American troops were commanded by that brave, humane, and intelligent officer, Colonel Butler; the tories and savages were headed by another Colonel Butler, of a very different description. Were I disposed to harrow up the feelings of the reader, I might here enlarge on the particulars of this horrible affair; but I choose to decline it. Those who wish to see a detail of the whole are referred to the Philadelphia Universal Magazine for March 20, 1797, p. 390.

The cottage group a ready opening made,
And "welcome friends," the little Dutchman said.
Well pleased our guns and knapsacks we resigned,
The adjoining pump, or running stream to find;
There washed our boots, and entering, took our seat,
Stript to the trowsers in the glowing heat.
The mindful matron spread her table near,
Smoking with meat, and filled with plenteous cheer;
And supper o'er, brought forth and handed round
A massy bowl with mellow apples crowned;
For all our wants a mother's care exprest,
And pressed us oft, and picked us out the best;
But Duncan smiled, and slyly seemed to seek
More tempting fruit in Susan's glowing cheek,
Where such sweet innocence and meekness lay
As fairly stole our pilot's heart away.
He tried each art the evening to prolong,
And cheered the passing moments with a song,
So sadly tender, with such feeling raised,
That all but Susan with profusion praised;
She from his glance oft turned her glistening eye,
And paid in tears and many a stifled sigh.

Thus passed the evening charmingly away,
Each pleased and pleasing, innocent and gay,
Till early bed-time summoned us to part,
And Susan's glances spoke her captive heart.

Swift flew the night, in soundest sleep enjoyed,
By dawn we start and find all hands employed;
The wheel, the cards, by fire-light buzzing go;
The careful mother kneads her massy dough;
Even little Mary at her needle sits,
And while she nurses pussy, nicely knits.
Our generous friends their courtesy bestowed,
Refused all price, and pointed out the road;
With kindest wishes bade us all farewell;
What Susan felt, the rising tear could tell.

Blest Hospitality! the poor man's pride, The stranger's guardian, comforter, and guide, Whose cheering voice and sympathetic eye, Even angels honour as they hover nigh; Confined (in mercy to our wandering race) To no one country, people, age, or place; But for the homeless and the exiled lives, And smiles the sweeter still the more she gives. O if on earth one spot I e'er can claim, One humble dwelling, even without a name, Do thou, blest spirit! be my partner there, With sons of woe our little all to share; Beside our fire the pilgrim's looks to see, That swim in moisture as he thinks on thee; To hear his tales of wild woods wandering through; His ardent blessings as he bids adieu; Then let the selfish hug their gold divine! Ten thousand dearer pleasures shall be mine.

The whole of this poem, with its humorous contrasts of the privations and enjoyments of the travellers, and its truthful pictures of nature and local scenery, is in a very happy vein. If the poet's genius is incapable of adding new glories to Niagara, at the close of the poem, it must pay that act of submission in its inferiority to the great sublime.

RAB AND RINGAN.-A TALE.

Delivered by the author in the Pantheon, Edinburgh, in a debate on the question-" Whether is Diffidence, or the AlJurements of Pleasure, the greatest bar to the Progress in Knowledge?"

INTRODUCTION.

Hech! but it's awfu' like to rise up here,
Where sic a sight o' learned folks' pows appear!
Sae mony piercing een a' fixed on ane,

Is maist enough to freeze me to a stane!

But it's a mercy-mony thanks to fute, Pedlars are poor, but unco seldom blate.

(Speaking to the President.)

This question, sir, has been right well disputed, And meikle weel-a-wat's been said about it: Chiels, that precisely to the point can speak, And gallop o'er lang blauds of kittle Greek, Ha'e sent frae ilka side their sharp opinion, And peeled it up as ane wad peel an ingon.*

I winna plague you lang wi' my poor spale, But only crave your patience to a tale: By which ye'll ken on whatna side I'm stannin', As I perceive your hindmost minute's rinnin'.

THE TALE.

There lived in Fife, an auld, stout, worldly chiel, Wha's stomach kend nae fare but milk and meal; A wife he had, I think they ca'd her Bell, And twa big sons, amaist as heigh's himsel'. Rab was a gleg, smart cock, with powdered pash; Ringan, a slow, feared, bashfu', simple hash.

Baith to the college gaed. At first spruce Rab,
At Greek and Latin, grew a very dab:
He beat a' round about him, fair and clean,
And ilk ane courted him to be their frien';
Frae house to house they harled him to dinner,
But cursed poor Ringan for a hum-drum sinner.
Rab talked now in sic a lofty strain,

As though braid Scotland had been a' his ain:
He ca'd the kirk the church, the yirth the globe,
And changed his name, forsooth, frae Rab to Bob.
Whare'er ye met him, flourishing his rung,
The haill discourse was murdered wi' his tongue.
On friends and faes wi' impudence he set,
And rammed his nose in everything he met.

The college now, to Rab, grew douf and dull,
He scorned wi' books to stupify his skull:
But whirled to plays and balls, and sic like places,
And roared awa' at fairs and kintra races:
Sent hame for siller frae his mother Bell,
And caft a horse, and rade a race himsel';
Drank night and day, and syne, when mortal fu',
Rowed on the floor, and snored like ony sow;
Lost a' his siller wi' some gambling sparks,
And pawed, for punch, his Bible and his sarks;
Till, driven at last to own he had enough,
Gaed hame a' rags to haud his father's plough.
Poor hum-drum Ringan played anither part,
For Ringan wanted neither wit nor art:
Of mony a far-aff place he kent the gate;
Was deep, deep learned, but unco, unco blate.
He kend how mony mile 'twas to the moon,
How mony rake wad lave the ocean toom;
Where a' the swallows gaed in time of snaw;
What gars the thunders roar, and tempests blaw;
Where lumps o' siller grow aneath the grun',
How a' this yirth rows round about the sun;
In short, on books sae meikle time he spent,
Ye cou'dna speak o' aught, but Ringan kent.

Sae meikle learning wi' sae little pride,
Soon gained the love o' a' the kintra side;
And Death, at that time, happening to nip aff
The parish minister-a poor dull calf,
Ringan was sought-he cou'dna' say them nay,
And there he's preaching at this very day.

MORAL

Now, Mr. President, I think 'tis plain, That youthfu' diffidence is certain gain.

The question had been spoken upon both sides before this tale was recited, which was the last opinion given on the debate.

Instead of blocking up the road to knowledge,
It guides alike, in commerce or at college;
Struggles the bursts of passion to controul,
Feeds all the finer feelings of the soul;
Defies the deep laid stratagems of guile,
And gives even innocence a sweeter smile;
Ennobles all the little worth we have,
And shields our virtue even to the grave.

How vast the diffrence, then, between the twain,
Since pleasure ever is pursued by pain.
Pleasure's a syren, with inviting arms,
Sweet is her voice and powerful are her charms;
Lured by her call we tread her flowery ground,
Joy wings our steps and music warbles round;
Lulled in her arms we lose the flying hours,
And lie embosomed 'midst her blooming bowers,
Till-armed with death, she watches our undoing,
Stabs while she sings, and triumphs in our ruin.

CONNEL AND FLORA.-A SONG.

Dark lowers the night o'er the wide stormy main,
Till mild rosy morning rise cheerful again;
Alas! morn returns to revisit our shore;
But Connel returns to his Flora no more!
For see on yon mountain, the dark cloud of death,
O'er Connel's lone cottage, lies low on the heath;
While bloody and pale, on a far distant shore,
He lies to return to his Flora no more.

Ye light fleeting spirits that glide o'er yon steep,
O would ye but waft me across the wild deep;
There fearless I'd mix in the battle's loud roar,
I'd die with my Connel, and leave him no more!

AUCHTERTOOL.

Tune-One bottle more."
From the village of Lessly, with a head full of gles,
And my pack on my shoulders, I rambled out free;
Resolved that same evening, as Luna was full,
To lodge ten miles distant, in old Auchtertool
Through many a lone cottage and farm-house I
steered,

Took their money, and off with my budget I sheered;
The road I explored out without form or rule,
Still asking the nearest to old Auchtertool.
A clown I accosted, inquiring the road,
He stared like an idiot, then roared out "Gude G-d,
Gin ye're gaun there for quarters ye're surely a fool,
For there's nought but starvation in old Auchtertool."
Unminding his nonsense, my march I pursued,
Till I came to a hill top, where joyful I viewed,
Surrounded with mountains, and many a white pool,
The small smoky village of old Auchtertool.
At length I arrived at the edge of the town,
As Phoebus behind a high mountain went down;
The clouds gathered dreary, and weather blew foul,
And I hugged myself safe now in old Auchtertool.
An inn I inquired out, a lodging desired,
But the landlady's pertness seemed instantly fired;
For she saucy replied, as she sat carding wool,
"I ne'er keep sic lodgers in auld Auchtertool"
With scorn I soon left her to live on her pride,
But asking, was told there was none else beside,
Except an old weaver who now kept a school,
And these were the whole that were in Auchtertool.
To his mansion I scampered, and rapt at the door,
He op'd, but as soon as I dared to implore,
He shut it like thunder, and uttered a howl,
That rung through each corner of old Auchtertool.
Provoked now to fury, the dominie I curst,
And offered to cudgel the wretch, if he durst;

But the door he fast bolted, though Boreas blew cool,
And left me all friendless in old Auchtertool.
Deprived of all shelter, through darkness I trod,
Till I came to a ruined old house by the road;
Here the night I will spend, and, inspired by the ow.,
I'll send up some prayers for old Auchtertool.

THE BLUE BIRD.-FROM THE ORNITHOLOGY.

The pleasing manners, and sociable disposition of this little bird, entitle him to particular notice. As one of the first messengers of spring, bringing the charming tidings to our very doors, he bears his own recommendation always along with him, and meets with a hearty welcome from every body.

Though generally accounted a bird of passage, yet, so early as the middle of February, if the weather be open, he usually makes his appearance about his old haunts, the barn, orchard, and fence posts. Storms and deep snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time; but about the middle of March is again seen, accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple tree, the cradle of some generations of his ancestors. "When he first begins his amours," says a curious and correct observer, "it is pleasing to behold his courtship, his solicitude to please and to secure the favour of his beloved female. He uses the tenderest expressions, sits close by her, caresses and sings to her his most endearing warblings. When seated together, if he espies an insect delicious to her taste, he takes it up, flies with it to her, spreads his wing over her, and puts it in her mouth."* If a rival makes his appearance, (for they are ardent in their loves,) he quits her in a moment, attacks and pursues the intruder as he shifts from place to place, in tones that bespeak the jealousy of his affection, conducts him, with many reproofs, beyond the extremities of his territory, and returns to warble out his transports of triumph beside his beloved mate. The preliminaries being thus settled, and the spot fixed on, they begin to clean out the old nest, and the rubbish of the former year, and to prepare for the reception of their future offspring. Soon after this, another sociable little pilgrim, (motacilla domestica, house wren,) also arrives from the south, and, finding such a snug berth preoccupied, shows his spite, by watching a convenient opportunity, and, in the absence of the owner, popping in and pulling out sticks; but takes special care to make off as fast as possible.

The female lays five, and sometimes six eggs, of a pale blue colour; and raises two, and sometimes three brood in a season; the male taking the youngest under his particular care while the female is again sitting. Their principal food are insects, particularly large beetles, and other hard-shelled sorts, that lurk among old, dead, and decaying trees. Spiders are also a favourite repast with them. In the fall, they occasionally regale themselves on the berries of the sour gum; and, as winter approaches, on those of the red cedar, and on the fruit of a rough hairy vine that runs up and cleaves fast to the trunks of trees. Ripe persimmons is another of their favourite dishes, and many other fruits and seeds which I have found in their stomachs at that season, which, being no botanist, I am unable to particularize. They are frequently pestered with a species of tape worm, some of which I have taken from their intestines of an extraordinary size, and, in some cases, in great numbers. Most other birds are also plagued with these vermin, but the blue bird seems more subject to them than any I know, except the woodcock. An account of the different species of vermin,

Letter from Mr. William Bartram to the author.

many of which, I doubt not, are nondescripts, that infest the plumage and intestines of our birds, would of itself form an interesting publication; but, as this belongs more properly to the entomologist, I shall only, in the course of this work, take notice of some of the most remarkable.

The usual spring and summer song of the blue bird is a soft, agreeable, and oft-repeated warble, uttered with open quivering wings, and is extremely pleasing. In his motions and general character, he has great resemblance to the robin redbreast of Britain; and, had he the brown olive of that bird, instead of his own blue, could scarcely be distinguished from him. Like him, he is known to almost every child; and shows as much confidence in man by associating with him in summer, as the other by his familiarity in winter. He is also of a mild and peaceful disposition, seldom fighting or quarrelling with other birds. His society is courted by the inhabitants of the country, and few farmers neglect to provide for him, in some suitable place, a snug little summerhouse, ready fitted and rent free. For this he more than sufficiently repays them by the cheerfulness of his song, and the multitude of injurious insects which he daily destroys. Towards fall, that is in the month of October, his song changes to a single plaintive note, as he passes over the yellow many-coloured woods; and its melancholy air recalls to our minds the approaching decay of the face of nature. Even after the trees are stript of their leaves, he still lingers over his native fields, as if loath to leave them. About the middle or end of November, few or none of them are seen; but, with every return of mild and open weather, we hear his plaintive note amidst the fields, or in the air, seeming to deplore the devastations of winter. Indeed, he appears scarcely ever totally to forsake us; but to follow fair weather through all its journeyings till the return of spring.

Such are the mild and pleasing manners of the bluebird, and so universally is he esteemed, that I have often regretted that no pastoral muse has yet arisen in this western woody world, to do justice to his name, and endear him to us still more by the tenderness of verse, as has been done to his representative in Britain, the robin redbreast. A small acknowledgment of this kind I have to offer, which the reader, I hope, will excuse as a tribute to rural innocence.

When winter's cold tempests and snows are no

Then loud piping frogs make the marshes to ring; Then warm glows the sunshine, and fine is the weather;

The blue woodland flowers just beginning to spring,

And spicewood and sassafras budding together:
O then to your gardens ye housewives repair,
Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure;

The bluebird will chant from his box such an air, That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure!

He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree, The red flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blos

soms:

He snaps up destroyers wherever they be, And seizes the caitiffs that lurk in their bosoms;

He drags the vile grub from the corn it devours, The worms from the webs, where they riot and welter;

His song and his services freely are ours, And all that he asks is-in summer a shelter.

The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his train,

Now searching the furrows-now mounting to cheer him;

The gard'ner delights in his sweet, simple strain, And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him; The slow ling'ring schoolboys forget they'll be chid, While gazing intent as he warbles before them In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red, That each little loiterer seems to adore him.

When all the gay scenes of the summer are o'er, And autumn slow enters so silent and sallow, And millions of warblers, that charm'd us before, Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow; The bluebird, forsaken, yet true to his home, Still lingers, and looks for a milder to-morrow, Till forced by the horrors of winter to roam, He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow.

While spring's lovely season, serene, dewy, warm, The green face of earth, and the pure blue of heaven, Or love's native music have influence to charm, Or sympathy's glow to our feelings are given,

Still dear to each bosom the bluebird shall be; His voice, like the thrillings of hope, is a treasure, For, through bleakest storms, if a calm he but see, He comes to remind us of sunshine and pleasure!

THE FISH-HAWK.

This formidable, vigorous-winged, and well known bird, subsists altogether on the finny tribes that swarm in our bays, creeks, and rivers; procuring his prey by his own active skill and industry; and seeming no farther dependent on the land than as a mere resting place, or, in the usual season, a spot of deposit for his nest, eggs, and young.

The fish-hawk is migratory, arriving on the coasts of New York and New Jersey about the 21st of March, and retiring to the south about the twentysecond of September. Heavy equinoctial storms may vary these periods of arrival and departure a few days; but log observation has ascertained, that they are kept with remarkable regularity. On the arrival of these birds in the northern parts of the United States, in March, they sometimes find the bays and ponds frozen, and experience a difficulty in procuring fish for many days. Yet there is no instance on record of their attacking birds, or inferior land animals, with intent to feed on them; though their great strength of flight, as well as of feet and claws, would seem to render this no difficult matter. But they no sooner arrive, than they wage war on the bald eagles, as against a horde of robbers and banditti; sometimes succeeding, by force of numbers, and perseverance, in driving them from their haunts, but seldom or never attacking them in single combat.

The first appearance of the fish-hawk in spring, is welcomed by the fishermen, as the happy signal of the approach of those vast shoals of herring, shad, &c., that regularly arrive on our coasts, and enter our rivers in such prodigious multitudes. Two of a trade, it is said, seldom agree; the adage, however, will not hold good in the present case, for such is the respect paid the fish-hawk, not only by this class of men, but, generally, by the whole neighbourhood where it resides, that a person who should attempt to shoot one of them, would stand a fair chance of being insulted. This prepossession in favour of the fish-hawk is honourable to their feelings. They

associate, with its first appearance, ideas of plenty, and all the gaiety of business; they see it active and industrious like themselves; inoffensive to the productions of their farms; building with confidence, and without the least disposition to concealment, in the middle of their fields, and along their fences; and returning, year after year, regularly to its former abode.

The regular arrival of this noted bird at the vernal equinox, when the busy season of fishing commences, adds peculiar interest to its first appearance, and procures it many a benediction from the fishermen. With the following lines, illustrative of these circumstances, I shall conclude its history:

Soon as the sun, great ruler of the year,
Bends to our northern climes his bright eareer,
And from the caves of ocean calls from sleep
The finny shoals and myriads of the deep;
When freezing tempests back to Greenland ride,
And day and night the equal hours divide;
True to the season, o'er our sea-beat shore,
The sailing osprey high is seen to soar,
With broad unmoving wing; and, circling slow,
Marks each loose straggler in the deep below;
Sweeps down like lightning! plunges with a roar!
And bears his struggling victim to the shore.

The long-housed fisherman beholds with joy,
The well known signals of his rough employ;
And, as he bears his nets and oars along,
Thus hails the welcome season with a song:-

THE FISHERMAN'S HYMN.

The osprey sails above the sound,

The geese are gone, the gulls are flying;
The herring shoals swarm thick around,
The nets are launch'd, the boats are plying;
Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep,

Raise high the song, and cheerly wish her,
Still as the bending net we sweep,

"God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!" She brings us fish-she brings us spring, Good times, fair weather, warmth, and plenty, Fine store of shad, trout, herring, ling, Sheepshead and drum, and old-wives' dainty. Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep, Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her, Still as the bending net we sweep,

'God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!"

She rears her young on yonder tree,
She leaves her faithful mate to mind 'em;
Like us, for fish, she sails to sea,
And, plunging, shows us where to find 'em.
Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep,
Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her,
While the slow bending net we sweep,
"God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!"

JOHN EDMUND HARWOOD.

HARWOOD, the actor, who came over to America with Wignell's company to Philadelphia, in 1793, was a writer of verses of ease and sweetness, a collection of which he published in New York in 1809. Dunlap, in his History of the American Stage, has given some pleasing reminiscences of the man in his account of the opening of the New York Theatre in 1803 :

"John E. Harwood has been mentioned in the catalogue of the splendid company brought out to this country in 1793 for Philadelphia. He was a man endowed by nature with brilliant talents, and had received in every respect the edu

cation of a gentleman. His Trapanti, Sir David Dunder, Lenitive, Dennis Brulgruddery, Canton, Gradus, Captain Ironsides, and a long list of characters, were superior to any man's, in our opinion, yet seen in this country: he was more like John Bannister than any other actor of the English stage. His Falstaff was the best in this country until Cooke played it, except, and it is a most formidable exception,-that it was not sufficiently studied. In truth, self-indulgence was the ruin of Harwood, as of thousands on and off the stage. After his marriage, he had retired from the stage, and kept a bookstore and circulating library: this retirement from a profession in which he was qualified to shine was probably not his own choice. He read his books, and neglected his business. Booksellers should never read; if they do, they are lost. There are brilliant exceptions; but then they wrote also: they did not read merely for the gratification of reading, or to kill time, but to gain knowledge, and they exerted themselves to impart it. The venerable Matthew Carey is an instance in point. Harwood was a poet, and had in early life published a volume of verses. He was a man of wit, and the favorite of every company; never obtrusive, and always willing to take a joke or to give one. He was lazy, and became corpulent; the first disqualified him for all business, and rendered many of his new characters, after he returned to the stage, less perfect than they would have been; the second spoiled his appearance and action for high or genteel comedy, for a corpulent Michael Perez (and he played it well) should not be placed by the side of Cacofogo. John E. Harwood, off the stage, would have shone as a man of fortune, and he had a wife equally fitted to be a man of fortune's wife; but as unfit for a poor man's wife as he was for a poor man. The consequence was the return to the stage, which brings him again before the reader."

Harwood's mood, in the volume of his verses before us, is of a genial, sentimental character, softly tuned to melancholy at the voice of the nightingale, or the full of the leaf; competent at ode and elegy, and gallantly assisted, in its highest animation, by the presence of the sex.

In an

"irregular ode" he rather irreverently speaks of himself as a "dangler on a petticoat;" a distinction which his constant attentions in verse to Emma, Myra, and other ladies, in their various humors, would seem fully to justify. There was delicacy in his Muse as he watched the fair ones with a fond affection; and sang his amiable songs after the manner of the gentleman of the olden time, in the age which was at its height at the beginning of the century.

ODE TO INDOLENCE.

Goddess of ease! whose all-lethargic sway
In drowsy fetters binds the senseless soul,
Whose magic power e'en mighty seas obey,
And touch'd by thee in smoother billows roll,
At thine approach in summer's scorching heat,
The cattle grazing on the verdant plain
To some kind shade direct their weary feet,
T' enjoy sweet sleep beneath thy placid reign.

Oh! take me, Goddess, to thy circling arms,
And pour sweet visions o'er my languid head;

O'er every thought infuse thy magic charms,
And round my pillow all thy poppies spread.
What time the wearying sun, no longer bright,
Now paints the western sky with streaks of red;
What time the moon extends her glimmering light,
And dark'ning shades advise the tranquil bed;
What time the shepherds urge to quiet folds,
And weary, haste to pen their tardy sheep;
What time" the air a solemn stillness holds,"
And weary nature welcomes balmy sleep;
Oh, waft me, Goddess, to that peaceful shore
Where drowsy silence lulls the quiet mind,
Where Strife's discordant voice is heard no more,
And sadd'ning thoughts a potent opiate find.
Bear me propitious to some fragrant seat,
Some couch of nature's sweetest flow'rets made;
While slumbers hover o'er the still retreat,
And lull each sense within the languid shade.
Ne'er shall ambition's flame awake my breast,
Ne'er shall her honors gild my humble name,
For glory's votaries be the brass imprest,
And let admiring ages learn their fame.
And if the Muse afford some latent fire,
May the dull couplet run in numbers slow-
Do thou a languid heaviness inspire,
And bid them, languid as myself, to flow.
Soon will the Muse's proudest landscape fade:
Soon, soon will death dispel the fleeting joy;
Let not one envious wish disturb this shade,
One weak desire this happy ease destroy.
And Bacchus, let me not thy orgies share,
Far be from me thy quarrel-breeding bowl;
Let not the shouts of drunkards jar my ear,
Nor folly's noise disturb my peaceful soul.
Now take me, Goddess, in thy circling arms,
And pour soft visions o'er this languid head;
In every thought infuse thy magic charms,
And round my pillow peaceful poppies shed.

TO MISS SY, ON RETURNING THE JUVENILIA OF WITHER.