POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH. FIRST ADVENT OF LOVE.* O FAIR is Love's first hope to gentle mind! 1788. GENEVIEVE. MAID of my love, sweet Genevieve! And sweet your voice, as seraph's song. * See Note at the end of the volume. Within your soul a voice there lives! I've seen your breast with pity heave, THE RAVEN. A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. UNDERNEATH an old oak tree There was of swine a huge company, That grunted as they crunched the mast: Then they trotted away, for the wind grew high : Blacker was he than blackest jet, Flew low in the rain, and his feathers not wet. Where then did the Raven go? He went high and low, Over hill, over dale, did the black Raven go. I can't tell half his adventures. At length he came back, and with him a She, His young ones were killed; for they could not depart, And their mother did die of a broken heart. The boughs from the trunk the Woodman did sever; And they floated it down on the course of the river. strip, They sawed it in planks, and its bark they did [ship. And with this tree and others they made a good The ship, it was launched; but in sight of the land Such a storm there did rise as no ship could withstand. It bulged on a rock, and the waves rushed in fast: Round and round flew the Raven, and cawed to the blast. He heard the last shriek of the perishing souls— See! see! o'er the topmast the mad water rolls! Right glad was the Raven, and off he went fleet, And Death riding home on a cloud he did meet, And he thank'd him again and again for this treat : They had taken his all, and revenge it was sweet! TIME, REAL AND IMAGINARY. AN ALLEGORY. On the wide level of a mountain's head, That far outstripp'd the other; Yet ever runs she with reverted face, For he, alas! is blind! O'er rough and smooth with even step he pass'd, And knows not whether he be first or last. ABSENCE. A FAREWELL ODE ON QUITTING SCHOOL FOR JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. WHERE graced with many a classic spoil Cam rolls his reverend stream along, I haste to urge the learned toil That sternly chides my love-lorn song: When Peace, and Cheerfulness, and Health And scatter livelier roses round. The sun, who ne'er remits his fires, |