The pieces, collected under the head of Fugitive, are all that I thought susceptible of revision among those which I had published at distant periods through different channels. The reader may perhaps wish that their number were still fewer. Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.

CONTENTS.

Page

THE Brothers, a Monody

The Prison, a Vision

Sonnets. I. On the Church of St. Mary Redcliff

II. On Linlithgow Castle

III. On the Early Spring

49

51

52

53

Written on a Vernal Day, during confinement from indis-

The bard who lay by inspiration's oak:
So speaks the voice within-the love that brings
Vain tribute-sweet, yet empty, offerings:
Perchance a frail memorial-shedding bloom

Of short-lived odour on a nameless tomb.

Oh could I, like that priest of Nature's truth, Bid th' angel "homeward look2 and melt with ruth!" He wakes no strain, which angels stoop to hear, Whose reed of hope has pierced him like a spear: From whom the glory of his days is fled,

And all within is cold, and dark, and dead:

1 For Notes see the end.

B

A little pain-a little suffering yet

And earth shall cover and the world forget!—

But not in vain the faltering harp is strung
For hearts, like his, with hopeless anguish wrung:
Whose earthly heaven, like his, is overcast;

Whose future darkens in the clouded past:
Hearts sickening wan in life's meridian ray,
And wistful gazing towards their setting day.
Yes-Heaven has bound us as with brethren's ties,
And made our sorrows drop from others' eyes:
And he, that utters what his grief has known,
Feels that he mourns, but not, as once, alone:
And earth has yet a balm-(how little all

To lull the lingering pangs of that brief funeral !-)
The sympathy of souls; alas! e'en thine

Cannot restore, nor is there help in mine.

Yet would I bring what solace still is left
For minds afflicted, humbled, scourged, bereft;
That only solace which the wandering eye
Can find to fix on, ere it close and die.