ODE.

Who wandering at return of May,
Catch the first cuckoo's vernal lay?
Who, musing waste the summer hour,
Where high o'er-arching trees embower
The grassy lane, so rarely paced,
With azure flow'rets idly graced?
Unnoticed now, at twilight's dawn
Returning reapers cross the lawn:
Nor fond attention loves to note

The wether's bell from folds remote:
While, owned by no poetic eye,

The pensive evening shade the sky!

For lo! the bard who rapture found
From ev'ry rural sight or sound;

Whose genius warm, and judgment chaste,
No charm of genuine nature passed;
Who felt the Muse's purest fires,

Far from thy favored haunt retires:

Who peopled all thy vocal bowers
With shadowy shapes and airy powers.

Behold, a dread repose resumes,

As erst, thy sad sequestered glooms!
From the deep dell, where shaggy roots
Fringe the rough brink with wreathed shoots,

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Th' unwilling genius flies forlorn,
His primrose-chaplet rudely torn.

With hollow shriek the nymphs forsake
The pathless copse, and hedge-row brake,
Where the delved mountain's headlong side
Its chalky entrails opens wide;

On the green summit, ambushed high,
No longer echo loves to lie;

No pearl-crowned maid, with wily look,
Rise beck'ning from the reedy brook.
Around the glow-worm's glimm'ring bank,
No fairies run in fiery rank,

Nor brush half seen, in airy tread,

The violet's unprinted head.

But Fancy, from the thickets brown,

The glades that wear a conscious frown,

The forest-oaks, that pale and lone
Nod to the blast with hoarser tone,
Rough glens, and sullen waterfalls,
Her bright ideal offspring calls.

T. WARTON.

OH! BREATHE NOT HIS NAME.

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OH! BREATHE NOT HIS NAME.

OH! breathe not his name, let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonored his relics are laid;
Sad, silent, and dark, be the tears that we shed,
As the night-dew that falls on the grass o'er his head.

But the night-dew that falls, though in silence it weeps,
Shall brighten with verdure the grave where he sleeps;
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.

ERIN! THE TEAR AND THE SMILE IN THINE EYES.

ERIN! the tear and the smile in thine eyes
Blend like the rainbow that hangs in thy skies!
Shining through sorrow's stream,

Saddening through pleasure's beam,

Thy suns with doubtful gleam

Weep while they rise

Erin! thy silent tear never shall cease,

Erin! thy languid smile ne'er shall increase,

Till, like the rainbow's light,

Thy various tints unite,

And form in heaven's sight

One arch of peace!

I SAW FROM THE BEACH.

I SAW from the beach, when the morning was shining,
A bark o'er the waters move gloriously on;
I came when the sun o'er that beach was declining,
The bark was still there, but the waters were gone.

And such is the fate of our life's early promise,

So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known; Each wave, that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us, And leaves us, at eve, on the bleak shore alone.

Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning

The close of our day, the calm eve of our night;

Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning, Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best light.

Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning,

When passion first waked a new life through his frame. And his soul-like the wood that grows precious in burningGave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame!

FILL THE BUMPER FAIR.

Wit's electric flame

Ne'er so swiftly passes,

As when through the frame

It shoots from brimming glasses.

Fill the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle

O'er the brow of Care

Smooths away a wrinkle.

Sages can, they say,

Grasp the lightning's pinions,

And bring down its ray

From the starred dominions:

So we, Sages, sit

And 'mid bumpers bright'ning,

From the heaven of Wit

Draw down all its lightning.

Wouldst thou know what first

Made our souls inherit

This ennobling thirst

For wine's celestial spirit? It chanced upon that day,

When, as bards inform us, Prometheus stole away

The living fires that warm us; The careless Youth, when up

To Glory's fount aspiring,

Took nor urn nor cup

To hide the pilfered fire in.

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