LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.

Nor cold, nor stern, my soul ! yet I detest

These scented Rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, Heaves the proud Harlot her distended breast,

In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign

To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint; But when the long-breath'd singer's uptrill'd strain

Bursts in a squall—they gape for wonderment.

Hark! the deep buzz of Vanity and Hate !'

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,

While the pert Captain, or the primmer Priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene releas’d,

To hear our old musician, blind and grey, (Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kist,)

His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,

By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,

The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees
Around whose roots the fisher's boat is tied,

On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease, And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But 0, dear Anne ! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed

Makes the cock shrilly in the rain-storm crow,

To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wreck'd sailor floating dead,

Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! i Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The Things of Nature utter ; birds or trees Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze. VOL. II.

L.

THE KEEP-SAKE.

The tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Shew summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk .
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed flowret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet FORGET-ME-NOT !*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has work’d, (the flowers which most she knew I lov’d,)
And, more belov'd than they, her auburn hairi

In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyless restlessness, Leaving the soft bed to her sleeping sister, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool. There, in that bower where first she own’d her love, And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretch'd The silk upon the frame, and work'd her name Between the Moss-Rose and FORGET-ME-NOTHer own dear name, with her own auburn hair! That forc'd to wander till sweet spring return, I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep,) Nor yet th' entrancement of that maiden kiss With which she promis'd, that when spring return’d, She would resign one half of that dear name, And own thenceforth no other name but mine!

TO A LADY.

With Falkner's “ Shipwreck."

Ah! not by Cam or Isis, famous streams,

In arched groves, the youthful poet's choice; Nor while half-list’ning, mid delicious dreams,

To harp and song from lady's hand and voice;

Nor yet while gazing in sublimer mood

On cliff, or cataract, in alpine dell;
Nor in dim cave with bladdery sea-weed strew'd,

Framing wild fancies to the ocean's swell;

Our sea-bard sang this song! which still he sings, ...

And sings for thee, sweet friend ! Hark, Pity, hark ! Now mounts, now totters on the Tempest's wings,

Now groans, and shivers, the replunging Bark!