SONNET,

To a Friend who asked, how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant to me.

CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scann'd that face of feeble infancy:
For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my child might be !

But when I saw it on its Mother's arm,

And hanging at her bosom (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile)
Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm
Impress'd a Father's kiss: and all beguil’d

Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seem'd to see an angel-form appear

'Twas even thine, beloved woman mild !

So for the Mother's sake the Child was dear,

And dearer was the Mother for the Child.

THE VIRGIN's CRADLE-HYMN.

Copied from a Print of the Virgin, in a Catholic village in Germany.

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet,

Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,

Inter fila cantans orat

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:

Mother sits beside thee smiling:

Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:

Come, soft slumber, balmily!

(

EPITAPH, ON AN INFANT.

Irs balmy lips the Infant blest Relaxing from its Mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent Satiety !

And such my Infant's latest sigh!
O tell, rude stone! the passer by,
That here the pretty babe doth lie,
Death sang to sleep with Lullaby

MELANCHOLY.*

A FRAGMENT.

STRETCH'D on a moulder'd Abbey's broadest wall,
Where ruining ivies propt the ruins steep-
Her folded arms wrapping her tatter'd pall,
Had MELANCHOLY mus'd herself to sleep.
The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

The dark green Adder's Tongue § was there;
And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,

The long lank leaf bow'd fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flush'd: her eager look
Beam'd eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,
Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

1

And her bent forehead work'd with troubled thought.
Strange was the dream that fill'd her soul,
Nor did not whispering spirits roll

A mystic tumult, and a fateful rhyme
Mixt with wild shapings of the unborn time.

* First published in the Morning Chronicle, in the year 1794.

§ A botanical mistake. The plant, I meant, is called the Hart's Tongue; but this would unluckily spoil the poetical effect. ergo Botanice.

Cedat

TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE.

Imitated from Stolberg.

I.

MARK this holy chapel well!

The Birth-place, this, of WILLIAM TELL.

Here, where stands God's altar dread,

Stood his parents' marriage-bed.

II.

Here first, an infant to her breast,

Him his loving mother prest;

And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day,

And pray'd as mothers use to pray.

III.

"Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give

The child thy servant still to live!"

But God had destined to do more

Through him, than through an armed power.