Gazed on her sun-burnt face, with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle, and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er ;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps, in the barn with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed; [shade,
Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest
When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed :-
And heroes fled the sibyl's muttered call,
Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall.
As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,
And traced the line of life with searching view! [fears,
How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and
To learn the colour of my future years!
Ah, then what honest triumph flushed my breast!
This truth once known-To bless is to be blest!
We led the bending beggar on his way;
Bare were his feet, his tresses silver-grey,
Soothed the keen pangs his aged spirit felt,
And on his tale with mute attention dwelt.
As in his scrip we dropt our little store,
And wept to think that little was no more,
He breathed his prayer, 'long may such goodness live!'
'Twas all he gave, 'twas all he had to give.
Angels, when mercy's mandate winged their flight,
Had stopt to catch new rapture from the sight.
But hark! through those old firs, with sullen swell
The church-clock strikes! ye tender scenes farewell!
It calls me hence, beneath their shade, to trace
The few fond lines that time may soon efface.
On yon grey stone, that fronts the chancel door, Worn smooth by busy feet now seen no more,
Each eve we shot the marble through the ring, When the heart danced, and life was in its spring; Alas! unconscious of the kindred earth,
That faintly echoed to the voice of mirth.
The glow-worm loves her emerald light to shed,
Where now the sexton rests his hoary head.
Oft, as he turned the greensward with his spade,
He lectured every youth that round him played;
And, calmly pointing where his fathers lay,
Roused him to rival each, the hero of his day.
Hush, ye fond flutterings, hush! while here alone
I search the records of each mouldering stone.
Guides of my life! instructors of my youth!
Who first unveiled the hallowed form of truth?
Whose every word enlightened and endeared;
In age beloved, in poverty revered;
In friendship's silent register ye live,
Nor ask the vain memorial art can give.
-But when the sons of peace and pleasure sleep,
When only sorrow wakes and wakes to weep,
What spells entrance my visionary mind,
With sighs so sweet, with raptures so refined!
Ethereal power! whose smile, at noon of night,
Recalls the far-fled spirit of delight;
Instills that musing, melancholy mood,
Which charms the wise, and elevates the good;
Blest MEMORY, hail! oh, grant the grateful muse,
Her pencil dipt in nature's living hues,
To pass the clouds that round thy empire roll,
And trace its airy precincts in the soul.
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain.
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise!
Each stamps its image as the other flies!
Each as the varied avenues of sense
Delight or sorrow to the soul dispense,
Brightens or fades: yet all, with magic art,
Control the latent fibres of the heart.
As studious PROSPERO'S mysterious spell
Convened the subject spirits to his cell;
Each, at thy call, advances or retires,
As judgment dictates, or the scene inspires.
Each thrills the seat of sense, that sacred source,
Whence the fine nerves direct their mazy course,
And through the frame invisibly convey
The subtle, quick vibrations as they play.
Survey the globe, each ruder realm explore,
From reason's faintest ray to NEWTON soar.
What different spheres to human bliss assigned!
What slow gradations in the scale of mind!
Yet mark in each these mystic wonders wrought;
Oh mark the sleepless energies of thought!
The adventurous boy, that asks his little share,
And hies from home, with many a gossip's prayer,
Turns on the neighbouring hill, once more to see
The dear abode of peace and privacy;
And as he turns, the thatch among the trees,
The smoke's blue wreathes ascending with the breeze,
The village-common, spotted white with sheep,
The church-yard yews, round which his fathers
All rouse reflection's sadly-pleasing train, [sleep; (2)
And oft he looks and weeps, and looks again.
So, when the mild TUPIA dared explore
Arts yet untaught, and worlds unknown before,
And, wit the sons of science, wooed the gaie,
That, rising, swelled their strange expanse of sail;
So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu,
Borne from his leafy hut, his carved canoe,
And all his soul best loved, such tears he shed,
While each soft scene of summer beauty fled :
Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast,
Long watched the streaming signal from the mast;
Tili twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye,
And fairy forests fringed the evening sky.
So Scotia's queen, as slowly dawned the day, (4)
Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away.
Her eyes had blessed the beacon's glimmering height
That faintly tipt the feathery surge with light;
But now the morn, with orient hues, portrayed
Each castled cliff, and brown monastic shade:
All touched the talisman's resistless spring,
And, lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing!
Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire, (5)
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.
Hence home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh;(6
This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
For this FOSCARI, whose relentless fate
Venus should blush to hear the muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice, vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though hope could grant no more
And chains and torture hailed him to the shore.
And hence the charm historic scenes impart :
Hence Tiber awes, and Avon melts the heart.
Aerial forms, in Tempe's classic vale,
Glance through the gloom, and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love aud LAURA dwell,
And watch and weep in ELOISA's cell.
'Twas ever thus. And now at VIRGIL's tomb,
We bless the shade and bid the verdure bloom:
So TULLY paused, amid the wrecks of time,
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet, in honoured dust disclosed,
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as his youth in sweet delusion hung,
Where once a PLATO taught, a PINDAR Sung;
Who now but meets him musing when he roves
His ruined Tusculan's romantic groves?
In Rome's great forum, who but hears him roll
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul?
And hence that calm delight the portrait gives:
We gaze on every feature till it lives;
Still the fond lover views his absent maid;
-+ And the lost friend still lingers in his shade!
Say why the pensive widow loves to weep,
When on her knee she rocks her babe to sleep?
Tremblingly still, she lifts his veil to trace
The father's features in his infant face;
The hoary grandsire smiles the hour away,
Won by the charm of innocence at play;
He bends to meet each artless burst of joy,
Forgets his age, and acts again the boy.
What though the iron school of war erase
Each milder virtue, and each softer grace;
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