Ye friends of my heart,
Ere from you I depart,

This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet

In this rural retreat,

May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight
To the regions of night,

And my corse shall recline on its bier,*
As ye pass by the tomb

Where my ashes consume,

Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

ELIZA, what fools are the Mussulman sect,

Who to woman deny the soul's future existence; Could they see thee, Eliza, they 'd own their defect, And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance.

Had their prophet possess'd half an atom of sense,
He ne'er would have women from paradise driven;
Instead of his houris, a flimsy pretence,

With women alone he had peopled his heaven.

Yet still to increase your calamities more,

Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit, He allots one poor husband to share amongst four! With souls you'd dispense; but this last, who could bear it?

"And my body shall sleep on its bier."- Private volume.

↑ Found only in the private volume

His religion to please neither party is ma.;

On husbands 't is hard, to the wives the most uncivil, Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said,

"Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil."

LINES WRITTEN IN "LETTERS OF AN ITALIAN NUN AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. BY J. J. ROUSSEAU FOUNDED ON FACTS."*

66

“AWAY, away, your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts;
And you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving."

ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED TO MISS

DEAR, simple girl, those flattering arts,

From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts,
Exist but in imagination,-

Mere phantoms of thine own creation;

For he who views that witching grace,
That perfect form, that lovely face,
With eyes admiring, oh! believe me,
He never wishes to deceive thee:
Once in thy polish'd mirror glance,
Thou'lt there descry that elegance

Which from our sex demands such praises,
But envy in the other raises

:

Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty:

Ah! fly not from the candid youth;

It is not flattery,

'tis truth.

• Only printed in the private volume.

July, 1804.

THE CORNELIAN.*

No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,

And blushes modest as the giver.

Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties,
Have for my weakness oft reproved me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,-
For I am sure the giver loved me.

He offer'd it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him when the gift I took,
My only fear should be to lose it.

This pledge attentively I view'd,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew'd,
And ever since I 've loved a tear.

Still, to adorn his humble youth,

Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
But he who seeks the flowers of truth,
Must quit the garden for the field.

'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth,

Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume;
The flowers which yield the most of both
In Nature's wild luxuriance bloom.

Had Fortune aided Nature's care,
For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
If well-proportion'd to his mind.

But had the goddess clearly seen,

His form had fix'd her fickle breast;
Her countless hoards would his have been,
And none remain'd to give the rest.

To young Eddleston. This poem is only found in the private volume.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY, COUSIN TO THE AUTHOR, AND VERY DEAR TO HIM. t

HUSH'D are the winds, and still the evening gloom,
Not e'en a zephyr wanders through the grove,
Whilst I return to view my Margaret's tomb,
And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,

That clay where once such animation beam'd;
The King of Terrors seized her as his prey,
Not worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem'd.

Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,

Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate!
Not here the mourner would his grief reveal,
Not here the muse her virtues would relate.

But wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars
Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day;
And weeping angels lead her to those bowers

Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay.

And shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign,
And, madly, godlike providence accuse?
Ah! no, far fly from me attempts so vain,
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse.

Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,

Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face;
Still they call forth my warm affection's tear,

Still in my heart retain their wonted place.

* Miss Parker.

+ To these stanzas, which are from the private volume, the following note was attached: "The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for this piece, than, perhaps, any other in the collection; but as it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being composed at the age of fourteen), and his first essay, he preferred submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present state, to making either addition or alteration."

VOL. V. S

TO EMMA.*

SINCE now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious lover,
Since now our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.

Alas! that pang will be severe,

Which bids us part to meet no more, Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore.

Well we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;

Where from the gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dale,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell.

O'er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play;
O'er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay;

Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,

Forgot to scare the hov'ring flies, Yet envied every fly the kiss

It dared to give your slumbering eyes:

See still the little painted bark,

In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake.

These times are past - our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy vale;
These scenes I must retrace alone;
Without thee what will they avail?

This poem is inserted from the private volume.