REFLECTIONS OF A BELLE.

I'm weary of the crowded ball; I'm weary of the mirth,

Which never lifts itself above the grosser things of earth;

I'm weary of the flatterer's tone: its music is no more, And eye and lip may answer not its meaning as before; I'm weary of the heartless throng-of being deem'd

as one,

Whose spirit kindles only in the blaze of fashion's sun.

I speak in very bitterness, for I have deeply felt The mockery of the hollow shrine at which my spirit knelt;

Mine is the requiem of years, in reckless folly pass'd, The wail above departed hopes, on a frail venture cast,

The vain regret, that steals above the wreck of squander'd hours,

Like the sighing of the autumn wind above the faded flowers.

Qh! it is worse than mockery to list the flatterer's tone, To lend a ready ear to thoughts the cheek must blush

to own,

To hear the red lip whisper'd of, and the flowing curl

and eye

Made constant themes of eulogy, extravagant and high,

And the charm of person worshipp'd, in a homage offered not

To the perfect charm of virtue, and the majesty of thought.

Away! I will not fetter thus the spirit God hath given, Nor stoop the pinion back to earth that beareth up to heaven;

I will not bow a tameless heart to fashion's iron rule, Nor welcome, with a smile, alike the gifted and the fool:

No-let the throng pass coldly on; a treasure few may find,

The charm of person doubly dear beneath the light of mind.

N. E. WEEKLY REVIEW.,

THE SWALLOW.

THE gorse is yellow on the heath,

The banks with speedwell flowers are gay,
The oaks are budding, and beneath
The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath,
The silver wreath of May.

The welcome guest of settled spring,
The swallow, too, is come at last;
Just at sunset, when thrushes sing,
I saw her dash with rapid wing,
And hail'd her as she pass'd.

Come, summer visitant, attach

To my reed roof your nest of clay,
And let my ear your music catch,
Low twittering underneath the thatch
At the gray dawn of day.

As fables tell, an Indian sage,
The Hindostani woods among,
Could, in his desert hermitage,
As if 't were mark'd in written page,
Translate the wild bird's song.

I wish I did his power possess,

That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee,
What our vain systems only guess,
And know from what wide wilderness
You came across the sea.

I would a little while restrain

Your rapid wing, that I might hear Whether on clouds, that bring the rain, You sail'd above the western main, The wind your charioteer.

In Afric does the sultry gale

Through spicy bower and palmy grove
Bear the repeated cuckoo's tale?
Dwells there a time the wand'ring quail,
Or the itinerant dove?

Were you in Asia? O, relate

If there your fabled sister's woes She seem'd in sorrow to narrate; Or sings she but to celebrate

Her nuptials with the rose.

I would inquire how, journeying long
The vast and pathless ocean o er,
You ply again those pinions strong,
And come to build anew among
• The scenes you left before;

But if, as colder breezes blow,
Prophetic of the warning year,

You hide, though none know when or how,
In the cliff's excavated brow,

And linger torpid here;

Thus to life, what favouring dream
Bids you to happier hours awake,
And tells that, dancing in the beam,
The light gnat hovers o'er the stream,
The May-fly on the lake.

Or if, by instinct taught to know,
Approaching dearth of insect food,
To isles and willowy aits you go,
And, crowding on the pliant bough,
Sink in the dimpling flood.

How learn ye, while the cold waves boom
Your deep and oozy couch above,
The time when flowers of promise bloom,
And call you from your transient tomb,
To light and life and love?

Alas! how little can be known

Her sacred veil where Nature draws!
Let baffled Science humbly own
Her mysteries, understood alone
By Him who gives her laws.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

ODE TO EVENING.

Ir aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song,
May hope, O pensive Eve, to soothe thine ear
Like thy own modest springs,
Thy springs, and dying gales;

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-hair'd sun
Sits on yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short shrill shriek flits by on leather wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His small but sullen horn,

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
Now teach me, maid composed,

To breathe some softened strain,

Whose numbers stealing through thy dark'ning vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit;

As, musing slow, I hail

Thy genial loved return!

For when thy folding star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant hours and elves

Who slept in buds the day;

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge,

And sheds the freshening dew, and, lovelier still,

The pensive pleasures sweet,

Prepare thy shadowy car.

Then let me rove some wild and heathy scene,
Or find some ruin 'midst its dreary dells,
Whose walls more awful nod

By thy religious gleams.

Or if chill blustering winds, or driving rain,
Prevent my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That from the mountain's side
Views wild and swelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim-discover'd spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all
Thy dewy fingers drew
The gradual dusky veil.

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve!
While Summer loves to sport
Beneath thy lingering light;

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air,
Affrights thy shrinking train,

And rudely rends thy robes;

So long, regardful of thy quiet rule,

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace,
Thy gentle influence own,

And love thy favourite name!

COLLINS.