Will Mirth allay, can Pleasure calm,
The hurried pulse, the burning palm?
Go bid the festal board be crown'd,
Let the soft voice of Music sound,
And Art and Wit and Learning spread

Their treasures round the sick man's bed;
With deafen'd ear, with heedless eye,

The silent suff'rer turns to die.

Yet e'en in Misery's sharpest pains
One dear and sacred joy remains;
When the worn eye, that wakes in fear
From fever'd visions hovering near,

Meet some lov'd smile, whose angel power
Has cheer'd and grac'd a gayer hour;

Still, still, its magic charm is there,

Tho' touch'd with Pity's softer air;
And dear to love, to memory dear,
It brightens through the starting tear;
Like the glad bow, by fancy drest,
That beams on Evening's watery vest.

Then blame me not, if sad and slow,
My parting accents faintly flow.
Yon bark, whose gallant streamers fly,

Shall waft me to a southern sky;

There, if my curious steps explore
Girgenti's bright and classic shore,
Coy Arethusa's fabled tide,

Or giant Ætna's mountain pride;
Yet shall one viewless form be nigh,
One dearer image fill my eye;

From vulgar joy, from grief refined,-
The shade of all I leave behind.

ELIZA'S URN.

MALTA, FEB. 1811.

I CANNOT pause where thy ashes sleep,

And moulder in decay;

O'er thy grass-green sod I must not weep

To chase my griefs away:

But oh! in the last faint light of even,

I can lift a secret prayer;

I can raise my streaming eyes to Heaven

And see thy spirit there.

Wide to the horizon's utmost verge

The circling billows roar,

And far, far away is the western surge

That beats on my native shore;

But

yon

fair orb that I gaze on now,

I lov'd ere I learn'd to mourn,

And the beam that lightens this throbbing brow, Rests on Eliza's urn.

TO HIS MOTHER.

1812.

THINK not, because thy quiet day
In silent goodness steals away;
Think not, because to me alone

Thy deeds of cheerful love are known,
That in the grave's dark chamber laid,
With thee those gentle acts shall fade:
From the low turf where Virtue lies,
Shall many a bloodless trophy rise,
Whose everlasting bloom shall shame

The laurelled Conqueror's proudest name.

For there the hoary Sire shall come,
And lead his Babes to kiss thy tomb;

Whose manlier steps shall oft repair
To bless a Parent buried there.

The Youth, whose grateful thought reveres
The hand that ruled his wayward years;
The tender Maid, whose throbbing breast
Thy gentle wisdom soothed to rest;
And he, who well thy virtues knew,
When Fortune fail'd, and Friends were few;
All who thy blameless course approved,
Who felt thy goodness, or who loved,
Shall crowd around the honour'd shrine,

And

weep, and wish an end like thine.

And still, as wint'ry suns go down, When winds are loud, and tempests frown,

And blazing hearths a welcome give;

Thy name in many a tale shall live.

And still, as cheerful May resumes
Her hawthorn sweets and heathy blooms,

By upland bank and mossy lee

Shall many a heart remember thee.

But chief shall Fancy love to trace

Each mental charm, each moral grace; These, these shall live through many a year,

To Truth, to Love, to Virtue dear;

And pour a mild instructive strain,
When Wisdom lifts her voice in vain;
Shall Youth's unthinking heart assuage,
And smooth the brow of careful Age.

CANZONETTE.

'Tis sweet, when in the glowing West

The sun's bright wheels their course are leaving,

Upon the azure Ocean's breast,

To watch the dark wave slowly heaving.

And oh! at glimpse of early morn,

When holy monks their beads are telling,

'Tis sweet to hear the hunter's horn

From glen to mountain wildly swelling.

And it is sweet, at mid-day hour,
Beneath the forest oak reclining,

To hear the driving tempest pour,
Each sense to fairy dreams resigning.