COMPOSED ON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, SEPT. 3, 1802.

ARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep,
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.

OW profitless the relics that we cull,

How

Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome,

Unless they chasten fancies that presume

Too high, or idle agitations lull!

Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full,

To have no seat for thought were better doom,

Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull

Of him who gloried in its nodding plume.
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they?
Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp?
The Sage's theory? the Poet's lay?
Mere Fibula without a robe to clasp;

Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls;
Urns without ashes, tearless lachrymals!

WEIGHT of awe, not easy to be borne,

Fell suddenly upon my Spirit-cast

From the dread bosom of the unknown past,

When first I saw that family forlorn.

Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn

The power of years-pre-eminent, and placed

Apart, to overlook the circle vast

Speak, Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn

While she dispels the cumbrous shades of Night;

Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud;

At whose behest uprose on British ground

That Sisterhood, in hieroglyphic round

Forth-shadowing, some have deemed, the infinite,
The inviolable God, that tames the proud!

HERE!" said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride Towards a low roof with green trees half concealed, "Is Mosgiel Farm; and that's the very field

Where Burns ploughed up the Daisy." Far and wide A plain below stretched seaward, while, descried Above sea-clouds, the Peaks of Arran rose; And, by that simple notice, the repose

Of earth, sky, sea, and air was vivified.

66

Beneath the random bield of clod or stone"
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the One
That, by the unwilling ploughshare, died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.

D

EAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,

The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore;
wore;

And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!
And like a Star (that, from a heavy cloud
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,

With step prelusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand

Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear

Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!

POINT of life between my Parents' dust,
And yours, my buried Little-ones! am I;
And to those graves looking habitually
In kindred quiet I repose my trust.
Death to the innocent is more than just,
And, to the sinner, mercifully bent;
So may I hope, if truly I repent

And meekly bear the ills which bear I must;
And You, my Offspring! that do still remain,
Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race,
If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain
We breathed together for a moment's space,
The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign,
And only love keep in your hearts a place.