The Reverie of poor Susan.

Ar the corner of Wood-street, when daylight appears,
Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three

years:

Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,
In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.

'Tis a note of enchantment-what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.

Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripped with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The one only dwelling on earth that she loves.

She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all passed away from her eyes!

95

Whose moss-grown root might serve for couch or Fixed on a star his upward eye;

Then from the tenant of the sky

He turned, and watched with kindred look

A glow-worm, in a dusky nook,

Apparent at his feet.

The murmur of a neighbouring stream

Induced a soft and slumbrous dream,

[seat,

A pregnant dream, within whose shadowy bounds He recognised the earth-born star,

And that which glittered from afar;

And, strange to witness! from the frame

Of the ethereal orb there came

Intelligible sounds.

Much did it taunt the humbler light,

That now, when day was fled, and night

Hushed the dark earth, fast closing weary eyes, A very reptile could presume

To shew her taper in the gloom,

As if in rivalship with one

Who sat a ruler on his throne,

Erected in the skies.

"Exalted star," the worm replied,
"Abate this unbecoming pride,
Or with a less uneasy lustre shine;
Thou shrink'st as momently thy rays
Are mastered by the breathing haze;

While neither mist, nor thickest

cloud

That shapes in heaven its murky shroud,

Hath power to injure mine.

But not for this do I aspire

To match the spark of local fire,

That at my will burns on the dewy lawn,
With thy acknowledged glories:-No!

Yet, thus upbraided, I may shew
What favours do attend me here,
Till, like thyself, I disappear
Before the purple dawn."

When this in modest guise was said,
Across the welkin seemed to spread
A boding sound, for aught but sleep unfit:
Hills quaked; the rivers backward ran;
That star, so proud of late, looked wan,

And reeled with visionary stir

In the blue depth, like Lucifer

Cast headlong to the pit!

Fire raged; and when the spangled floor

Of ancient ether was no more,

New heavens succeeded, by the dream brought

And all the happy souls that rode

Transfigured through that fresh abode,

Had heretofore, in humble trust,

Shone meekly 'mid their native dust,

The glow-worms of the earth!

[forth;

This knowledge, from an angel's voice
Proceeding, made the heart rejoice
Of him who slept upon the open lea:
Waking at morn he murmured not;
And, till life's journey closed, the spot
Was to the pilgrim's soul endeared,

Where by that dream he had been cheered

Beneath the shady tree.

To a Butterfly.

I'VE watched you now a full half-hour,
Self-poised upon that yellow flower,
And, little butterfly, indeed

I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless! not frozen seas
More motionless; and then,

What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;

My trees they are, my sister's flowers;

Here rest your wings when they are weary,

Here lodge as in a sanctuary.

Come often to us, fear no wrong;

Sit near us on the bough;

We'll talk of sunshine and of song,

And summer days when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now!