But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.

O Memory! thou choicest blessing

When join'd with hope, when still possessing;
But how much cursed by every lover
When hope is fled, and passion's over!
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope 'twill last for aye,
When, lo! she changes in a day.
This record will for ever stand,
'Woman! thy vows are traced in sand.'*

ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE.

THIS faint resemblance of thy charms,
Though strong as mortal art could give,
My constant heart of fear disarms,

Revives thy hopes, and bids me live.

Here I can trace the locks of gold,

Which round thy snowy forehead wave, The cheeks which sprung from beauty's mould,

The lips which made me beauty's slave. Here I can trace-ah, no! that eye, Whose azure floats in liquid fire,

Must all the painter's art defy,

And bid him from the task retire.

This line is almost a literal translation from a Spanish proverb.

Here I behold its beauteous hue;

But where's the beam so sweetly straying, Which gave a lustre to its blue,

Like Luna o'er the ocean playing?

Sweet copy! far more dear to me,

Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art, Than all the living forms could be,

Save her who placed thee next my heart She placed it, sad, with needless fear, Lest time might shake my wavering soul, Unconscious that her image there

Held every sense in fast control.

Through hours, through years, through time 'twill cheer;

My hope in gloomy moments raise;
In life's last conflict 'twill appear,
And meet my fond expiring gaze.

TO LESBIA.

LESBIA! since far from you I've ranged,
Our souls with fond affection glow not;
You say 'tis I, not you, have changed,
I'd tell you why-but yet I know not.
Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;
And, Lesbia! we are not much older
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost,
Or told my love, with hope grown bolder.
Sixteen was then our utmost age,

Two years have lingering pass'd away, love!
And now new thoughts our minds engage,
At least I feel disposed to stray, love!
'Tis I that am alone to blame,

I that am guilty of love's treason;
Since your sweet breast is still the same,
Caprice must be my only reason.

I do not, love! suspect your truth,
With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not;
Warm was the passion of my youth,

One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.

No, no, my flame was not pretended;
For, oh! I loved you most sincerely;
And-though our dream at last is ended-
My bosom still esteems you dearly.

No more we meet in yonder bowers;
Absence has made me prone to roving!
But older, firmer hearts than ours

Have found monotony in loving.
Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd,
New beauties still are daily bright'ning;
Your eye for conquest beams prepared,

The forge of love's resistless lightning.
Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed,
Many will throng to sigh like me, love!
More constant they may prove, indeed;
Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love!

LINES ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG

LADY,

WHO HAD BEEN ALARMED BY A BULLET

ING HIS PISTOLS IN A GARDEN.

With this dream of deceit half our sorrow's represt,

Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu !

youth

DOUBTLESS, sweet girl! the hissing lead, Wafting destruction o'er thy charms, And hurtling o'er thy lovely head,

Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms. Surely some envious demon's force,

Vex'd to behold such beauty here, Impell'd the bullet's viewless course, Diverted from its first career.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour

The ball obey'd some hell-born guide; But Heaven, with interposing power, In pity turn'd the death aside. Yet, as perchance one trembling tear Upon that thrilling bosom fell; Which I, th' unconscious cause of fear, Extracted from its glistening cell: Say, what dire penance can atone

For such an outrage done to thee? Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne,

What punishment wilt thou decree? Might I perform the judge's part,

The sentence I should scarce deplore; It only would restore a heart

Which but belong'd to thee before. The least atonement I can make

Is to become no longer free; Henceforth I breathe but for thy sake, Thou shalt be all in all to me. But thou, perhaps, may'st now reject Such expiation of my guilt: Come, then, some other mode elect; Let it be death, or what thou wilt. Choose then, relentless! and I swear Nought shall thy dread decree prevent; Yet hold-one little word forbear!

Let it be aught but banishment.

LOVE'S LAST ADIEU. 'Αει, δ' άει με φευγει.-ANACREON. THE roses of love glad the garden of life, Though nurtured 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,

Till time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife, Or prunes them for ever, in love's last adieu. In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart,

In vain do we vow for an age to be true; The chance of an hour may command us to part, Or death disunite us in love's last adieu ! Still Hope, breathing peace through the griefswollen breast, [renew :' Will whisper, 'Our meeting we yet may

Yet why do I ask?-to distraction a prey,

Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu! Oh! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind?

From cities to caves of the forest he flew : There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind;

The mountains reverberate love's last adieu ! Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains [knew ; Once passion's tumultuous blandishments Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins; He ponders in frenzy on love's last adieu ! How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel!

[few,

His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are Who laughs at the pang which he never can feel, And dreads not the anguish of love's last adieu !

Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast ;

No more with love's former devotion we sue : He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast;

The shroud of affection is love's last adieu ! In this life of probation for rapture divine, Astrea declares that some penance is due; From him who has worshipp'd at love's gentle shrine,

The atonement is ample in love's last adieu! Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew; His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight; His cypress, the garland of love's last adieu !

TO A LADY,

TO MARION.

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
'Tis not love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast;
He in dimpling smiles appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears,
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold, forbidding frown.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire;
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool indifference thrills us.
Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile,
Smile at least, or seem to smile.
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips-but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curt'sies, frowns-in short, she
Dreads lest the subject should transport me :
And flying off in search of reason,
Brings prudence back in proper season.
All I shall therefore say (whate'er

I think, is neither here nor there)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,

Were form'd for better things than sneering:
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least's disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of flattery free;
Counsel like mine is like a brother's,
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill'd to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.
Marion, adieu! oh, pr'ythee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing
To those who think remonstrance teasing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion
Concerning woman's soft dominion:
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On eyes of blue or lips carnation,
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beauties may distract us,
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love;
It is not too severe a stricture
To say they form a pretty picture;
But wouldst thou see the secret chain
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 'tis ANIMATION.

HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND AP-
POINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET
HIM IN THE GARDEN.

THESE locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th' unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense love orations.
Our love is fix'd, I think we've proved it,
Nor time, nor place, nor art have moved it :
Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,
With groundless jealousy repine,
With silly whims and fancies frantic,
Merely to make our love romantic?
Why should you weep like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish ;
Or doom the lover you have chosen,
On winter nights to sigh half-frozen;
In leafless shades to sue for pardon,
Only because the scene's a garden?
For gardens seem, by one consent,
Since Shakspeare set the precedent,
Since Juliet first declared her passion,
To form the place of assignation.*
Oh! would some modern muse inspire,
And seat her by a sea-coal fire;

Or had the bard at Christmas written,
And laid the scene of love in Britain,
He surely, in commiseration,
Had changed the place of declaration.
In Italy I've no objection;
Warm nights are proper for reflection;
But here our climate is so rigid,
That love itself is rather frigid:
Think on our chilly situation,
And curb this rage for imitation;
Then let us meet, as oft we've done,
Beneath the influence of the sun;
Or, if at midnight I must meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet you:
There we can love for hours together,
Much better, in such snowy weather,
Than placed in all th' Arcadian groves
That ever witness'd rural loves;
Then, if my passion fail to please,
Next night I'll be content to freeze;
No more I'll give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate for ever after.+

To form the place of assignation.] In the above little piece the author has been accused by some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling alteration of her name, into an English damsel walking in a garden of their own creation, during the month of December, in a village where the author never passed a winter. Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics. He would advise these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters of decorum to read Shakspeare.

+But curse my fate for ever after. Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure had been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, 'Carr's Stranger in France:'-'As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of

OSCAR OF ALVA.*

A TALE.

How sweetly shines through azure skies
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore ;
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,

And hear the din of arms no more!
But often has yon rolling moon

On Alva's casques of silver play'd;
And view'd at midnight's silent noon,
Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd:
And on the crimson'd rocks beneath,
Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow,
Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death,
She saw the gasping warrior low;
While many an eye which ne'er again
Could mark the rising orb of day,
Turn'd feebly from the gory plain,
Beheld in death her fading ray.
Once to those eyes the lamp of Love,
They blest her dear propitious light;
But now she glimmer'd from above,
A sad, funereal torch of night.
Faded is Alva's noble race,

And grey her towers are seen afar;
No more her heroes urge the chase,
Or roll the crimson tide of war.
But who was last of Alva's clan ?
Why grows the moss on Alva's stone?
Her towers resound no steps of man,
They echo to the gale alone.

And when that gale is fierce and high,
A sound is heard in yonder hall;
It rises hoarsely through the sky,
And vibrates o'er the mouldering wall.
Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs,
It shakes the shield of Oscar brave;
But there no more his banners rise,
No more his plumes of sable wave.
Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth,

When Angus hail'd his eldest born;
The vassals round their chieftain's hearth
Crowd to applaud the happy morn.
They feast upon the mountain deer,

The pibroch raised its piercing note; To gladden more their highland cheer,

The strains in martial numbers float: And they who heard the war-notes wild, Hoped that one day the pibroch's strain Should play before the hero's child

While he should lead the tartan train. Another year is quickly past,

And Angus hails another son;

desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her gas, observed to her party, that there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear" that the indecorum was in the remark."

The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of Jeronyme and Lorenzo,' in the first volume of Schiller's Armenian; or, The Ghost-Seer. It also bears some resemblance to a scene in the third act of Macbeth.

His natal day is like the last,

Nor soon the jocund feast was done,
Taught by their sire to bend the bow,

On Alva's dusky hills of wind,
The boys in childhood chased the roe,
And left their hounds in speed behind.
But ere their years of youth are o'er,

They mingle in the ranks of war;
They lightly wheel the bright claymore,
And send the whistling arrow far.
Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair,

Wildly it stream'd along the gale;
But Allan's locks were bright and fair,
And pensive seem'd his cheek, and pale.
But Oscar own'd a hero's soul,

His dark eye shone through beams of truth; Allan had early learn'd control,

And smooth his words had been from youth. Both, both were brave; the Saxon spear Was shiver'd oft beneath their steel; And Oscar's bosom scorn'd to fear,

But Oscar's bosom knew to feel; While Allan's soul belied his form,

Unworthy with such charms to dwell:
Keen as the lightning of the storm,

On foes his deadly vengeance fell.
From high Southannon's distant tower
Arrived a young and noble dame;
With Kenneth's lands to form her dower,
Glenalvon's blue-eyed daughter came;
And Oscar claim'd the beauteous bride,
And Angus on his Oscar smiled;
It soothed the father's feudal pride
Thus to obtain Glenalvon's child.
Hark to the pibroch's pleasing note!
Hark to the swelling nuptial song
In joyous strains the voices float,

And still the choral peal prolong.
See how the heroes' blood-red plumes
Assembled wave in Alva's hall!
Each youth his varied plaid assumes,
Attending on their chieftain's call.

It is not war their aid demands,

The pibroch plays the song of peace; To Oscar's nuptials throng the bands, Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease. But where is Oscar? sure 'tis late:

Is this a bridegroom's ardent flame?
While thronging guests and ladies wait,
Nor Oscar nor his brother came.

At length young Allan join'd the bride;
'Why comes not Oscar?' Angus said:
'Is he not here?' the youth replied;

'With me he roved not o'er the glade.
'Perchance, forgetful of the day,
'Tis his to chase the bounding roe;
Or ocean's waves prolong his stay:
Yet Oscar's bark is seldom slow.'

'Oh, no!' the anguish'd sire rejoin'd,
'Nor chase nor wave my boy delay;
Would he to Mora seem unkind?

Would aught to her impede his way?
'Oh, search, ye chiefs! oh, search around!
Allan, with these through Alva fly;
Till Oscar, till my son is found,

Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply.' All is confusion-through the vale

The name of Oscar hoarsely rings; It rises on the murmuring gale,

Till night expands her dusky wings; It breaks the stillness of the night,

But echoes through her shades in vain ; It sounds through morning's misty light, But Oscar comes not o'er the plain. Three days, three sleepless nights, the Chief For Oscar search'd each mountain cave! Then hope is lost; in boundless grief,

His locks in grey torn ringlets wave.
'Oscar, my son !-thou God of heaven
Restore the prop of sinking age!
Or if that hope no more is given,
Yield his assassin to my rage.
'Yes, on some desert rocky shore

My Oscar's whiten'd bones must lie;
Then grant, thou God! I ask no more,
With him his frantic sire may die!
'Yet he may live-away, despair!

Be calm, my soul! he yet may live;
T' arraign my fate, my voice forbear!
O God! my impious prayer forgive.
'What, if he live for me no more,
I sink forgotten in the dust,
The hope of Alva's age is o'er;

Alas! can pangs like these be just?'
Thus did the hapless parent mourn,
Till Time, which soothes severest woe,
Had bade serenity return,

And made the tear-drop cease to flow.
For still some latent hope survived

That Oscar might once more appear: His hope now droop'd and now revived, Till Time had told a tedious year. Days roll'd along; the orb of light

Again had run his destined race; No Oscar bless'd his father's sight, And sorrow left a fainter trace. For youthful Allan still remain'd,

And now his father's only joy :
And Mora's heart was quickly gain'd,
For beauty crown'd the fair-hair'd boy.
She thought that Oscar low was laid,

And Allan's face was wondrous fair:
If Oscar lived, some other maid
Had claim'd his faithless bosom's care.
And Angus said, if one year more

In fruitless hope was pass'd away,
His fondest scruples should be o'er,

And he would name their nuptial day.

Slow roll'd the moons, but blest at last
Arrived the dearly destined morn;
The year of anxious trembling past,
What smiles the lovers' cheeks adorn!
Hark to the pibroch's pleasing note!
Hark to the swelling nuptial song!
In joyous strains the voices float,
And still the choral peal prolong.
Again the clan, in festive crowd,
Throng through the gate of Alva's hall;
The sounds of mirth re-echo loud,
And all their former joy recall.
But who is he, whose darken'd brow
Glooms in the midst of general mirth?
Before his eyes' far fiercer glow

The blue flames curdle o'er the hearth.
Dark is the robe which wraps his form,
And tall his plume of gory red;
His voice is like the rising storm,

But light and trackless is his tread.
'Tis noon of night, the pledge goes round,
The bridegroom's health is deeply quaff'd;
With shouts the vaulted roofs resound,

And all combine to hail the draught. Sudden the stranger-chief arose,

And all the clamorous crowd are hush'd; And Angus' cheek with wonder glows, And Mora's tender bosom blush'd.

'Old man!' he cried, this pledge is done; Thou saw'st 'twas duly drank by me: It hail'd the nuptials of thy son:

Now will I claim a pledge from thee. 'While all around is mirth and joy,

To bless thy Allan's happy lot,
Say, hadst thou ne'er another boy?
Say, why should Oscar be forgot?'
'Alas!' the hapless sire replied,

The big tear starting as he spoke, 'When Oscar left my hall, or died,

This aged heart was almost broke. 'Thrice has the earth revolved her course Since Oscar's form has bless'd my sight; And Allan is my last resource,

Since martial Oscar's death or flight.'
'Tis well,' replied the stranger stern,
And fiercely flash'd his rolling eye;
'Thy Oscar's fate I fain would learn :
Perhaps the hero did not die.

'Perchance, if those whom most he loved
Would call, thy Oscar might return;
Perchance the chief has only roved;
For him thy beltane yet may burn.*
'Fill high the bowl the table round,

We will not claim the pledge by stealth; With wine let every cup be crown'd; Pledge me departed Oscar's health.'

Beltane Tree, a Highland festival on the first of May, held near fires lighted for the occasion.