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Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour:
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,

Where swaim, or woodman lone, might dwell; There's nothing left to fancy's guess,

You see that all is loneliness;

And silence aids-though these steep hills

Send to the lake a thousand rills;

In summer tide, so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep;
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear
But well I ween the dead are near;
For though, in feudal strife, a foe
Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low,
Yet still, beneath the hallowed soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
And dying bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers prayed.

If age had tamed the passions' strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,

Here, have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,

And rear again the chaplain's cell,

Like that same peaceful hermitage,

Where Milton longed to spend his age.

'Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
And, as it faint and feeble died,

On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say, "Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty, thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;"-
Then gaze on Dryhope's ruined tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
As up his force the Tempest brings,
"Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;

That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust
From company of holy dust;

On which no sun-beam ever shines

(So superstition's creed divines,)

Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore;
And mark the wild swans mount the gale,
Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,
And ever stoop again to lave

Their bosoms on the surging wave:
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
Back to my lonely home retire,
And light my lamp, and trim my fire;

There ponder o'er some mystic lay,
Till the wild tale had all its sway,
And in the bittern's distant shriek,
1 heard unearthly voices speak,

And thought the Wizard Priest was come,
To claim again his ancient home!
And bade my busy fancy range,

To frame him fitting shape and strange,
Till from the task my brow I cleared,
And smile to think that I had feared.

But chief, 'twere sweet to think such life,
(Though but escape from fortune's strife,)
Something most matchless, good, and wise,
A great and grateful sacrifice;

And deem each hour, to musing given,
A step upon the road to heaven.

Contentment, parent of delight,
So much a stranger to our sight,
Say, goddess, in what happy place,
Mortals behold thy blooming face;
Thy gracious auspices impart,
And for thy temple choose my heart.
They whom thou deignest to inspire,
Thy science learn, to bound desire;
By happy alchymy of mind,
They turn to pleasure all they find.

Green.

CONTENT IS HAPPINESS.

BY HAVARD.

WHAT art thou, Happiness, so sought by all, So greatly envied, yet so seldom found? Of what strange nature is thy composition, When gold and grandeur sue to thee in vain? The prince who leads embattled thousands forth, And with a nod commands the universe, Knows not the language to make thee obey; Though he with armies strews the hostile plain, And hews out avenues of death, he still Loses his way to thee, because content Appears not on the road, to light them to thee.Content and happiness are then the same; And they are seldom found, but in the bed Where unmolested innocence resides.

Cellars and granaries in vain we fill
With all the bounteous summer's store,
If the mind thirst and hunger still:
The poor rich man's emphatically poor.
Slaves to the things we too much prize,
We masters grow of all that we despise.

Cowley.

RETIREMENT.

BY BEATTIE.

WHEN in the crimson cloud of even
The lingering light decays,
And Hesper on the front of heaven
His glittering gem displays;
Deep in the silent vale, unseen,
Beside a lulling stream,

A pensive youth, of placid mien,
Indulged this tender theme:

"Ye cliffs, in hoary grandeur piled

High o'er the glimmering dale;
Ye woods, along, whose windings wild
Murmurs the solemn gale:
Where Melancholy strays forlorn,
And Wo retires to weep,

What time the wan Moon's yellow horn
Gleams on the western deep:

"To you, ye waste, whose artless charms Ne'er drew ambition's eye,

'Scaped a tumultuous world's alarms, To your retreats I fly.

Deep in your most sequestered bower

Let me at last recline,

Where Solitude, mild, modest power,

Leans on her ivied shrine.

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