two poems is not the same, but there is a similar impression of con.. trast and contentment, and the father's exordium in particular was evidently in the mind of the son. The effusion of the elder Warton is so pleasing, and records a feeling with which so many persons can sympathize, that although its power is but on a par with the unambitiousness of the subject, I think the reader will not be sorry to have it repeated.

VERSES WRITTEN AFTER SEEING WINDSOR CASTLE.

"From beauteous Windsor's high and storied halls,
Where Edward's chiefs start from the glowing walls,
To my low cot from ivory beds of state,

Pleased I return unenvious of the great.
So the bee ranges o'er the varied scenes
Of corn, of heaths, of fallows, and of greens,
Pervades the thicket, soars above the hill,

Or murmurs to the meadow's murmuring rill,
Now haunts old hollowed oaks, deserted cells,
Now seeks the low vale lily's silver bells,
Sips the warm fragrance of the greenhouse bowers,
And tastes the myrtle and the citron's flowers;
At length returning to the wonted comb,

Prefers to all his little straw-built home."

III.

ON REVISITING THE RIVER LODDON.

AH! what a weary race my feet have run

Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,

And thought my way was all through fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun,
Where first my muse to lisp her notes begun!
While pensive memory traces back the round
Which fills the varied interval between ;

Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
No more return to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains, that not obscure

Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed

From youth's gay dawn to manhood's prime mature, Nor with the Muse's laurel unbestowed.

SAMUEL JACKSON PRATT.*

REVISITING A BIRTHPLACE WHICH WAS NOT HAPPY.

SCENES of my boyish days, — yet scenes of woe

From cradled childhood up to manhood's bloom, At thy approach why do my eyes o'erflow,

As if in grief to meet were still our doom? Yet why, though half involved in shades of night Dim through the river's mist thy spire appears, Impatient do I strain my aching sight,

Eager to own each object through my tears? And as thy well-remembered bridge I gain,

And draw more near, alas! my natal earth, Though faster fall the drops, though sharp the pain, I hail my birthplace, though I weep my birth. Ah, tender tears, which tender thoughts impart, And leave no room for malice in my heart!

*Author of "Liberal Opinions," "Emma Corbet," and other works, -a writer who, if he had known how to discipline his mind, would have obtained distinction. I found this sonnet in Mr. Lofft's collection. Though the phraseology is here and there artificial, much of it is otherwise, and the impression affecting. It is an instance of what has been said in the Essay respecting the desirableness of founding compositions of this kind on direct personal experience.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

I.

POETRY AND SORROW.*

SHOULD the lone wanderer, fainting on his way,
Rest for a moment of the sultry hours,

And, though his path through thorns and roughness lay,
Pluck the wild rose or woodbine's gadding flowers;
Weaving gay wreaths beneath some sheltering tree,
The sense of sorrow he awhile may lose :
So have I sought thy flowers, fair Poesy!

So charmed my way with friendship and the Muse.
But darker now grows life's unhappy day,
Dark with new clouds of evil yet to come;
Her pencil sickening Fancy throws away,
And weary Hope reclines upon the tomb,
And points my wishes to that tranquil shore,
Where the pale spectre, Care, pursues no more!

* Elegiac Sonnets and other Poems, by Charlotte Smith. 1797.

II.

WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING.

THE garlands fade that Spring so lately wove;
Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew,
Anemones that spangled every grove,

The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue.
No more shall violets linger in the dell,

Or purple orchis variegate the plain,

Till Spring again shall call forth every bell,
And dress with humid hands her wreaths again.

Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair,

Are the fond visions of thy early day,

Till tyrant passion and corrosive care

Bid all thy fairy colors fade away!
Another May new buds and flowers shall bring:
Ah! why has happiness no second Spring?