Copenhagen.*

"SHROUD me, shroud me, shades of night,

Save me from the blasting sight!"-
Thus, by Murder's screams awoke,
Britain's troubled Genius spoke,
Whilst beneath the northern star
Gleamed the purple cloud of war.—
-Echoing through the midnight skies,
Shrieks of fear and anguish rise,

As the battle's furious rage

Spares nor infancy nor age.

-"Stay," she cries, "ye ruthless bands,

Stay your fratricidal hands:

If your breasts with vengeance glow,

Drive its fury on the foe—

But the wise, the just, the brave,

Britain's glory is to save."

Hark! the war-shouts louder swell;

Hark! the victor's tiger yell.

-Now the work of death is o'er,

Suffering Nature bears no more ;
O'er the city's sea-girt steeps

Desolation sits and weeps:

Alluding to the attack on Copenhagen in 1807; a measure severely reprehended

by the Poet.

There the mother, wandering wild,
Asks the stranger for her child,
And sacrilegious feet have trod
O'er the prostrate fanes of God.
"Wretches! who in evil hour
Seized the trident of my power,
For whose guilt no time atones,
Murderers! whom my soul disowns,
Authors of your country's shame,
Recreants to a Briton's name;

What could prompt your furious rage
Thus the war with Heaven to wage,
In its decrees refuse to trust,
And boldly dare to be unjust?—
Say, can you pierce with steady eye
The folds of dark Futurity,
Control the stubborn course of Fate,
That good from ill may emanate,
That thus you raise, by fear unawed,
Your impious hands against your God?
- Supreme Creator! he with ease

Can smooth the waves and bridge the seas;
Can raise the feeble and forlorn,

And dash the pride of man to scorn.
Earth trembles at his mighty stroke,
At his touch the mountains smoke,
And changing at his powerful call,
Successive nations rise and fall.
Wretches! for whose dark misdeeds
Thus my soul in anguish bleeds,
By unprecedented crimes,

The reproach of future times;

88

THE BUTTERFLY'S BALL AND THE GRASSHOPPER'S FEAST.

Know, not long your impious sway
Thus shall blot the face of day.
-Rising from its native steep,
Soon the indignant storm shall sweep,
That shall whelm in dire disgrace,
You and all your blood-stained race.
-Then once more in Britain's isle,
Suns of brighter glow shall smile,
And the white-robed lustral band
From pollution cleanse the land;
Then again shall Britain's name
Emulate her former fame,

And her arm be stretched to save

The just, the generous, and the brave!'

The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast.

COME, take up your hats, and away let us haste
To the Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast;
The trumpeter, Gadfly, has summoned the crew,
And the Revels are now only waiting for you."

So said little Robert, and pacing along,
His merry companions came forth in a throng,
And on the smooth grass, by the side of a Wood,
Beneath a broad Oak that for ages had stood,

THE BUTTERFLY'S BALL AND THE GRASSHOPPER'S FEAST. 89

Saw the Children of Earth, and the Tenants of Air,
For an evening's amusement together repair.
And there came the Beetle, so blind and so black,
Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back;
And there was the Gnat, and the Dragon-fly too,
With all their relations, Green, Orange, and Blue;
And there came the Moth with his plumage of down,
And the Hornet, in jacket of yellow and brown;
Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring,

- But they promised, that evening, to lay by their sting. And the sly little Dormouse crept out of his hole,

And brought to the Feast his blind brother, the Mole.
And the Snail, with his horns peeping out of his shell,
Came from a great distance- the length of an ell.

A Mushroom their table, and on it was laid
A Water-dock Leaf, which a table-cloth made.
The viands were various, to each of their taste,
And the Bee brought her honey to crown the repast;
Then, close on his haunches, so solemn and wise,
The Frog from a corner looked up to the skies;
And the Squirrel, well pleased such diversions to see,
Mounted high over head, and looked down from a tree;
Then out came the Spider, with finger so fine,

To show his dexterity on the tight line:

From one branch to another his cobwebs he slung,
Then quick as an arrow he darted along;

But just in the middle-Oh shocking to tell,
From his rope, in an instant, poor Harlequin fell;
Yet he touched not the ground, but with talons outspread,
Hung suspended in air at the end of a thread.

Then the Grasshopper came with a jerk and a spring,—
Very long was his leg, though but short was his wing:

He took but three leaps, and was soon out of sight,
Then chirped his own praises the rest of the night.
With step so majestic the Snail did advance,
And promised the gazers a minuet to dance;

But they all laughed so loud, that he pulled in his head,
And went in his own little chamber to bed.

Then as evening gave way to the shadows of Night,
Their watchman, the Glow-worm, came out with a light.
"Then home let us hasten, while yet we can see,
For no watchman is waiting for you and for me;"
So said little Robert, and, pacing along,
His merry companions returned in a throng.

Song,

ON THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION OF 1812.

THE fair face of morning when sudden clouds cover,
And tempest and darkness envelope the day,
Shall the gloom of the moment deter the true lover
Who hastes to the home of his mistress away?

When heaved from its base proudly swells the vast ocean, And danger rides high on the crest of the wave, Undaunted the mariner views the commotion,

And bares his bold bosom the sea-storm to brave.