1 SONNET. TO NAPOLEON, FLYING FROM WILNA. LONE Fugitive! where are the throngs that late Comes thundering on; and terror chills thy heart. Thus ever may'st thou fly, and wild affright. So Persia's king, his countless hosts laid low, Urged o'er the insulted wave his lonely flight, And, shuddering, thought each sound announc'd the vengeful foe. R. A. DAVENPORT. SONNET. TO NAPOLEON, RETURNED TO PARIS, DEC. 1812. ONCE more enthron'd amid thy slaves, why lours Thy furrow'd brow? Why rolls thy troubled eye, While o'er thy cheek in quick succession fly Alternate red and pale? What grief devours Thy haughty mind, that thus thy spirit cowers? Thou mourn'st not that thy warrior-legions lie Livid and stiff beneath the boreal sky; Nor yet that dreadful glance thy heart o'erpowers, From orphans, widows, childless parents cast. No! flashing on thy mental sight appear Visions more form'd a soul like thine to blast: Baffled AMBITION points the broken spear; And, trampling in the dust thy trophies past, SCORN shows thy laurel wreath now rent and sere. R. A. DAVENPORT. SONNET. A MEDITERRANEAN SCENE. Hо, on the shore of yonder rocky isle, "Sits desolate, and o'er the watery vast "Gazes with dead and hollow eye? No smile "O'er his wan cheek seems ever to have past. "Hope in his heart is wither'd: keen the blast, "The bitter blast of woe, has smitten there, "Even heaven itself from mercy sure has cast "That sunk, lorn wretch, and sternly cried-despair." "Yes! heaven-abandoned he, and plunged in gloom; "Yet wail him not; his crimes have earn'd his doom: Unwept, unmourn'd, unpitied, be his fate. "He, who thus lonely sits beside the surge, "Was once of earth the terror and the scourge: "Thou see'st Napoleon, long miscall'd the Great." R. A. DAVENPORT. VOL. VIII. N STANZAS Composed in a rustic Seat overlooking the Ruins of Bolton Priory, Yorkshire. TIME, AN AUTUMNAL MORNING. How bright the sun, how pure the air, Yon mossy, grey, and ruin'd piles, Majestic trees of various kinds, And silvery birch, whose drooping form The stately elm for solemn grove, For noontide heats, and haunts of love; The aged monarch of the woods, Who moves his empire to the floods; The lofty pine of deepest hue, The mouldering abbey's mournful yew; Kissing the ripling stream they bend to hide. Yon fisher, as he onward treads The pebbled shores, or daisied meads, Oh! for a magic hand, to trace |