SONNET

BY THE SAME.

THE Lord of life shakes off his drowsihed,
And 'gins to sprinkle on the earth below
Those rays that from his shaken locks do flow i
Meantime, by truant love of rambling led,
I turn my back on thy detested walls,

Proud City! and thy sons I leave behind,

A sordid, selfish, money-getting kind;

Brute things, who shut their ears when Freedom calls. I pass not thee so lightly, well-known spire,

That minded me of many a pleasure gone, Of merrier days, of love and Islington; Kindling afresh the flames of past desire.

And I shall muse on thee, slow journeying on, To the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.

SONNET

TO LOVE.

THOUGH doom'd, alas! to shed th' unpitied tear,
And breathe unheard the sigh that rends my breast;
Though ne'er the seraph voice of Hope I hear,
Soft whispering to my anguish'd spirit" rest !"
Yet dear to me, too dear, O Love! the sighs
That with expressive voice my sorrows speak;
The tear that, stealing from my languid eyes,
Oft slowly wanders down my fading cheek.
While yet on earth I sadly lingering stray,

The tear, the sigh, by thee inspir'd, be mine:
Still from my bosom chase the fiend away,

Whose sullen influence chills thy flame divine. Lord of my soul! I would not change thy woes, For such cold, lifeless calm, as Apathy bestows!

R. A. D.

SONNET

TO THE EOLIAN HARP.

WILD Harp! at midnight's awe-inspiring hour,
When to the moon the wandering spectre moans,
While sighs the blast through yonder moss-clad tower,
I love to sit and listen to thy tones.

Full-fraught with rapture, on the gale now floats
A strain that seems from lyres angelic stole;
And now, soft warbling, thy melodious notes,
With soothing sweetness, steal into the soul.
But, far more sweet to me, when, from thy strings,
Pale Melancholy, viewless gliding by,

On my tranced ear congenial music flings,

That calls, responsive, from my breast the sigh.
Beneath her hand I bend a willing slave,
And bless the power that sinks me to the grave.

R. A. D.

SONNET,

WRITTEN NEAR AN OLD MANSION AT MIDNIGHT.

Ye spiry turrets! ye embattled walls!

On which destroying Time full-long hath frown'd, While on your dusky crest the moon-beam falls, Pensive I stray your mournful splendours round; And, oft awak'd from musing, list the sound Of the far distant bell, or the shrill tone

That breaks from yon dark grove, with vapours crown'd,

Where, while the breezes mid the foliage moan,
Deep-bosom'd sits, and shrieks, the owlet lone.
Dear to my bosom, pierc'd by many a wound,
Thou mouldering pile, is thy congenial gloom!
For here may I indulge in thought profound,
Mourn Joys that perish'd ere their perfect bloom,
And sigh for that repose which dwells but in the tomb.

R. A. D.

1796.

VOL. VIII.

r f

SONNET,

ON THE MISS SYS ENTERTAINING THE COMPANY AT HIGH LAKE WITH MUSIC IN THE CHRISTMAS OF 1795.

WHEN, dank and dripping, through the desert waste In sad despondence roy'd the shipwreck'd train, And, inly musing on their dangers past,

With speechless terror ey'd the foaming main-
Then, lightly hovering in the troubled sky,
Immortal Ariel tun'd the silver lyre,

And gently shed the balm of tranquil joy
On hearts responsive to the quivering wire.
So 'mid these lengthening wilds and barren moors,
While pours the rain and howls the stormy wind,
The pensive stranger marks the whitening shores,

And darksome melancholy clouds his mind:
But when the tuneful Sisters touch the strings,
Wak'd by the dulcet sound, Joy waves his lightsome

wings.

W. SHEPHERD.