Works

Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.

Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.
...

Pity me, love! I'll pity thee,
If thou indeed hast felt like me.
All, all my bosom's peace is o'er!
At night, which was my hour of calm,
When from the page of classic lore,...

Walking by moonlight on the golden margin
That binds the silver sea, I fell to thinking
Of all the wild imaginings that man
Hath peopled heaven, and earth, and ocean with;...

I.

Tuscara! thou art lovely now,
Thy woods, that frown'd in sullen strength
Like plumage on a giant's brow,
Have bowed their massy pride at length.
The rustling maize is green around,...

What Mary is when she a little smiles
I cannot even tell or call to mind,
It is a miracle so new, so rare.

A gentle story of two lovers young,
Who met in innocence and died in sorrow,
And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung
Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow
The lore of truth from such a tale?...

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.
I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen....

Wealth and dominion fade into the mass
Of the great sea of human right and wrong,
When once from our possession they must pass;
But love, though misdirected, is among...

And that I walk thus proudly crowned withal
Is that 'tis my distinction; if I fall,
I shall not weep out of the vital day,
To-morrow dust, nor wear a dull decay.

Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,...

1.
In the cave which wild weeds cover
Wait for thine aethereal lover;
For the pallid moon is waning,
O'er the spiral cypress hanging
And the moon no cloud is staining.

2....

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
...

Scene I
'Discontent'

LAURENCE RABY.

Laurence:
I said to young Allan M'Ilveray,
Beside the swift swirls of the North,
When, in lilac shot through with a silver ray,...

His face was like a snake's - wrinkled and loose
And withered -

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

O faithful, indefatigable tides,
That evermore upon God's errands go,--
Now seaward bearing tidings of the land,--
Now landward bearing tidings of the sea,--
And filling every frith and estuary,...

A lovely morning, without the glare of the sun, the sea in great commotion, chafing and foaming.

So from the bosom of darkness our days come roaring and gleaming,...

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind;
Through desert woods and tracts, which seem
Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

Thy beauty hangs around thee like
Splendour around the moon -
Thy voice, as silver bells that strike
Upon

I never see, after nocturnal rain,
The wandering stars move through the air serene,
And flame forth 'twixt the dew-fall and the rime,
But I behold her radiant eyes wherein...