Works

Ye Bards in all your thousand dens,
Great souls with fewer pence than pens,
Sublime adorers of Apollo,
With folios full, and purses hollow;
Whose very souls with rapture glisten,...

To thee, O Albion! be the tribute paid
Which sympathy demands, the patriot tear;
While echo'd forth to thy remotest shade,
Rebellion's menace sounds in every ear.
...

Oh, Youth! could dark futurity reveal
Her hidden worlds, unlock her cloud-hung gates,
Or snatch the keys of mystery from time,
Your souls would madden at the piercing sight...

The wisest men are fools in wine,
Experience makes us think:
Its magic spells are so divine,
We reason--yet we drink!

How short's the longest life of man,
How soon its brightest laurels fade--...

Let this rough fragment lend its mossy seat;
Let Contemplation hail this lone retreat:
Come, meek-eyed goddess, through the midnight gloom,
Born of the silent awe which robes the tomb!...

She sat in beauty, like some form of nymph
Or na'ad, on the mossy, purpled bank
Of her wild woodland stream, that at her feet
Linger'd, and play'd, and dimpled, as in love....

Stranger! if thou e'er did'st love,
If nature in thy bosom glows,
A Minstrel, rude, may haply move,
Thine heart to sigh for Anna's woes.

Lo! beneath the humble tomb,...

Blue eyes and jet
Fell out one morn,
Azure cried in a pet,
"Away, dark scorn!--
"We are brilliant and blue
"As the waves of the sea--
"And as cold and untrue
"And as changeable ye.
...

Sweet Insect! that on two small wings doth fly,
And, flying, carry on those wings yourself;
Methinks I see you, looking from your eye,
As tho' you thought the world a wicked elf....

Dearest love! when thy God shall recall thee,
Be this record inscribed on thy tomb:
Truth, and gratitude, well may applaud thee,
And all thy past virtues relume.
...

In some lone hamlet it were better far
To live unknown amid Contentment's isle,
Than court the bauble of an air-blown star,
Or barter honour for a prince's smile!
...

When stern Misfortune, monitress severe!
Dissolves Prosperity's enchanting dreams,
And, chased from Man's probationary sphere,
Fair Hope withdraws her vivifying beams.
...

I knew a being once, his peaked head
With a few lank and greasy hairs was spread;
His visage blue, in length was like your own
Seen in the convex of a table-spoon.
His mouth, or rather gash athwart his face,...

Give me the wreath of friendship true,
Whose flowerets fade not in a breath:
From memory gaining many a hue,
To bloom beyond the touch of death.

And I will send it to thy home--...

Sacred to Pity! is upraised this stone,
The humble tribute of a friend unknown;
To grant the beauteous wreck its hallow'd claim,
And add to misery's scroll another name....

O'er the wide heath now moon-tide horrors hung,
And night's dark pencil dimm'd the tints of spring;
The boding minstrel now harsh omens sung,
And the bat spread his dark nocturnal wing.
...

Here, in our fairy bowers, we dwell,
Women our idol, life's best treasure!
Echo enchanted joys to tell,
Our feast of laugh, of love, and pleasure.
Say, is not this then bliss divine,...

Sung by the Children of the City of London School of Instruction and Industry.


CHORUS.

Sacred, and heart-deep be the sound
Which speaks the Great Redeemer's praise,...

Lady! who didst--with angel-look and smile,
And the sweet lustre of those dear, dark eyes,
Gracefully bend before the font of Christ,
In humble adoration, faith, and prayer!...

Come, gentle sleep! thou soft restorer, come,
And close these wearied eyes, by grief oppress'd;
For one short hour, be this thy peaceful home,
And bid the sighs that rend my bosom rest.
...