Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea

That absorbs time, space, and number;
Look towards Eternity!

Follow thou the flowing River
On whose breast are thither borne
All Deceived, and each Deceiver,
Through the gates of night and morn ;

Through the year's successive portals;
Through the bounds which many a star
Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
When his light returns from far.

Thus when Thou with Time hast travelled
Toward the mighty gulf of things,

And the mazy Stream unravelled
With thy best imaginings;

Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that Stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.

Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While thy brow youth's roses crown.

Grasp it, - if thou shrink and tremble,

Fairest Damsel of the

green,

Thou wilt lack the only symbol
That proclaims a genuine Queen ;

And ensures those palms of honour Which selected spirits wear, Bending low before the Donor,

Lord of Heaven's unchanging Year!

VOL. I.

JUVENILE PIECES.

Of the Poems in this class, "THE EVENING Walk" and "DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES" were first published in 1793. They are reprinted with some unimportant alterations that were chiefly made very soon after their publication. It would have been easy to amend them, in many passages, both as to sentiment and expression, and I have not been altogether able to resist the temptation: but attempts of this kind are made at the risk of injuring those characteristic features, which, after all, will be regarded as the principal recommendation of juvenile poems.

I.

EXTRACT

FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POEM, COMPOSED UPON

LEAVING SCHOOL.

DEAR native Regions, I foretell,

From what I feel at this farewell,
That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
And whensoe'er my course shall end,
If in that hour a single tie
Survive of local sympathy,

My soul will cast the backward view,
The longing look alone on you.

Thus, from the precincts of the West,
The Sun, when sinking down to rest,
Though his departing radiance fail
To illuminate the hollow Vale,
A lingering lustre fondly throws

On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.