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A scene more fair than what the Grecian feigns
Of purple lights and ever-vernal plains;

Here lawns and shades by breezy rivulets fanned,
Here all the Seasons revel hand in hand.

Red stream the cottage-lights; the landscape fades,
Erroneous wavering 'mid the twilight shades.
Alone ascends that Hill of matchless height*,
That holds no commerce with the summer Night;
From age to age, amid his lonely bounds
The crash of ruin fitfully resounds;
Mysterious havoc! but serene his brow,
Where daylight lingers 'mid perpetual snow;
Glitter the stars above, and all is black below.
At such an hour I heaved a pensive sigh,
When roared the sullen Arve in anger by,
That not for thy reward, delicious Vale!
Waves the ripe harvest in the autumnal gale;
That thou, the slave of slaves, art doomed to pine;
Hard lot! for no Italian arts are thine,
To soothe or cheer, to soften or refine.

Beloved Freedom! were it mine to stray,
With shrill winds roaring round my lonely way,
O'er the bleak sides of Cumbria's heath-clad moors,
Or where dank sea-weed lashes Scotland's shores;
To scent the sweets of Piedmont's breathing rose,
And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows;
In the wide range of many a varied round,
Fleet as my passage was, I still have found
That where despotic courts their gems display,
The lilies of domestic joy decay,

* It is only from the higher part of the valley of Chàmouny that Mont Blanc is visible.

While the remotest hamlets blessings share,
In thy dear presence known, and only there!
The casement's shed more luscious woodbine binds,
And to the door a neater pathway winds;
At early morn, the careful housewife, led
To cull her dinner from its garden bed,
Of weedless herbs a healthier prospect sees,
While hum with busier joy her happy bees;
In brighter rows her table wealth aspires,
And laugh with merrier blaze her evening fires;
Her infants' cheeks with fresher roses glow,
And wilder graces sport around their brow;
By clearer taper lit, a cleanlier board

Receives at supper hour her tempting hoard;
The chamber hearth with fresher boughs is spread,
And whiter is the hospitable bed.

And oh, fair France! though now along the shade, Where erst at will the grey-clad peasant strayed, Gleam war's discordant vestments through the trees, And the red banner fluctuates in the breeze; Though martial songs have banished songs of love, And nightingales forsake the village grove, Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms, And the short thunder, and the flash of arms; While, as Night bids the startling uproar die, Sole sound, the Sourd * renews his mournful cry! -Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her Beyond the cottage hearth, the cottage door: All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies.

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* An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.

Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide
Through rustling aspens heard from side to side,
When from October clouds a milder light
Fell, where the blue flood rippled into white,
Methought from every cot the watchful bird
Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;
Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams,
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;
Chasing those long, long dreams, the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter pang of moral grief;

The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale;
A more majestic tide* the water rolled,
And glowed the sun-gilt groves in richer gold.
Though Liberty shall soon, indignant, raise
Red on the hills his beacon's comet blaze;
Bid from on high his lonely cannon sound,
And on ten thousand hearths his shout rebound;
His larum-bell from village-tower to tower
Swing on the astounded ear its dull undying roar;
Yet, yet rejoice, though Pride's perverted ire
Rouse Hell's own aid, and wrap thy hills in fire!
Lo! from the innocuous flames, a lovely birth,
With its own Virtues springs another earth:
Nature, as in her prime, her virgin reign
Begins, and Love and Truth compose her train;
While, with a pulseless hand, and steadfast gaze,
Unbreathing Justice her still beam surveys.

Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,

The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant, that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.

To sweep where Pleasure decks her guilty bowers,
And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribbed towers
Give them, beneath their breast while gladness springs,
To brood the nations o'er with Nile-like wings;
And grant that every sceptred Child of clay,
Who cries, presumptuous, "Here their tides shall stay,"
Swept in their anger from the affrighted shore,
With all his creatures sink-to rise no more!

To-night, my friend, within this humble cot
Be the dead load of mortal ills forgot

In timely sleep; and, when at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play,
With lighter heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew.

IV.

THE FEMALE VAGRANT.

My Father was a good and pious man,
An honest man by honest parents bred;
And I believe that, soon as I began
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read;
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.

Can I forget what charms did once adorn

My garden, stored with peas, and mint, and thyme, And rose, and lily, for the sabbath morn?

The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;

The gambols and wild freaks at shearing time;

My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy prime;

The swans, that, when I sought the water-side,
From far to meet me came, spreading their snowy pride?

The staff I yet remember which upbore
The bending body of my active Sire;
His seat beneath the honeyed sycamore

Where the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;
When market-morning came, the neat attire

With which, though bent on haste, myself I decked ;

My watchful dog, whose starts of furious ire,

When stranger passed, so often I have checked ;

The red-breast, known for years, which at my casement pecked.

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The suns of twenty summers danced along,·
Ah! little marked how fast they rolled away :
But, through severe mischance, and cruel wrong,
My father's substance fell into decay :

We toiled, and struggled

· hoping for a day When Fortune should put on a kinder look; But vain were wishes efforts vain as they; He from his old hereditary nook

Must part, the summons came, our final leave we took.

It was indeed a miserable hour

When, from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,

Peering above the trees, the steeple tower

That on his marriage day sweet music made!
Till then, he hoped his bones might there be laid,
Close by my mother in their native bowers:

Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,

I could not pray: - through tears that fell in showers,
Glimmered our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!

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