To watch the blossom's gem,-the deepening green,
And from the giddy glare of wealth retire.
I like the gracious Spring-the Summer gay-
The Autumn, in his harvest-bounties kind,
The social Winter's unpretending day,

The kindly converse, and the modest mind.

What is to me the City's joyous throng?

I love the sighing of the solemn grove, The soft half warble of the twilight song,

The fragrant eve's refreshing calm I love!

If friends have passed, and sorrows found their place, And the hurt mind laments its lone career,

If lost, of life, the sunshine and the grace,

Yet may the tender gleam of Hope appear.

There the crushed thought shall find a voice, and there
Some healthful Pleasure on the sick heart rise,

Some living lowliness-some banished care,
Warm the cold cheek, and light the languid eyes.

His gentle manners wan my heart,
He grateful, took the gift,

Cou'd I but think to seek it back,

It wou'd be war than theft,
For longest life can ne'er repay

The love he bears to me;

And e'er I'm forc'd to break my troth,
I'll lay me down and die.

SONNET.

Mais les Tems sont changes, aussi bien que les Lieux. Racine.
How dear that time, on which the weeping thought
Of pensive Memory delights to dwell;
When each new day some glorious triumph brought,
Beyond the power of eloquence to tell!

How dear that place, the paradise of thought,

Where sacred Love and Friendship us'd to dwell:
Where echoes faint in ev'ry gale are brought,
That still, to Fancy's ear, of pleasure tell.

On eagle wing the hours of rapture flew,

And from this bosom ev'ry comfort bore;
Reluctant sorrow bade those scenes adieu,

Which still to me a pleasing aspect wore.
The scenes of bliss again these eyes may view,
But Pleasure's season will return no more!

SONG.

The muse of Robert Herrick, who flourished in the reign of Charles I., was a genuine descendant from that of Anacreon, as the following song will testify.

Gather the rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious light of heav'n, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,

The sooner will his race be run,
And near he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, whilst ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

SONNET.

Dispregiator di quanto 'l mondo brama. Petrarch. How blest is he who for the love of gain,

(A love, I fear that never will be mine,)
With cheerful heart can every toil sustain,
And Freedom's self without a sigh resign!

For me, how oft must I lament in vain,
The wayward taste of these romantic eyes,
Which many an object view with fix'd disdain,
That all the world besides agrees to prize!

Content through life's sequester'd vale to glide,
By wealth unloaded, and to fame unknown,
If Friendship's foliage deck'd my smiling side,
And Love's fair flow'rets on my banks had blown,
And were the muse her voice at times to join,
All that this heart desires would then be mine.

SONG.

I want not a goddess, to clasp in my arms,
With the wisdom of Pallas, or Venus's charms;

But give me a maiden who smiles without art,
With sweetness of temper and softuess of heart;
With breeding accomplish'd, and virtue improv'd,
With soul that can love, yet never has lov'd;
To her I'd resign all my freedom and ease,
Contented to love her and happy to please.

I sigh'd when I saw what I lov'd in a maid,
With graces that won me as soon as survey'd;
I look'd and I lov'd, but too rashly I find,
How wretched I should be if she were unkind-
Her virtue may tempt one more worthy to woo;
Her taste is so nice and her judgment so true-
How can I pretend her affections to move,
With no charms but my music, no merit but love.

But yet she delights in my music and rhyme,
And my
love is so warm it may melt her in time;
Of late as I sung in a passionate strain,

She was mov'd with my song and perhaps with my pain;
"Tis foolish to hope-'tis in vain to despair,

If I fail to possess her, adieu to the fair

By reading I'll strive to recover my rest,

And grow wise in mere sp.te, if I cannot be blest.

TO MY CHILDREN.

Heu! quam minus est reliquis versari, quam vestrorum meminisse.

These verses were written, as the author informs us, under the influence of great depression of spirits. The subject is of a nature we should have thought, too sacred for the public eye, had not Cowper taught us that a mind of acute and shrinking sensibility, can strangely find a solace in laying open to that unseen public the inmost recesses of the heart. We envy not the feelings of him who can peruse these lines without emotion: they abound with images which must find a mirror in the breast of every parent.

VOL. XII.

My babes, no more I'll behold ye,

Little think ye how he ye once lov'd,
Your father who oft did enfold ye,
With all that a parent e'er prov'd;-

62

How with many a pang he is saddened,
How many a tear he has shed

For the eight human blossoms that gladdened
His path, and his table, and bed.

None knows what a fond parent smothers,
Save he who a parent has been;

Who once more in his daughters, their mother's,
In his boys, has his own image seen!

And who-can I finish my story?—

Has seen them all shrink from his grasp; Departed the crown of his glory,

No wife and no children to clasp!

By all the dear names I have uttered,
By all the most sacred caresses,
By the frolicksome nothings I've muttered
In a mood that sheds tears while it blesses;

By the kisses so fond I have given,

By the plump little arm's cleaving twine, By the bright eye whose language was heaven, By the rose on the cheek pressed to mine.

By its warmth that seemed pregnant with spirit; By the little feet's fond interlacing,

While others pressed forward to inherit

The place of the one thus embracing;

By the breast that with pleasure was troubled,
Since no words were to speak it availing:
Till the bliss of the heart was redoubled,
As in smiles on the lips 'twas exhaling.

By the girl who, to sleep when consigned,
The promised kiss still recollected,
And no sleep on her pillow could find,

If her father's farewell were neglected;

Who asked me, when infancy's terrors
Assailed her, to sit by her bed;