IMITATED FROM THE WELSH. IF, while my passion I impart, O place your hand upon my heart— Ah no! reject the thoughtless claim That thrilling touch would aid the flame, TO AN INFANT. AH! cease thy tears and sobs, my little Life! And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright! Man's breathing Miniature! thou makʼst me sigh— For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased, O thou that rearest with celestial aim Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee, LINES WRITTEN AT SHURTON BARS, NEAR BRIDGEWATER, SEPTEMBER, 1795, IN ANSWER TO A LETTER FROM BRISTOL. Good verse most good, and bad verse then seems better Received from absent friend by way of Letter. For what so sweet can laboured lays impart As one rude rhyme warm from a friendly heart ?---ANON. NOR travels my meandering eye The starry wilderness on high ; Nor now with curious sight I mark the glow-worm, as I pass, Move with " green radiance" through the grass, An emerald of light. O ever present to my view! And soothes your boding fears: Beloved Woman! did you fly breast But why with sable wand unblest I felt it prompt the tender dream, And hark, my Love! The sea-breeze moans Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones In bold ambitious sweep, The onward-surging tides supply Dark reddening from the channelled Isle1 The watchfire, like a sullen star Rude cradled on the mast. Even there-beneath that light-house towerIn the tumultuous evil hour Ere Peace with Sara came, Time was, I should have thought it sweet To count the echoings of my feet, And there in black soul-jaundiced fit When mountain surges bellowing deep Then by the lightning's blaze to mark 1 The Holmes, in the Bristol Channel. Her vain distress-guns hear ; And when a second sheet of light Flashed o'er the blackness of the night— To see no vessel there! But Fancy now more gaily sings; On summer fields she grounds her breast: Nods, till returning morn. O mark those smiling tears, that swell The opened rose! From heaven they fell, And with the sun-beam blend. Blest visitations from above, Such are the tender woes of Love When stormy Midnight howling round The houseless, friendless wretch ! The tears that tremble down your cheek, Shall bathe my kisses chaste and meek In Pity's dew divine; And from your heart the sighs that steal |