IMITATED FROM THE WELSH.

IF, while my passion I impart,
You deem my words untrue,

O place your hand upon my heart—
Feel how it throbs for you!

Ah no! reject the thoughtless claim
In pity to your Lover!

That thrilling touch would aid the flame,
It wishes to discover.

TO AN INFANT.

AH! cease thy tears and sobs, my little Life!
I did but snatch away the unclasped knife:
Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye,
And to quick laughter change this peevish cry!
Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of woe,
Tutored by pain each source of pain to know!
Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire
Awake thy eager grasp and young desire;
Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy sight,

And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright!
Untaught, yet wise! mid all thy brief alarms
Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms,
Nestling thy little face in that fond breast
Whose anxious heavings lull thee to thy rest!

Man's breathing Miniature! thou makʼst me sigh—
A Babe art thou-and such a Thing am I!
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,

For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,
Break Friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on Pleasure's altar glow!

O thou that rearest with celestial aim
The future Seraph in my mortal frame,
Thrice holy Faith! whatever thorns I meet
As on I totter with unpractised feet,

Still let me stretch my arms and cling to thee,
Meek nurse of souls through their long infancy!

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!
My wafted spirit is with you,

And soothes your boding fears:
I see you all oppressed with gloom
Sit lonely in that cheerless room—
Ah me! You are in tears!

Beloved Woman! did you fly
Chilled Friendship's dark disliking eye,
Or Mirth's untimely din?
With cruel weight these trifles press
A temper sore with tenderness,
When aches the Void within.

breast

But why with sable wand unblest
Should Fancy rouse within my,
Dim-visaged shapes of Dread?
Untenanting its beauteous clay
My Sara's soul has winged its way,
And hovers round my head!

I felt it prompt the tender dream,
When slowly sank the day's last gleam;
You roused each gentler sense,
As sighing o'er the blossom's bloom
Meek Evening wakes its soft perfume
With viewless influence.

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
The silence of the cloudless sky
With mimic thunders deep.

Dark reddening from the channelled Isle1
(Where stands one solitary pile
Unslated by the blast)

The watchfire, like a sullen star
Twinkles to many a dozing tar

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 watch the storm-vexed flame.

And there in black soul-jaundiced fit
A sad gloom-pampered Man to sit,
And listen to the roar :

When mountain surges bellowing deep
With an uncouth monster leap
Plunged foaming on the shore.

Then by the lightning's blaze to mark
Some toiling tempest-shattered bark;

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;
Or if awhile she droop her wings,
As sky-larks 'mid the corn,

On summer fields she grounds her breast:
The oblivious poppy o'er her nest

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
Fostering the heart they bend!

When stormy Midnight howling round
Beats on our roof with clattering sound,
To me your arms you'll stretch:
Great God! you'll say-To us so kind,
O shelter from this loud bleak wind

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