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"Where shall I fly," she oft exclaim'd,

"Where shall I seek for aid?

"Ah! would that in the narrow cell "This broken heart were laid."

"Hark! hark! thro' yonder cloister'd isle,
"How shrieks the northern blast!
"See, see! oh saw ye not my babe?
"Thy ruthless father past!"

Thus said she, and with sudden step,
Sprang forward to pursue,

When, dreadful, from her heedless grasp

Her little infant flew.

Ah me! upon the rocky ground,

See gor'd its tender breast!

It scream'd—it writh'd, then stretch'd its arms,

And sigh'd its soul to rest.

Ah Lucy, then how swell'd thine heart,

How did thy breast heave high! Pale grew thy features, pale thy lip,

And pale thy sinking eye.

"Tis past," she cried, "and I will go

"To my eternal home;

To where thy little spirit's fled, "I come, my child, I come!"

Then wildly to the sounding surge,
And shrieking did she fly,
Despair upon her pallid cheek,
Distraction in her eye.

"I come, my child, my lovely child, "I come!" was heard once more, And loudly roar'd the tumbling tide, And lash'd the rocky shore.

Then Lucy leapt from off the cliff;
Her eye was bent on heav'n,
And sure as mercy dwelleth there,
Shall Lucy be forgiv'n.

Now darker gloom'd the lurid sky,
And louder groan'd the storm,
And white upon the turbid wave,
White floated Lucy's form.

"Forgive my Love," she faintly cried,

As wild the waters swept,

And deep beneath the billow's rage,
In peace poor Lucy slept.

NUMBER VI.

La brevità del sonetto non comporta, che una sola parola sia vana, ed il vero subietto e materia del sonetto debbe essere qualche acuta e gentile sentenza, narrata attamente, ed in pochi versi ristretta, e fuggendo la oscurità e durezza.

Comment. di Lor. de Med. sopra i suoi Sonetti.

Lorenzo de Medici has thus, in few words, accurately defined the true character of the Sonnet, a species of composition which has lately been cultivated with considerable success in England. Italy, however, may boast the honour of giving birth to this elegant and elaborate little poem, which, confined as it is to a frequent return of rhyme, and limited to a certain number of lines, imposes no small difficulty on the poet.

Among the Ancients nothing makes so near an approach to the Sonnet, as the Greek Epigram; the simplicity, sweetness and perspicuity of these compositions, which are generally occupied in illustrating a single idea, want little but the metrical arrangement and restriction of the Italians, to form the legitimate sonnet. The praise of a picture, a statue, or a poem, will be found in the Anthologia to be a common subject of these exquisite pieces, which, in many instances, display so much beauty of sentiment, and such a delicious vein of expression, that with all who possess great delicacy of taste, they must ever be favourites. Yet few touches of the picturesque, or of what has been termed still-life painting, so common in the effusions of the modern writer of sonnets, are discoverable in the Greek Epigram. There are, however, two short greek poems that, in this respect, have infinite merit, namely, the fifth and seventh Idyllia of Moschus, which, as well in sentiment, as in description, may be deemed indeed unrivalled; they are, in fact, merum nectar.§

There is a beautiful imitation of the seventh Idyllium of Moschus in Dodsley's Collection, in an Ode to Cynthia, by Miss F

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