What sorrows were ours when fortune fled, Through my bosom, were crush'd head In their dawn, when ruin hung o'er my On my damp brow fell, When I tore from my love and my native isle! Through India's plains I roam'd afar, And courted solace 'midst the strife of war: Through danger's array, She beam'd in my bosom hope's brightest star! O'er the dales and the floods; REMORSE. AWAY! from the dread fascinations that flow'd, Where the wine circled round, and the warm bosom glow'd, With estrangement of feeling, I knew not its own, So wildly it throbb'd, and more wild when alone: THE FATE OF EVELINA. 237 I sought the deep grove, and the night's chilling breeze, Where the cottage of Jessy was seen through the trees; And vow'd soon as morning gave reason her reign, That I never would play the wild rover again. I wander'd unconscious that love led me there, THE FATE OF EVELINA. THE lava was rolling his burning flood O'er the vineyards since day begun; While the dense dark clouds threw a midnight veil Yon burning groves will light our way— To a safe retreat, since the lamp of day The poison'd breeze-should its tainted breath Where the palm and the olive lights the gloom, In vain the peasant besought his bride, When the lava closed, and the fire-shower fell, Beloved Evelina, come! The catastrophe narrated here, is presumed to have taken place during the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in June 1794, as described by Sir William Hamilton, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 73; after reading his remarks made while at Rosarno and the ruined towns around it, especially the first sentence of the following: "The male dead were generally found under the ruins, in the attitude of struggling against the danger; but the female attitude was usually with hands clasped over their heads, as giving themselves up to despair, unless they had children near them. In which case, they were always found clasping the children in their arms, or in some attitude or other, which indicated their anxious care to protect them. A strong instance of the maternal tenderness of the sex.' "" THE DESPONDING SHEPHERD. I ance knew content, but its smiles are awa', How light was my step, and my heart, O how gay! [air. When the bloom o' the broom strew'd its sweets on the She was mine when the snaw-draps hung white on the lea, Ere the broom bloom'd bonnie, an' grew sae fair; Till May-day, anither wysed Phebe frae me, So I ne'er will gae down to the broom ony mair. Sing, Love, thy fond promises melt like the snaw, If my heart could say, "Gang to the broom nae mair.” Durst I trow that thy dreams in the night hover o'er, No! Fare thee well Phebe; I'm owre wae to weep, |