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THE SUDDEN DEATH AND FUNERAL.

THEN died lamented, in the strength of life,
A valued mother and a faithful wife,

Call'd not away, when time had loosed each hold
On the fond heart, and each desire grew cold;
But when, to all that knit us to our kind,
She felt fast bound as charity can bind ;-
Not when the ills of age, its pain, its care,
The drooping spirit for its fate prepare;
And, each affection failing, leaves the heart
Loosed from life's charm, and willing to depart ;—
But all her ties the strong invader broke,
In all their strength, by one tremendous stroke!
Sudden and swift the eager pest came on,
And terror grew, till every hope was gone:
Still those around appear'd for hope to seek!
But view'd the sick, and were afraid to speak.—

Slowly they bore, with solemn step, the dead,
When grief grew loud and bitter tears were shed:
My part began; a crowd drew near the place,
Awe in each eye, alarm in every face;
So swift the ill, and of so fierce a kind,
That fear with pity mingled in each mind;
Friends with the husband came their griefs to blend;
For good-man Frankford was to all a friend.
The last-born boy they held above the bier,
He knew not grief, but cries express'd his fear;
Each different age and sex reveal'd its pain,
In now a louder, now a lower strain;
While the meek father, listening to their tones,
Swell'd the full cadence of the grief by groans.
The elder sister strove her pangs to hide,

And soothing words to younger minds applied:

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Be still, be patient," oft she strove to say; But fail'd as oft, and weeping turn'd away. Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill, The village lads stood melancholy still; And idle children, wandering to and fro, As nature guided, took the tone of wo.

THE DEATH OF RUTH.*

SHE left her infant on the Sunday morn, A creature doom'd to shame! in sorrow born. She came not home to share our humble meal,— Her father thinking what his child would feel From his hard sentence!-Still she came not home, The night grew dark, and yet she was not come ! The east-wind roar'd, the sea return'd the sound, And the rain fell as if the world were drown'd: There were no lights without, and my good man, To kindness frighten'd, with a groan began To talk of Ruth, and pray! and then he took The Bible down, and read the holy book:

Ruth is betrothed-something more than betrothedto a young sailor, who, on the eve of marriage, is carried relentlessly off by a press-gang, and afterward slain in battle. A canting, hypocritical weaver afterward becomes a suitor of the widowed bride, and her father urges her with severity to wed the missioned suiter. The above extract is from the conclusion of the story, in the "Tales of the Hall." The heroine has promised to give her answer on Sunday.

For he had learning: and when that was done,
We sat in silence-whither could we run?
We said and then rush'd frighten'd from the door,
For we could bear our own conceit no more:
We call'd on neighbours-there she had not been;
We met some wanderers-ours they had not seen:
We hurried o'er the beach, both north and south,
Then join'd, and wander'd to our haven's mouth:
Where rush'd the falling waters wildly out,

I scarcely heard the good man's fearful shout,
Who saw a something on the billow ride,
And-Heaven have mercy on our sins! he cried,
It is my child!-and to the present hour
So he believes and spirits have the power!

And she was gone! the waters wide and deep
Roll'd o'er her body as she lay asleep!
She heard no more the angry waves and wind,
She heard no more the threatening of mankind;
Wrapt in dark weeds, the refuse of the storm,
To the hard rock was borne her comely form!

But oh! what storm was in that mind! what strife, That could compel her to lay down her life! For she was seen within the sea to wade, By one at distance, when she first had pray'd; Then to a rock within the hither shoal, Softly, and with a fearful step, she stole; Then, when she gain'd it, on the top she stood A moment still-and dropt into the flood! The man cried loudly, but he cried in vain,— She heard not then-she never heard again!

1

A GROUP OF GIPSIES.

A WIDE

And sandy road has banks on either side;
Where, lo! a hollow on the left appear'd,
And there a gipsy tribe their tent had rear'd;
"I was open spread, to catch the morning sun,
And they had now their early meal begun,
When two brown boys just left their grassy seat,
The early traveller with their prayers to greet:
While yet Orlando held his pence in hand,
He saw their sister on her duty stand;
Some twelve years old, demure, affected, sly,
Prepared the force of early powers to try:
Sudden a look of languor he descries,
And well-feign'd apprehension in her eyes;
Train'd, but yet savage, in her speaking face,
He mark'd the features of her vagrant race;
When a light laugh and roguish leer express'd
The vice implanted in her youthful breast!
Within, the father, who from fences nigh
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply, [by:
Watch'd now the feeble blaze, and stood dejected
On ragged rug, just borrow'd from the bed,
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed,
In dirty patchwork negligently dress'd,
Reclined the wife, an infant at her breast;
In her wild face some touch of grace remain'd,
Of vigour palsied and of beauty stain'd;
Her blood-shot eyes on her unheeding mate
Were wrathful turn'd, and seem'd her wants to

state,

Cursing his tardy aid-her mother there
With gipsy-state engross'd the only chair;
Solemn and dull her look: with such she stands,
And reads the milk-maid's fortune, in her hands
Tracing the lines of life; assumed through years,
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears;
With hard and savage eye she views the food,
And grudging pinches their intruding brood!
Last in the group, the worn-out grandsire sits,
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits;
Useless, despised, his worthless labours done,
And half-protected by the vicious son,
Who half-supports him! He, with heavy glance,
Views the young ruffians who around him dance;
And, by the sadness in his face, appears

To trace the progress of their future years; [ceit,
Through what strange course of misery, vice, de-
Must wildly wander each unpractised cheat;
What shame and grief, what punishment and pain,
Sport of fierce passions, must each child sustain-
Ere they like him approach their latter end,
Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend!

They talk, indeed; but who can choose a friend,
Or seek companions, at their journey's end?—
What if no grievous fears their lives annoy,
Is it not worse, no prospects to enjoy!
"Tis cheerless living in such bounded view,
With nothing dreadful, but with nothing new;
Nothing to bring them joy, to make them weep-
The day itself is, like the night, asleep:
Or on the sameness if a break be made,
"Tis by some pauper to his grave convey'd;
By smuggled news from neighbouring village told,
News never true, or truth a twelvemonth old!
By some new inmate doom'd with them to dwell,
Or justice come to see that all goes well;
Or change of room, or hour of leave to crawl
On the black footway winding with the wall,
Till the stern bell forbids, or master's sterner call.
Here the good pauper, losing all the praise
By worthy deeds acquired in better days,
Breathes a few months; then, to his chamber led,
Expires while strangers prattle round his bed.

THE POOR-HOUSE.

YOUR plan I love not-with a number you Have placed your poor, your pitiable few; There, in one house, for all their lives to be, The pauper-palace which they hate to see! That giant building, that high bounding wall, Those bare-worn walks, that lofty thundering hall! That large, loud clock, which tolls each dreaded hour,

Those gates and locks, and all those signs of power: It is a prison with a milder name,

Which few inhabit without dread or shame.—

Alas! their sorrows in their bosoms dwell; They've much to suffer, but have naught to tell: They have no evil in the place to state, And dare not say, it is the house they hate: They own there's granted all such place can give, But live repining,-for 'tis there they live!

Grandsires are there, who now no more must see, No more must nurse upon the trembling knee, The lost, loved daughter's infant progeny ! Like death's dread mansion, this allows not place For joyful meetings of a kindred race.

Is not the matron there, to whom the son Was wont at each declining day to run; He (when his toil was over) gave delight, By lifting up the latch, and one "Good night?" Yes she is here; but nightly to her door The son, still labouring, can return no more. Widows are here, who in their huts were left, Of husbands, children, plenty, ease, bereft; Yet all that grief within the humble shed Was soften'd, soften'd in the humble bed: But here, in all its force, remains the grief, And not one softening object for relief.

Who can, when here, the social neighbour meet? Who learn the story current in the street? Who to the long-known intimate impart Facts they have learn'd, or feelings of the heart?

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Some, champions for the rights that prop the crown,
Some, sturdy patriots, sworn to pull them down;
Some, neutral powers, with secret forces fraught,
Wishing for war, but willing to be bought:
While some to every side and party go,
Shift every friend, and join with every foe;
Like sturdy rogues in privateers, they strike
This side and that, the foes of both alike;
A traitor-crew, who thrive in troubled times,
Fear'd for their force, and courted for their crimes.
Chief to the prosperous side the numbers sail,
Fickle and false, they veer with every gale;
As birds that migrate from a freezing shore,
In search of warmer climes, come skimming o'er,
Some bold adventurers first prepare to try
The doubtful sunshine of the distant sky;
But soon the growing summer's certain sun
Wins more and more, till all at last are won:
So, on the early prospect of disgrace,
Fly in vast troops this apprehensive race;
Instinctive tribes! their failing food they dread,
And buy, with timely change, their future bread.
Such are our guides: how many a peaceful head,
Born to be still, have they to wrangling led!
How many an honest zealot stolen from trade,
And factious tools of pious pastors made!
With clews like these they tread the maze of state,
These oracles explore, to learn our fate;
Pleased with the guides who can so well deceive,
Who cannot lie so fast as they believe.

WILLIAM SOTHEBY.

MR. SOTHEBY was born in London in the autumn of 1757. He was educated at Harrow, and on entering his eighteenth year he followed the example of his father, a colonel in the Guards, by purchasing a commission in the Tenth Dragoons. In 1780 he quitted the army, and bought a beautiful seat near Southampton, where for a considerable period he devoted his time to the study of the classics and the cultivation of poetry. On removing to London in 1798 he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and soon after published his translation of WIELAND's Oberon. In 1816 he visited the Continent, and while abroad

ROME.

I SAW the ages backward roll'd, The scenes long past restore : Scenes that Evander bade his guest behold, When first the Trojan stept on Tiber's shoreThe shepherds in the forum pen their fold; And the wild herdsman, on his untamed steed, Goads with prone spear the heifer's foaming speed, Where Rome, in second infancy, once more Sleeps in her cradle. But-in that drear waste, In that rude desert, when the wild goat sprung From cliff to cliff, and the Tarpeian rock Lour'd o'er the untended flock,

And eagles on its crest their aërie hung:

And when fierce gales bow'd the high pines, when blazed

The lightning, and the savage in the storm Some unknown godhead heard, and awe-struck, gazed

On Jove's imagined form :

And in that desert, when swoln Tiber's wave
Went forth the twins to save,
Their reedy cradle floating on his flood:
While yet the infants on the she-wolf clung,
While yet they fearless play'd her brow beneath,
And mingled with their food

The spirit of her blood,

As o'er them seen to breathe

With fond reverted neck she hung,

And lick'd in turn each babe, and form'd with fostering tongue :

And when the founder of imperial Rome
Fix'd on the robber hill, from earth aloof,
His predatory home,

And hung in triumph round his straw-thatch'd roof
The wolf skin, and huge boar tusks, and the pride
Of branching antlers wide:

And tower'd in giant strength, and sent afar
His voice, that on the mountain echoes roll'd,
Stern preluding the war:

wrote the series of poems subsequently published under the general title of Italy, which is the best of his numerous productions. The last of his works was a translation of Homer, commenced after he had entered upon his seventieth year. He died in London on the thirtieth of December, 1833.

Mr. SOTHEBY was a man of rare scholarship, deeply imbued with the spirit of classical literature, and his numerous writings, consisting of translations from the Greek, Latin, and German, and original English poems, ill deserve the neglect to which they have recently been consigned.

And when the shepherds left their peaceful fold,
And from the wild wood lair, and rocky den,
Round their bold chieftain rush'd strange forms of
barbarous men :

Then might be seen by the presageful eye
The vision of a rising realm unfold,

And temples roof'd with gold.

And in the gloom of that remorseless time,
When Rome the Sabine seized, might be foreseen
In the first triumph of successful crime,
The shadowy arm of one of giant birth
Forging a chain for earth:

And though slow ages roll'd their course between,
The form as of a Cæsar, when he led

His war-worn legions on,

Troubling the pastoral stream of peaceful Rubicon.
Such might o'er clay-built Rome have been foretold
By word of human wisdom. But-what word,
Save from thy lip, Jehovah's prophet! heard,
When Rome was marble, and her temples gold,
And the globe Cæsar's footstool, who, when Rome
View'd the incommunicable name divine
Link a Faustina to an Antonine

On their polluted temple; who but thou,
The prophet of the Lord! what word, save thine,
Rome's utter desolation had denounced?
Yet, ere that destined time,

The love-lute, and the viol, song, and mirth,
Ring from her palace roofs. Hear'st thou not yet,
Metropolis of earth!

A voice borne back on every passing wind,
Wherever man has birth,

One voice, as from the lip of human kind,
The echo of thy fame?-Flow they not yet,
As flow'd of yore, down each successive age
The chosen of the world, on pilgrimage,
To commune with thy wrecks, and works sublime,
Where genius dwells enthroned?

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Rome! thou art doom'd to perish, and thy days, Like mortal man's, are number'd: number'd all, Ere each fleet hour decays.

Though pride yet haunt thy palaces, though art Thy sculptured marbles animate;

[gate; Though thousands and ten thousands throng thy Though kings and kingdoms with thy idol mart Yet traffic, and thy throned priest adore:

Thy second reign shall pass,-pass like thy reign

of yore.

Farewell!-o'er many a realm I go,

My natal isle to greet,

Where summer sunbeams mildly glow, And sea-winds health and freshness blow O'er freedom's hallow'd seat.

Yet there, to thy romantic spot

Shall fancy oft retire,

And hail the bower, the stream, the grot, Where earth's sole lord the world forgot, And Horace smote the lyre.

TIVOLI.

SPIRIT! who lovest to live unseen,

By brook or pathless dell,

Where wild woods burst the rocks between, And floods, in streams of silver sheen,

Gush from their flinty cell!

Or where the ivy waves her woof,

And climbs the crag alone,
Haunts the cool grotto, daylight proof,
Where loitering drops that wear the roof
Turn all beneath to stone.

Shield me from summer's blaze of day,
From noon-tide's fiery gale,
And, as thy waters round me play,
Beneath the o'ershadowing cavern lay,

Till twilight spreads her veil.

Then guide me where the wandering moon
Rests on Mæcenas' wall,

And echoes at night's solemn noon
In Tivoli's soft shades attune

The peaceful waterfall.

Again they float before my sight

The bower, the flood, the glade;
Again on yon romantic height
The Sybil's temple towers in light,
Above the dark cascade.

Down the steep cliff I wind my way

Along the dim retreat,

And, 'mid the torrents' deafening bray
Dash from my brow the foam away,
Where clashing cataracts meet.
And now I leave the rocks below,

And issuing forth from night,
View on the flakes that sunward flow,
A thousand rainbows round me glow,
And arch my way with light.
Again the myrtles o'er me breathe,

Fresh flowers my path perfume,
Round cliff and cave wild tendrils wreathe,
And from the groves that bend beneath
Low trail their purple bloom.

Thou grove, thou glade of Tivoli,

Dark flood, and rivulet clear,

That wind, where'er you wander by,
A stream of beauty on the eye,

Of music on the ear:

And thou, that, when the wandering moon

Illumed the rocky dell,

Didst to my charmed ear attune

The echoes of night's solemn noon-
Spirit unseen! farewell!

THE GROTTO OF EGERIA.

CAN I forget that beauteous day,

When, shelter'd from the burning beam, First in thy haunted grot I lay,

And loosed my spirit to its dream,
Beneath the broken arch, o'erlaid
With ivy, dark with many a braid,
That clasp'd its tendrils to retain

The stone its roots had writhed in twain?
No zephyr on the leaflet play'd,
No bent grass bow'd its slender blade,
The coiled snake lay slumber-bound;
All mute, all motionless around,
Save, livelier, while others slept,
The lizard on the sunbeam leapt;
And louder, while the groves were still,
The unseen cigali, sharp and shrill,
As if their chirp could charm alone
Tired noontide with its unison.

Stranger! that roam'st in solitude!
Thou, too, 'mid tangling bushes rude,
Seek in the glen, yon heights between,
A rill more pure than Hippocrene,
That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that fill'd its marble bed.
Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling through weeds and stones its way
There, when o'erpower'd at blaze of day,
Nature languishes in light,
Pass within the gloom of night,

Where the cool gret's dark arch o'ershades
Thy temples, and the waving braids
Of many a fragment brier that weaves
Its blossom through the ivy leaves.
Thou, too, beneath that rocky roof,
Where the moss mats its thickest woof,
Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall
Regular, at interval,

Drop after drop, one after one,
Making music on the stone,
While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent nymph away.

Thou, too, if e'er thy youthful ear
Thrill'd the Latian lay to hear,
Lull'd to slumber in that cave,

Shalt hail the nymph that held the wave;

A goddess, who there deigned to meet

A mortal from Rome's regal seat,

And, o'er the gushing of her fount, Mysterious truths divine to earthly ear recount.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES.

him

-"like the murmuring

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES was born at King's harmonious," whose sadness always soothed Sutton in Northampshire, a village of which his father was vicar, in September, 1762. He took his degree of Master of Arts in 1792 at Trinity College, Oxford, where he obtained the chancellor's prize for a Latin poem on the Siege of Gibraltar. He soon after entered into holy orders, and was appointed to a curacy in Wiltshire, from which he was promoted to the living of Dumbledon in Gloucestershire, and finally, in 1803, to the prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral. We believe he is still living on the rectory of Bremhill, Wilts, where for many years he performed the duties of his office with industrious zeal, and was much loved and respected for his piety, amenity, and genius.

The first publication of Mr. BOWLES, was a collection of Sonnets, printed in 1789. They were well received, and COLERIDGE speaks of himself as having been withdrawn from perilous errors by the "genial influence of a style of poetry so tender and yet so manly, so natural and real, and yet so dignified and

Of wild bees in the sunny showers of Spring." He subsequently published "Verses to John Howard on his State of the Prisons and Lazarettos,” “ Hope,' ," "Coombe Ellen," "St. Michael's Mount," "A Collection of Poems" in four volumes, "The Battle of the Nile," "The Sorrows of Switzerland," "The Missionary," "The Grave of the Last Saxon," "The Spirit of Discovery by Sea," (the longest and best of his works,) "The Little Villager's Verse Book," and "Scenes and Shadows of Days Departed," which appeared in 1837. He was at one time better known as a critic than as a poet, from his celebrated controversy with BYRON, and others, on the writings of POPE and the "invariable principles" of poetry.

The sonnets of Mr. BowLES are doubtless superior to his other productions, but even they were never generally popular. He is always elegant and chaste, and sometimes tender, but has little imagination or earnestness.

DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA.

SHE left

The Severn's side, and fled with him she loved
O'er the wide main; for he had told her tales
Of happiness in distant lands, where care
Comes not, and pointing to the golden clouds
That shone above the waves, when evening came,
Whisper'd, "Oh! are there not sweet scenes of peace,
Far from the murmurs of this cloudy mart,
Where gold alone bears sway, scenes of delight,
Where Love may lay his head upon the lap
Of Innocence, and smile at all the toil

Of the low-thoughted throng, that place in wealth
Their only bliss? Yes, there are scenes like these.
Leave the vain chidings of the world behind,
Country, and hollow friends, and fly with me
Where love and peace in distant vales invite.
What wouldst thou here? Oh shall thy beauteous
look

Of maiden innocence, thy smile of youth, thine eyes
Of tenderness and soft subdued desire,
Thy form, thy limbs-oh, madness!--be the prey
Of a decrepit spoiler, and for gold?—

Perish his treasure with him! Haste with me,
We shall find out some sylvan nook, and then
If thou shouldst sometimes think upon these hills,
When they are distant far, and drop a tear,
Yes I will kiss it from thy cheek, and clasp
Thy angel beauties closer to my breast;
And while the winds blow o'er us, and the sun
Goes beautifully down, and thy soft cheek
Reclines on mine, I will enfold thee thus,
And proudly cry, My friend-my love-my wife!"
So tempted he, and soon her heart approved,
Nay woo'd, the blissful dream; and oft at eve,
When the moon shone upon the wandering stream,
She paced the castle's battlements, that threw
Beneath their solemn shadow, and resign'd
To fancy and to tears, thought it most sweet
To wander o'er the world with him she loved.
Nor was his birth ignoble, for he shone
Mid England's gallant youth in Edward's reign-
With countenance erect, and honest eye
Commanding, (yet suffused in tenderness

At times,) and smiles that like the lightning play'd
On his brown cheek,-so nobly stern he stood,—
Accomplish'd, generous, gentle, brave, sincere,

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