ΤΟ

** 1801.

To be the theme of every hour
The heart devotes to fancy's power,
When her soft magic fills the mind
With friends and joys we've left behind,
And joys return and friends are near,
And all are welcom'd with a tear!

In the mind's purest seat to dwell,
To be remember'd oft and well

By one whose heart, though vain and wild,
By passion led, by youth beguil'd,
Can proudly still aspire to know

The feeling soul's divinest glow!
If thus to live in every part
Of a lone weary wanderer's heart;
If thus to be its sole employ
Can give thee one faint gleam of joy;
Believe it, MARY! oh! believe
A tongue that never can deceive,
When passion doth not first betray
And tinge the thought upon its way!

In pleasure's dream or sorrow's hour,
In crowded hall or lonely bower,
The business of my life shall be,
For ever, to remember thee!

And, though that heart be dead to mine,
Since love is life, and wakes not thine,
I'll take thy image, as the form

Of something I should long to warm,
Which, though it yield no answering thrill,
Is not less dear, is lovely still!
I'll take it wheresoe'er I stray,

The bright, cold burthen of my way!
To keep the semblance fresh in bloom,
My heart shall be its glowing tomb,
And love shall lend his sweetest care,
With memory to embalm it there!

SONG.

TAKE back the sigh, thy lips of art
In passion's moment breath'd to me;
Yet, no-it must not, will not part,
'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,
And has become too pure for thee!

Take back the kiss, that faithless sigh
With all the warmth of truth imprest;

Yet, no-the fatal kiss may lie,

Upon thy lip its sweets would die,

Or bloom to make a rival blest!

Take back the vows that, night and day,
My heart receiv'd, I thought, from thine ;

Yet, no-allow them still to stay,
They might some other heart betray,

As sweetly as they've ruin'd mine!

A BALLAD.

THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.

Written at Norfolk, in Virginia.

"They tell of a young man, who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterwards heard of. As he had frequently said, in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses.”

ANON

“THEY made her a grave, too cold and damp

"For a soul so warm and true;

"And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,* "Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,

"She paddles her white canoe.

* The Great Dismal Swamp is ten or twelve miles distant from Norfolk, and the Lake in the middle of it (about seven miles long) is called Drummond's Pond.

F

"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, "And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be,

"And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree, "When the footstep of death is near!"

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before!

And, when on the earth he sunk to sleep,
If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay, where the deadly vine doth weep
Its venomous tear and nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr'd the brake, And the copper-snake breath'd in his ear, Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, "Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake, "And the white canoe of my dear?"

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface play'd—

"Welcome," he said, "my dear-one's light!" And the dim shore echoed, for many a night, The name of the death-cold maid!