Where parted runnels leapt beneath its beam,

With sound such as thou lovest, like the hush
Of some sweet lullaby, by music tuned,
So soft, that silence scarcely feels the wound.
O there, beneath the moonbeam, have I stood :
There hast thou heard my voice, dear solitude !

I've sought thee, viewless spirit, 'mid the tombs,

Because I loved thee, loved thee even there, 'Mid black browed sepulchres and charnel glooms,

Content, dear solitude, thy home to share ; And marked the cold moon through some crevice peep Down o'er me, as I watched thy sullen sleep. O! how

my

heart shrunk, when the green light shone Down on the gaunt and grinning skeleton; And I saw there the gorged and lazy worm In rayless sockets coil its hideous form. Yet, solitude, even then I left thee not :

My heart forgot its terror, thou wert near ; With love, strong-deep, that heart's warm cell was fraught,

And, rich in thee, it had no room for fear.

But best I love to roam with thee, when spring

Peeps from her arbours smilingly; and when The travelled swallow plies her homeward wing,

Syren, 'tis sweet to saunter with thee then

Amid the wild woods, where the streams pass on

From sun to shadow, slowly, silently, Like wayward thoughts, the present joys that shun, To brood, like toads, in memory's midnight caves, Where light, through fissures, glances but on graves ;

And as we wander there, to list from high The lone deep-throated cuckoo, whose sad song Is lifted up at eve those woods among.

And then the moon, the mother of the earth,

Looking with sad eyes on her miscreant child,
As if she sorrowed o'er its fatal birth,

Wandering alone o'er ether's boundless wild,
Repentant, yet condemned to see her crime
In thee, base dust, through all the flights of time.
The moon comes on, wan pilgrim of the night!
Almost mine idol. With what deep delight

I lift mine eyes to thee! delight alone
Shared with thy votaries profound and holy,
Memory, and solitude, and melancholy,

Who all alike adore thee, lovely one. But yet thine hour must come, thine hour must pass Like summer clouds, or breath like beauty's glass. Alas! thou tarriest not at our behest, Although, of all heaven's lights, we love thee best.

A. B. P. SOLITUDE.

* No longer weep-no more repine
For man's neglect, or woman's scorn,
But wed thee to an exile's lot;
For if the world have loved thee not
Its absence may be borne.'

CAMPBELL.

Yea--if the world have loved thee not,
No kindred soul thy thoughts to share,
Fly to the desert's dreariest spot
Thou canst not feel more lonely there.

II.

Though piercing be the wintry winds,
That o'er thy living grave bath rolled,
Man's bitter scorn is more unkind,
And woman's heart is far more cold.

III.

For soon will end the mortal strife,
Turn to the dust with death the blest

t ;

For though existence cease with life,
Thy grave at least can give thee rest.

IV.

And in thy last long dreamless sleep,
What though no tongue thy name may breathe ;
No friend above thine ashes weep,
Little thou'lt reck that thought in death.

V.

The sighing breeze, the groaning wood,
The tearful streamlet's murmuring tread,
Companions of thy solitude,
Shall moan around thy lonely bed.

VI.

Then heed not, wretched though thou art,
The withered leaf's abode to share,
'Tis fitting for a broken heart,
And falsehood cannot reach thee there.

W. D.

FROM THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.

Know ye

Know

ye
the land where the

cypress

and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime; Where the

rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melts into sorrow, now maddens to crime ?

the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with per

fume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in their bloom ; Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, In colour, though varied, in beauty may vie, And the purple of ocean is deepest in die ; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine ? 'Tis the clime of the east, 'tis the land of the sunCan he smile on such deeds as his children have done? Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell, Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

Byron.