"Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and Bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly blaze:
The Spectre with his Bloody Hand,*
Is wandering through the wild woodland;
The owl and the raven are mute for dread,
And the time is meet to awake the dead!

"Souls of the mighty, wake and say,

To what high strain your harps were strung,
When Lochlin ploughed her billowy way,
And on your shores her Norsemen flung?
Her Norsemen trained to spoil and blood,
Skilled to prepare the Raven's food,
All, by your harpings doomed to die
On bloody Largs and Loncarty.t

"Mute are ye all? No murmurs strange
Upon the midnight breeze sail by;
Nor through the pines with whistling change,
Mimic the harp's wild harmony!

Mute are ye now?—Ye ne'er were mute,
When Murder with his bloody foot,

And Rapine with his iron hand,

Were hovering near yon mountain strand.

* The forest of Glenmore is haunted by a spirit called Lhamdearg, or Red-hand.

Where the Norwegian invader of Scotland received two bloody defeats.

"O yet awake the strain to tell,

By every deed in song enrolled,
By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold;-
From Coilgach,* first, who rolled his car
Through the deep ranks of Roman war,
To him, of veteran memory dear,
Who victor died on Aboukir.

"By all their swords, by all their scars,
By all their names, a mighty spell!
By all their wounds, by all their wars,
Arise, the mighty strain to tell!

For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,
More impious than the heathen Dane,
More grasping than all-grasping Rome,
Gaul's ravening legions hither come!”—

The wind is hushed, and still the lake-
Strange murmurs fill my tingling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,

At the dread voice of other years—
"When targets clashed, and bugles rung,
And blades round warriors' heads were flung,
The foremost of the band were we,
And hymn'd the joys of Liberty!"

* The Galgacus of Tacitus.

THE RESOLVE.

IN IMITATION OF AN OLD ENGLISH POEM.-1809.

Y

My wayward fate I needs must plain,
Though bootless be the theme;
I loved, and was beloved again,
Yet all was but a dream:

For, as her love was quickly got,
So it was quickly gone;

No more I'll bask in flame so hot,
But coldly dwell alone.

Not maid more bright than maid was e'er

My fancy shall beguile,

By flattering word, or feigned tear,

By gesture, look, or smile:

No more I'll call the shaft fair shot,

Till it has fairly flown,

Nor scorch me at a flame so hot;-
I'll rather freeze alone.

Each ambushed Cupid I'll defy,

In cheek, or chin, or brow,

And deem the glance of woman's eye

As weak as woman's vow:

I'll lightly hold the lady's heart,
That is but lightly won;

I'll steel my breast to beauty's art,
And learn to live alone.

The flaunting torch soon blazes out,
The diamond's ray abides,
The flame its glory hurls about,
The gem its lustre hides;

Such gem I fondly deemed was mine,
And glowed a diamond stone,
But, since each eye may see it shine,
I'll darkling dwell alone.

No waking dream shall tinge my thought With dies so bright and vain,

* No silken net, so lightly wrought,

Shall tangle me again:

No more I'll pay so dear for wit,
I'll live upon mine own;

Nor shall wild passion trouble it,

I'll rather dwell alone.

And thus I'll hush my heart to rest,

"Thy loving labour's lost;
Thou shalt no more be wildly blest,

To be so strangely crost:
The widowed turtles mateless die,

The phoenix is but one;

They seek no loves-no more will I-
I'll rather dwell alone."

EPITAPH,

DESIGNED FOR A MONUMENT IN LICHFIELD CATHE
DRAL, AT THE BURIAL PLACE OF THE FAMILY
OF MISS SEWARD.

AMI

AMID these Aisles, where once his precepts showed The Heavenward pathway which in life he trod, This simple tablet marks a Father's bier, And those he loved in life, in death are near; For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise, Memorial of domestic charities.

Still would'st thou know why o'er the marble spread,

In female grace the willow droops her head;

Why on her branches, silent and unstrung,
The minstrel harp is emblematic hung:

What Poet's voice is smothered here in dust
Till waked to join the chorus of the just,-

Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies,
Honoured, beloved, and mourned, here SEWARD

lies!

Her worth, her warmth of heart, let friendship say,Go seek her genius in her living lay.