HENRY HEADLEY,

1788.

In an age which has been inundated by mechanical rhymesters, it is no small praise to say, that Headley had a feeling of the real merits of our early Poets.

SONNET HI.

To Time.

THOU hoary traveller! slow passing by The wretch, who counts each moment of his woes, Till liberty his prison-gate unclose;

As the dull snail, whose motion mocks the eye, Full oft thy tardy journeyings betray

The spoiler-yon moss-mantled tower,

Whose head sublime derided once thy power, Now silent crumbling sinks beneath thy sway,

The sapling, thy tall streamer, waves on high, Whilst thy deep wounds each mazy fissure shows,

Like wrinkles, furrowing deep thy own grey brows:

Yet not for this rude triumph swells my sigh,
But that thy hand will wither beauty's rose,
And dim the fire, that lights the sparkling eye.

SONNET V.

The Cottage.

THY haughty eye disdains the wine-clad cot, And its rude owner, whose salubrious board Pomona kind, and Naiads fair, have stor'd: Simple, but dignified, his humble lot. When Patriotism call'd, from such retreat

Sprang ancient Valour, son of Toil severe,

And sunburnt Health; he snatch'd the glittering

spear,

Leaving the plough his country's foes to meet.

Nor back his eagle wing'd her flight to Rome, Till, bearing bloody spoils, he led the march Triumphant thro' the sculpture-woven arch, Where Victory rear'd sublime her laureate dome. Then Moderation's hand disarm'd the swain, And led him smiling to his cot again.

SONNET VII.

To Charlotte Smith.

Or thee, fair mourner, o'er whose downcast face,
Fortune has spread the sickly tints of grief;
Whilst Poesy to give thee sweet relief,
Assays with warblings mild thy woes to chase,
An emblem meet thy search far roving finds,
Among the infant spring's first opening flowers,
Drooping its head, and wet with frequent showers,
The snow-drop trembles in the ruffling winds.
Yet seems its simple form in Fancy's eye

More lovely, since in rudest season born.
How piteous such a flower should bide the scorn
Of every surly storm that passes by!

How far more piteous surly storms should blow 'Gainst thee, whose song is echo to thy woe!

WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

Langholm, Dumfries-shire.-1734.-1789.

Mickle's Lusiad will live; but it is not a translation; he has built upon the timbers of Camoens. The story is sometimes altered, and every where ornamented; and the descriptive parts, almost in every instance, original.

Sacred to the Heir of

Castle.

OH thou whose hopes these fair domains inspire,
The awful lesson here bestow'd attend,
With pensive eve here let thy steps retire,

What time rapt Fancy's shadowy forms descend.
Hark! from yon hall as headlong waste purveys,
What Bacchanalian revels loud resound,
With festive fires the midnight windows blaze,
And fever'd tumult reels his giddy round.

'Tis past-the mansion owns another lord,
The ousted heir so riotous ere while,
Now sits a suppliant at his wonted board,
Insulted by a base-born menial's smile.
By the base menials taunted from the door,

With anguish'd heart resistless of his woe, Forlorn he strays those lawns, his own no more, Unknowing where, on trembling knees and slow.

'Till here beneath an aged elm's bleak shade,
Fainting he sinks-Ah! let thy mind descry,
On the cold turf how low his humbled head,
On yon fair dome how fix'd his ghastly eye.
By his mad revels, by his last heart sigh,

O thou of these proud towers the promised heir, By every manly virtue's holy tie,

By honour's fairest bloom, Oh fortune's child, beware!