Her snowy Bosom's gentle swell, Her playful Smile's strange witcherie.. Thus, tho' by Fate compell'd to rove And oft the Sprite with shapings sweet E'en now within my reed-roof'd cot, The world forgetting and forgot, Thro' pulse and nerve, thro' brain and heart, In the soft trance of extacy. Ah! Sarah-Sarah! must I find These dreams but phantoms of the mind! Of Fancy, in her magic mood! J. G. The MAD WOMAN. The circumstance on which the following Ballad is founded, kappened not many years ago in Bristol. The Traveller's hands were white with cold, Oh! glad was he when the village Church He hasten'd to the village Inn, That stood the Church-door nigh— There sat a Woman on a grave, Her feet were bare, and on her breast She sat with her face towards the wind, And the grave was cover'd with snow. Is there never a christian in the place, Who will let thee, this cold winter time, I have fire in my head, she answered him, I have fire in my heart also; And there will be no winter time In the place where I must go! A curse upon thee, man, For mocking me she said; And he saw the woman's eyes, like one And when he to the inn door came, God in his mercy, quoth the host, For heavy is her crime, and strange She was so pale and meagre-ey'd, When to her mother she return'd She seldom spake, she never smil'd, But every day more meagre-pale, It was upon last Christmas eve, She sat, and look'd upon the fire She look'd into it earnestly, And we heard a stifled groan. And she shook like a dying wretch In a convulsive fit; And up she rose, and in the snows, Went out on a grave to sit. |