AT the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,

On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.

All ruined and wild is their roofless abode,

And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree; And travelled by few is the grass-covered road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet, wandering, I found on my ruinous walk.
By the dial-stone aged and green,

One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been :
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,

All wild in the silence of Nature it drew

From each wandering sunbeam a lonely embrace:
Nor the night-weed and thorn overshadowed the place,
Where the flower of my forefathers grew.

Sweet bud of the wilderness! emblem of all
That remains in this desolate heart!
The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall;
But patience shall never depart !

Though the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright,

In the days of delusion by fancy combined,
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.

Be hushed, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore :
Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore !

Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unaltered, thy courage elate!

Yea! even the name I have worshipped in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again;
To bear is to conquer our fate.

ODE TO WINTER.

WHEN first the fiery mantled sun
His heavenly race began to run,
Round the earth and ocean blue

His children four the seasons flew :

First, in green apparel dancing,

The young Spring smiled with angel grace;

Rosy Summer, next advancing,

Rushed into her sire's embrace :

Her bright-haired sire, who bade her keep

For ever nearest to his smiles,

On Calpe's olive-shaded steep,

Or India's citron-covered isles.

More remote, and buxom brown,

The Queen of vintage bowed before his throne;

A rich pomegranate gemmed her crown,

A ripe sheaf bound her zone.

But howling Winter fled afar
To hills that prop the polar star;
And loves on deer-borne car to ride,
With barren darkness at his side,
Round the shore where loud Lofoden

Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale-
Save when adown the ravaged globe
He travels on his native storm,
Deflowering Nature's grassy robe,

And trampling on her faded form; Till light's returning lord assume

The shaft that drives him to his northern field,

Of power to pierce his raven plume,
And crystal-covered shield.

O sire of storms! whose savage ear
The Lapland drum delights to hear,—
When Frenzy with her bloodshot eye
Implores thy dreadful deity,
Archangel power of desolation !

(Fast descending as thou art) Say, hath mortal invocation

Spells to touch thy stony heart? Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer, And gently rule the ruined year; Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare, Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear:

To shivering want's unmantled bed

Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend,

And mildly on the orphan head

Of innocence descend.

But chiefly spare, O king of clouds !

The sailor on his airy shrouds,

When wrecks and beacons strew the steep,

And spectres walk along the deep;

Milder yet thy snowy breezes

Pour on yonder tented shores ;*
Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes,
Or the dark brown Danube roars.
O winds of winter! list ye there

To many a deep and dying groan?
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,

At shrieks and thunders louder than your own?
Alas! even your unhallowed breath

May spare the victim fallen low;
But man will ask no truce to death,
No bounds to human woe.

THE BEECH TREE'S PETITION.

OH! leave this barren spot to me-
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree.
Though shrub or floweret never grow
My dark unwarming shade below;
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born,
My green and glossy leaves adorn;
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive
The ambrosial treasure of the hive:
Yet leave this little spot to me-
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree.

Thrice twenty summers I have stood
In bloomless, fruitless solitude-
Since childhood in my rustling bower
First spent its sweet and sportive hour-
Since youthful lovers in my shade

Their vows of truth and rapture paid;

⚫ This Ode was written in Germany at the close of the year 1800, before the conclusion of hostilities.

And on my trunk's surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name:
O! by the vows of gentle sound,
First breathed upon this sacred ground;
By all that love hath whispered here,
Or beauty heard with ravished ear:
As love's own altar honour me-
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

OUR bugles sung truce-for the night-cloud had lowered.
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw ;
And twice ere the cock-crow I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far, I had roamed on a desolate track;
"Twas autumn-and sunshine arose on the way
To the house of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;

I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart.