SONNET.

O cruel Love! with what a true delight

Thy fatal fires extinguish'd did I deem:

And hope no more to loath Day's sacred beam, To waste in sleepless anguish the long night,

Or slumbering, start, scar'd by some fearful dream! And sure if memory of keenest wrong

That ever stung to agony the brain,

If bitter thought of all my former pain,

If rival beauties, or if absence long,

Might aught have done, my hope had not been

vain :

Yet vainly I have hop'd! Again I see

The faithless and the fair; my throbbing heart Resigns itself once more a slave to thee;

And feels from short repose severer smart.

1798.

R. A. D.

SONNET.

Written in a blank leaf of a Lady's book of Poems.

BY THEOPHILUS SWIFT, ESQ.

ALL in a rose-bud infant PITY lay :

Heaven's liquid lustres that impearl the morn, Bathed the sweet babe, that weeping seem'd to say, "Ah Senfibility, how sharp thy thorn!

"But ah! how sweetly sharp !"-The tear-born child,
Pathos embraced, and Rapture rush'd to claim,
And Genius waved his sunny locks, and smil'd,
And Fancy with her wand of wonders came.
Embosom'd in the rose the babe they found :—
In Wit's rich mantle of ætherial hues,
They laid it, breathing purple airs around :

Then kiss'd, and call'd it "VIRTUE'S FAIREST
MUSE."

E'er since the soft-ey'd cherub sings in tears,

Blooms a new Grace, and Sappho's person wears.

SONNET.

ON VISITING THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.

FIVE years have past since here I saw thee borne,
Friend of my early youth! saw with that grief,
That deep distress, that cannot loudly mourn,
That vainly asks of tears the sad relief.
Here, many a dark and dreary night, alone,
A wanderer wild, with bleeding heart I came,
To the deaf marble utter'd many a groan,

And call'd in anguish on thy much-lov'd name.
Yet now, though still as ever thou art dear,
No more I feel those agonies severe,

But sky-born thoughts of consolation greet: Yes! now to righteous Heaven's high will resign'd, This spot I view with calmly-pensive mind,

In holy hope that we shall shortly meet.

R. A. D.

SONNET.

To the Memory of the Rev. Dr. Henry Leslie, Rector of Tandragie, in the County of Armagh, Ireland, who departed this Life, February 16, 1803.

BY THE REV. H. BOYD.

LITTLE I thought, when, on the morn, that shone *
First of the year, I gave the figur'd page
That marks the limits of each solar stage,

And the short journies of the changeful moon,
That heaven's eternal year would soon be thine;
And that those eyes that with benignant ray
Beam'd on my parting, soon in purer day
Should ope to beatific sights divine!

But thou wert ripe for bliss; the numerous train,
Whom thy long labours for the realms of light
Gradual prepar'd, with many a choral song,

Hail thee, ascending to the blest domain,

Or lead thee onward thro' the orders bright,

Where the good shepherds round their master throng.

WRITTEN FEBRUARY 17.

* The author had (on a visit to Dr. Leslie on New Year's Day) presented him with an almanack.

SONNET.

O! when will morning dawn with friendly light
On these sad eyes, that call in vain for sleep,
Their burning lids with poppied dews to steep.
Alas! how long and weary is the night,
And I am faint at heart with grief and pain.

Meseems that ceaseless round my thorny bed,
Of varied forms unnumber'd phantoms tread;
A solemn, gloomy, strange, portentous train:
Grimly they smile, aud sternly-muttering tell
That I with worms shall soon in darkness dwell.
Morn! I implore thy beams, thy gentle gales:

Yet, wherefore idly do I sigh for thee?

Thou soon shalt come, but canst not succour me; To the sick soul no earthly help avails!

R. A. D.

1799.