Who can describe the hopeless, silent pang

With which the gentle heart first marks her sway?
Eyes the sure progress of her icy fang
Resistless, slowly fastening on her prey;
Sees rapture's brilliant colors fade away,
And all the glow of beaming sympathy;
Anxious to watch the cold averted ray

That speaks no more to the fond meeting eye Enchanting tales of love, and tenderness, and joy.

Too faithful heart! thou never canst retrieve
Thy withered hopes: conceal the cruel pain!
O'er thy lost treasure still in silence grieve;
But never to the unfeeling ear complain:
From fruitless struggles dearly bought refrain!
Submit at once-the bitter task resign,

Nor watch and fan the expiring flame in vain;
Patience, consoling maid, may yet be thine-
Go seek her quiet cell, and hear her voice divine!

HAGAR IN THE DESERT.

Injured, hopeless, faint and weary,
Sad, indignant, and forlorn,
Through the desert wild and dreary,
Hagar leads the child of scorn.
Who can speak a mother's anguish,
Painted in that tearless eye,
Which beholds her darling languish,
Languish unrelieved, and die?

Lo! the empty pitcher fails her!
Perishing with thirst he lies;
Death with deep despair assails her,
Piteous as for aid he cries.

From the dreadful image flying,
Wild she rushes from the sight;
In the agonies of dying

Can she see her soul's delight?
Now bereft of every hope,

Cast upon the burning ground,
Poor, abandoned soul! look up;

Mercy have thy sorrows found.
Lo! the Angel of the Lord

Comes thy great distress to cheer;
Listen to the gracious word,
See, divine relief is near.

Psyche, Canto VI.

"Care of Heaven! though man forsake thee,
Wherefore vainly dost thou mourn?

Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales,

The lily wraps her silver vest,

Till vernal suus and vernal gales

Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast.
Yes, hide beneath the mouldering heap
The undelighting, slighted thing;
There, in the cold earth buried deep,

In silence let it wait the spring.
Oh! many a stormy night shall close
In gloom upon the barren earth,
While still, in undisturbed repose,

Uninjured lies the future birth!

And ignorance, with skeptic eye,

Hope's patient smile shall wondering view;
Or mock her fond credulity,

As her soft tears the spot bedew.

Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear!

The sun, the shower indeed shall come;
The promised verdant shoot appear,

And nature bid her blossoms bloom.

And thou, O virgin Queen of Spring!

Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed,
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string,

Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;
Unfold thy robes of purest white,

Unsullied from their darksome grave-
And thy soft petals, silvery light,

In the mild breeze unfettered wave.

So Faith shall seek the lowly dust

Where humble Sorrow loves to lie,
And bid her thus her hopes entrust,

And watch with patient, cheerful eye;
And bear the long, cold, wintry night,

And bear her own degraded doom,
And wait till Heaven's reviving light,
Eternal Spring! shall burst the gloom.

ON RECEIVING A BRANCH OF MEZEREON WHICH FLOWERED AT WOODSTOCK.1

Odors of Spring, my sense ye charm
With fragrance premature;

May 1809.

This poem was the last ever composed by the author, who expired at the place where it was written, after six years of protracted malady, on the 24th of March, 1810, in the thirty-seventh year of her age. Her fears of death

And, mid these days of dark alarm,
Almost to hope allure.
Methinks with purpose soft ye come
To tell of brighter hours,

Of May's blue skies, abundant bloom,
Her sunny gales and showers.

Alas! for me shall May in vain
The powers of life restore;

These eyes, that weep and watch in pain,
Shall see her charms no more.

No, no, this anguish cannot last!

Beloved friends, adieu!

The bitterness of death were past,
Could I resign but you.

But ob! in every mortal pang
That rends my soul from life,
That soul which seems on you to hang

Through each convulsive strife,
Ev'n now, with agonizing grasp

Of terror and regret,

To all in life its love would clasp
Clings close and closer yet.

Yet why, immortal, vital spark!
Thus mortally opprest?

Look up, my soul, through prospects dark,

And bid thy terrors rest!
Forget, forego thy earthly part,

Thine heavenly being trust!
Ah, vain attempt! my coward heart
Still shuddering clings to dust.

Oh ye! who soothe the pangs of death
With love's own patient care,
Still, still retain this fleeting breath,
Still pour the fervent prayer:
And ye, whose smile must greet my eye
No more, nor voice my ear,
Who breathe for me the tender sigh,
And shed the pitying tear,

Whose kindness (though far, far removed)
My grateful thoughts perceive,
Pride of my life, esteemed, beloved,
My last sad claim receive!

Oh! do not quite your friend forget,
Forget alone her faults;
And speak of her with fond regret
Who asks your lingering thoughts,

December 1809.

were entirely removed before she quitted this scene of trial and suffering; and her spirit departed to a better state of existence, confiding with heavenly joy in the acceptance and love of her Redeemer.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND, 1722-1811.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND, a celebrated dramatic and miscellaneous writer, was born under the roof of his maternal grandfather, the celebrated Dr. Richard Bentley,' on the 29th of February, 1722. After the usual preparatory studies, he was admitted into Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with distinguished honor in 1750. Soon after this, while pursuing his studies at the university, he received an invitation from Lord Halifax to become his private and confidential secretary. Accordingly he proceeded to London, where he published his first offering to the press-a churchyard Elegy, in imitation of Gray's. It made but little impression. "The public," he observes, "were very little interested in it, and Dodsley as little profited." Soon after this, he published his first legitimate drama, "The Banishment of Cicero ;" but it was not adapted for the stage, and it afterwards appeared as a dramatic poem.

In 1759, he married Elizabeth, the only daughter of George Ridge, Esq., of Kilminston, and through the influence of his patron, Lord Halifax, was appointed crown agent for Nova Scotia; and in the next year, when that nobleman, on the accession of George III., was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland, Cumberland accompanied him as secretary. He now began to write with assiduity for the stage, and produced a variety of plays, of which the most successful was the comedy of "The West Indian," and thus he became known to the literary and distinguished society of the day. The character of him by Goldsmith, in his "Retaliation," is one of the finest compliments ever paid by one author to another.2

In 1780, Cumberland was sent on a confidential mission to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, to induce them to enter into separate treaties of peace with England. But he failed to accomplish the object of his mission, and returned in 1781, having contracted, in the public service, a debt of five thousand pounds, which Lord North's ministry meanly and unjustly refused to pay. He was compelled, therefore, to sell all his paternal estate, and retire to private life. He fixed his residence at Tunbridge Wells, and there poured forth a variety of dramas, essays, and other works: among which were "Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain;" a poem in eight books entitled "Calvary, or the Death of Christ," and another called the "Exo

See "Compendium of English Literature," p. 429.

Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts,

THE TERENCE OF ENGLAND, THE MENDER OF HEARTS;
A flattering painter, who made it his care

To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Say, where has our poet this malady caught,
Or, wherefore his characters thus without fault?
Say, was it that, vainly directing his view
To find out men's virtues, and finding them few,
Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last and drew from himself?