THE VIRGIN'S CRADLE-HYMN.

COPIED FROM A PRINT OF THE VIRGIN, IN A ROMAN CATHOLIC VILLAGE IN GERMANY.

DORMI, Jesu! Mater ridet
Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu! blandule!

Si non dormis, Mater plorat,

Inter fila cantans orat,

Blande, veni, somnule.

ENGLISH.

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling:
Mother sits beside thee smiling;
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!

If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth:
Come, soft slumber, balmily!

WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799.

O, WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence!

Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him;

Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother;

Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber;

Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its

prison !

Lives with a separate life: and-"Is it a spirit?" he murmurs:

Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language ! '

ODE TO TRANQUILLITY.

TRANQUILLITY! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame!
Thou ne'er wilt leave my riper age
To low intrigue, or factious rage ;
For oh dear child of thoughtful Truth,
To thee I gave my early youth,

And left the bark, and blest the steadfast shore,
Ere yet the tempest rose and scared me with its

roar.

Who late and lingering seeks thy shrine,
On him but seldom, Power divine

Thy spirit rests! Satiety

And Sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worldling. Idle hope
And dire remembrance interlope,

To vex the feverish slumbers of the mind:
The bubble floats before, the spectre stalks behind.

But me thy gentle hand will lead

At morning through the accustomed mead;
And in the sultry summer's heat

Will build me up a mossy seat;

And when the gust of Autumn crowds,

And breaks the busy moonlight clouds,

Thou best the thought canst raise, the heart attune, Light as the busy clouds, calm as the gliding moon.

The feeling heart, the searching soul,
To thee I dedicate the whole !
And while within myself I trace

The greatness of some future race,
Aloof with hermit-eye I scan

The present works of present man

A wild and dream-like trade of blood and guile,

Too foolish for a tear, too wicked for a smile!

CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.

HEAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!-
High, and embosom'd in congregated laurels,
Glimmer'd a temple upon a breezy headland;
In the dim distance amid the skyey billows
Rose a fair island; the god of flocks had placed it.
From the far shores of the bleak resounding island
Oft by the moonlight a little boat came floating,
Came to the sea-cave beneath the breezy headland,
Where amid myrtles a pathway stole in mazes
Up to the groves of the high embosom'd temple.
There in a thicket of dedicated roses,

Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision,
Pouring her soul to the son of Cytherea,
Pray him to hover around the slight canoe-boat,
And with invisible pilotage to guide it

Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor

Shivering with ecstasy sank upon her bosom.