It happened.then ('twas in the bower
A furlong up the wood:

Perhaps you know the place, and yet

I scarce know how you should,-)

No path leads thither, 'tis not nigh
To any pasture-plot;

But clustered near the chattering brook,
Lone hollies marked the spot.

Those hollies of themselves a shape
As of an arbour took,

A close, round arbour; and it stands
Not three strides from a brook.

Within this arbour, which was still

With scarlet berries hung,

Were these three friends, one Sunday morn Just as the first bell rung.

"Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet

To hear the Sabbath-bell,

'Tis sweet to hear them both at once,

Deep in a woody dell.

His limbs along the moss, his head
Upon a mossy heap,

With shut-up senses, Edward lay :
That brook e'en on a working day
Might chater one to sleep.

A

And he had passed a restless night,
And was not well in health;
The women sat down by his side,
And talked as 'twere by stealth.

"The sun peeps through the close thick leaves,

See, dearest Ellen! see!

'Tis in the leaves, a little sun,

No bigger than your ee;

"A tiny sun, and it has got

A perfect glory too ;

Ten thousand threads and hairs of light,

Make up a glory, gay and bright,

Round that small orb, so blue."

And then they argued of those rays,
What colour they might be;

Says this, "they're mostly green;" says that,
They're amber-like to me.”

So they sat chatting, while bad thoughts
Were troubling Edward's rest;

But soon they heard his hard quick pants,
And the thumping in his breast.

"A mother too!" these self-same words
Did Edward mutter plain;

His face was drawn back on itself,
With horror and huge pain.

Both groaned at once, for both knew well
What thoughts were in his mind ;
When he waked up, and stared like one
That hath been just struck blind.

He sat upright; and ere the dream

66

Had had time to depart,

"O God, forgive me! (he exclaimed,)

I have torn out her heart.”

Then Ellen shrieked, and forthwith burst
Into ungentle laughter;

And Mary shivered, where she sat,

And never she smiled after.

1805-6.

Carmen reliquum in futurum tempus relegatum. To-mor

row! and To-morrow! and To-morrow!

MELANCHOLY.*

A FRAGMENT.

STRETCH'D on a mouldered Abbey's broadest

wall,

Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steepHer folded arms wrapping her tattered pall, Had Melancholy mus'd herself to sleep.

The fern was press'd beneath her hair,

The dark green adder's tongue † was there; And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak, The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek.

That pallid cheek was flushed: her eager look Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,

Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook,

And her bent forehead worked with troubled thought.

Strange was the dream

* See Note.

1794.

† A botanical mistake. The plant which the poet here describes is called the Hart's Tongue.

COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN
ABSENCE.*

DIM Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar, O rise, and yoke the turtles to thy car!

Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove, And give me to the bosom of my Love! My gentle Love! caressing and carest, With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest; Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes, Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs; While finely-flushing float her kisses meek, Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek. Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May . Mourns the long absence of the lovely Day: Young Day, returning at her promised hour, Weeps o'er the sorrows of the fav'rite flower,— Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs, And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes. New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels: His pitying mistress mourns, and mourning heals!

* See Note.

1796.