LINES,

WRITTEN DURING SICKNESS.

O MAY I hope that every tear
May be a beam of bliss above!

And every silent suffering here,

A precious pledge of heavenly love.

Then will I calmly bear my pain,

The piercing pain that wrings my breast; Nor any sorrow think in vain,

That ends in everlasting rest.

ON

ELEGY,

THE DEATH OF A SMALL BUT BEAUTIFUL

GREYHOUND.

ADIEU to thy innocent mirth,

Thou creature of frolic and glee!
That stretch'd at thy length on the hearth,
Wert as happy as happy could be.

What a full tide of joy didst thou feel
Within thy diminutive breast!

And a spring, more elastic than steel,
Into thy little form was comprest.

Agility, beauty, and grace,

Strove which in thy shape should prevail ; And the features of each we might trace,

In the line from thy head to thy tail.

How oft with delight did I gaze,
Thy pranks with the kitten to see!
But now her own gambols she plays,
And mews as chief mourner for thee.

Ah, say, in this sublunar sphere,
Is there such a profusion of bliss,
That death for a while could not spare
Such an atom of pleasure as this?

Yet that atom, for aught I can tell,
In the beam of a summer more bright,
Like a seed, may unfold and may swell,
To frolic in future delight.

SONNET.

WHILE Some, 'mid pomp and pride and rich display Of worldly honours, spend their youthful hours, Be mine a nobler task-when the young day

Restores to light and life fair Nature's powers, And wakes to song the birds among the bowers, With hermit heart amidst her scenes to stray, To climb yon distant hills of dewy grey,

And mark the great sun ope his eastern doors; To see once more the cloudless heavens expand O'er the blue bosom of the happy deep, And the pure vigils of the spirit keep; To see the radiance of a smiling land;

And often let me so my fancy steep

In dreams of wonders by th' Almighty hand.

ON THE

DEATH OF A CANARY BIRD.

AND shall thy tuneful throat no more, Sweet bird, its artless music pour, When morn unlocks her lucid store, Or evening leads her milder hour?

And shalt thou now, with pride elate, No more thy golden plumes array; Or, fluttering through thy cruel grate, In mimic anger fondly play?

Ah! now thy breast no longer glows,
To hear thy oft repeated name;
No more thy hovering wings disclose

The transports of thy little frame.