"Alas! what is become of them?

"These fears can never be endured,

"I'll to the wood."-The word scarce said.

Did Susan rise

up

from her bed,

As if by magic cured.

Away she posts up hill and down,

And to the wood at length is come,

She spies her friends, she shouts a greeting;

Oh me! it is a merry meeting,

As ever was in Christendom.

The owls have hardly sung their last,

While our four travellers homeward wend;

The owls have hooted all night long,

And with the owls began my song,

And with the owls must end.

For while they all were travelling home,
Cried Betty, "Tell us Johnny, do,

"Where all this long night you have been,
"What you have heard, what you have seen,
"And Johnny, mind you tell us true."

Now Johnny all night long had heard
The owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt too he the moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o'clock till five.

And thus to Betty's question, he

Made answer, like a traveller bold,

(His very words I give to you,)

"The cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,

"And the sun did shine so cold."

-Thus answered Johnny in his glory,

And that was all his travel's story.

LINES

WRITTEN NEAR RICHMOND, UPON THE THAMES,

AT EVENING.

How rich the wave, in front, imprest

With evening-twilight's summer hues,

While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent path pursues!

And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past, so smiling!

And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterer beguiling.

Such views the youthful bard allure,
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
-And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow!

Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,

Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?

Glide gently, thus for ever glide,

O Thames! that other bards may see,

As lovely visions by thy side

As now, fair river! come to me.

Oh glide, fair stream! for ever so;

Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,

'Till all our minds for ever flow,

As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Vain thought! yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen

The image of a poet's heart,

How bright, how solemn, how serene!

Such heart did once the poet bless,

Who, pouring here a * later ditty,
Could find no refuge from distress,
But in the milder grief of pity.

Remembrance! as we glide along,
For him suspend the dashing oar,
And pray that never child of Song
May know his freezing sorrows more.
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar suspended!
-The evening darkness gathers round
By virtue's holiest powers attended.

Collins's Ode on the death of Thomson, the laft written, I believe, of the poems which were published during his life-time. This Ode is also alluded to in the next stanza.