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Ah, me! till sunk by sorrow, I shall dwell
With them forgetful in the narrow cell,
Never shall time from my fond heart efface
His image; oft his shadow I shall trace
Upon the glimmering waters, when on high
The white moon wanders through the cloudless sky;
Oft in my silent cave (when to its fire,
From the night's rushing tempest, we retire)
I shall behold his form, his aspect bland;

I shall retrace his footsteps in the sand;
And, when the hollow sounding surges swell,
Still think I listen to his echoing shell.

Would I had perished ere that hapless day
When the tall vessel, in its trim array,
First rushed upon the sounding surge, and bore
My age's comfort from this sheltering shore !
I saw it spread its white wings to the wind
Too soon it left these hills and woods behind;
Gazing, its course I followed till mine eye
No longer could its distant track descry ;
Till on the confines of the billows hoar
Awhile it hung, and then was seen no more,
And only the blue hollow cope I spied,
And the long waste of waters tossing wide.

More mournful then each falling surge I heard ; Then dropt the stagnant tear upon my beard. Methought the wild waves said, amidst their roar At midnight," Thou shalt see thy son no more!

Now thrice twelve moons through the mid heavens
have rolled,

And many a dawn, and slow night, have I told;
And still, as every weary day goes by,
A knot recording on my line I tie;

But never more, emerging from the main,

I see the stranger's bark approach again.

Has the fell storm o'erwhelmed him? Has its sweep
Buried the bounding vessel in the deep?
Is he cast bleeding on some desert plain?
Upon his father did he call in vain?
Have pitiless and bloody tribes defiled

The cold limbs of my brave, my beauteous child?

Oh! I shall never, never hear his voice: The spring time shall return, the isles rejoice; But faint and weary I shall meet the morn, And 'mid the cheering sunshine droop forlorn!

The joyous conch sounds in the high wood loud, O'er all the beach now stream the busy crowd; Fresh breezes stir the waving plantain grove; The fisher carols in the windy cove;

And light canoes along the lucid tide,

With painted shells and sparkling paddles glide.
I linger on the desert rock alone,

Heartless, and cry for thee, my Son, my Son.

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FATHERLESS FANNY.

BY MRS. OPIE.

KEEN and cold is the blast loudly whistling around, As cold as the lips that once smiled upon me, And unyielding, alas! as this hard frozen ground, The arms once so ready my shelter to be.

Both my parents are dead, and few friends I can boast,

But few to console and to love me, if any, And my gains are so small, a bare pittance almost Repays the exertions of fatherless Fanny.

Once, indeed, I with pleasure and patience could toil,

But 't was when my parents sat by and approved; Then my laces to sell I went out with a smile,

Because my fatigue fed the parents I loved.

And at night when I brought them my hardly earned gains,

Though small they might be, still my comforts

For

were many;

my mother's fond blessing rewarded my pains, My father stood watching to welcome his Fanny.

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