Whose withering leaves fall round yon mouldering dome! But tell not my child 'tis his ruined home! When conscious existence his bosom informed, In that night of distraction, what horrors were mine, As I gazed on the wave of the gore-mingled Seine.? The wandering blood froze in my horror-shrunk vein, As Murder's loud shrieks smote the whirling brain; The far-flashing flame from the battlements height, That long, long, has gleamed in the charnels of death, Yet my soul, unsubdued, o'er these horrors shall rise, And linger awhile from the gate of the skies, My boy to inspire with the ardours of truth, Oh shroud him, just Heaven, in the night of the grave, Or bid me behold him in tortures expire, On the scaffold yet red in the blood of his sire. EDINBURGH, JULY 30, 1803. ADELINE. EPIGRAM. O thou! whose stream of heavy prose R. A. D. SIR ARCHIBALD, OR, THE BARK OF HELL. A TALE. BY WILLIAM ASHBURNHAM, ESQ, Founded on an old Scotch Tradition. 'MID battlements fair, in the county of Ayr, Resided a baron of might, Sir Archibald Kennedy eke was his name, Now fishers four stood on the shore, The sky was calm, without a cloud, The moon shone bright and clear ; No hostile object met the eye, No sound appall'd the ear. When midnight was past, a furious blast The fragile vessel tost; The seamen dismay'd-now trembl'd—now pray'd— But it was not dark, when an unknown bark As nearer it came, the ocean grew tame, Her sails were set,-they're black as jet, "From hence to whence? from hence to whence?" The seamen all exclaim. "From hence to whence ?"-they ask again, "To us I pray ye tell;" When a hideous imp, like a tyger, growl'd, "We come from the gates of Hell." "For what? for what?" the seamen cry, All shuddering with affright: "To fetch Sir Archibald Kennedy's corpse, Straight bursting out, like a water spout, The damps as they fell, had a sulphurous smell,- The mists melt away, it is lighter than day- The fishers four swift sought the shore "God bless us all!" the Abbot cried, "Let's haste to the grave, the corpse to save, "Thro' midnight gloom we'll seek the tomb, "Where the monks for his soul do pray." When the bell was rung, and the mass was sung, When the priests the service close; As the stone coffin broke at the sledge hammer's stroke, A vapour of blue arose. They unclose the lid, they uplift the shroud, For no corpfe was there, and the Monks they declare A mass of lead is what once was his head, Astound they stand, the priestly band, For each saint in his shrine, and the martyrs divine |