IN ALLUSION TO VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES AND NOTICES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Pub. 1842.

PORTENTOUS change when History can appear
As the cool Advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer

At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer
Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice.
Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.

Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend,
Bend, ye Perverse! to judgments from on High,
Laws that lay under Heaven's perpetual ban
All principles of action that transcend
The sacred limits of humanity.

CONTINUED.

Pub. 1842.

WHO ponders National events shall find
An awful balancing of loss and gain,
Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,
And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind,
With whose perfection it consists to ordain
Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,
Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind
By laws immutable. But woe for him
Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand

To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,

And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;

And Will, whose office, by divine command,

Is to control and check disordered Powers?

CONCLUDED.

Pub. 1842.

LONG-FAVOURED England! be not thou misled
By monstrous theories of alien growth,
Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth,
Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red
With thy own blood, which tears in torrents shed
Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth
Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth,
Or wan despair-the ghost of false hope fled
Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth,
My Country! if such warning be held dear,
Then shall a Veteran's heart be thrilled with joy,
One who would gather from eternal truth,

For time and season, rules that work to cheer-
Not scourge, to save the People-not destroy.

Pub. 1842.

MEN of the Western World! in Fate's dark book
Whence these opprobrious leaves of dire portent?
Think ye your British Ancestors forsook
Their native Land, for outrage provident;
From unsubmissive necks the bridle shook
To give, in their Descendants, freer vent
And wider range to passions turbulent,
To mutual tyranny, a deadlier look?

Nay, said a voice, soft as the south wind's breath,
Dive through the stormy surface of the flood
To the great current flowing underneath;
Explore the countless springs of silent good;
So shall the truth be better understood,

And thy grieved Spirit brighten strong in faith.*

Pub. 1842.

Lo where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,
One upward hand, as if she needed rest
From rapture, lying softly on her breast!
Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance;
But not the less-nay more-that countenance,
While thus illumined, tells of painful strife

For a sick heart made weary of this life

By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance.

These lines were written several years ago, when reports prevailed of cruelties committed in many parts of America, by men making a law of their own passions. A far more formidable, as being a more deliberate mischief, has appeared among those States, which have lately broken faith with the public creditor in a manner so infamous. I cannot, however, but look at both evils under a similar relation to inherent good, and hope that the time is not distant when our brethren of the West will wipe off this stain from their name and nation.

ADDITIONAL NOTE.

I am happy to add that this anticipation is already partly realised; and that the reproach addressed to the Pennsylvanians in the next sonnet, is no longer applicable to them. I trust that those other States to which it may yet apply will soon follow the example now set them by Philadelphia, and redeem their credit with the world.-W. W., 1850.

"This editorial note is on a fly-leaf at the end of the fifth volume of the edition, which was completed only a short time before the Poet's death. It contains probably the last sentences composed by him for the press. It was promptly added by him in consequence of a suggestion from me, that the sonnet addressed "To Pennsylvanians" was no longer just-a fact which is mentioned to shew that the fine sense of truth and justice which distinguish his writings was active to the last."-(Note to Professor Reed's American Edition of 1851).—ED.

-Would She were now as when she hoped to pass
At God's appointed hour to them who tread

Heaven's sapphire pavement; yet breathed well content,
Well pleased, her foot should print earth's common grass,
Lived thankful for day's light, for daily bread,
For health, and time in obvious duty spent.

THE NORMAN BOY.

Pub. 1842.

[The subject of this poem was sent me by Mrs Ogle, to whom I was personally unknown, with a hope on her part that I might be induced to relate the incident in verse; and I do not regret that I took the trouble, for not improbably the fact is illustrative of the boy's early riety, and may concur with my other little pieces on children to roduce profitable reflection among my youthful readers. This is said, however, with an absolute conviction that children will derive most benefit from books which are not unworthy the perusal of persons of any age. I protest with all my heart against those productions, so abundant in the present day, in which the doings of children are dwelt upon as if they were incapable of being interested in anything else. On this subject I have dwelt at length in the poem on the growth of my own mind.]

HIGH on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down,
Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own,
From home and company remote and every playful joy,
Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman

Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame, Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came, With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child

Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary

Wild.

His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er

Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of

more,

Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their

feed,

And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious. heed.

There was he, where of branches rent and withered and

decayed,

For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had

made,

A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be

A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.

The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked aught

That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought

Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice,

To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice.

That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best

For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest

In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and

wide,

The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.

That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for the true And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might

ensue