Each ambush'd Cupid I'll defy,

In cheek, or chin, or brow,

And deem the glance of woman's eye
As weak as woman's vow:

I'll lightly hold the lady's heart,
That is but lightly won;

I'll steel my breast to beauty's art,
And learn to live alone.

The flaunting torch soon blazes out,
The diamond's ray abides;
The flame its glory hurls about,
The gem its lustre hides;

Such gem I fondly deem'd was mine,
And glow'd a diamond stone,
But, since each eye may see it shine,
I'll darkling dwell alone.

No waking dream shall tinge my thought With dyes so bright and vain,

No silken net, so slightly wrought,

Shall tangle me again:

No more I'll pay so dear for wit,

I'll live upon mine own,
Nor shall wild passion trouble it,—
I'll rather dwell alone.

And thus I'll hush my heart to rest,-
"Thy loving labour's lost;
Thou shalt no more be wildly blest,
To be so strangely crost;
The widow'd turtles mateless die,
The phoenix is but one;

They seek no loves-no more will I-
I'll rather dwell alone."

Epitaph,'

DESIGNED FOR A MONUMENT

IN LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL, AT THE BURIAL-PLACE OF THE FAMILY OF MISS SEWARD.

AMID these aisles, where once his precepts show'd
The Heavenward pathway which in life he trod,
This simple tablet marks a Father's bier,
And those he loved in life, in death are near;
For him, for them, a Daughter bade it rise,
Memorial of domestic charities.

Still wouldst thou know why o'er the marble spread,
in female grace the willow droops her head;
Why on her branches, silent and unstrung,
The minstrel harp is emblematic hung;

1 Edinburgh Annual Register, 1809.

2 Miss Baillie's Family Legend was produced with considerable success on the Edinburgh stage in the winter of 1809-10.

What poet's voice is smother'd here in dust
Till waked to join the chorus of the just,-
Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies,
Honour'd, beloved, and mourn'd, here SEWARD lies
Her worth, her warmth of heart, let friendship say,-
Go seek her genius in her living lay.

Prologue

TO MISS BAILLIE'S PLAY OF THE FAMILY LEGEND.2

1809.

'Tis sweet to hear expiring Summer's sigh,
Through forests tinged with russet, wail and die;
"Tis sweet and sad the latest notes to hear
Of distant music, dying on the ear;
But far more sadly sweet, on foreign strand,
We list the legends of our native land,
Link'd as they come with every tender tie,
Memorials dear of youth and infancy.

Chief, thy wild tales, romantic Caledon, Wake keen remembrance in each hardy son. Whether on India's burning coasts he toil, Or till Acadia's winter-fetter'd soil,

He hears with throbbing heart and moisten'd eyes,

And, as he hears, what dear illusions rise!

It opens on his soul his native dell,

The woods wild waving, and the water's swell; Tradition's theme, the tower that threats the plain,

The mossy cairn that hides the hero slain;

The cot, beneath whose simple porch were told,

By grey-hair'd patriarch, the tales of old,

The infant group, that hush'd their sports the while,
And the dear maid who listen'd with a smile.
The wanderer, while the vision warms his brain,
Is denizen of Scotland once again.

Are such keen feelings to the crowd confined,
And sleep they in the Poet's gifted mind?
Oh no! For She, within whose mighty page
Each tyrant Passion shows his woe and rage,
Has felt the wizard influence they inspire,
And to your own traditions tuned her lyre.
Yourselves shall judge-whoe'er has raised the sail
By Mull's dark coast, has heard this evening's tale.
The plaided boatman, resting on his oar,
Points to the fatal rock amid the roar

Of whitening waves, and tells whate'er to-night
Our humble stage shall offer to your sight;

This prologue was spoken on that occasion by the Author's friend, Mr. Daniel Terry.

8 Acadia, or Nova Scotia.

Proudly preferr'd that first our efforts give
Scenes glowing from her pen to breathe and live;
More proudly yet, should Caledon approve
The filial token of a Daughter's love.

The Poacher.

WRITTEN IN IMITATION OF CRABBE, AND PUBLISHED
IN THE EDINBURGH ANNUAL REGISTER OF 1809.1
WELCOME, grave Stranger, to our green retreats,
Where health with exercise and freedom meets!
Thrice welcome, Sage, whose philosophic plan
By nature's limits metes the rights of man;
Generous as he, who now for freedom bawls,
Now gives full value for true Indian shawls:
O'er court, o'er customhouse, his shoe who flings,
Now bilks excisemen, and now bullies kings.
Like his, I ween, thy comprehensive mind
Holds laws as mouse-traps baited for mankind:
Thine eye, applausive, each sly vermin sees,
That baulks the snare, yet battens on the cheese;
Thine ear has heard, with scorn instead of awe,
Our buckskinn'd justices expound the law,
Wire-draw the acts that fix for wires the pain,
And for the netted partridge noose the swain;
And thy vindictive arm would fain have broke
The last light fetter of the feudal yoke,
To give the denizens of wood and wild,
Nature's free race, to each her free-born child.
Hence hast thou mark'd, with grief, fair London's

race,

Mock'd with the boon of one poor Easter chase,
And long'd to send them forth as free as when
Pour'd o'er Chantilly the Parisian train,
When musket, pistol, blunderbuss, combined,
And scarce the field-pieces were left behind!
A squadron's charge each leveret's heart dismay'd
On every covey fired a bold brigade;

La Douce Humanité approved the sport,

For great the alarm indeed, yet small the hurt;
Shouts patriotic solemnized the day,
And Seine re-echo'd Vive la Liberté !
But mad Citoyen, meek Monsieur again,
With some few added links resumes his chain.
Then, since such scenes to France no more are known,
Come, view with me a hero of thine own!
One, whose free actions vindicate the cause
Of silvan liberty o'er feudal laws.

Seek we yon glades, where the proud oak o'ertops Wide-waving seas of birch and hazel copse,

1 See Life of Scott, vol. iii., p. 329.

2 Such is the law in the New Forest, Hampshire, tending greatly to increase the various settlements of thieves, smugglers, and deer-stealers, who infest it. In the forest courts the presiding judge wears as a badge of office an antique stir

Leaving between deserted isles of land,
Where stunted heath is patch'd with ruddy sand;
And lonely on the waste the yew is seen,
Or straggling hollies spread a brighter green.
Here, little worn, and winding dark and steep,
Our scarce mark'd path descends yon dingle deep:
Follow-but heedful, cautious of a trip,-

In earthly mire philosophy may slip.

Step slow and wary o'er that swampy stream,
Till, guided by the charcoal's smothering steam,
We reach the frail yet barricaded door
Of hovel form'd for poorest of the poor;
No hearth the fire, no vent the smoke receives,
The walls are wattles, and the covering leaves;
For, if such hut, our forest statutes say,
Rise in the progress of one night and day,
(Though placed where still the Conqueror's hests
o'erawe,

And his son's stirrup shines the badge of law,)
The builder claims the unenviable boon,
To tenant dwelling, framed as slight and soon
As wigwam wild, that shrouds the native frore
On the bleak coast of frost-barr'd Labrador."

Approach, and through the unlatticed window

peep

Nay, shrink not back, the inmate is asleep;
Sunk 'mid yon sordid blankets, till the sun
Stoop to the west, the plunderer's toils are done.
Loaded and primed, and prompt for desperate

hand,

Rifle and fowling-piece beside him stand;
While round the hut are in disorder laid
The tools and booty of his lawless trade;
For force or fraud, resistance or escape,
The crow, the saw, the bludgeon, and the crape.
His pilfer'd powder in yon nook he hoards,
And the filch'd lead the church's roof affords-
(Hence shall the rector's congregation fret,
That while his sermon's dry his walls are wet.)
The fish-spear barb'd, the sweeping net are there,
Doe-hides, and pheasant plumes, and skins of hare,
Cordage for toils, and wiring for the snare.
Barter'd for game from chase or warren won,
Yon cask holds moonlight,3 run when moon was
none;

And late-snatch'd spoils lie stow'd in hutch apart,
To wait the associate higgler's evening cart.

Look on his pallet foul, and mark his rest: What scenes perturb'd are acting in his breast! His sable brow is wet and wrung with pain, And his dilated nostril toils in vain ; For short and scant the breath each effort draws, And 'twixt each effort Nature claims a pause.

rup, said to have been that of William Rufus. See Mr. William Rose's spirited poem, entitled "The Red King."

"To the bleak coast of savage Labrador."-FALCONER 3 A cant term for smuggled spirits.

Beyond the loose and sable neckcloth stretch'd,
His sinewy throat seems by convulsion twitch'd,
While the tongue falters, as to utterance loth,
Sounds of dire import-watchword, threat, and oath.
Though, stupified by toil, and drugg'd with gin,
The body sleep, the restless guest within
Now plies on wood and wold his lawless trade,
Now in the fangs of justice wakes dismay'd.—

"Was that wild start of terror and despair, Those bursting eyeballs, and that wilder'd air, Signs of compunction for a murder'd hare? Do the locks bristle and the eyebrows arch, For grouse or partridge massacred in March?"--

No, scoffer, no! Attena, and mark with awe,
There is no wicket in the gate of law!
He, that would e'er so lightly set ajar

That awful portal, must undo each bar:
Tempting occasion, habit, passion, pride,

The bittern's sullen shout the sedges shook!
The waning moon, with storm-presaging gleam,
Now gave and now withheld her doubtful beam;
The old Oak stoop'd his arms, then flung them high,
Bellowing and groaning to the troubled sky-
'Twas then, that, couch'd amid the brushwood sere,
In Malwood-walk young Mansell watch'd the deer:
The fattest buck received his deadly shot-
The watchful keeper heard, and sought the spot.
Stout were their hearts, and stubborn was their strife,
O'erpower'd at length the Outlaw drew his knife.
Next morn a corpse was found upon the fell-
The rest his waking agony may tell!

Song.

Oн, say not, my love, with that mortified air, That your spring-time of pleasure is flown,

wide.

That ruffian, whom true men avoid and dread, Whom bruisers, poachers, smugglers, call Black Ned, Was Edward Mansell once;-the lightest heart, That ever play'd on holiday his part! The leader he in every Christmas game, The harvest-feast grew blither when he came, And liveliest on the chords the bow did glance, When Edward named the tune and led the dance. Kind was his heart, his passions quick and strong, Hearty his laugh, and jovial was his song; And if he loved a gun, his father swore, ""Twas but a trick of youth would soon be o'er, Himself had done the same some thirty years before."

But he whose humours spurn law's awful yoke,
Must herd with those by whom law's bonds are broke,
The common dread of justice soon allies
The clown, who robs the warren, or excise,
With sterner felons train'd to act more dread,
Even with the wretch by whom his fellow bled.
Then, as in plagues the foul contagions pass,
Leavening and festering the corrupted mass,―
Guilt leagues with guilt, while mutual motives draw,
Their hope impunity, their fear the law;

Their foes, their friends, their rendezvous the same,
Till the revenue baulk'd, or pilfer'd game,
Flesh the young culprit, and example leads
To darker villany, and direr deeds.

Wild howl'd the wind the forest glades along, And oft the owl renew'd her dismal song; Around the spot where erst he felt the wound, Red William's spectre walk'd his midnight round. When o'er the swamp he cast his blighting look, From the green marshes of the stagnant brook

1 This song was written shortly after the battle of Badajos, April, 1812,) for a Yeomanry Cavalry dinner. It was first

For those raptures that still are thine own.

Though April his temples may wreathe with the vine, Its tendrils in infancy curl'd,

'Tis the ardour of August matures us the wine, Whose life-blood enlivens the world.

Though thy form, that was fashion'd as light as a fay's,

Has assumed a proportion more round, And thy glance, that was bright as a falcon's at gaze Looks soberly now on the ground,—

Enough, after absence to meet me again,
Thy steps still with ecstasy move;
Enough, that those dear sober glances retain
For me the kind language of love.

The Bold Dragoon;1

OR,

THE PLAIN OF BADAJOS.

1812.

'Twas a Maréchal of France, and he fain would honour gain,

And he long'd to take a passing glance at Portugal from Spain;

With his flying guns this gallant gay,

And boasted corps d'armée

O he fear'd not our dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

printed in Mr. George Thomson's Collection of Select Melo dies, and stands in vol. vi. of the last edition of that work.