Which for the soul is best,

And with contentment blest,

In some secluded glen

To dwell with Peace and Edith far from men.

TO RECOVERY.

RECOVERY, where art thou?

Daughter of Heaven, where shall we seek thy help? Upon what hallowed fountain hast thou laid,

O Nymph adored! thy spell?

By the gray ocean's verge,

Daughter of Heaven, we seek thee, but in vain; We find no healing in the breeze that sweeps The thymy mountain's brow.

Where are the happy hours,

The sunshine where, that cheered the morn of life? For Health is fled, and with her fled the joys Which made existence dear.

I saw the distant hills

Smile in the radiance of the orient beam,
And gazed delighted that anon our feet
Should visit scenes so fair.

I looked abroad at noon,

The shadow and the storm were on the hills;

The crags, which like a fairy fabric shone, Darkness had overcast.

On you, ye coming years,

So fairly shone the April gleam of hope; So darkly o'er the distance, late so bright, Now settle the black clouds.

Come thou, and chase away

Sorrow and Pain, the persecuting Powers,
Who make the melancholy day so long,
So long the restless night.

Shall we not find thee here, Recovery, on the salt sea's breezy strand? Is there no healing in the gales that sweep The thymy mountain's brow?

I look for thy approach,

O life-preserving Power! as one, who strays Alone in darkness o'er the pathless marsh, Watches the dawn of day.

MINEHEAD, July, 1799.

YOUTH AND AGE.

WITH cheerful step the traveller

Pursues his early way,

When first the dimly-dawning east

Reveals the rising day.

He bounds along his craggy road,
He hastens up the height,

And all he sees and all he hears
Administer delight.

And if the mist, retiring slow,
Roll round its wavy white,
He thinks the morning vapors hide
Some beauty from his sight.

But, when behind the western clouds
Departs the fading day,
How wearily the traveller
Pursues his evening way!

Sorely along the craggy road

His painful footsteps creep,
And slow, with many a feeble pause,
He labors up the steep.

And if the mists of night close round,
They fill his soul with fear;

He dreads some unseen precipice,
Some hidden danger near.

So cheerfully does youth begin
Life's pleasant morning stage;
Alas! the evening traveller feels
The fears of wary age!

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE OAK OF OUR FATHERS.

ALAS for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood,
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

It

grew and it flourished for many an age, And many a tempest wreaked on it its rage;

But, when its strong branches were bent with the

blast,

It struck its root deeper, and flourished more fast.

Its head towered on high, and its branches spread

round;

For its roots had struck deep, and its heart was sound;

The bees o'er its honey-dewed foliage played, And the beasts of the forest fed under its shade.

The Oak of our Fathers to Freedom was dear;
Its leaves were her crown, and its wood was her
spear.

Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood,
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!

There crept up an ivy, and clung round the trunk ; It struck in its mouths, and its juices it drunk ; The branches grew sickly, deprived of their food, And the Oak was no longer the pride of the wood.

The foresters saw, and they gathered around;
The roots still were fast, and the heart still was sound;
They lopt off the boughs that so beautiful spread,
But the ivy they spared on its vitals that fed.

No longer the bees o'er its honey-dews played, Nor the beasts of the forest fed under its shade; Lopt and mangled, the trunk in its ruin is seen, A monument now what its beauty has been.

The Oak has received its incurable wound;

They have loosened the roots, though the heart may be sound;

What the travellers at distance green-flourishing see, Are the leaves of the ivy that poisoned the tree.

Alas for the Oak of our Fathers, that stood,
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!
WESTBURY, 1798.

THE BATTLE OF PULTOWA.

ON Vorska's glittering waves
The morning sunbeams play;
Pultowa's walls are thronged
With eager multitudes;
Athwart the dusty vale

They strain their aching eyes,

Where to the fight moves on

The Conqueror Charles, the iron-hearted Swede.