Oh, when, amid the throng of men,

The heart grows sick of hollow mirth, How willingly we turn us then

Away from this cold earth, And look into thy azure breast,

For seats of innocence and rest!

"I CANNOT FORGET WITH WHAT FERVID DEVOTION."

I CANNOT forget with what fervid devotion

I worshipped the visions of verse and of fame : Each gaze at the glories of earth, sky, and ocean. To my kindled emotions, was wind over flame.

And deep were my musings in life's early blossom,
Mid the twilight of mountain groves wandering long;
How thrilled my young veins, and how throbbed my full bosom,
When o'er me descended the spirit of song.

'Mong the deep-cloven fells that for ages had listened

To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened, All breathless with awe have I gazed on the scene;

Till I felt the dark power o'er my reveries stealing,

From his throne in the depth of that stern solitude, And he breathed through my lips, in that tempest of feeling. Strains lofty or tender, though artless and rude.

N

Bright visions! I mixed with the world, and ye faded;
No longer your pure rural worshipper now;
In the haunts your continual presence pervaded,
Ye shrink from the signet of care on my brow.

In the old mossy groves on the breast of the mountain,
In deep lonely glens where the waters complain,
By the shade of the rock, by the gush of the fountain,
I seek your loved footsteps, but seek them in vain.

Oh, leave not, forlorn and for ever forsaken,
Your pupil and victim to life and its tears!
But sometimes return, and in mercy awaken

The glories ye showed to his earlier years.

TO A MUSQUITO.

FAIR insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,

Does murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,
In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins should bleed,
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need.

Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse,

Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint;

Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse,

For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint: Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.

I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,

Has not the honour of so proud a birth,-Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green, The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;

For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,

The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy.

Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung,

And when, at length, thy gauzy wings grew strong, Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,

Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along;

The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way,
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.

Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence

Came the deep murmur of its throng of men, And as its grateful odours met thy sense,

They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen. Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight.

At length thy pinions fluttered in Broadway—
Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed

By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray

Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist;

And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin,
Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin.

Sure these were sights to touch an anchorite!
What! do I hear thy slender voice complain?

Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty's light,

As if it brought the memory of pain:
Thou art a wayward being-well—come near,
And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear.