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.

Him Famine hath not tamed,
The tamer of the brave.

Him Winter hath not quelled;
Whan man by man his veteran troops sunk down,

Frozen to their endless sleep,
He held undaunted on.
Him Pain hath not subdued ;
What though he mounts not now

The fiery steed of war,
Borne on a litter to the field he goes.

Go, iron-hearted king!
Full of thy former fame;
Think how the humbled Dane
Crouched underneath thy sword;
Think how the wretched Pole
Resigned his conquered crown:

Go, iron-hearted king !
Let Narva's glory swell thy haughty breast;
The death-day of thy glory, Charles, hath dawned!

Proud Swede! the sun hath risen
That on thy shame shall set !

Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest!

For over that relentless Swede
Ruin hath raised his unrelenting arm ;

For ere the night descends,

His veteran host destroyed,
His laurels blasted to revive no more,

He flies before the Muscovite.

Impatiently that haughty heart must bear

Long years of hope deceived;
Long years

of idleness
That sleepless soul must brook.
Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest !
To him who suffers in an honest cause,
No death is ignominious; not on thee,
But upon Charles, the cruel, the unjust,

Not upon thee, on kim
The ineffaceable reproach is fixed,

The infamy abides.
Now, Patkul, may thine injured spirit rest!
WESTBURY, 1798.

THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN.

Sweet to the morning traveller

The song amid the sky,
Where, twinkling in the dewy light,

The skylark soars on high.

And cheering to the traveller

The gales that round him play,
When faint and heavily he drags

Along his noontide way.

And, when beneath the unclouded sun

Full wearily toils he,
The flowing water makes to him

A soothing melody.