Spirits who suffered at that hour

For freedom and for faith!
Ye saw your country bent beneath the yoke,

Her faith and freedom crushed ;

And like a giant from his sleep

Ye saw when France awoke;
Ye saw the people burst their double chain,

And ye had joy in heaven!

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE HOLLY-TREE.

1.
O READER! hast thou ever stood to see

The Holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives

Its glossy leaves
Ordered by an Intelligence so wise
As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.

2.

Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen,

Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round

Can reach to wound;
But, as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.

3.

I love to view these things with curious eyes,

And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly-tree

Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.

4. Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear

Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude

Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.

5. And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,

Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day

Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.

6.
And as, when all the summer trees are seen

So bright and green,
The Holly-leaves a sober hue display

Less bright than they,

But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?

7. So serious should my youth appear among

The thoughtless throng;
So would I

seem,
amid the

young

and

gay,
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly-tree.

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE EBB-TIDE.

Slowly thy flowing tide Came in, old Avon! Scarcely did mine eyes, As watchfully I roamed thy greenwood-side,

Perceive its gentle rise.

With many a stroke and strong The laboring boatmen upward plied their oars ; Yet little way they made, though laboring long

Between thy winding shores.

Now down thine ebbing tide
The unlabored boat falls rapidly along ;
The solitary helmsman sits to guide,

And sings an idle song.

VOL. II.

Now o'er the rocks, that lay
So silent late, the shallow current roars;
Fast flow thy waters on their seaward way,

Through wider-spreading shores.

Avon! I gaze, and know
The lesson emblemed in thy varying way:
It speaks of human joys that rise so slow,

So rapidly decay.

Kingdoms which long have stood, And slow to strength and power attained at last, Thus from the summit of high Fortune's flood

They ebb to ruin fast.

Thus like thy flow appears Time's tardy course to manhood's envied stage ; Alas, how hurryingly the ebbing years

Then hasten to old age! WESTBURY, 1799.

THE COMPLAINTS OF THE POOR.

· And wherefore do the Poor complain? ”

The Rich Man asked of me:
“ Come walk abroad with me," I said,

6 And I will answer thee.”

'Twas evening, and the frozen streets

Were cheerless to behold;

And we were wrapt and coated well,

And yet we were a-cold.

We met an old, bareheaded man;

His locks were thin and white : I asked him what he did abroad

In that cold winter's night.

The cold was keen indeed, he said ;

But at home no fire had he, And therefore he had come abroad

To ask for charity.

We met a young, barefooted child,

And she begged loud and bold: I asked her what she did abroad

When the wind it blew so cold.

She said her father was at home,

And he lay sick abed ;
And therefore was it she was sent

Abroad to beg for bread.

We saw a woman sitting down

Upon a stone to rest;
She had a baby at her back,

And another at her breast.

I asked her why she loitered there

When the night-wind was so chill :