When, down among the mountains, finks the ev❜n

ing ftar,

And the changing moon forfakes this shadowy fphere,
How cheerless would they be, tho' they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, came not near!

Yet cheerlefs tho' they'd be, they're ungrateful to my love!

For often, when the traveller's benighted on his way, And I glimmer in his path, and would guide him thro' the grove,

They bind me in their magic fpells to lead him far aftray;

And in the mire to leave him, till the ftars are all burnt out;

While, in ftrange-looking fhapes, they frifk about the ground,

And, afar in the woods, they raise a difmal fhout,

Till I fhrink into my cell again for terror of the found!

But, fee where all the tiny elves come dancing in a

ring,

With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the horn,

And the timbrel fo clear, and the lute with dulcet

ftring;

Then round about the oak they go till peeping of

the morn.

Down

Down yonder glade two lovers fteal, to fhun the fairy

queen ;

Who frowns upon their plighted vows, and jealous is

of me,

That yefter-eve I lighted them, along the dewy

green,

To feek the purple flow'r, whofe juice from all her fpells can free.

And now, to punish me, she keeps afar her jocund band,

With the merry, merry pipe, and the tabor, and the

lute;

If I creep near yonder oak fhe will wave her fairy

wand,

And to me the dance will cease, and the music all be

mute.

O! had I but that purple flow'r whofe leaves her charms can foil,

And knew like fays to draw the juice, and throw it on the wind,

I'd be her flave no longer, nor the traveller beguile, And help all faithful lovers, nor fear the fairy kind!

But foon the vapour of the woods will wander afar,
And the fickle moon will fade, and the ftars difappear,
Then, cheerless will they be, tho' they fairies are,
If I, with my pale light, come not near!

Whatever

Whatever St. Aubert might think of the ftanzas, he would not deny his daughter the pleasure of believing that he approved them; and, having given his commendation, he funk into a reverie, and they walked on in filence.

A faint erroneous ray,

Glanc'd from th' imperfect surfaces of things,
Flung half an image on the ftraining eye;
While waving woods, and villages, and streams,
And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retain
The afcending gleam, are all one swimming scene,
Uncertain if beheld *."

St. Aubert continued filent till he reached the chateau, where his wife had retired to her chamber. The languor and dejection that had lately opprefied her, and which the exertion called forth by the arrival of her guefts had fufpended, now returned with increafed effect. On the following day fymptoms of fever appeared, and St. Aubert, having fent for medical advice, learned, that her disorder was a THOMSON.

> fever, of the fame nature as that from which he had lately recovered. She had, indeed, taken the infection during her attendance upon him, and, her conftitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it had lurked in her veins, and occafioned the heavy languor of which he had complained. St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every other confideration, detained the phyfician in his houfe. He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had laft vifited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a prefentiment that this illness would be a

fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her conftant affiduities would not be unavailing. The phyfician, when afked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the diforder, replied, that the event of it depended

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depended upon circumftances which he could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert feemed to have formed a more decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her anxious friends with an expreffion of pity, and of tenderness, as if she anticipated the forrow that awaited them, and that seemed to fay, it was for their fakes only, for their fufferings, that the regretted life. On the feventh day, the disorder was at its crifis. The physician affumed a graver manner, which she obferved, and took occafion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death was approaching. "Do not attempt to deceive me," faid he, "I feel that I can-. not long furvive. I am prepared for the event; I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not fuffer a mistaken compaffion to induce you to flatter my family with falfe hopes. If you do, their affliction

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