As through the world he wends;
On every stage, from youth to age,
Still discontent attends.

With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,

And still remembers, with a sigh,
The days that are no more.

To school the little exile goes,

Torn from its mother's arms;
What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemned to suffer, through the day,
Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,
Hope lengthens as she counts the hours
Before his wished return.

From hard control and tyrant-rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
In thought he loves to roam;

And tears will struggle in his eye,
While he remembers, with a sigh,
The comforts of his home.

Youth comes; the toils and cares of life Torment the restless mind:

Where shall the tired and harassed heart

Its consolation find?

Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah, no! for hopes too long delayed,
And feelings blasted or betrayed,
Its fabled bliss destroy;

And Youth remembers, with a sigh,
The careless days of Infancy.

Maturer Manhood now arrives,

And other thoughts come on;
But, with the baseless hopes of Youth,
Its generous warmth is gone.

Cold, calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,

The dull realities of truth.
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering, with an envious sigh,
The happy dreams of Youth.

So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow:

New ills that latter stage await,
And old Experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.
Life's vain delusions are gone by,
Its idle hopes are o'er;

Yet Age remembers, with a sigh,
The days that are no more.

WESTBURY, 1798.

THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.

DACTYLICS.

WEARY way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart, Travelling painfully over the rugged road,— Wild-visaged Wanderer! God help thee, wretched one!

Sorely thy little one drags by thee barefooted; Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back, Meagre and livid, and screaming for misery.

* Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony, As over thy shoulder thou look'st to hush the babe, Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy haggard face.

Ne'er will thy husband return from the war again;
Cold is thy heart, and as frozen as Charity;
Cold are thy children. - Now God be thy comforter!
BRISTOL, 1795.

* This stanza was written by S. T. COLERIDGE.

THE WIDOW.

SAPPHICS.

COLD was the night-wind, drifting fast the snow

fell,

Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked, When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey, Weary and way-sore.

Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflections;

Cold was the night-wind, colder was her bosom : She had no home; the world was all before her; She had no shelter.

Fast o'er the heath a chariot rattled by her:

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'Pity me!" feebly cried the lonely Wanderer; 'Pity me, strangers! lest with cold and hunger Here I should perish.

Once I had friends, though now by all forsaken; Once I had parents, they are now in heaven; I had a home once; I had once a husband:

Pity me, strangers!

"I had a home once; I had once a husband;
I am a widow, poor and broken-hearted!"
Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining,
On drove the chariot.

Then on the snow she laid her down to rest her; She heard a horseman : "Pity me!" she groaned

out:

Loud was the wind, unheard was her complaining, On went the horseman.

Worn out with anguish, toil, and cold and hunger, Down sunk the Wanderer; sleep had seized her

senses:

There did the traveller find her in the morning; GOD had released her.

BRISTOL, 1795.

THE CHAPEL-BELL.

Lo I, the man who from the Muse did ask
Her deepest notes to swell the patriot's meeds,
Am now enforced, a far unfitter task,

For cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds;
For yon dull tone, that tinkles on the air,
Bids me lay by the lyre, and go to morning prayer.

Oh, how I hate the sound! it is the knell
That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;
And loath am I, at Superstition's bell,

To quit or Morpheus' or the Muse's bower: Better to lie and doze than gape amain,

Hearing still mumbled o'er the same eternal strain.