SONNET.

TO NAPOLEON, RETURNED TO PARIS, DEC. 1812.

ONCE more enthron'd amid thy slaves, why lours
Thy furrow'd brow? Why rolls thy troubled eye,
While o'er thy cheek in quick succession fly
Alternate red and pale? What grief devours
Thy haughty mind, that thus thy spirit cowers?
Thou mourn'st not that thy warrior-legions lie
Livid and stiff beneath the boreal sky;

Nor yet that dreadful glance thy heart o'erpowers,
From orphans, widows, childless parents cast.

No! flashing on thy mental sight appear Visions more form'd a soul like thine to blast:: Baffled AMBITION points the broken spear; And, trampling in the dust thy trophies past, SCORN shows thy laurel wreath now rent and sere.

R. A. DAVENPORT.

SONNET.

A MEDITERRANEAN SCENE.

t

WHO, on the shore of yonder rocky isle, "Sits desolate, and o'er the watery vast "Gazes with dead and hollow eye? No smile "O'er his wan cheek seems ever to have past. "Hope in his heart is wither'd: keen the blast, "The bitter blast of woe, has smitten there, "Even heaven itself from mercy sure has cast

"That sunk, lorn wretch, and sternly cried-despair." "Yes! heaven-abandoned he, and plunged in gloom; "Yet wail him not; his crimes have earn'd his doom: "Unwept, unmourn'd, unpitied, be his fate.

'He, who thus lonely sits beside the surge,

"Was once of earth the terror and the scourge: ⠀ "Thou see'st Napoleon, long miscall'd the Great.”

R. A. DAVENPORT.

VOL. VIII.

N

STANZAS

Composed in a rustic Seat overlooking the Ruins of Bolton

Priory, Yorkshire.

TIME, AN AUTUMNAL MORNING.

How bright the sun, how pure the air,
How wide the prospect, and how fair,
And gently breathes the silent morn,
And brightly gleams the dew-gem'd thorn;
The grey mists lingering on the floods,
Midway embrace the pendant woods,
Which rising from the vale, on high

Wave in the breeze, and mingle with the sky.

Yon mossy, grey, and ruin'd piles,
Of cloister'd arches, and of ailes,
Where superstition once held sway,
Now sparkle in the sunny ray;
The swain no longer shuns the walls,
Of pow'rful monks, in mitred stalls,
No longer shuns the pile with dread,
But feeds his flock amid the harmless dead.

Majestic trees of various kinds,
Bow to the stream, and court the winds,
Wearing the livery of the year,
The green, the yellow, and the sear;
The graceful ash, whose chequer'd shade
Admits the sunbeam in the glade;
And silvery birch, whose drooping form
Sighs in the breeze, and trembles in the storm:

The stately elm for solemn grove,

For noontide heats, and haunts of love;

The aged monarch of the woods,

Who moves his empire to the floods;

The lofty pine of deepest hue,

The mouldering abbey's mournful yew;
And willows by the river side,

Kissing the ripling stream they bend to hide.

Yon fisher, as he onward treads
The pebbled shores, or daisied meads,
Watches the springing trout, and tries
His arts to win the speckled prize,
All day he tempts the scaly brood,
By shallow stream, or shady wood;
Nor deems his joyous labour done,
While gleams one ray of the departing sun.
Oh! for a magic hand, to trace
Each various beauty, and each grace,
With glowing tints of pow'rful charm,
As Poussin grand, as Lorraine warm;
Then should these scenes for ever wear
The mellow'd lustre of the year,
Nor Tempé's vale, nor Arno's stream,
Surpass the vision of my waking dream.

Scenes of delight for ever dear,
Whence springs this sadly, pleasing tear?
Whence comes the melancholy pow'r,
To chase the smile from this bright hour?-
From gratitude, the tear-drops start,
And holy reverence of the heart,

To Him whose hand outspread the plains,
Where love, and joy, and endless beauty reigns.

T. C. H

THE FIRST TEAR.

I.

Aн, why to my too feeling mind
Is this my native place so dear?
As if it had some chain to bind,
In lasting links, my being here?

II.

I need not ask! 'twas this calm scene
Witness'd, ere yet, a stranger, I
Had mingled with tumultuous men,
My purest grief, my purest joy.

III.

For 'twas this spot, on my young cheek
That saw the first emotion rise,

That saw, its little woe to speak,

THE FIRST TEAR dim infant eyes!

my

REV. R. POLWHELE.