AMERICAN SONNETS.

Y heaven-born soul ! by body unconfined,
Leave that low tenement and roam abroad;

Forestall the time, when, left each clog behind,

Thy flight shall mount where never mortal trod.
Even now, methinks, upborne in trancéd dreams,
The disencumbered essence tries its wings,

Sees better planets, basks in brighter beams,
To purer sight mysterious symbols brings,
Of unconceived, unutterable things.

Though dust returned to dust the worms devour,
Thee can dread Death annihilate or bind?
There, King of Terrors! stops thy dreaded power;
The bright assurgent, from all dross refined,

High o'er the immense of space regains the world of mind.

*Born 1753; died 1818.

VOL. II.

8

II.

ADDRESSED

ΤΟ HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE PRINCE OF

BRAZIL, ON TAKING LEAVE OF THE COURT OF LISBON, JULY, 1797.

FAREWELL, ye flowery fields! where Nature's hand

Profusely sheds her vegetable store,

Nurtured by genial suns and zephyrs bland!

Farewell, thou Tagus! and thy friendly shore:
Long shall my soul thy lost retreats deplore,
Thy haunts where shades of heroes met my eyes.
As oft I mused where Camoens trod before,
I saw the god-like form of Gama rise,
With chiefs renowned beneath your eastern skies.
O, long may peace and glory crown thy scene!
Farewell, just Prince! no sycophantic lay

Insults thy ear.. Be what thy sires have been,
Thy great progenitors! who oped the way

Through seas unsailed before to climes of orient day.

RICHARD BINGHAM DAVIS.

I.

TO MUSIC.

YES, I must bid thy ecstasies farewell,

Sweet soother of my soul! no more thy power, That oft has beamed upon the gloomy hour, Shall fold my spirit in ethereal spell.

No more I'll watch thee, wafted on the wing
Of fragrant eve, from the lone warbler's throat;
No more I'll hear thee touch the expressive string,
Or swell with softening grace the airy note.

Past is thy charm that could my bosom thrill,
That name, on thy soft undulations borne,
Which fancy heard in each delightful thrill-
Eliza's name is from my bosom torn,

And when Eliza dwells not in the strain,

Thy sweetest notes are harsh, my energies in vain.

* Born 1771; died 1799.