I could not rid me of a dread, that one

By whom such daring villainies were done,

Must be some lord of mine, perhaps a lawless son.
Whoe'er he was, I knew my task, but feared
A father's heart, in case the worst appeared:
For this I had the light put out; but when
I saw the face, and found a stranger slain,

I knelt and thanked the sovereign arbiter,
Whose work I had performed through pain and fear;
And then I rose, and was refreshed with food,

The first time since thou cam'st, and marr'dst my

solitude."

LINES

WRITTEN ON A SUDDEN ARRIVAL OF FINE WEATHER IN MAY.

READER! what soul that loves a verse, can see
The spring return, nor glow like you and me?
Hear the rich birds, and see the landscape fill,
Nor long to utter his melodious will?

This, more than ever, leaps into the veins, When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains, And coming with a burst, comes like a show,

Blue all above, and basking green below,

And all the people culling the sweet prime: Then issues forth the bee, to clutch the thyme,

And the bee poet rushes into rhyme.

For lo! no sooner have the chills withdrawn,

Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn;
The merry sap has run up in the bowers,
And burst the windows of the buds in flowers;
With song the bosoms of the birds run o'er;
The cuckoo calls; the swallow's at the door;
And apple-trees at noon, with bees alive,

Burn with the golden chorus of the hive.

Now all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze, Is but one joy, express'd a thousand ways;

And honey from the flow'rs, and song from birds,

Are from the poet's pen his overflowing words.

Ah friends! methinks it were a pleasant sphere,

If, like the trees, we blossom'd every year;
If locks grew thick again, and rosy dyes.

Return'd in cheeks, and raciness in

And all around us, vital to the tips,

eyes,

The human orchard laugh'd with cherry lips!

Lord! what a burst of merriment and play,

Fair dames, were that! and what a first of May!

So natural is the wish, that bards gone by Have left it, all, in some immortal sigh!

And yet the winter months were not so well : Who would like changing, as the seasons fell? Fade every year; and stare, midst ghastly friends, With falling hairs, and stuck-out fingers' ends? Besides, this tale, of youth that comes again, Is no more true of apple-trees than men.

The Swedish sage, the Newton of the flow'rs, Who first found out those worlds of paramours,

Tells us, that every

blossom that we see

Boasts in its walls a separate family;

So that a tree is but a sort of stand,

That holds those filial fairies in its hand ;

Just as Swift's giant might have held a bevy

Of Lilliputian ladies, or a levee.

It is not he that blooms: it is his race,

Who honour his old arms, and hide his rugged face.

Ye wits and bards then, pr'ythee know your duty, And learn the lastingness of human beauty. Your finest fruit to some two months may reach : I've known a cheek at forty like a peach.

But see! the weather calls me. Here's a bee
Comes bounding in my room imperiously,
And talking to himself, hastily burns

About mine ear, and so in heat returns.
O little brethren of the fervid soul,
Kissers of flow'rs, lords of the golden bowl,
I follow to your fields and tufted brooks :
Winter's the time to which the poet looks

For hiving his sweet thoughts, and making honied

books.