I think, dear Ned, you curious dog,
You'll have my earthly catalogue.
But stay, I nearly had left out

My bellows destitute of snout;

And on the walls,-Good Heavens! why there
I've such a load of precious ware,

Of heads, and coins, and silver medals,

And organ works, and broken pedals,
(For I was once a building music,
Though soon of that employ I grew sick)
And skeletons of laws which shoot
All out of one primordial root;

That you, at such a sight, would swear
Confusion's self had settled there.
There stands, just by a broken sphere,
A Cicero without an ear,

A neck, on which by logic good
I know for sure a head once stood;
But who it was the able master,
Had moulded in the mimic plaster,
Whether 'twas Pope, or Coke, or Burn,
I never yet could justly learn :
But knowing well, that any head
Is made to answer for the dead,
(And sculptors first their faces frame,
And after pitch upon a name,
Nor think it ought of a misnomer

To christen Chaucer's busto, Homer,

Because they both have beards, which you know

Will mark them well from Joan, and Juno,)

For some great man, I could not tell
But NECK might answer just as well,
So perch'd it up, all in a row
With Chatham and with Cicero.

Then all around in just dégree,
A range of portraits you may see,
Of mighty men, and eke of women,
Who are no whit inferior to men.

With these fair dames, and heroes round,

I call my garret classic ground.
For though confin'd, 'twill well contain
The ideal flights of Madam Brain.
No dungeon's walls, no cell confin'd,
Can cramp the energies of mind!
Thus, though my heart may seem so small,
I've friends and 'twill contain them all;
And should it e'er become so cold
That these, it will no longer hold,

No more may heaven her blessings give,
I shall not then be fit to live.

TO AN EARLY PRIMROSE.

MILD offspring of a dark and sullen sire!
Whose modest form, so delicately fine,

Was nurs'd in whirling storms,

And cradled in the winds.

Thee, when young spring first question'd winter's sway, And dar'd the sturdy blusterer to the fight,

Thee on this bank he threw

To mark his victory.

In this low vale, the promise of the year,
Serene, thou openest to the nipping gale,
Unnoticed, and alone,

Thy tender elegance.

So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms

Of chill adversity, in some lone walk

Of life, she rears her head

Obscure and unobserv'd;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,

Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear

Serene the ills of life.

SONNET S.

SONNET I.

To the River Trent. Written on Recovery from Sickness.

ONCE more, O TRENT! along thy pebbly marge A pensive invalid, reduced, and pale,

From the close sick-room newly let at large,

Wooes to his wan-worn cheek the pleasant gale.
O! to his ear how musical the tale

Which fills with joy the throstle's little throat! And all the sounds which on the fresh breeze sail, How wildly novel on his senses float!

It was on this that many a sleepless night,

As, lone, he watched the taper's sickly gleam, And at his casement heard, with wild affright, The owl's dull wing, and melancholy scream, On this he thought, this, this, his sole desire, Thus once again to hear the warbling woodland choir.

SONNET II.

GIVE me a cottage on some Cambrian wild,
Where far from cities, I may spend my days:

And, by the beauties of the scene beguil'd,
May pity man's pursuits, and shun his ways.

While on the rock I mark the browsing goat,
List to the mountain torrent's distant noise,
Or the hoarse bittern's solitary note,

I shall not want the world's delusive joys;
But, with my little scrip, my book, my lyre,

Shall think my lot complete, nor covet more;
And when, with time, shall wane the vital fire,
I'll raise my pillow on the desart shore,
And lay me down to rest where the wild wave
Shall make sweet music o'er my lonely grave.

SONNET III.*

Supposed to have been addressed by a Female Lunatic to a Lady.

LADY, thou weepest for the Maniac's woe,
And thou art fair, and thou, like me, art young,

Oh may thy bosom never, never know,

The pangs with which my wretched heart is wrung.

I had a mother once-a brother too—

(Beneath yon yew my father rests his head :)

I had a lover once,-and kind, and true,

But mother, brother, lover, all are fled!

Yet, whence the tear, which dims thy lovely eye?
Oh! gentle lady-not for me thus weep,

осса

This Quatorzain had its rise from an elegant Sonnet, sioned by seeing a young Female Lunatic," written by Mrs. Lofft, and published in the Monthly Mirror.