For my distracted mind What succour can I find? On whom for consolation shall I call? Support me, every friend; Your kind assistance lend, To bear the weight of this oppressive woe. Alas! each friend of mine, My dear departed love, so much was thine, That none has any comfort to bestow. My books, the best relief In every other grief, Are now with your idea saddened all: Each favourite author we together read My tortured memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead. We were the happiest pair of human kind; The rolling year its varying course performed, And back returned again; Another and another smiling came, And saw our happiness unchanged remain: Still in her golden chain Harmonious concord did our wishes bind: Our studies, pleasures, taste, the same. O fatal, fatal stroke, That all this pleasing fabric love had raised Of rare felicity, On which even wanton vice with envy gazed, And every scheme of bliss our hearts had formed, With soothing hope, for many a future day, In one sad moment broke!-- Yet, O my soul, thy rising murmurs stay; Nor dare the all-wise Disposer to arraign, Or against his supreme decree With impious grief complain; That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade, Was his most righteous will--and be that will obeyed. JOHN CUNNINGHAM. We know very little of the history of this pleasing poet. He was born in 1729, the son of a wine-cooper in Dublin. At the age of seventeen he wrote a farce; entitled 'Love in a Mist,' and shortly after came to Britain as an actor. He was for a long time a performer in Digges' company in Edinburgh, and subsequently resided in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here he seems to have fallen into distressed circumstances, and was supported by a benevolent printer, at whose house he died in 1773. His poetry is distinguished by a charming simplicity. This characterises 'Kate of Aberdeen,' given below, and also his 'Content: a Pastoral,' in which he says allegorically-- 'Her air was so modest, her aspect so meek, So simple yet sweet were her charms! I kissed the ripe roses that glowed on her cheek, And locked the dear maid in my arms. 'Now jocund together we tend a few sheep, And if, by yon prattler, the stream, Reclined on her bosom, I sink into sleep, Her image still softens my dream.' MAY-EVE; OR, KATE OF ABERDEEN. 1 The silver moon's enamoured beam Steals softly through the night, To wanton with the winding stream, And kiss reflected light. To beds of state go, balmy sleep, (Tis where you've seldom been,) May's vigil whilst the shepherds keep With Kate of Aberdeen.