Sleep on, loved innocent, why wake to grieve, When thou such balmy comfort dost receive? Why could we wish those curtained lids unclose, Disturb thy slumber, happy in repose, Its little cares now hushed, again recall, And hear the sobbing babe, “Sweet mother” call: Ah! yes, though sound, those dreaming spells must break, The oblivious sleep dissolved, for thy dear sake, That schooled to learn each chequered ill to bear, In crosses, trials, taught thy part to share; Thus early brought to suffer, and to know How transient all things that delight below; Weaned from love’s fondlings, torn from their embrace, Affections warm, thus blighted, doomed to trace; ’Twas _his_, whose sentient nature, taught to prove, How dear the memory of a mother’s love. The “Bard of Olney,” severed from those ties, Deplored and wept amid a life of sighs, A darker shade than falls to every lot, His spirit clouded, and was ne’er forgot; The world delusive proved, from hence might rise Hopes brighter fixed, joy, love, that never dies. THOUGHTS ON SOLITARINESS. “Eagles fly alone, and they are but sheep which always herd together.”--_Sidney._ Lone watchings of the night, When stars attract with beaming; ’Tis loneliness alone that gives delight, The poet’s hour of dreaming. Why doth the eagle soar, With lone and wandering wing? Ah! loves he not his silent flight the more, Far borne from living thing? To stand upon the shore, And list the sounding flood,-- Is there aught music like the ocean’s roar To child of solitude? Who, roaming, heeds the cry Of bittern’s piercing note; With cadence of the stormy petrel nigh, Now heard far off remote? Is not the awful shade Of dark, receding grove, To him endeared, its leaf embow’ring glade, Seclusion’s haunts to rove? Why doth the enchantress pour Mellifluous note alone? Loves Philomel the midnight brake the more, Plaintive, unseen, to moan. So to the tender heart Of maiden touched with love. Doth covert shade of twilight eve impart-- Its secret solace prove. Is’t not to recluse sweet, ’Mid sheltering cave reclined, Listening in solitude to waves that beat-- To musing dreams resigned. Is grandeur heard in sound? Hath harmony its power? Give me expressive silence, when ’tis found, Nature’s own hush’d, still hour. Sweet chord must strive in vain, Its diapason teach; It cannot swell like that Æolian strain The mind’s deep tone to reach. He who hath waked the lyre, Can tell its potent spell; Within is found an all-consuming fire, That mute gaze lone may tell. Yet he is least alone-- The child of poesy; Who peoples ideal beings, all his own-- Creatures of fantasy,