Now, surely, thought I, there's enow To fill life's dusty way; And who will miss a poet's feet, Or wonder where he stray: So to the woods and wastes I'll go, And I will build an osier bower, And sweetly there to me shall flow The meditative hour. And when the Autumn's withering hand, Shall strew with leaves the sylvan land, I'll to the forest caverns hie: And in the dark and stormy nights I'll listen to the shrieking sprites, Who, in the wintry wolds and floods, Keep jubilee, and shred the woods; Or, as it drifted soft and slow, Hurl in ten thousand shapes the snow. * * * * * FRAGMENT. Oh! thou most fatal of Pandora's train, Consumption! silent cheater of the eye; Thou comest not robed in agonizing pain, Nor mark'st thy course with Death's delusive dye, But silent and unnoticed thou dost lie; O'er life's soft springs thy venom dost diffuse, And, while thou givest new lustre to the eye, While o'er the cheek are spread health's ruddy hues, E'en then life's little rest thy cruel power subdues. Oft I've beheld thee, in the glow of youth, Hid 'neath the blushing roses which there bloom'd; And dropp'd a tear, for then thy cankering tooth I knew would never stay, till all consumed, In the cold vault of death he were entomb'd. But oh! what sorrow did I feel, as swift, Insidious ravager, I saw thee fly Through fair Lucina's breast of whitest snow, Preparing swift her passage to the sky. Though still intelligence beam'd in the glance, The liquid lustre of her fine blue eye; Yet soon did languid listlessness advance, And soon she calmly sunk in death's repugnant trance. Even when her end was swiftly drawing near, And dissolution hover'd o'er her head: Even then so beauteous did her form appear, That none who saw her but admiring said, Sure so much beauty never could be dead. Yet the dark lash of her expressive eye Bent lowly down upon the languid-- * * * * * FRAGMENT. Loud rage the winds without.--The wintry cloud O'er the cold northstar casts her flitting shroud; And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale, Starts as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale; Where now, shut out from every still retreat, Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat, Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood, Retire o'er all her pensive stores to brood? Shivering and blue the peasant eyes askance The drifted fleeces that around him dance, And hurries on his half-averted form, Stemming the fury of the sidelong storm. Him soon shall greet his snow-topp'd [cot of thatch], Soon shall his numb'd hand tremble on the latch, Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame; Round the light fire, while roars the north wind loud, What merry groups of vacant faces crowd; These hail his coming--these his meal prepare, And boast in all that cot no lurking care.