Then, Mira, not to pride my harp is strung-- Not to the measures of the giddy dance-- The boasted beauty shall remain unsung, For I, unmoved, can meet her fatal glance. Not in the fairy regions of romance My footsteps stray--but _Truth_ directs my song: To _Truth's_ eternal portals I advance, Deserted by the rhyming crew so long, And Virtue, Worth, and Thou shall still employ my tongue. With thee, sweet Modesty and Truth reside-- Sincerity from courts and crowds exiled-- Virtue, that shuns the haughty brow of Pride-- And Charity, Heaven's first-born, favorite child,-- As if the skies upon thy birth had smiled, And given thee all to make a woman dear. Yes! thou couldst humanize the savage wild, Make tigers pause thy soothing voice to hear, Melt marble hearts, and smooth the brow of cankering care. When the last echoes of my harp expire, In mournful breathings on Patapsco's shore-- When the unpractised hand that struck the wire, Shall wake those wild and artless notes no more-- When the green meadow and the torrent's roar-- The woody walk, so long my dear delight, With all that charmed my fancy most before-- When Death shall veil these objects from my sight, O say, wilt thou my name in thy remembrance write? Then let the world its malice all combine-- Its hate I reck not, and its wrongs despise: A bliss they dream not of shall still be mine-- A bliss untold, yet worthy of the skies, Which all their curs'd malevolence defies. Even in the anguish of the mortal hour, My soul superior to the gloom shall rise, And smile on Death when all his terrors lower, And the grim tyrant stalks full panoplied in power. STANZAS. Oh! never, never, until now, Seem'd happiness so near me-- Hope never wore a brighter brow To flatter or to cheer me: Yet while I listen to her voice, Sad memory is chiding-- And I must tremble to rejoice, And weep while I'm confiding. I thought my spirit had grown old, While counting years by sorrow, And that the future could unfold For me no happier morrow; But ah! I find myself a child Of newly waken'd feeling, As full of dreams, as bright and wild, As fancy's first revealing. LEILA. {41} _Critical Notices_. THE HEROINE. _The Heroine: or Adventures of Cherubina. By Eaton Stannard Barrett, Esq. New Edition. Richmond: Published by P. D. Bernard._