Weary way-wanderer languid and sick at heart

  Travelling painfully over the rugged road,

  Wild-visag'd Wanderer! ah for thy heavy chance!

  Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed,

  Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back

  Meagre and livid and screaming its wretchedness.

  [1] Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony,

  As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe,

  Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy hagged face.

  Thy husband will never return from the war again,

  Cold is thy hopeless heart even as Charity—

  Cold are thy famish'd babes—God help thee, widow'd One!

[Footnote 1: This stanza was supplied by S.T. COLERIDGE.]

The WIDOW.

SAPPHICs.

  Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snows fell,

  Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked,

  When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey

          Weary and way-sore.

  Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflexions;

  Cold was the night wind, colder was her bosom!

  She had no home, the world was all before her,

          She had no shelter.

  Fast o'er the bleak heath rattling drove a chariot,

  "Pity me!" feebly cried the poor night wanderer.

  "Pity me Strangers! lest with cold and hunger

          Here I should perish.

  "Once I had friends,—but they have all forsook me!

  "Once I had parents,—they are now in Heaven!

  "I had a home once—I had once a husband—

          "Pity me Strangers!

  "I had a home once—I had once a husband—

  "I am a Widow poor and broken-hearted!"

  Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining.

          On drove the chariot.

  On the cold snows she laid her down to rest her;

  She heard a horseman, "pity me!" she groan'd out;

  Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining,

          On went the horseman.

  Worn out with anguish, toil and cold and hunger,

  Down sunk the Wanderer, sleep had seiz'd her senses;

  There, did the Traveller find her in the morning,

          GOD had releast her.

To the CHAPEL BELL.

    "Lo I, the man who erst the Muse did ask

      Her deepest notes to swell the Patriot's meeds,

    Am now enforst a far unfitter task

      For cap and gown to leave my minstrel weeds,"

    For yon dull noise that tinkles on the air

  Bids me lay by the lyre and go to morning prayer.

    Oh how I hate the sound! it is the Knell,

      That still a requiem tolls to Comfort's hour;

    And loth am I, at Superstition's bell,

      To quit or Morpheus or the Muses bower.

    Better to lie and dose, than gape amain,

  Hearing still mumbled o'er, the same eternal strain.

    Thou tedious herald of more tedious prayers

      Say hast thou ever summoned from his rest,

    One being awakening to religious awe?

      Or rous'd one pious transport in the breast?

    Or rather, do not all reluctant creep

  To linger out the hour, in listlessness or sleep?

    I love the bell, that calls the poor to pray

      Chiming from village church its chearful sound,

    When the sun smiles on Labour's holy day,

      And all the rustic train are gathered round,

    Each deftly dizen'd in his Sunday's best

  And pleas'd to hail the day of piety and rest.

    Or when, dim-shadowing o'er the face of day,

      The mantling mists of even-tide rise slow,

    As thro' the forest gloom I wend my way,

      The minster curfew's sullen roar I know;

    I pause and love its solemn toll to hear,

  As made by distance soft, it dies upon the ear.

    Nor not to me the unfrequent midnight knell

      Tolls sternly harmonizing; on mine ear

    As the deep death-fraught sounds long lingering dwell

      Sick to the heart of Love and Hope and Fear

    Soul-jaundiced, I do loathe Life's upland steep

  And with strange envy muse the dead man's dreamless sleep.

    But thou, memorial of monastic gall!

      What Fancy sad or lightsome hast thou given?

    Thy vision-scaring sounds alone recall

      The prayer that trembles on a yawn to heaven;

    And this Dean's gape, and that Dean's nosal tone,

  And Roman rites retain'd, tho' Roman faith be flown.

The RACE of BANQUO.

  Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly!

  Leave thy guilty sire to die.

  O'er the heath the stripling fled,

  The wild storm howling round his head.

  Fear mightier thro' the shades of night

  Urged his feet, and wing'd his flight;

  And still he heard his father cry

  Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly.

  Fly, son of Banquo! Fleance, fly

  Leave thy guilty sire to die.

  On every blast was heard the moan

  The anguish'd shriek, the death-fraught groan;

  Loathly night-hags join the yell

  And see—the midnight rites of Hell.

  Forms of magic! spare my life!

  Shield me from the murderer's knife!

  Before me dim in lurid light

  Float the phantoms of the night—

  Behind I hear my Father cry,

  Fly, son of Banquo—Fleance, fly!

  Parent of the sceptred race,

  Fearless tread the circled space:

  Fearless Fleance venture near—

  Sire of monarchs—spurn at fear.

  Sisters with prophetic breath

  Pour we now the dirge of Death!