But give me a maiden who smiles without art,
With sweetness of temper and softuess of heart;
With breeding accomplish'd, and virtue improv'd,
With soul that can love, yet never has lov’d;
To her l'd resign all my freedom and ease,
Contented to love her and happy to please.
I sigh’d when I saw what I lov’d in a maid,
With graces that won me as soon as survey'd;
I look’d and I lov’d, but too rashly I find,
How wretched I should be if she were unkind-
Her virtue may tempt one more worthy to woo;
Her taste is so nice and her judgment so true
How can I pretend her affections to move,
With no charms but my music, no merit but love.
But yet she delights in my music and rhyme,
And

my love is so warın it may melt her in time;
Of late as I sung in a passionate strain,
She was mov'd with my song and perhaps with my pain;
'Tis foolish to hope—'tis in vain to despair,
If I fail to possess her, adieu to the fair-
By reading I'll strive to recover my rest,
And

grow wise in mere sp.te, if I cannot be blest.

TO MY CHILDREN. Heu! quam minus est reliquis versari, quam vestrorum meminisse. 'These verses were written, as the author informs us, under the influence of great

depression of spirits. The subject is of a nature we should have thought, too sacred for the public eye, had pot Cowper taught us that a mind of acute and shrioking sensibility, can strangely find a solace in laying open to that unseen public the inmost recesses of the heart. We envy not the feelings of bim who can peruse these lines without emotion: they abound with images which must find a mirror in the breast of every parent.

My babes, no more I'll behold ye,
Little think

ye how he ye once lov’d,
Your father who oft did enfold ye,
With all that a parent e'er prov'd;-

62

VOL. XII.

How with many a pang he is saddened,

How many a tear he has shed
For the eight human blossoms that gladdened

His path, and his table, and bed.
None knows what a fond parent smothers,

Save he who a parent has been;
Who one more in his daughters, their mother's,

In his boys, has his own image seen! And who—can I finish my story?-

Has seen them all shrink from his grasp; Departed the crown of his glory,

No wife and no children to clasp!-
By all the dear names I have uttered,

By all the most sa cred caresses,
By the frolicksome nothings I've muttered

In a mood that sheds tears while it blesses;
By the kisses so fond I have given,

By the plump little arm's cleaving twine, By the bright eye whose language was heaven,

By the rose on the cheek pressed to mine. By its warınth that seemed pregnant with spirit;

By the little feet’s fond interlacing, While others pressed forward to inherit

The place of the one thus embracing; By the breast that with pleasure was troubled,

Since no words were to speak it availing: Till the bliss of the heart was redoubled,

As in smiles on the lips 'twas exhaling.

By the girl who, to sleep when consigned,

The promised kiss still recollected, And no sleep on her pillow could find,

If her father's farewell were neglected; Who asked me, when infancy's terrors

Assailed her, to sit by her bed;

And for the past day's little errors

On my cheek tears of penitence shed; By those innocent tears of repentance,

More pure e'en than smiles without sin, Since they mark with what delicate sentence

Childhood's conscience whispers within; By the dear little forms, one by one,

Some in beds closely coupled half sleeping, While the cribb'd infant nestled alone

Whose heads at my coming all peeping, Betrayed that the pulse of each heart

Of my feet's stealing fall knew the speech; While all would not let me de part,

Till the kiss was bestowed upon each; By the boy who, when walking and musing

And thinking myself quite alone, Would follow the path I was choosing

And thrust his dear hand in my own; Joy more welcome because unexpected;

By all this fond store of delights, (Which in sullen mood, had I neglected

Every curse with which heaven requites, Were never sufficient for crushing

A churl so malign and hard-hearted,) But by the warm tears that are gushing,

As I think of the joys that are parted; Were ye not as the rays that are twinkling

On the waves of some clear haunted stream: Were

ye

not as the stars that are sprinkling Night's firmament, dark without them? My forebodings then hear! By each one

ADDRESS TO THE GENIUS OF SHAKSPEARE. This is decidedly superior to any ode of Akepside's, and bad it appeared among the

works of Collins, few persons would bave suspected it to be spurious. It is, unquestionably, a very beautiful, tbough not a faultless poeni. The last three lines are objectionable, whether in point of sentiment or merely of phraseology, we will not decide.

When first thine eyes beheld the light

And Nature bursting on thy sight,
Poured on thy beating heart a kindred day:

GENIUS, the fire-eyed child of Fame

Circled thy brows with mystic flame,
And warm with hope pronounced this prophet lay:

“ Thee, darling Boy! I give to know

Each viewless source of Joy and Wo,
In thee my vivid visions shall unfold;

Each form that freezes sense to stone,
Each phantom of the world unknown,
Shall Ait before thine eyes, and waken thoughts untold.

“ The bent of purpose unavowed;

Of Hopes and Fears the wildering crowd;
The incongruous train of wishes undefined;

Shall all be subjected to thee!
The excess of bliss and

agony
Shall oft alternate seize thy high attempered mind.

“Oft in the moody summer vale,

When Evening breathes her balmy gale,
Oit by the wild brooks' margin shalt thou rove;

When just above the western line

The clouds with richer radiance shine,
Yellowing the dark tops of the mountain grove.

“There Love's warm hopes thy breast shall fill,

For Nature's charms with kindliest skill
Prepare for Love's delicious ecstasy;

Thy prostrate mind shall sink subdued,

While ii a strange fantastic mood,
The wild power fires thy veins and mantles in thine eye!

· For know, where'er my influence dwells,

Each selfish interest it expels,
And wakes each latent energy of soul;

Indifference, of the marble mien,

Shall ne'er with lazy spells be seen,
To quench th' imunortal wish that aiins perfections goal.

“ These shalt thou burst, whate'er it be

That manacles mortality,
And range through scenes by fleshly feet untrod;

And Inspiration to thine eye

Shail bid futurity be nigh,
And with mysterious power approximate to God.??

CHILDHOOD.
In a child's voice, is there not melody?

In a child's eye, is there not rapture seen?
And rapture not of passion's revelry;

Calm, though impassioned; durable, though keen!

It is all fresh. like the young spring's first green!
Children seem spirits from above descended,

To wliom still cleave Heaven's atmosphere serene;
Their

very wildnesses with truth are blended; Fresia from their skiey mould, they cannot be amended.

Warın and uncalculating, they're more wise,

More sense that ecstasy of theirs denotes,
More of the stuff have they of Paradise,

And more the music of the warbling throats

Of choirs whose anthem round th’ Eternal floats,
Than all that bards e'er feigned; or tuneful skill

Has e'er struck forth from artificial notes:
Theirs is that language, ignorant of ill,
Born from a perfect harmony of power and will.

OTHELLO'S ACCOUNT OF HIS COURTSHIP, Her father lov'd me-oft got drunk with me, Captain, (he'd cry,) come tell us your adventures,