When smiling in the pride of May,
The meads are green, the blossoms gay,
When fleecy clouds the sky adorn,
Across the dew-bespangled lawn,
The angler hies with nimble pace,
Eager to snare the finny race.
The glowing landscape charms his eyes,
Within his ardent bosom rise
Fond hopes, that numerous watery spoils,
Ere night, will crown his pleasing toils.
But ah! ere he his art can try,
And throw the well-dissembled fly,
Wherein the swift meandering brook
The trout may seize his fraudful hook;
Soon in his mind with fear dismay'd,
The landscape darkens into shade,
Black gathering clouds obscure the skies,
The winds in hollow murmurs rise,
The rains in copious streams descend,
And all his fairy visions end.
The Angler now, with rapid feet,
Hastens to find a dry retreat,
And homeward takes his dripping way,
Sad disappointment's pensive sway,
Still he resolves, the following morn,
Again to trace the verdant lawn,
Again to try his angle's wiles,
And trust the weather's tempting smiles.
HOPE, like the limpid stream he loves,
With various course, still onward moves;
Though rising high, or sinking low,
Yet never ceases it to flow.
THE MOTHER'S LAMENT.
By Bernard Barton.
Pale and cold is the cheek that my kisses oft press'd,
And quench'd is the beam of that bright-sparkling eye;
For the soul, which its innocent glances confess'd,
Has flown to its God and its Father on high.
No more shall the accents, whose tones were more dear
Than the sweetest of sounds even music can make,
In notes full of tenderness fall on my ear;
If I catch them in dreams, all is still when I wake,
No more the gay smiles that those features display'd
Shall transiently light up their own mirth in mine;
Yet, though these, and much more, be now cover'd in shade,
I must not, I cannot, and dare not repine.
However enchantingly flattering and fair.
Were the hopes, that for thee, I had ventur'd to build,
Can a frail, finite mortal presume to declare
That the future those hopes would have ever fulfilled?
In the world thou hast left, there is much to allure
The most innocent spirit from virtue and peace:
Hadst thou liv'd, would thy own have been equally pure,
And guileless, and happy, in age's increase?
Temptation, or sooner or later, had found thee;
Perhaps had seduc'd thee from pathways of light;
Till the dark clouds of vice, gath'ring gloomily round thee,
Had enrapt thee for ever in horror and night.