Mysterious dulness acts her part,
Profaning wisdom's holy mien;
And modest Nature, veil'd by art,
Retires, and blushes to be seen.

"Oh let me, in your forests wild,

Or mountains hoar, or deserts vast,
Free, unrestrain'd, as nature's child,
The future hope-forget the past!"

I said-upborne by genius high,

I range the vale, the glen, the woods, O'er giant mountains lost in sky,

And streams that roll their ocean floods:

With savage tribes I wander free
(From Custom's rigid rules apart),
And well I note, in each degree,
The man of Nature and of Art.

-Too well I note, and loathing turn
From scenes unblest my alter'd mind:

For Europe's climes again I burn,
And sigh for all I left behind.

The silent moon, the stars, the skies,
Eve's sober gray, the morning light,
The mid-day blaze, in savage eyes,
Nor wonder nor regard excite :

Enough for him, in ignorance bred,
Night yields to morn, and sun to rain;
That Nature's pulse, in Winter dead,
By Spring rekindled throbs again:

Enough for him the clay-built hut

With leaves and matting tempest-proof,

When, safe within his cabin shut,

The whirlwinds whistle o'er his roof;

There, surly monarch of a shed,
Regardless he of danger nigh,
At Eve demands his leafy bed;
Perhaps to sleep-perhaps to die:

For treachery oft in ambush lurks

To rob his scant and wretched store, And vengeance, bent on murderous works,

Embrues her hand in kindred gore;

No blooming bride, in warm delight,
Awaits, his ravish'd sense to steep;
Nor fancy cheats the tedious night,,
Nor golden visions charm in sleep;

No pulse ecstatic throbs to bliss,

Nor love's soft thrills inform the breast, Nor balmy lips that meet the kiss,

Nor thoughts half-utter'd, half repress'd.

To toil, and stripes, and misery bred, The female droops beneath her doom; Untimely hoar-frosts strew her head,

And wrinkles mark her withered bloom;

For the bright smile of Albion's fair,
Her cheeks untimely labours plough;
For polish'd limbs and auburn hair,

The toil-worn arm, and hollow brow;

Her's the dead eye, that fix'd awhile
Glares the dull mirror of the mind,

Or brightens to an idiot smile,

For loathing more than love design'd;

By her the soothing arts untried
That bind affliction's bleeding wound;
To her the heav'nly voice denied

That gives a sentiment to sound:

For music's breath and sounds of glee,
Wild death-shrieks pierce the forest gloom;

Rude yells proclaim the dire decree

That seals in blood a captive's doom:

And dim and pale the night fire glows

Where long some tortur'd chief has bled,

Where ghastly heaps of mangled foes
Are pil'd-the living with the dead:

The weak with supplicating eye

In vain for shelter sue the strong;

Age wrings her hands in agony,

And dies dishonour'd by the young.

Weak men, what ills our peace annoy!
Self-baffled hopes, self-usher'd fears;
How drain'd the sources of our joy!

How full the fountains of our tears!

SONG.

How light was the yoke, and how sweet the employ,
When to Mary's caprice I submitted a slave;
But I knew not the pleasure, nor courted the joy,
Till Mary in anger my liberty gave.

My limbs were unfetter'd, my hands were unbound,
From her servitude then I had leave to depart;
But where is the freedom I hoped to have found,
If a fetter more galling encircle my heart?

To a service so blissful, oh bid me return;

Return (and, dear Mary, release me no more!) To each fear, every care, every tender concern, And each gentle rebuke that endeared it before.

For who that a captive had yielded to thee,

Of that sweet enthraldom could ever complain? Or who could in freedom enjoy to be free,

Who had bowed to thy yoke, and remembered thy chain?

K