Full many a melancholy night
He watch'd the slow return of light;

And sought the powers of sleep
To spread a momentary calm

O'er his sad couch, and in the balm Of bland oblivion's dews his burning eyes to steep.

Full oft, unknowing and unknown,
He wore his endless noons alone,

Amid the autumnal wood :
Oft was he wont, in hasty fit,
Abrupt the social board to quit,

with eager glance upon the tumbling flood.

And gaze

Beckoning the wretch' to torments new,
Despair, for ever in his view,

A spectre pale, appear'd;
While, as the shades of eve arose,

And brought the day's unwelcome close,
More horrible and huge her giant-shape she rear'd.

• Is this, (mistaken Scorn will cry) Is this the youth whose genius high

Could build the genuine rhyme;
Whose bosom mild the favouring Muse

Had stored with all her ample views,
Parent of fairest deeds, and purposes sublime?'

Ah ! from the Muse that bosom mild
By treacherous magic was beguiled,

To strike the deathful blow :
She fill’d his soft ingenuous mind

With many a feeling too refined, And roused to livelier pangs his wakeful sense of woe.

Though doom'd hard penury to prove,
And the sharp stings of hopeless love,

To griefs congenial prone;
More wounds than nature gave he knew,

While Misery's form his fancy drew
"In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own.

Then wish not o'er his earthy tomb
The baleful nightshade's lurid bloom

To drop its deadly dew :
Nor O! forbid the twisted thorn

That rudely binds his turf forlorn,
With Spring's green-swelling buds to vegetate anew.

What though no marble-piled bust
Adorn his desolated dust,

With speaking sculpture wrought?
Pity shall woo the weeping Nine,
To build a visionary shrine,

[brought. Hung with unfading flowers, from fairy regions

What though refused each chanted rite ?
Here viewless mourners shall delight

To touch the shadowy shell :
And Petrarch's harp, that wept the doom

Of Laura, lost in early bloom,
In many a pensive pause shall seem to ring his knell.

To soothe a lone, unhallow'd shade,
This votive dirge sad duty paid,

Within an ivied nook .
Sudden the half-sunk orb of day

More radiant shot its parting ray,
And thus a cherub-voice my charm'd attention took :

Forbear, fond bard, thy partial praise ;
Nor thus for guilt in specious lays

The wreath of glory twine:
In vain with hues of gorgeous glow
Gay Fancy gives her vest to flow,

[fine. Unless Truth's matron-hand the floating folds con

• Just Heaven, man's fortitude to prove,
Permits through life at large to rove

The tribes of hell-born Woe:
Yet the same Power that wisely sends

Life's fiercest ills, indulgent lends
Religion's golden shield to break the embattled foe.

Her aid divine had lullid to rest
Yon foul self-murderer's throbbing breast,

And stay'd the rising storm ;
Had bade the sun of Hope appear

To gild his darken’d hemisphere, And give the wonted bloom to Nature's blasted form.

“Vain man ! 'tis Heaven's prerogative
To take, what first it deign'd to give,

Thy tributary breath :
In awful expectation placed,

Await thy doom, nor impious haste
To pluck from God's right hand his instruments of

THE CRUSADE.

BOUND for holy Palestine,
Nimbly we brush'd the level brine,
All in azure steel array'd;
O’er the wave our weapons play'd,
And made the dancing billows glow;
High upon the trophied prow,
Many a warrior-minstrel swung
His sounding harp, and boldly sung :

• Syrian virgins, wail and weep,
English Richard ploughs the deep !
Tremble, watchmep, as ye spy
From distant towers, with anxious eye,
The radiant range of shield and lance
Down Damascus' hills advance :
From Sion's turrets as afar
Ye ken the march of Europe's war !
Saladin, thou paynim king,
From Albion's isle revenge we bring !
On Acon's spiry citadel
Though to the gale thy banners swell,
Pictured with the silver moon,
England shall end thy glory soon!
In vain, to break our firm array,
Thy brazen drums hoarse discord bray:
Those sounds our rising fury fan :
English Richard in the van,
On to victory we go,
A vaunting infidel the foe.'

Blondel led the tuneful band,
And swept the wire with glowing band.
Cyprus, from her rocky mound,
And Crete, with piny verdure crown'd,
Far along the smiling main
Echoed the prophetic strain.

Soon we kiss'd the sacred earth
That gave a murder'd Saviour birth;
Then, with ardour fresh endued,
Thus the solemn song renew'd:

Lo, the toilsome voyage past, Heaven's favour'd hills appear at last ! Object of our holy vow, We tread the Tyrian valleys now. From Carmel's almond-shaded steep We feel the cheering fragrance creep : O'er Engaddi's shrubs of balm Waves the date-empurpled palm . See Lebanon's aspiring head Wide his immortal umbrage spread ! Hail, Calvary, thou mountain hoar, Wet with our Redeemer's gore ! Ye trampled tombs, ye faves forlorn; Ye stones, by tears of pilgrims worn; Your ravish'd honours to restore, Fearless we climb this hostile shore ! And thou, the sepulchre of God! By mocking pagans rudely trod, Bereft of every awful rite, And quench'd thy lamps that beam'd so bright; For from Britain's distant coast, Lo, Richard leads his faithful host !