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SUBJECT OF THE PLATE.

FROM LORD BYRON'S TRAGEDY-" MANFRED."

SPIRIT. Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service;

Bethink thee, is there then no other gift

Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes.

MANFRED, No, none: yet stay-one moment ere we part

I would behold ye face to face. I hear
Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds,
As music on the waters; and I see

The steady aspect of a clear large star;

But nothing more. Approach me as ye are,
Or one, or all, in your accustomed forms.

SPIRIT. We have no forms beyond the elements
Of which we are the mind and principle:

But choose a form-in that we will appear.

MANFRED. I have no choice; there is no form on earth

Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him,

Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect
As unto him may seem most fitting.-Come!
SEVENTH SPIRIT. (Appearing in the shape of a
beautiful female figure.) Behold!

MANFRED. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou

Art not a madness and a mockery,

I yet might be most happy.-I will clasp thee,

And we again will be

My heart is crushed!

(The figure vanishes.) (MANFRED falls senseless.) Act I. Scene 1.

TO THE SHADE OF ***

REPROACH me not, beloved shade,
Nor think thy memory less I prize:
The smile which o'er my features played,
But hid my pangs from vulgar eyes.
I acted like the worldling boy,

With heart to every feeling vain:
I smiled with all, yet felt no joy-

I wept with all, yet felt no pain.
No, though to veil my thoughts of gloom
I seem to twine joy's rosy wreath:
'Twas but as flowerets o'er a tomb,
Which only hide the woe beneath.
I lose no portion of my woes,

Although my tears in secret flow-
More green and fresh the verdure grows,
Where the cold streams run hid below.

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DEAD! nay, Eliza is but gone
To better worlds on high;

Gone far above yon dazzling glorious sun-
Gone to enjoy, above yon spangled sky,

A boundless inconceivable felicity.

In that bright mansion blest,

Supremely happy there,

Thou shalt enjoy a never-ending rest,

Far from each earthly hope, each earthly fear, And smile while mortals struggle with our evils here.

Now fell disease, now heat and cold,

Must take their leave of thee,

For ever, though reluctant, loose their hold

Whilst thou, sweet child, enraptured, there shalt see

The dread Eternal, clothed in all his majesty!

PETER.

SONG.

LET Love's enthusiasts wake the lyre,
And sing of racks, and chains, and woe;
Or die, like martyrs girt with fire,

With one sweet, sad, romantic throe!
To nature's rural shrine I fly,

Where roses blush adown the vale,
And give-unseen by mortal eye-
My harp's wild music to the gale!
What varied beauties fill the glade!
What balmy treasures load the breeze!
What blendings rich of light and shade
The eye on distant foliage sees!
The glittering rivulet that flows
Through fields of undulating grass,
Myriads of sparkles gayly throws,

And gleams like "molten looking glass."
Hush-hush my harp!-more tuneful skill
Than plays thy warbling wires among-
While nature's charms with rapture thrill-
Must weave those charms in magic song.
While Thomson's wizard tones are felt
With unmix'd pathos through the globe,
Thy simple harmonies must melt,

Like zephyr's sighs on nature's robe.

August 10, 1818.

C* **

SYMPATHY.

THE wretch, whom some proud tyrant's doom Has buried in a dungeon's gloom, Where a few glimmering rays of light Scarcely distinguish day from night, If, through his grate, a brighter beam Should for a moment chance to gleam, Will raise his drooping head and smile, And half forget his woes the while; So sorrow lifts her languid eye, To meet the look of sympathy. Bristol.

JACOB PLAYER.

TO ELIZA.

ELIZA pluck'd a budding rose,
Where lay a slumbering sylph at rest,
Who stirred not from his soft repose,
"Till placed upon her suowy breast:
But who could long lie slumbering there?
Did bee e'er sleep on banks of roses?
It is a place more sweet, more fair,

On which this happy sylph reposes.
Aroused, he trembling looks, to see
Whence such excess of bliss could be.
Awhile in wonder gazed the sprite

On fair Eliza's beauteous face:
And then he viewed, with wild delight,
His rose-bed's luscious resting place.
Long basking in her beauty's ray,
He felt in truth a world of bliss,
Hoped he for ever there might stay-
Alas! how vain a hope was this!
Eliza bent to kiss the flower,

The wanton then, with strange alarms,
Took shelter in his rose-form'd bower,

To shield him from her matchless charms!

Her ruby lips approached his bed,

Ambrosial sweets distilling,

Upon a sweet more sweets she shed,
Each leaf with fragrance filling,
A moment charmed he trembling lay---
'Twas extacy too vast to bear!—
The embowering leaves he dash'd away,
Which shower'd on her breast so fair,
Whilst he regretting fled in air.

Eliza thought the breeze that past
Had done the mischief that she wept-

Yes, many a pearly tear she cast,

As from her heaving breast she swept The blushing leaves, whose deepened die Their sense of such a joy betrayed! Oh! let me for a moment lie

In Heaven-upon thy breast, sweet maid!

Plymouth, August 13, 1818.

ROBERT.

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