NATIVE SCENES.

O NATIVE Scenes, for ever, ever dear!

So blest, so happy as I here have been,
So charm'd with nature in each varied scene,

To leave you all is cutting and severe.

Ye hawthorn bushes that from winds would

screen,

Where oft I've shelter'd from a threaten'd shower; In youth's past bliss, in childhood's happy hour,

Ye woods I've wandered, seeking out the nest; Ye meadows gay that rear'd me many a flower,

Where, pulling cowslips, I've been doubly blest, Humming gay fancies as I pluck'd the prize :

Oh, fate unkind! beloved scenes, adieu!

Your vanish'd pleasures crowd my swimming eyes, And make the wounded heart to bleed anew.

TO A FAVOURITE TREE.

OLD, favourite Tree! art thou too fled the scene?
Could not thy 'clining age the axe delay,
And let thee stretch thy shadows o'er the green,
And let thee die in picturesque decay?

What hadst thou done to meet a tyrant's frown?
Small value was the ground on which thou stood;
But gain's rude rage it was that cut thee down,
And dragg'd thee captive from thy native wood.

So

gay in summer as thy boughs were dress'd,

So soft, so cool, as then thy leaves did wave; I knew thee then, and knowing am distress'd:

And like as Friendship leaning o'er the grave, Loving ye all, ye trees, ye bushes, dear,

I wander where you stood, and shed my bosom-tear.

APPROACH OF SPRING.

SWEET are the omens of approaching Spring, When gay the elder sprouts her winged leaves; When tootling robins carol-welcomes sing,

And sparrows chelp glad tidings from the eaves. What lovely prospects wait each wakening hour, When each new day some novelty displays;

How sweet the sun-beam melts the crocus flower,

Whose borrow'd pride shines dizen'd in his rays: Sweet, new-laid hedges flush their tender greens ; Sweet peep the arum-leaves their shelter screens;

Ah! sweet are all which I'm denied to share:

Want's painful hindrance sticks me to her stall;—

But still Hope's smiles unpoint the thorns of Care, Since Heaven's eternal Spring is free for all.

SUMMER.

THE Oak's slow-opening leaf, of deepening hue,
Bespeaks the power of Summer once again;
While many a flower unfolds its charms to view,
To glad the entrance of his sultry reign.
Where peep the gaping, speckled cuckoo-flowers,
Sweet is each rural scene she brings to pass;
Prizes to rambling school-boys' vacant hours,
Tracking wild searches through the meadow grass:
The meadow-sweet taunts high its showy wreath,
And sweet the quaking grasses hide beneath.
Ah, 'barr'd from all that sweetens life below,
Another Summer still my eyes can see

Freed from this scorn and pilgrimage of woe,
To share the Seasons of Eternity.

THE RIVER GWASH.

WHERE winding Gwash whirls round its wildest

scene,

On this romantic bend I sit me down;

On that side view the meadow's smoothing green, Edg'd with the peeping hamlet's checquering brown;

Here the steep bank, as dropping headlong down;
While glides the stream a silver streak between,
As glide the shaded clouds along the sky,
Bright'ning and deep'ning, losing as they're seen,
In light and shade: to where old willows lean,

Thus their broad shadow runs the river by,
With tree and bush replete, a wilder'd scene,
And moss and ivy speckling on my eye.
Oh, thus while musing wild, I'm doubly blest,
My woes unheeding, and my heart at rest.