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SONNET.

WHILST in those eyes of mildest light,
A sadness sweet and strange I see ;
I sometimes think, when I am sad,
They look with kindness upon me.

Say, my sweet Susan dost thou love
(For much of grief thou sure hast known)
To mark on care's dejected brow,
The trace of sorrows like thy own?

Or does thy heart, when a hard world
No pity to its wounds would lend,
Like a poor stranger anxious turn,
To meet the kind looks of a friend?

Perhaps thou think'st a stricken heart,
To many a kindred care inclin'd,
With all thy griefs would sympathize,
To all thy weakness would be kind?

Yes, my sweet love-by hopes most dear, I swear (and heaven my witness be!) This heart, that wants a friend itself,

Should bleed to purchase peace for thee.

When thought sat sadly on thy brow,
The secret cause I would not seek ;
But trembling kiss the falling tear,
And press thy hand, but never speak.

And if thy friends should prove unkind,
And if hard foes thy soul oppress'd;
On my poor heart thou should'st recline,
And rest thy head upon my breast.

Nor be the pleasing hope in vain,

That scenes like these of joy pourtrays;
And forms for thee, in prospect clear,
The fairest views of happier days.

Again the bright returning sun,

The op'ning landscape shall illume; And the lorn flower, that seems to droop, Shall all its wonted sweets resume.

Thy heart, when all its cares are past,
Shall every long-lost joy regain;
But mine, alas! that pitied thine,

I fear will never rest again.

Anonymous.

MARY.

WHEN first those beauties met my sight,
Which shine so bright in you,

And seem'd to promise me delight,

I thought that promise true,

Kind were your looks, if e'er I gaz'd,

Or caught a transient view;

Mary

Warm'd by your smiles, those hopes were rais'd

On which my passion grew,

While thus my thoughts deluded rov'd,

No other joys I knew;

Whate'er I priz'd, whate'er I lov'd,

Was center'd all in you,

But now you treat with cold disdain

Mary!

Mary!

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Though for no other I can prove,
What once I felt for you;

"Tis hard to lose the joys of love,
And not its anguish too,

Mary!

Though all those hopes my heart forsake,
Which from your smiles. it drew;

Yet shall that heart in silence break,

'And, breaking, pant for you,.

Mary!

General Evening Post.

INSCRIBED

On the Wall of a Summer-house.

YE wild waving woods, that now closing your shade,
Now wantonly parting, disport with the beam;
Thou river, whose current refreshes the mead,
And you, ye rude ruins, that shadow his stream.

Ye flocks, that hang white on the side of yon hill;. Ye herds who, beneath, crop the grass of the vale, Ye that chirp in the hedge, or skim light on the rill, Or fluttering, give your gay wing to the gale.

Sweet inspirers of thought! and thou sweetest, thou dove,
Whose silver plumes shine thro' the boughs of the tree,
Escap'd from the cage and away from thy love,
All silent and sad, a companion to me!

Ah why, as I gaze on the landscape around,
Why suddenly starts the fond tear to my eye?
Tho' smiling each object, and cheerful each sound,
Why steals from my bosom the sorrowing sigh?

Enchant the fair scenes, 'till enraptur'd I find
That sweetest oblivion the muses bestow,

Till the sun-shine that gilds you shall brighten my mind,
And my fancy forget that my heart has a woe!

So free may you flourish, fair scenes as ye rise,
So still be your charms by simplicity grac'd,
In native luxuriance still please and surprize,
Nor by folly be fashion'd, nor tortur'd by taste.

So when the glad seasons their blessings shall yield,
And Ceres enrich you, and Flora adorn,

May the labourer's laugh echo loud in the field,
And the breeze whisper soft thro' the mellowing corn.

And so, when the ev'ning's mild glories decline,
And fade from the sky the last blushes of light,
Unsullied and cloudless may Cynthia shine,
Ere yet you are hid by the envious night.

And whilst her fair form glitters bright in the flood, And sheds on its bosom a tremulous ray,

Tips the top of the hill, gilds the gloom of the wood, And softens each beauty that glar'd in the day.

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