THE SHEPHERD AND ECHO.

Dixerat, hic quis adest? Et adest, responderat echo.
Inde latet silvis, nulloque in monte videtur.-Ovid.

Young echo lived within a rock,

Alone, and far from human dwelling; Where torrents wild the stillness broke,

All silence from the glens dispelling.

Her wild and never-ceasing wail,

Resounding steep, and greenwood over, Drew a shepherd from the vale,

Whose sighings told, he was a lover.

He sought her long through glen and dale,

Aye she answer'd to his calling, But never came; the rustling gale

Drown'd her sighs in the water's falling.

She must be fair—for her voice is sweet,

Sad—for its sounds are steep'd in sorrow: O maiden! leave this lone retreat,

And hie with me to the plains to-morrow.

But echo laugh'd till the welkin rung,

And flew on the breeze the greenwood over, While birds their sweetest warblings sung,

Where pleased and grieved, reclined the lover.

He sought the grotto, ranged the grove,

The sedgy brook, the winding alley; Then sighing, call’d again, “ My love!"

“My love!"-rung back along the valley.

Like pilgrim, to the vale again

His wandering footsteps onward bore him; Her voice came laughing through the glen,

Then died in breezy whispers o'er him.

'Tis a wild-goose chase!—I'll seek my home,

And woo a maid less coy-deceivingWhile echo answer'd, “Seek

my

home!" And left the lass-lorn shepherd grieving.

BOWERDALE.

Air.-" THE Young MAY Moon.”

The woodlark sang through fair Bowerdale,
His wild notes rang over wood and vale,

But Helen, the flower,

Left alone in the bower,
Where I parted from her, was cold and pale.
I woo'd her there, I had loved her long;
For her I had left the city's throng;

All the world behind,

I gave to the wind;
With Helen to live, and to love alone.

What sorrows were ours when fortune fled,
And hope's illusive dreams were dead;

Fond feelings that rush'd

Through my bosom, were crush'd
In their dawn, when ruin hung o'er my head-
My heart grew cold, though I feign’d to smile,
As she hung on my neck with endearing wile,

While the sad farewell

On my damp brow fell,
When I tore from my love and my native isle!

Through India's plains I roam'd afar,
And courted solace 'midst the strife of war:

Yet by night or by day,

Through danger's array,
She beam'd in my bosom hope's brightest star!
I return'd, and sought through fair Bowerdale
The friend of

my

love-but sorrow's wail
Rung wild through the woods,

O'er the dales and the floods;
For Helen, their angel, was cold and pale!

REMORSE.

Away! from the dread fascinations that flow'd,
Where the wine circled round, and the warm bosom glow'd,
With estrangement of feeling, I knew not its own,
So wildly it throbb’d, and more wild when alone:

THE FATE OF EVELINA.

237

I sought the deep grove, and the night's chilling breeze, Where the cottage of Jessy was seen through the trees; And vow'd soon as morning gave reason her reign, That I never would play the wild rover again.

I wander'd unconscious that love led me there,
Till I lean'd on the oak by the blooming parterre:
O night! thou art lovely when stars twinkle bright;
But the star of my hopes met my rapturous sight
As she knelt in devotion; her orisons rose
On the whispers of night, ere she sought her repose,
While her wanderer vow'd as he paced o'er the plain,
That he never would play the wild rover again.

THE FATE OF EVELINA.

The lava was rolling his burning flood

O'er the vineyards since day begun;
While the dense dark clouds threw a midnight veil

On the bright meridian sun!
Yon burning groves will light our way-

Evelina, fly!-thy loved cottage shun-
To a safe retreat, since the lamp of day
Is gone from our sight.

From ruin run-
Beloved Evelina, come!

The poison'd breeze-should its tainted breath

In our face blow the sulphurous air,
From the lava's tide—'twere instant death

To linger a moment there.
Where the palm and the olive lights the gloom,

And the hissing lava seeks its prey,
Vesuvius hath seal'd Resina’s doom,
My loved one fly! we dare not stay-

Beloved Evelina, come!

In vain the peasant besought his bride,

To flee from the mount to the plain;
But she rush'd through the burning olive grove,

Her loved cottage to regain:
When the lava closed, and the fire-shower fell,

And the earthquake shook the ground;
Still the peasant linger'd with frantic yell,
Calling loud through the ruins around,

Beloved Evelina, come!

The catastrophe narrated here, is presumed to have taken place during the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in June 1794, as described by Sir William Hamilton, in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. 73; after reading his remarks made while at Rosarno, and the ruined towns around it, especially the first sentence of the following:

“ The male dead were generally found under the ruins, in the attitude of struggling against the danger; but the female attitude was usually with hands clasped over their heads, as giving themselves up to despair, unless they had children near them. In which case, they were always found clasping the children in their arms, or in some attitude or other, which indicated their anxious care to protect them. A strong instance of the maternal tenderness of the sex.”