To A LADY, WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING GLASSES. FAIR Empress of the Poet's soul, And Queen of Poetesses; Clarinda, take this little boon, This humble pair of glasses. And fill them high with generous juice, And pledge me in the generous toast- "To those who love us!"-second fill; Lest we love those who love not us! MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. TRAGIC FRAGMENT. In my early years nothing less would serve me than courting the tragic Muse.—I was, I think, about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the outlines of a tragedy forsooth; but the bursting of a cloud of family misfortunes, which had for some time threatened us, prevented my farther progress. In those days I never wrote down any thing; so, except a speech or two, the whole has escaped my memory.-The following, which I most distinctly remember, was an exclamation from a great character:great in occasional instances of generosity, and daring at times in villanies. He is supposed to meet with a child of misery, and exclaims to himself "All devil as I am, a damned wretch, "A harden'd, stubborn, unrepenting villain, "Still my heart melts at human wretchedness; "And with sincere tho' unavailing sighs, "I view the helpless children of distress. "With tears indignant I behold th' oppressor 66 Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, "Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. “Even you, ye helpless crew, I pity you; "Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity: "Ye poor, despis'd, abandon'd vagabonds, "Whom vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin. -"O, but for kind, tho' ill-requited friends, "I had been driven forth like you forlorn, "The most detested, worthless wretch among you!" THE VOWELS-A Tale. "TWAS where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd, The noisy domicile of pedant pride; Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws, His awful chair of state resolves to mount, First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, But, ah! deform'd, dishonest to the sight! His twisted head look'd backward on his way, And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai! Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race The justling tears ran down his honest face! That name, that well-worn name, and all his own, Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne! The wailing minstrel of despairing woe; The The following sketch seems to be one of a Series intended for a projected work, under the title of "The Poet's Progress." This character was sent as a specimen, accompanied by a letter to Professor Dugald Stewart, in which it is thus noticed. "The fragment beginning "A little, upright, pert, tart, &c. I have not shewn to any man living, till I now send it to you. It forms "the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, "which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety "of lights. This particular part I send you merely as 66 a sample of my hand at portrait sketching." SKETCH. A LITTLE, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, A man of fashion too, he made his tour, Still making work his selfish craft must mend. |