DUNOON.

See the glow worm lits her fairy lamp,
From a beam of the rising moon;
On the heathy shore at evening fall,

"Twixt Holy-Loch and dark Dunoon; Her fairy lamp's pale silvery glare,

From the dew-clad, moorland flower,
Invite my wandering footsteps there,
At the lonely twilight hour.

When the distant beacon's revolving light
Bids my lone steps seek the shore,

There the rush of the flow-tide's rippling wave
Meets the dash of the fisher's oar;

And the dim-seen steam-boat's hollow sound,
As she sea-ward tracks her
way;
All else are asleep in the still calm night,
And robed in the misty gray.

When the glow-worm lits her elfin lamp,
And the night breeze sweeps the hill,
It's sweet, on thy rock-bound shores, Dunoon,
To wander at fancy's will.

Eliza! with thee, in this solitude,

Life's cares would pass away,
Like the fleecy clouds over gray Kilmun,
At the wake of early day.

SONNET.

TO MRS UNWIN.

Thomas Lyle.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew,
An eloquence not given to mortals, new,

And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verses musical, as thou art true,-
Verse that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book,

By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look,

A chronicle of actions just and bright; There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary ! shine, And since thou own'st that praise-I spare thee mine.

Cowper.

LINES,

ON THE DEATH OF A FAVOURITE CHILD.

When, years of pain and peril past,
Man sinks into mature decay,
And like a waning lamp at last
Exhausted nature dies away;—

Friends will lament the severed tie,
The strong links of affection riven;
Yet resignation lends a sigh

To waft the parted soul to heaven.

But when disease untimely sends
The prattler from the parent's knee,

And on the bed of death extends

The child of happiest augury:

Then close the clouds of gloomy night
O'er bright anticipation's sky,
And love and blasted hopes unite
To steep the soul in
agony.

2

Such, innocent of heart! wert thou,
Sweet Catherine, such thy early doom,
And so thy weeping parents bow
In sad bereavement o'er thy tomb.

Still ring thy accents on the ear,
Still beams thy smile upon the eye:
And retrospection's bitter tear

Flows from the font of memory.

Yet why should floods of sorrow flow

That thou, sweet little one, wert given To win the affections here below,

And bear them with thee back to heaven!

Religion tells us we shall meet

In regions of eternal day,

And mingle in communion sweet

When mortal things are past away.

And still forgotten while they go,
As on the sea-beach wave on wave
Dissolves at once in snow.
Upon the blue and silent sky
The amber clouds one moment lie,
And like a dream are gone!

Though beautiful the moon-beams play
On the lake's bosom bright as they,
And the soul intensely loves their stay,
Soon as the radiance melts away
We scarce believe it shone !
Heaven-airs amid the harp-strings dwell,
And we wish they ne'er may fade-

They cease and the soul is a silent cell,

Where music never played.

Dream follows dream through the long night-hours,

Each lovelier than the last

But ere the breath of morning-flowers,

That gorgeous world flies past.

And

many a sweet angelic cheek,

Whose smiles of love and kindness speak,

Glides by us on this earth

While in a day we cannot tell

Where shone the face we loved so well,

In sadness or in mirth.