DEAR is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there;

Close by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.

The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,

And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange-groves and myrtle-bowers, That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours.

With my lov'd lute's romantic sound;

Or crowns of living laurel weave,

For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,

The ballet danc'd in twilight glade,

The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent green-wood shade;

These simple joys, that never fail,

Shall bind me to my native vale.

TO THE

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER

OF

LADY

АH! why with tell-tale tongue reveal *

What most her blushes would conceal?

Why lift that modest veil to trace

The seraph-sweetness of her face?

Some fairer, better sport prefer;

And feel for us, if not for her.

For this presumption, soon or late,

Know, thine shall be a kindred fate.

* Alluding to some verses which she had written on an elder sister.

IMITATED

FROM A

GREEK EPIGRAM.

WHILE on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,

See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.

Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare, And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.

On thee, blest youth, a father's hand confers

The maid thy earliest, fondest wishes knew.
Each soft enchantment of the soul is hers;

Thine be the joys to firm attachment due.