BEATRICE.

SHE Couches in the pleached bower
Which tasselling honeysuckles deck ;
Peers out and pants with parted lips,

Nor heeds that o'er her ivory neck
Boon Nature's hand admiring pours
Her richest scents and newest flowers.

Young Beatrice, ne'er were Nature's sweets
Before for thee so vainly flung ;

How thou dost drink! Lips, eyes, and ears
Suck in the words thy cousin's tongue
Thus scatters, as the fowler grain
Some sweet wild bird from heaven to train.

I love to see fair woman shoot

Her shafts of gay and gladsome wit;

I smile, and 'tis no bitter smile,
And cry, a hit, a pleasant hit.

E'en let her tongue's sarcastic measure

Mete me full length, if such her pleasure.

A lance ill headed; a foul blot;
An agate vilely cut; a vane
Blown round by every blast.

Go on,

Gay Beatrice, give thy fancy rein; In all thy proud sarcastic glory Descend. Need I repeat the story

Which Shakspeare tells and Howard paints?
See there she listens, breast and brow
Throbbing and flushed-the blind might see
The serpent that hath stung her now.
Flowed off, her wits o'ermastering mood,
That swept men's follies like a flood.

Love on that sharp satiric tongue

Hath laid his load; no more it sins
'Gainst man-what merry fish could swim,
Hooked thus with lead upon its fins.
Farewell. An image fair thou art,

Of a keen wit and kindly heart.

N. M.

SONG.

BY THOMAS PRINGLE, ESQ.

OH! not when hopes are brightest,
Is all love's sweet enchantment known;
Oh! not when hearts are lightest,

Is all fond woman's fervour shown:

But when life's clouds o'ertake us,

And the cold world is clothed in gloom;

When summer friends forsake us,

The rose of love is best in bloom.

Love is no wandering vapour,

That lures astray with treacherous spark ;

Love is no transient taper,

That lives an hour and leaves us dark :

But, like the lamp that lightens

The Greenland hut beneath the snow,

The bosom's home it brightens,

When all beside is chill below.