WHEN maidens such as Hester die A month or more hath she been dead, To think upon the wormy bed A springy motion in her gait, I know not by what name beside She did inherit. Her parents held the Quaker rule, A waking eye, a prying mind, My sprightly neighbour! gone before When from thy cheerful eyes a ray 426 ON AN INFANT DYING AS SOON AS BORN I SAW where in the shroud did lurk A curious frame of Nature's work; Extinct, with scarce the sense of dying: She did but ope an eye, and put A clear beam forth, then straight up shut Riddle of destiny, who can show What thy short visit meant, or know What thy errand here below? Shall we say, that Nature blind Check'd her hand, and changed her mind. Just when she had exactly wrought Or lack'd she the Promethean fire (With her nine moons' long workings sicken'd) Woman's self in miniature! And cut the branch; to save the shock The economy of Heaven is dark, And wisest clerks have miss'd the mark That has his day; while shrivell'd crones Music framed for infants' glee, Whistle never tuned for thee; Though thou want'st not, thou shalt have them, See them laid upon the hearse Of infant slain by doom perverse. 427 SIR WALTER SCOTT THE OUTLAW O BRIGNALL banks are wild and fair, Would grace a summer-queen. And as I rode by Dalton-Hall A Maiden on the castle-wall 'O Brignall Banks are fresh and fair, 'If, Maiden, thou wouldst wend with me, Then to the greenwood shalt thou speed I'd rather rove with Edmund there 'I read you, by your bugle-horn His blast is heard at merry morn, I would I were with Edmund there 'With burnish'd brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon But when the beetle sounds his hum Yet mickle must the maiden dare 'Maiden! a nameless life I lead, The fiend whose lantern lights the mead And when I'm with my comrades met Chorus 'Yet Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And you may gather garlands there 428 TO A LOCK OF HAIR THY hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright Since then how often hast thou prest A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean, Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure, What conquest o'er each erring thought |