Mute, memory stands, at valor’s awful shrine,
  In tears Britannia mourns her hero dead;
A world’s regret, brave Abercrombie’s thine. 
  For nature sorrow’d as thy spirit fled!

For, not the tear that matchless courage claims
  To honest zeal, and soft compassion due,
Alone is thine—­o’er thy ador’d remains
  Each virtue weeps, for all once liv’d in you.

Yes, on thy deeds exulting I could dwell,
  To speak the merits of thy honor’d name;
But, ah! what need my humble muse to tell,
  When rapture’s self has echo’d forth thy fame?

Yet, still thy name its energies shall deal,
  When wild-storms gather round thy country’s sun;
Her glowing youth shall grasp the gleamy steel,
  Rank’d round the glorious wreaths which thou hast won!

TO ..........

In vain, sweet Maid! for me you bring
The first-blown blossoms of the spring;
My tearful cheek you wipe in vain,
And bid its pale rose bloom again.

In vain! unconscious, did I say? 
Oh! you alone these tears can stay: 
Alone, the pale rose can renew,
Whose sunshine is a smile for you.

Yet not in friendship’s smile it lives;
Too cold the gifts that friendship gives: 
The beam that warms a winter’s day,
Plays coldly in the lap of may.

You bid my sad heart cease to swell;
But will you, if its tale I tell,
Nor turn away, nor frown the while,
But smile, as you were wont to smile?

Then bring me not the blossoms young,
That erst on Flora’s forehead hung;
But round thy radiant temples twine,
The flowers whose flaunting mocks at mine.

Give me—­nor pinks, nor pansies gay,
Nor violets, fading fast away,
Nor myrtle, rue, nor rosemary,
But give, oh give, thyself to me!

SONNET.

TO MELANCHOLY.

To thy unhappy courts a lonely guest
  I come, corroding Melancholy, where,
Sequester’d from the world, this woe-worn breast
  May yet indulge a solitary tear! 
For what should cheer the wretch’s struggling heart;
  What lead him thro’ misfortunes gloomy shades;
When retrospection wings her keenest dart,
  And hope’s dim land in misery’s ocean fades? 
Adieu, for ever! visionary joys,
  Delusive shadows of a short-liv’d hour;
The rod of woe invincible, destroys
  The light, the fairy fabric of your pow’r! 
How short of bliss the sublunary reign,
How long the clouded days of misery and pain!

PROMETHEUS.

What sov’reign good shall satiate man’s desires,
Propell’d by hope’s unconquerable fires? 
Vain, each bright bauble by ambition priz’d;
Unwon, ’tis worshipp’d—­but possess’d, despis’d: 
Yet, all defect with virtue shines allied,
His mightiest impulse, Genius owes to pride;
From conquer’d science grac’d with glorious spoils,
He still dares on, demands sublimer toils,
And, had not nature check’d his vent’rous wing,
His eye had pierc’d her at her primal spring.