For the wretch sunk in sorrow, repentance, and shame,
  The tear of compassion is won: 
And alone, must she forfeit the wretch’s sad claim,
  Because she’s deceiv’d and undone?

Oh! recall the stern look ere it reaches her heart,
  To bid its wounds rankle anew,
Oh! smile, or embalm with a tear the sad smart,
  And angels will smile upon you.

Time was, when she knew nor opprobrium nor pain,
  And youth could its pleasures impart,
Till some serpent distill’d through her bosom the stain,
  As he wound round the strings of her heart.

Poor girl! let thy tears through thy blandishments break,
  Nor strive to restrain them within;
For mine would I mingle with those on thy cheek,
  Nor think that such sorrow were sin.

When the low-trampled reed, and the pine in its pride,
  Shall alike feel the hand of decay,
May your God grant that mercy the world has deny’d,
  And wipe all your sorrows away.

SONNET.

TO HOPE.

How droops the wretch whom adverse fates pursue,
  While sad experience, from his aching sight,
  Sweeps the fair prospects of unprov’d delight
Which flattering friends and flattering fancies drew. 
When want assails his solitary shed,
  When dire distraction’s horrent eye-ball glares,
  Seen ’mid the myriad of tumultuous cares
That shower their shafts on his devoted head. 
Then, ere despair usurp his vanquish’d heart,
  Is there a power, whose influence benign
  Can bid his head in pillow’d peace recline,
And from his breast withdraw the barbed dart? 
There is—­sweet Hope! misfortune rests on thee—­
Unswerving anchor of humanity!

THOUGHTS ON PEACE.

Still e’er that shrine defiance rears its head,
Which rolls in sullen murmurs o’er the dead,
That shrine which conquest, as it stems the flood. 
Too often tinges deep with human blood;
Still o’er the land stern devastation reigns,
Its giant mountains, and its spreading plains,
Where the dark pines, their heads all gloomy, wave,
Or rushing cataracts, loud-sounding, lave
The precipice, whose brow with awful pride
Tow’rs high above, and scorns the foaming tide;
The village sweet, the forest stretching far,
Groan undistinguish’d, ’midst the shock of war. 
There, the rack’d matron sees her son expire,
There, clasps the infant son his murder’d sire,
While the sad virgin on her lover’s face,
Weeps, with the last farewel, the last embrace,
And the lone widow too, with frenzied cries,
Amid the common wreck, unheeded dies. 
O Peace, bright Seraph, heaven-lov’d maid, return! 
And bid distracted nature cease to mourn! 
O, let the ensign drear of war be furl’d,
And pour thy blessings on a bleeding world;
Then social order shall again expand,
It’s sovereign good again shall bless the land,