not my crimes thou com'st here to reprove;
No murders stain my soul, no perjur'd love:
If thou'rt indeed what here thou seem'st to be,
Thy dreadful mission cannot reach to me.
By parents taught still to mistrust mine eyes,
Still to approach each object of surprise,
Lest fancy's formful vision should deceive
In moonlight paths, or glooms of falling eve,
'Tis then's the moment when my mind should try
To scan the motionless deformity;
But oh, the fearful task!--yet well I know
An aged ash, with many a spreading bough,
(Beneath whose leaves I've found a summer's bow'r,
Beneath whose trunk I've weather'd many a show'r)
Stands singly down this solitary way,
But far beyond where now my footsteps stay.
'Tis true, thus far I've come with heedless haste;
No reck'ning kept, no passing objects trac'd:
And can I then have reach'd that very tree?
Or is its rev'rend form assum'd by thee?"
The happy thought alleviates his pain;
He creeps another step; then stops again;
Till slowly as his noiseless feet drew near,
Its perfect lineaments at once appear;
Its crown of shiv'ring ivy whispering peace,
And its white bark that fronts the moon's pale face.
Now, while his blood mounts upward, now he knows
The solid gain that from conviction flows;
And strengthen'd confidence shall hence fulfil
(With conscious innocence, more valued still)
The dreariest task that winter nights can bring,
By church-yard dark, or grove, or fairy ring;
Still buoying up the timid mind of youth,
Till loit'ring reason hoists the scale of truth.
With those blest guardians, Giles his course pursues,
Till numbering his heavy-sided ewes,
Surrounding stilness tranquillize his breast,
And shape the dreams that wait his hours of rest.

BLOOMFIELD'S _Farmer's Boy_.

A

MAN WITH HIS HEAD ON FIRE,

AND COVERED WITH BLOOD.

The following singular adventure is related by a military captain.

"I was coming home one night on horseback, from a visit I had been
making to a number of the neighbouring villages, where I had quartered
my recruits. It happened there had fallen a deal of rain that day, since
noon, and during all the evening, which had broken up the roads, and it
was raining still with equal violence; but, being forced to join my
company next morning, I set out, provid