316 ST. CATHERINE'S HILL. 



The clays have passed when an author could minutely record all 

 the events of a marriage, and take space to describe his heroine's 

 dress on the occasion ; he can now only remark that at the dwelling 

 of this amiable pair he passed two days, during a too brief sojourn 

 in St. Vincent ; and if they did -not consider their choice happy, and 

 had no reason to bless their situation, they must have been extra- 

 ordinary hypocrites. 



Mustapha had lodged the treasure belonging to his mistress with 

 a respectable merchant in Kingston the first day of the eruption of the 

 souflfriere ; he is now on the verge of extreme old age, but he enjoys 

 good health, and is always with Rosetta's children, telling them 

 stories of the war and the bursting of the souffriere ; but none of his 

 tales he relates with such delight as that in which he gives the 

 account of how he saved their mother from the Black Caribs. 



ST. CATHERINE'S HILL. 



TIME wears a few fast fleeting hours remain 

 Before I launch on life's tempestuous main, 

 That dangerous tide by darkling clouds o'ercast, 

 Which leave each hour uncertain but the last. 

 But yet before that dark abyss I try, 

 And spread my sail beneath an unknown sky ; 

 Here let me pause, with feelings ill denned, 

 And breathe one last farewell.to all I leave behind. 



Thou grassy steep, that rear'st thy fir-crown' d head, 

 The towering monarch of the peaceful mead, 

 While yet I view thy summit known so well, 

 Receive a son of Wykeham's last farewell. 

 Yes, I have loved upon thy dizzy brow 

 To gaze upon thy fair domain below, 

 Thy meadows water'd by a thousand rills, 

 Yon barren amphitheatre of hills, 

 Till my glad eye exulting wide to roam, 

 Sought far beyond them all my island home. 

 Then while thy sister mountain met my gaze, 

 Half seen, half melting in the distant haze, 

 Each well known spot my fancy would explore, 

 Thread the deep woodland, climb the rocky shore, 

 Or tread, if summer blazed with scorching beam, 

 The moss, that fringed Medina's infant stream. 



Farewell, perchance these feet no more shall tread, 

 In all the joy of youth, thy grassy head, 

 No more survey thy vale in all its charms, 

 Peaceful as infant in its mother's arms ; 

 Yet long on thee the mind shall love to dwell, 

 Still view each sunny hill, each shelter'd dell ; 

 And though I see, on fortune's billows tost, 

 My hopes all shipwreck'd, all my prospects lost, 

 Yet still to thee my heart shall fondly turn, 

 Feel joys forgotten in its bosom burn, 

 Retrace its boyhood, taste the wish'd repose, 

 And, in the peace of youth, forget its manhood's woes. 

 Winchester College, 1821. R. C. S. 



