Original poems on several subjects :: :: University of Virginia Library

Subject proposed—Invocation—Address to Dr Young—Winter represented making his final exit from nature—Spring delineated as a person— Her dress and ornaments described—The husbandman admonished to activity—What revolutions in the affairs of life attend the approach of Spring—Their diversity in some particulars specified —Conservatory—Vineyard—Angling— Hunting—Swallow's sagacity—Miser contrasted with the season—Dancing of shepherds and shepherdesses—Statesman introduced—View of the shepherd tending his flock—The industry and œconomy of the bees celebrated—Cautions to the fair sex—Advice in the choice of a husband—Contemplation, Genius, and Science inspired by the season —Early rising recommended—View of the olitory —Prospect of a painter drawing his landscapes —Ardelia characterised—Panegyric on virtue, as the enlarger of our faculties, the improver of our taste, and the only foundation of our happiness— Survey of the flower-garden—The poet exhibited —Fancy invoked—Comparison between Britain and other nations—Rural sports—Apostrophe to happiness—Orchard described—Address to Imagination —Encomium on independence—Love-scenes —Digression on Britain and liberty—Poets entreated to sing her victories—Evening scene— Sketch of night—Conclusion.—

BOOK I.

Spring is my theme, with her attendant throng,
That to the covert or the plain belong;
Earth's beauteous tracts that endless forms assume,
The sweets of Nature, and her various bloom;
The gentle sunshine, and soft trickling showers,
The whisp'ring gales, and downy-pinion'd hours,
That ever in their kindly flight display
Something creative of the poet's lay.
On such a theme, O for the Mantuan quill,
To paint with fancy, and correct with skill!
Come, meek-ey'd Genius of the Vernal Year,
Whatever gentle name delights thine ear,
Whether what mortals, or what angels use,
Propitious now be present with the Muse,

While she essays in artless strains to sing
The opening beauties of the new-born Spring .

Pardon the numbers, Young, that, lightly penn'd,
Would to the candour of thy ear pretend,
That candour which solicits still the charge,
To lessen faults, and beauties to enlarge;
Hence to derive what their deserts disclaim,
What sordid riches cannot purchase, fame.
To paint the florid landscape as it blooms,
Swells with fresh sweets, or with deep thickets glooms;
To trace, on raptur'd Fancy's airy wing,
The Progress of the youthful-featur'd Spring,
As boundless round her splendid eye she throws,
On earth and skies her living smile bestows;
This they attempt: O favour the design,
Then shall the Season with new lustre shine;
Then shall the winds in gentler whispers blow,
And limpid streams with softer cadence flow;
Each blossom breathe more rich effluvias round,
And Music charm with sweeter powers of sound:

If, in Life's closing scene of home-felt ease,
Aught can below the songs of angels please;
When but Religion boasts the power to charm,
And not even Death can in approach alarm;
When kings unenvy'd rule Earth's parted ball,
Eternity thy wish, thy hope, thy all.
Eternity!—dread, solemn, pleasing thought,
When Virtue's sons, to the last conflict brought,
Humble, though firm, expectants of the sky,
Like Young have liv'd, like Young have learn'd to die!

Now Winter, warn'd by the revolving sun,
His gloomy period of dominion run,
While a dark mist of vapours round him forms,
From every quarter gathers in his storms,
And locks up all his magazines of cold,
That late requir'd the mantle's thickest fold;
Then, while to follow all his blasts prepare,
O'er the uncultur'd heath, or mountain bare,
Speeds sullen to the North's congenial sky,
Where icy deserts meet his downcast eye;
Where barren tracts immense, to Spring unknown,
With all the depths of wildness overgrown;

Where frightful glooms, scarce visited by day,
Give his collected tempests dreadful play:
Hither, where chaos its first state asserts,
The rugged Tyrant frowningly departs;
But not before, in his reluctant flight,
From some huge promontory's snow-clad height,
He turns, and with indignant groan, as if!
A deluge thunder'd o'er some shatter'd cliff,
Beholds the Empress of the coming year,
Spring, in the chambers of the south appear.
From the bright prospect he averts his face
Invidious, and accelerates his pace.

She comes! the fairest daughter of the skies,
With countenance serene, and starry eyes,
Attended by the dazzling lord of day,
Advancing in his broad ecliptic way.
A camus green, not wove in mortal loom,
Of texture light, and scented with perfume,
In many a shining fold falls loose behind,
And swells, and waves, and wantons in the wind.
An emerald girdle, wrought in curious taste
With mystic figures, binds her slender waist.
Selected flowers, in beauteous order laid,
Encircling her smooth fragrant temples shade.

Down her slopt neck, white as unsullied snow,
In graceful wreaths her liberal tresses flow.
Dependent from her hand, of waxen hue,
A casket richly stor'd, she holds to view,
Where all those objects, various that partake
Of beauty, or in drapery or make,
To charm the studious thought, the pensive hour,
From the tall cedar, to the dew-dropt flow'r,
(Assemblage vast) conceal'd in embryo lie,
Soon to unfold beneath the genial sky:
Luxuriant these, while fostering zephyrs blow,
And all the season's vital fervours glow,
Her gifts restricted by no sordid bound,
She scatters and diffuses all around.

She comes! and with her Peace, Content, and Mirth,
Pleas'd to see Nature's offsprings start to birth;
To see unnumber'd forms of beauty rise,
Where-e'er she glances round her dew-bright eyes;
From Winter's sleep ten thousand objects wake,
Spring into life, and all its sweets partake.
When pale Aurora op'd her feeble eye,
The fleecy clouds that spread the eastern sky;
Or when, in course oblique, the distant sun
His journey, short and comfortless, had run,

The languid streaks, that ting'd the blue expanse,
Were kindly-flitting signs of her advance:
While, in the liquid regions of the air,
To birds of gentler nature yet severe,
The sky-lark, pois'd on elevated wing,
Predictive first made her attempts to sing;
A prelude to that universal song
To ravish from the vocal groves ere long.

She comes! on no ungracious errand sent,
Let sloth not counteract her kind intent;
To lavish plenty with unsparing hand,
At Culture's friendly call, to every land.
Hence, num'rous arts their origin derive,
And Commerce in due vigour kept alive.
Hence, Industry, with unrelaxing hands,
Around a world dispenses her commands.
Hence, new inventions sharpen human wit,
And various duties various objects fit.
Hence, stated labours brace the active nerve,
And from disease the healthful frame preserve.
Hence, from the lawless rage of fierce desires,
The soften'd heart a gentler mold acquires;
To the rough manner, and deportment wild,
Succeeds, at length, the tractable and mild.

Hence, all the tender soft affections rise,
That bind mankind by universal ties;
Those passions, that with noblest ardours burn,
Or of a social, or a patriot turn.
Each office, hence, of kindness and respect,
Which to ennoble serve, while they connect.
Hence, sceptred princes, and the mighty great,
Rob'd in the purple finery of state;
Oft vain distinction to maintain alone,
The distance from a cottage to a throne,
Although but badges of exterior sign,
Which should as proofs but secondary shine.
Hence, in the delicacy of attire,
While all hearts feel their pow'r, all eyes admire,
Woman, the queen of beauty, looks so fair,
So soft, so exquisite, beyond compare;
Through all her frame transfus'd the living ray
Divine, that kindles darkness into day;
Which shot through Nature, on etherial wing,
Changes the gloom of Winter into Spring;
Pierces earth's most retir'd recesses through,
And bids a new creation rise to view:
While not a cherub, blooming from the skies,
Can match the humid splendour of her eyes;

Her outward form in dignity and grace,
Or the mild open glory of her face.

She comes! ye nymphs, and jovial swains, prepare
With choicest gifts to entertain the fair,
Gifts she despises longer to detain,
Than to refund with vast increase of gain.
Let all things wear their softest aspects round,
The landscape polish'd, and improv'd the ground.
Else, will the Goddess with a scornful pride,
Attended by her Graces, turn aside,
Disdaining there to cast her partial eye,
Where all things in a rude disorder lie;
Aside, where greater taste attracts her view,
What art effects, or elegance can do.
Let mantling groves (soon one expansive shade)
Be fitted up to lodge the charming maid;
The flow'ry tribe, which science scarce can count,
The hedge, parterre, the arbour, and the mount,
The copse, the orchard, nursery, and pond,
Pavilion, grot, and labyrinth beyond,
The lengthen'd alley, vista, and cascade,
Attractive all of her fair presence made.

She comes! descending from an amber cloud,
While Nature in grand chorus shouts aloud,

The balm and warmth prolific to infuse,
Through earth's cold womb, and shed the fatt'ning dews;
Thy elder sister, radiant Summer, born,
Mild in the soften'd blushes of the morn.

Up, husbandman! for shame, unactive now!
Up to the manly labours of the plough,
To which alike the monarch, and the clown.
Is for his crook indebted, or his crown.
Adjust your tackle, yoke your well-fed steer,
Behold the quick advances of the year.
For you, the tedious night less lengthen'd grows,
And what it loses to the day bestows.
For you, the skies in ceaseless bounty pour
The lucid dew-drops, or the copious show'r.
From southern climes, for you, the zephyr brings
Congenial mildness on its rosy wings;
To a loose texture yields the kindly land,
That breaks apace, and crumbles to the hand.
Juices, for you, fermenting to and fro,
Through earth's elastic tubes meand'ring flow.
Haste, peasant, to the field, and sidelong lay
The yielding surrow to the pointed ray;
That Spring, arriv'd, may bid the mellow'd soil
Soon amply recompense your honest toil;

That riches, free from all the guilt of trade,
May ease your cares, when youth and vigour fade;
When years and industry have silver'd o'er
Your honour'd locks with venerable hoar;
More venerable thus, in Virtue's sight,
Than the ag'd warriour's from the fields of fight.

She comes! around her lenient zephyrs play,
As, sweetly smiling, on she wins her way,
And copious, from each balm-collecting wing,
The joyful year's ambrosial odours fling;
Diffusive heat breathes in each friendly gale,
And soft'ning spreads along the fertile vale.
In every bush the feather'd quire convene,
With songs to welcome their approaching queen;
Each ardent strains its little quiv'ring throat,
To warble forth a bold unrival'd note;
Sounds infinitely vary'd they practise,
Sink to the lute, or to the clarion rise:
While Echo, sitting in her rocky cell,
On every tone delighted seems to dwell;
Gives a new cadence to each air they sing,
While earth and skies with gratulations ring.

Mean time, with glance ineffable, she looks
On hills, receding valleys, groves, and brooks;

Hills, where no flocks the eye excursive spies,
That rise up in bleak prospect to the skies;
Valleys, of all their flowery pride despoil'd,
Their freshness wither'd, and their beauty soil'd;
Groves, of their leaf-wove mantles rudely stript,
Those pipes constring'd that once the moisture sipt;
Brooks, foully swoln with many a sordid rill,
The gross refuse of ev'ry slimy hill.
But lo! soon as the sun-beam from her eye,
Rapid as thought, is darted through the sky,
The mantling trees in foliage green are clad,
And fields with checker'd carpets overspread;
While, from the manger and the stall dismiss'd,
The herds domestic feed where-e'er they list.
From ev'ry trunk shoots forth an infant stem,
Each leaf bright-twinkling with a liquid gem.
In silken convolutions wrapt from cold,
Bud within bud, and fold inclosing fold,
The tender bloom acquires its various glow,
By sap nutritious suckled from below.
Gentle and limpid flows each murmuring rill,
And verdant rises every sloping hill.
O'er the fresh lawn the crouded villa's spread,
By business some, and some by pleasure led;

Each with glad heart the ardent look returns,
And each with social warmth of friendship burns;
The laugh, the cordial shake, and rustic jest,
With homely proof, their mutual joy attest,
Unmingled joy, peace, hope, content, and ease,
Each pleas'd alike, as each intent to please:
While not the titled grandee passing by,
With haughty air, attracts one envious eye.
Such feelings, Spring, thy magic smiles impart,
Such warm effusions of the grateful heart;
Such nameless raptures thy soft charms create,
Such gentle passions in thy train await!

Not so when tempests, big with rain and snow,
Discharg'd their fury on the world below;
When seldom, from the windows of the skies,
The cloudless sun look'd out with radiant eyes;
When frost in chains the stagnate rivers bound,
Naked the woods, and waste the barren ground;
Or down from rock-brow'd mountains, white before,
The torrent tumbled with impetuous roar;
When round the fire the shiv'ring ring conven'd,
Scarce social there from the dire season screen'd;
When gloom-wrapt silence, dreary and profound,
Thro' the mute groves hush'd each enliv'ning sound;

When trooping flocks to friendly shelters throng'd,
And night was to disgusting length prolong'd;
While dreams, where Fancy runs her wild career,
Gave superadded horrour to the year.

Now fleets, long by tempestuous months confin'd,
Expand their loosen'd canvas to the wind,
To circulate the special wealth, betimes,
Of inland kingdoms, or sea-border'd climes.
The silk-worm's gaudy labours (to deride
And swell the petulance of human pride)
Gums, spices, costly gems, furs, pearls, ore,
And all the treasures of vast India's shore,
Lie ready rang'd, the merchant's promis'd right,
To change their skies, when stars benign invite.
Yonder fair Commerce wakes her sun-burnt crew,
Gain's everlasting labour to renew.
Along the beach in ardent throngs they croud,
To stow the freight, or mend the broken shroud.
For one thing some, some for another call,
Ambition, duty, hope, inspirit all:
While gales propitious, courting them away,
Amongst the half-furl'd sheets and cordage play;
Ocean and sky, at unknown distance met,
Serene, seem to reproach their sails unset.

Now Navies, with selected warriours mann'd,
The boast and bulwark of some mighty land,
(Such as croud Albion's warlike ports, to awe
Contending states, and give Europa law),
To purchase new, or old possessions keep,
With shout tumult'ous launch into the deep;
Their sails distent to ev'ry breeze that blows,
And arm'd with Death's dread tubes, in brazen rows,
Where thunders slumber, soon to wake aloud,
Bursting explosive in a fiery cloud;
While Heav'n's vast concave, whelm'd in smoke, resounds,
And Ocean trembles through his watery bounds.

Now o'er the plough the sturdy peasant bends,
And whistles as the furrow he extends;
The rooks oft scaring, that in ceaseless change,
With wild kaw, o'er the glist'ning surface range;
Now drags the harrow, with unwearied toil,
Cross the rough ridges of the lumpy soil:
Another scatters, on the mould'ring land,
The oats or barley, with impartial hand;
Around him pigeons form'd in airy ring,
Shot the coy glance, or spread the frequent wing:
While gentle weather, and unclouded skies,
Make heart-felt pleasure sparkle in their eyes.

In yonder vineyard, to the south expos'd,
From blasting colds by lofty mounts inclos'd,
The patient hind takes his commodious stand,
To form and fashion all with curious hand;
Some vines to prop, and others to arrange,
As suns revolve, and months successive change:
And, though his task laborious seldom staid,
His cares he reckons amply overpaid,
When the rich grape, in purple clusters hung,
Swells to the eye, and sweetens to the tongue.

Where yonder bed transmitted heat receives,
And plants exotic spread their tender leaves,
From sickly damps secure, and drenching show'rs,
Another spends his task-allotted hours.
The warmest earth he brings, and richest soils,
Pregnant with salts and vegetable oils,
Lest, long accustom'd to a gentler sky,
Their famish'd roots should shrivel up and die.
Let Winter boast not his resistless cold,
Here Spring's eternal triumphs we behold.
Amid his icy blasts, and hills of snow,
When all's one undistinguish'd waste below;
Here Vegetation, as in Summer-skies,
Around her sees her infant offsprings rise.

With all his implements of craft supplied,
The peacock's honours, and the courser's pride,
With wheel apt-fix'd, and rod of pliant wood,
The Angler trips along in lightsome mood,
And to some river's wonted margin goes,
Where swells the pool, or stream o'er pebbles flows:
Scorning the life of Sloth's voluptuous sons,
Which idly in one languid tenour runs;
On which Hope seldom shines with cheerful light,
Dead to the brisker feelings of delight.

Bending, in graceful attitude he stands,
And all the glassy surface wide commands;
Amid lone Solitude's romantic haunts,
Where spreads the bramble, or the willow flaunts;
Silent and calm; save when a tuneful thrush
Salutes his pensive ear from hawthorn-bush.
With equal poise, and well-adapted hand,
He guides and vibrates his elastic wand;
With gentle shake, in plumage not its own,
(His basket careless o'er his shoulders thrown),
Dances his fly, disguis'd for sudden prey,
In all the frisks of apt-dissembled play:
Then to the brink, exulting, on his hook,
He drags the full-grown monarch of the brook;

Or lightly tosses, arching over head,
The smaller fry upon the sandy bed.

Delighted thus he spends the jocund hours,
When Morn, or Eve, distils the lucid show'rs;
Thus (courts less innocent repasts afford)
With unbought dainties loads his frugal board;
Tastes the bland sweets of bloom-imparting Health,
Often deny'd to Grandeur and to Wealth;
Feels at his gladden'd heart her vital heat,
And in each throbbing vein impulsive beat.

Yet, o'er the rushy tract, or champain bare,
The panting hounds pursue the timid hare;
Or from the thicket, or inclosure, start
The fox insidious, or swift-footed hart.
Soon as Aurora peeps o'er eastern hills,
His winding horn the early huntsman fills;
Strait, from their kennel, pour the fawning crew,
With ears deep hung to sweep the tainted dew;
In tuneful uproar round their master croud,
Aw'd by his stamp, as of his plaudit proud.
Yonder apart awaits the neighing steed,
With nostrils wide, and limbs well-turn'd for speed
Elate in sprightly youth he paws the ground,
And pricks his ears at each accustom'd sound.

On ev'ry side casts his effulgent eye,
As if his lord solicitous to spy.
His lord arrives; big with disdain he looks,
Curvets, and his arch'd neck in triumph crooks;
Eager to give his airy soul to flight,
Leap the fenc'd drain, or clear the quickset height.

Active, meantime, while silence reigns profound,
The beagles range athwart the covert ground;
The furrow, sunny glade, or level park,
Impatient for their master's well-known hark!
Anon, the leader of the stanch-nos'd train
Detects the vapour warm along the plain;
Then, with superiour voice by all confest,
Gives the expected signal to the rest.
Full on the scent convene the cautious hounds,
Forming a concert of melodious sounds;
Which, with the loud halloo, the sportsman's crack,
Oft-us'd incitements to the rival pack;
The frequent rush of feet, and horn blown shrill,
Mix, swell, and undulate from hill to hill:
While ardent crouds, from each contiguous cot,
Assembled on the first commanding spot,
With ravish'd ears, and anxious eyes, survey
The various fortune of the busy day.

Before, the game, by frantic fear impell'd,
Scours nimbly on, up the long rig beheld,
Each back-shrunk ear, to stimulate her pace,
Stunn'd with the noisy tumult of the chace.
Yet at safe distance she her flight maintains,
Preserves her vigour, though each nerve she strains;
Her half-sunk spirits seem elated hence,
And comfort lightly shoots across her sense.
Short respite; soon her strength exhausted flags,
Quick throbs her heart, and feebly move her legs.
Fierce at her heels approach the growling throng,
And smoking steeds in triumph stretch along.
Now all, expectant of her sudden fate,
Their speed and ardour by degrees abate.
Each claims a merit in the helpless prize,
Though early started, yet so late she dies.
Her gait unsteady, wildly-carried eye,
Turns oft repeated, and infantile cry,
Her frequent starts, and half-returning breath,
Presage her instant seizure, and her death.
But shall the soft-ey'd Muse of bloodshed sing?
Shall violence wound the chaste ear of Spring?

Ye noble swains, with youthful transports warm,
Whom rural scenes of recreation charm;

Forbear an exercise, that best agrees
With naked sences, and dismantled trees.
The farmer now his finish'd task beholds,
His hedges planted, and secur'd his folds;
The gen'rous seed, his future harvest, sown,
And round his parks defensive ditches thrown:
Guard then his property, his wealth you share,
Nor render useless all his prudent care.
From pain and death a short cessation give,
O let the guiltless hare and partridge live!
Lest, when the year completes her golden round,
No sports endear your stubble-tufted ground.
Rather, in some late flood-swoln current set
Your moss-fed bait, or spread your swelling net:
From his retreat the famish'd pike to lure,
Or in its wiles the speckled trout secure.
But, if you would affect a nobler prize,
Drag the huge salmon out, with blood-shot eyes;
Now to the river's upmost depths he strays,
While the broad curl his presence soon betrays.
Here all your fortune, all your judgment try,
Beneath the smiles of an indulgent sky;
Nor fancy things repugnant should assort,
But let each season have its proper sport.

The End of the First Book.

By Spring, in the following poem, the writer does not restrict himself to that precise period circumscribed by three months, the usual sense in which it is understood; but considers it in a more extensive light, as comprehending all that part of the agreeable Season in which vegetation is carried on.

The conservatory or greenhouse.

BOOK II.

Now, thro' the fluid azure of the skies,
Domestic bird, the fleet-wing'd swallow flies;
Now, in some window, for a stated rest,
With care maternal, builds her oval nest.
Or cornice underneath; as if she came
Mankind's protection from assault to claim.
Nor let her confidence be ill repaid;
Oh! be the ruffian hand relentless staid,
That would, instead of proving her defence,
Unhospitably drive her wretched hence.

But shall the Muse be backward to describe
The labours of the winter-dormant tribe?
No; let their police teach the human-kind,
That reason's not alone to man confin'd.
Presumptuous man! so arrogantly wise,
Proud of his high-born lineage from the skies!

One to some water speeds, and wets her wings,
Then on the dust the sprinkled moisture flings.
Another mixes it with self-taught skill,
Or bears the mortar on his loaded bill.

Bit upon bit, with nice proportion plac'd,
The mansion rises up in curious taste.
Each emulous the growing work surveys,
With ardent eye glanc'd round a thousand ways,
And with fond art, their labours to beguile,
Warbles in well-known twitters all the while.
The pensile sructure rear'd in outward form,
Cemented close, and firm against the storm,
To furnish it for kindly warmth within,
Another pleasing office they begin;
O'er spacious fields unwearied wing their flight,
Now lowly skim athwart, now gently light,
To seize the down some friendly thorn detains,
As left on purpose to reward their pains;
The straw, the fleecy moss, the silken hair,
Or feathers, lightly frisking in the air.
With these they finish their commodious dome,
Then, to relax, excursions make from home;
High in pure regions nearer to the sun,
Exulting, gay, their annual labour done;
Or o'er some lucid pond, or gliding stream,
Where insects hover in the setting beam.
Not long; the mother soon, by instinct led,
Returns to occupy her downy bed;

Nor ever till her brood, with cautious wings,
Taught and embolden'd first in feeble springs,
For liquid air their dark confinements change,
Idly abroad permits herself to range.

Now, from these mansions Friendship ever quits,
Where moaping gloom-brow'd Melancholy sits,
Distrust, Want, Ague, Avarice, and Care,
The miser steals, to breathe vertumnal air.
Mansions, through which few rays transmissive shoot,
Save from his chimney—seldom foul with soot,
Or greasy shatter'd lamp's uncertain light,
Kindled but in the dead opaque of night,
If, haply, he should lift his timid eye,
To see what thief, or sheet-cloth'd goblin's nigh;
A greater spectre he (beheld by few)
Were his lank form to bolt upon the view.
From all this dismal group of horrours dread,
Ghastly, as if just risen from the dead,
The niggard, whom no beauties else could charm,
No kindly passions, no soft transports warm;
Ventures abroad, with felon's sneaking pace,
To look his fellow-creatures in the face;
Almost afraid to act, as if akin,
Mov'd by some conscious principle within:

While all shrink back, with diffidence and scorn,
(As shepherds from the snake-infested thorn)
Thus acting on Humanity's own plan,
From such a monster in the form of man.
Though not one tender social tie that binds
Free gen'rous spirits, or ennobled minds,
His little heart, as marble hard to melt,
E'er for the period of a moment felt;
Yet now, howe'er repugnant to his plan,
Spring partly moulds and softens him to man.
Watching his wealth, by locks on locks secur'd,
Hunger and thirst in their extremes endur'd;
Or counting o'er, with still enhanc'd delight,
With harden'd fingers, and with aching sight,
His figur'd pieces (thus preserv'd from rust)
Of brighter-ting'd consolidated dust;
Winter beheld him, all benumm'd with cold,
Swath'd in a tatter'd blanket's scanty fold;
Beheld him, though surrounded with his pelf,
A poor and wither'd emblem of himself;
Squalid his beard, his skin to parchment shrunk,
Death-pale his visage, and his eye-balls sunk.
But now the tardy current in his veins,
Frozen erewhile, a brisker motion gains.

On his dull organs Spring's resistless pow'r
Acts—as on yonder reptile, yonder flow'r;
What motive, reason, choice, or will, we call,
(Man's privilege) alike deny'd to all.
Hail, Queen of Seasons! thine's the potent charm
Winter of all his rigour to disarm!
Hail, Queen of Seasons! thine's the magic art
To touch with life the Miser's torpid heart!
A task much harder than, with spells unknown,
To bend the oak, or mollify the stone.

In some wide area, now, or spacious green,
In social parties, nymphs and swains convene,
Elate in youth, with expectation flush,
And warm each cheek with health's carminian blush:
While, from the saffron chambers of the west,
The downward sun, ere he retires to rest,
Brightens his parting smile, well-pleas'd to see
Their mutual merriment, and harmless glee.
Through the brisk measures of the mazy dance,
They now, by turns, recede, and now advance;
Enliven'd by the hautboy's sprightly sound,
With nimble foot beat the enamel'd ground.
Changing in airy trip from side to side,
No graceful step, no attitude's untried,

To fix the notice of the glancing eye,
To paint the glow, or swell the conscious sigh.
Each fronts the blooming damsel he admires,
For whom he languishes in soft desires;
For whom the song's compos'd, the nose-gay drest,
To lose its beauties on he snowy breast;
For whom by tinkling rills he loves to stray,
Or through lone groves plod his sad dreary way;
For whom in nice repair the arbour's put,
And on the bark the dear initials cut:
The glance, smile, sigh, squeeze, whisper, leer, discover
The ardent, though the apprehensive lover;
While she, in vain, with much dissembled art,
Would hide the fond emotions of her heart;
Though ev'ry female stratagem she tries,
His eye soon penetrates the thin disguise.

From all the stiff formality of state,
The rights of kings, and factions of the great,
The senator, now parted from the throng,
Unbends his thoughts, intensely fix'd so long;
While Solitude his placid hours employs,
In learned ease to taste the noblest joys.
Now Recollection ushers into view,
Quick in her search, to her resemblence true,

A croud of glorious objects, dear to fame,
Which add distinguish'd lustre to his name:
His projects plann'd with wisdom and address,
Directed well, and honour'd with success,
Beyond the royal, or the public hope,
Give his enlarg'd reflections ample scope;
Swell his full heart with patriot triumphs known,
To Pitt, and some few kindred minds alone.
On such the Prince's royal favour smiles,
Whom no eye curses, and no tongue reviles.
On such, as more than popularly great,
The pray'rs and blessings of a kingdom wait.
Fair Liberty, with such fond to resort,
Leaves all the splendid circles of a court;
Virtue, on whom a nation's weal depends,
That skill which plans, and valour that defends;
Glory and Victory, illustrious pair,
To grace his recess, and his pleasures share.

But not enamour'd of the year alone
The grandee, by his crests armorial known;
The man of traffic too his toil remits,
And for a while his desk and counter quits;
To the calm scenes of rural ease repairs,
Purchas'd by a long train of anxious cares:

While birds with music his arrival greet,
And fields and groves exhibit ev'ry sweet;
Additionally bright each sun-beam shines,
To welcome him whom smoke so long confines,
Confines in the eternal quest of wealth,
Oft with the forfeiture of peace and health.

The shepherd now, o'er flowery lawns at large,
And richest pastures, tends his fleecy charge,
Pleas'd to behold, around their bleating dams,
In harmless frolic frisk the tender lambs;
His little social cur attending nigh,
To watch the flock with oft-reverted eye.
Upon some eminence he sits him down,
Undazzled by the splendour of a crown,
And hums, with untaught languishment of air,
Some sonnet on his not unconscious fair,
The buxon dame, that in the lilied vale
With milky nectar fills the balmy pail;
Or, by the grassy margin of a brook,
Stretches his listless length beside his crook;
Where willows flutter to the whisking wind,
And murmurs sooth to indolence his mind;
Where hawthorns swell, where honeysuckles wreathe,
And blossoms round perfum'd effluvias breathe.

Where lime-trees, from Noon's piercing glance to screen,
Throw over head a canopy of green.
Where linnets warble with melodious throats,
And finches chaunt their finely-quiver'd notes.
All to invite the ravish'd shepherd's stay,
Enhance his joys, nd drive his cares away.

Calmly delighted with the well-known haunt,
His breast disturb'd by no phantastic want,
Along the flowery herbage, far from noise,
Nature's pure guiltless pleasures he enjoys.
Pleasures, to share but equal with the clown,
Monarchs themselves might lay their sceptres down.
Here, no absurd ambition to be great,
To head a faction, or enslave a state;
No scheme of vengeance, no invidious plan,
To injure or deceive his fellow-man;
No daring project to obtrude his name
In Time's proud records, or the lists of Fame;
Set his licentious passions all on fire,
Distract his thoughts, or stimulate desire.
Far other objects occupy his time,
Which raise no tumult, and imply no crime.
While scarce resolv'd what grateful to prepare,
Or purchase, as a present for his fair;

Whether a brace of pigeons, white as snow,
Or burnish'd o'er with many a radiant glow;
Of osier twigs a basket curious wrought,
Or breast-knot at adjacent village bought,
Whose figure some apt love-device conceals,
On ev'ry sense a drousy languor steals.
Partly awake, yet partly slumb'ring too,
The landscape seems to swim before his view;
Till sleep, at length, to all beneath the skies,
In pleasing visions seals his weary eyes.
Visions, where he beholds his plighted maid
In all the florid charms of youth display'd;
Such charms as health and innocence bestow,
Beyond the toilet's artificial glow;
Beyond what boasted washes can impart,
The skin-deep varnish of cosmetic art.
Such charms as seldom grace the court-bred fair,
Though gems in constellations deck her hair;
Though round her airy trips the self-fond beau,
And coxcombs flutter on phantastic toe.
Such charms as amply recompense the swain,
Though unpossess'd (such triumphs to the vain)
Of gilded equipage, and titles proud,
To court the gaze and homage of the croud.

Rest on, unenvy'd shepherd! and partake
Those joys with-held from half the world awake,
But joys, when sleep her opiate balm denies,
Thy happier stars to thee shall realize;
For guilt alone in dreams such raptures knows,
As on his waking hours Heav'n ne'er bestows.

Now, long in torpid indolence confin'd,
Whilst Winter whistled in the northern wind,
The bees excursive seek the sunny field,
Where fresh-spread blooms the liquid honey yield.
But, form'd of mechanism most exact,
The waxen structure previous they erect.
Plann'd in a range of corresponding rooms,
Each architect a task apart assumes.
Some ascertain the wideness, some the length,
Some heave the burden with exerted strength.
Some see the fret-work combs appended right,
Some raise partitions to their proper height.
Some polish and elaborate the walls,
Some gather up what from the builder falls.
Some ever and anon, with outstretch'd wing,
The vegetable glue for cement bring.
With mathematic elegance of art,
The edifice complete in ev'ry part;

The parent bee, that over all presides,
In parties next the colony divides,
From bud to bud extracting sweets to roam,
Or joyous waft the luscious treasure home.
The powder'd daffodil's madescent spoils,
Renew'd by youthful suns and early soils;
The border-planted thyme's strong-scented dew,
Or fragrant hyacinth's, of ruby hue;
To form those sweets that melt upon the lip,
First of Spring's flow'rs court their enamour'd sip:
While numbers ready at the entrance stand
To lighten of their loads the homeward band;
Hence, in distinct divisions to be laid,
By others station'd farther in convey'd.
For all alike in just allotment share,
Delighted all, the profit and the care.
No time seems long, no drudgery they shun,
Once their appointed office is begun.
No flow'r the humid fatness that receives,
No blossom that expands its silken leaves,
Or in the garden's variegated beds,
Or where the purple heath luxuriant spreads;
But gratefully bestows its yellow spoil,
To freight their wings, and recompense their toil.

Within, the monarch, far from vulgar view,
Distinguish'd by his size, and burnish'd hue,
With royal eye the curious work inspects;
Here he adjusts, and yonder he directs;
Or, strolling out, or latent in the cells,
The drones, a lazy useless brood, expells.
Happy republic! where with steady aim,
(How few communities can boast the same?)
No discontented voice, no party-feud,
All ardently promote the general good.
How happy Albion, did her sons unite,
With blended counsels, and consociate might,
To fix, thus truly, venerably great,
The virtue, strength, and welfare of the State!
A conduct sure more glorious, than embrace
All creeds, all forms, all parties, for—a place;
No matter how our projects brought about,
If I but in, and but another out.

A thousand wishes, not to be express'd,
And soft desires, now warm the virgin-breast.
Wishes her utmost caution scarce conceals,
But all her manner undesign'd reveals.
The glass consulted oft, with graceful wile,
How to conduct the wafture of a smile;

The solitary turn, and pensive cast,
The keen sensation of the pointed jest;
The heaving bosom, and half-notic'd sigh,
The damask cheek, and languid-rolling eye;
The roving glance, and neck of ivory bare,
The loose attire, and negligence of air;
All modestly, without the aid of art,
Divulge the secrets of the female heart.

Beware, ye boast of workmanship divine!
Daughters of Beauty! darlings of the Nine!
Beware of Love's insinuating wiles,
Though he approach you with his softest smiles;
Though accents, mild as gales favonian blow,
From his bland tongue in smooth-turn'd period flow.
Oh! guard against the lightning of the eye,
Less fatal that which flashes from the sky.
There undisguis'd the soul's soft movements play,
Melt in a tear, or dazzle in a ray.
There Love erects his crystal engine, whence
He missive throws his weapons of offence;
His rapture-wing'd, or anguish-pointed darts,
With certain aim to reach unguarded hearts.
Better on headlong precipices dance,
Than meet the lambent eye's insidious glance.

With base intentions, couch'd in artful speech,
Now will the urchin flatter, now beseech.
A thousand modes of love-lorn style invent,
His faith, his truth, his love, to represent;
Hopes, wishes, doubts, and fears, a motly train,
That all together croud upon his brain;
While tears, obedient to the well-feign'd call,
Down his unmanly cheek officious fall.
But turn aside, meet not his pleading eyes,
Nor pity what you rather should despise.
His words a latent poison will convey,
The tempter speaks and looks, but to betray.
Beware then, fairest forms the sun surveys!
Beware of love! beware of vernal days!
Of the fam'd Ides , as ancient times record,
So warn'd the Augur Rome's victorious lord;
But Cæsar, not below himself to seem,
Disdain'd his life by caution to redeem,
And, proudly flush'd with fame too highly priz'd,
The divination as a dream despis'd;
Despis'd, and by the friend he lov'd so well,
Wrapt in his robe, a mighty victim fell.

But ye, whom Nature gently form'd to prove
The melting, soft, impassion'd soul of love,
Attend a moment to a friendly Muse,
Nor your inspiring smile meantime refuse,
While she describes the man, by Heav'n design'd
The finish'd counterpart of womankind.
Oh! were it no ideal picture sketch'd,
But from surrounding life and manners fetch'd.

The courteous Youth of modest worth prefer,
Whom sense convinces when his passions err.
Who knowledge ne'er esteems too early sought,
Nor wisdom at too high a purchase bought.
Of sweet deportment, unassuming air,
His manners gentle, as his soul sincere.
Who still concludes the best, and hopes the most,
An unsuspicious heart his constant boast.
Whom Prejudice, in her tyrannic chains,
That worst of servile thraldoms, ne'er detains,
If Reason, ever biass'd to the right,
Discover objects in a fairer light.
Who ne'er from sacred Truth in aught departs,
Above mean Adulation's paltry arts.
Not of superiour talents vainly proud,
Though to excel his opponent allow'd;

Nor, if addicted to an errour long,
Averse to own his judgment in the wrong.
Who can, though first in ev'ry youthful sport,
With hoary heads in grave harangue consort.
Not carried by the fashion to excess,
But elegantly careless in his dress.
Who can to men, in spheres exalted plac'd,
Suit his demeanour, and adapt his taste;
While those, to less superiour ranks confin'd,
Share his assistance and protection kind.
Who knows with spirit, when, and how, to act,
Though in vain boasts by female softness check'd.
Whom none with glaring faults or vices tax,
Born to protect, not to insult the sex.
Who gives to pelf its estimation due,
Though open-purs'd and hospitable too.
Deaf to Detraction's and Resentment's call,
Attach'd to few, although polite to all.
Beyond each sordid mercenary end,
Cautious to censure, backward to offend.
Who, delicate in word and thought alike,
Avoids the jest that doubly seems to strike.
To no dull set of rigid rules confin'd,
Which meanly setter, not enlarge the mind;

But acting on the more extensive plan
Of universal charity to man.
Who ne'er presumes his Maker's bolts to throw
On each he impotently deems his foe;
The little malice of a narrow heart,
That of the whole but comprehends a part.
Who hates in modes or trifles to be odd,
Scorns a vain oath, and ne'er blasphemes his God.
No tool of state, no Party's venal dupe,
To fear too honest, and too proud to stoop;
But, if his Country claim his proffer'd life,
Prepar'd to die in the illustrious strife.
Not elevated by a vague applause,
Which caprice utter'd, or disgust withdraws.
Whose eye with manly pity can o'erflow,
And heart be melted at another's wo.
In all his dealings scrupulously just,
Firm in his friendships, steady to his trust.
Neither in body or in mind diseas'd,
On pleasing bent, as wishing to be pleas'd.
If such a Youth, the glory of his kind,
Accomplish'd thus in person and in mind,
Approach you, with the tender voice of love,
Though all the herd of coxcombs fail to move,

Leave vain punctilios to the formal dame,
Nor blush to own an honourable flame.
For only with the man of these possess'd,
Can Arethusa be completely bless'd,
At least, as such alas! we seldom see,
Like him depainted, finish'd in degree;
Though Fortune, vain of her phantastic pow'r,
Propitious smil'd upon his natal hour;
Though pompous titles blazon forth his name,
And proud escutcheons tell from whence he came.
Riches from wants external may secure,
But cannot peace or happiness ensure.
Power, or force, may oft control the knee,
But never can the heart, by nature free.

The End of the Second Book.

Of March.

BOOK III.

Now Contemplation, mark'd with brow serene,
Fond of the cool retreat, and sylvan scene,
Science, and eagle-pinion'd Genius, fraught
With richest stores of elevated thought,
Abroad through Nature take their ample range,
Where objects infinite on objects change;
Where, to the eye of angels and of men,
Within belief, although beyond our ken,
Omnipotence exhibits ev'ry hour,
The mighty efforts of creative pow'r;
On each inscrib'd the dread eternal name,
Though silent all, proclaiming whence they came.
Here, to ennoble, and instruct mankind
In knowledge boundless as the godlike mind,
Each with sublime solicitude essays
To celebrate what soars above all praise!
That first supreme Intelligence, who spoke,
And light first-born from central darkness broke,
Whence beauty, order, grace, proportion, springs,
And all the fair variety of things!

Not to a system's scanty bourne confin'd,
With bolder flight, wing'd by the eastern wind,
Each launches out into transmundane space,
Where other orbs perform far other race;
Through constellations of unnumber'd stars,
Whose fix'd rotations no cross impulse mars;
Through radiant files of planets, each a world,
By hand divine in various orbits hurl'd:
Where beings, of superiour rank to men,
Inspir'd with higher intellectual ken,
Rejoice, no envy, obloquy, or strife,
In all the chaste delights of social life;
Bless'd with their Maker's presence, like the pair
That once breath'd Eden'd unpolluted air;
Immaculate from Guilt's opprobrious stain,
Uncheck'd by conscience, and untouch'd by pain;
Adorn'd with Beauty's sentimental grace,
No cares to cloud, no sorrows to efface.
His presence—not tremendous to confound,
Thick terrours inaccessible around;
Not overwhelming in the blaze of light,
Which angels view not with undazzled sight;
Nor deep amid night's sullen gloom conceal'd,
But in benignant majesty reveal'd.

For who would dare Almighty pow'r confine,
Stint Wisdom, or philanthropy divine,
That, far in ether's circumambient void,
Rais'd by a word, as by a breath destroy'd,
Each pond'rous orb on its proud axis spun,
To point its various regions to the sun;
Grac'd by its equipage of worlds around,
And compass'd wide by oceans without bound;
Though of his works most obvious to our view,
Nothing to what Omnipotence can do?

Oft, by too complex boundless scenes ingross'd,
In the bright maze of radiant wonders lost,
Fancy exhausted intermits her range,
Fond of gradations, or successive change;
O'er Earth's inchanting objects casts her glance,
Where simpler beauties smile at her advance,
Yet, as originally form'd for man,
Not perfect less in Heav'n's distinguish'd plan.

Now, when from climates far remote return'd,
Where late his lamp in mid-day glory burn'd,
The sun, collected in his softest light,
Pours his increasing splendours on the sight,
Love's melting thrill of transport to impart,
And chase the damps of sadness from the heart;

Now should we quit the silken bed of ease,
Where lengthen'd slumbers hurt us while they please,
Soon as the Dawn, fair harbinger of day,
Gilds the horizon with her early ray;
While Night's thick shades, before her sacred eye,
As fogs before the wind, disparted fly.

Now, Music calls from ev'ry bush, “Arise,
“The morning-star grows languid in the skies;
“Deeper the east ting'd with carnation glows,
“While you indulge in indolent repose;
“Arise, and ere his journey is begun,
“Be ready to salute the full-orb'd sun,
“The full-orb'd sun, set to a thousand eyes,
“Fond of his wonted visit to our skies;
“Pleas'd to behold an active world astir,
“Of Vice asham'd, and unenslav'd by her.”
Now ev'ry godlike faculty and pow'r,
Invigorated through the midnight hour,
When slumber's opiate finger clos'd the eyes,
Exults, expands, glows, and affects the skies.
Through depths of study, sciences sublime,
Motion, eternity, space, matter, time,
Unbounded now the vagrant fancy's caught,
In all the swift rapidity of thought.

How sweet to visit some sequester'd bow'r,
Or green recess, at this calm silent hour!
Some arching alley's melancholy shade,
Embroider'd meadow, or cool upland glade!
To wander thoughtful o'er the wide-stretch'd lawn,
Breathing the humid fragrance of the dawn!
Or from some airy hill's aspiring height,
Gilded with early beams of crimson light,
To mark the gradual slow approach of day,
And see how darkness gently fades away!
How ev'ry object rises to the view,
But dimly seen, wet with nocturnal dew!
Or fir'd by some enthusiastic page,
The envy, boast, and model of the age;
With genius, taste, and solid learning fraught,
To swell in conscious dignity of thought;
Triumphant borne on Faith's exulting wings,
Sceptres and thrones view'd as inferiour things,
To rise above earth's sublunary clime,
And think ourselves immortal for the time.
Or, when we shift our visionary plan,
Sink down apace, and dwindle into man;
Where crystal-pointed rocks, and caverns wide,
Responses quick return from side to side,

Soft, from the hautboy's modulated throat,
To swell the gentle, tender, thrilling note,
Symphonious with a croud of warblers round,
While distant hills return each pleasing sound.

Such entertainments, not to few confin'd,
But obvious to the bulk of humankind,
True bliss to man's capacious wish impart,
And wake the noblest feelings of the heart.
Such entertainments keep his thoughts aloof
From vice, that constant object of reproof;
Calm all his passions (the reverse a crime)
And leave no stupid vacuum in time;
Assist his hopes on wing of fire to rise,
And train him up an angel for the skies.

Now simple, various, regular throughout,
By a strong hedge of hawthorns fenc'd about,
The Olitory in fair prospect ies,
To drink the genial moisture of the skies;
Where herbs unnumber'd (patriarchal fare)
And roots their vegetable pulp prepare.
There all along the pleas'd observer walks,
Where artichokes erect their lusty stalks,
Maturing, to accommodate the board,
A dainty rich as culture can afford;

Yonder, with tendrils creeping through the mold,
Where cucumbers acquire their icy cold,
Furnish'd with gelid juices for the treat,
Amid the fervours of meridian heat.
No ostentatious group of radiant hues,
No gorgeous liv'ry here the florist views.
No odours evanescent hence exhale,
No dulcet dews to load the breathing gale.
Kind Nature here is busied to produce
Objects not form'd for pleasure, but for use.
Hail, Parent of creation! Friend of man!
How gracious, how benevolent's thy plan!
Through heav'n and earth's unmeasurable space,
Adapted to the season, and the place,
Thy hand is ever open'd to bestow,
Thy favours boundless as our wishes flow!

On yonder gentle elevation, whence
The checker'd prospect is beheld immense,
With tincts and pencil ready in his hand,
The painter occupies his airy stand;
While Light's mild setting ray, no veil behind,
Gilds each alluring object to his mind.
Now to the laughing mead, or verdant hill,
He glances round, still charm'd, delighted still,

Where herds regale on herbage to their wish,
And rosy milk-maids heap the fragrant dish;
Now to the hamlet, at some distance seen,
Embosom'd in a knot of beeches green;
Or steeple glitt'ring to the pointed ray,
Or mighty ruin leaning to decay;
Next to some giddy rock's projecting height,
Pendent o'er caverns dark as tenfold night;
Or lofty bridge, whose ample arches stride
Unmov'd o'er some fam'd river's rapid tide:
Nor does the shepherd, with his trusty cur,
Nor ploughman, as he turns the slanting fur,
Nor avenue, nor vista, plac'd beside
Some grandee's seat, the boast of titled pride;
Nor colonnade, with Doric figures grac'd,
Nor glass-roof'd stove in warmth congenial plac'd;
Nor obelisk, whose Parian columns rise
Magnificently towering to the skies;
Nor temple built on some majestic height,
To terminate the boundaries of sight;
Nor angler playing his fictitious fly,
Nor woodland hind, elude his curious eye.

Now finish'd out in blended light and shade,
First it, and then the landscape is survey'd;

Alternate, lest some slighter fault escape,
In site, in colour, symmetry, or shape.
The strict review, repeated o'er and o'er,
Serves only to enhance his joy the more.
Pleas'd with the nice precision of his art,
He marks the semblance just in ev'ry part,
Delighted in such narrow bounds to bring
The choicest beauties of the full-blown Spring.

Nor shall Ardelia, in yon arch'd alcove,
Espalier-walk, or vista-open'd grove,
From empty Life's impertinence retir'd,
Pass her sequester'd moments unadmir'd.
There, on a sofa of sweet-scented flow'rs,
While Spring seems to prolong the soften'd hours,
With deep attention, and enraptur'd look,
Curious she pores on some applauded book,
Which genius animates, which sancy fires,
Knowledge enriches, and chaste wit inspires.
Or thoughtful muses through the solemn shade,
Which no rude sounds or hostile steps invade.
Far from the haunts of Faction and of Pride,
Where Peace and Friendship, sisters twain, reside.
Far from the glance of Envy, pale as death,
Censure's bold tongue, and Slander's baneful breath.

Where, tir'd with kings and parasites to mix,
Delighted their abode the Muses fix;
Seldom to such inspiring glooms pursu'd,
In solitudes by mortals seldom woo'd.
Where Melancholy's pensive train resort,
And Meditation holds her silent court;
Frequented, not by Passion's headstrong band,
With flames or pointed daggers in their hand;
But by each Virtue, gentle, modest, kind,
Chaste inmate of the heav'n-attemper'd mind.
Hither, to shun the scorching noontide ray,
Ever with such associates fond to stray,
Ardelia steals with transport from the throng,
Where Mode and Int'rest settle right and wrong;
Where Self, though often in a fair disguise,
Her sordid arts is licens'd to practise;
Where but a few avow, and that by stealth,
The love of virtue, or contempt of wealth:
While Folly laughs contemptuous at the man,
Whose views extend beyond the present span,
Who, from fix'd motives, not a transient mood,
Dares nobly to be singularly good;
For tyrant Fashion makes more errant fools,
Who err by method, and offend by rules,

Than who, from heedless levity within,
Or from direct intention, grossly sin.

While in one airy, vain, phantastic round,
With Folly's many-colour'd garland crown'd,
Flavilla lightly trifles time away,
Her sole sublime ambition to be gay;
To place a brilliant, or a patch dispose,
Lest greater taste admir'd Aminta shows;
To run through, on the celebrated tour,
Civility's whole science in an hour;
To boast a set of coxcombs at her call,
Shine at a play, or flutter at a ball;
At cards display her masculine address,
Her ardour doubled, as her fortune less:
While thus Flavilla learns the modern art,
From all her native softness to depart;
That female dignity which only can
Secure the right of conquest over men;
Ardelia, though the first of woman-kind,
Alike for charms of person as of mind;
Whom birth ennobles, Fortune greatly lifts
Above the Sex by her peculiar gifts;
To whose kind lot no common talents fall,
Admir'd, respected, and belov'd by all;

On Virtue much her ravish'd thoughts employs,
And much partakes of her unenvy'd joys,
Never, a partial boast almost her own,
More throngly occupied than when alone:
While zephyrs through the flaunting woodbines stray,
As if in whispers their devoirs to pay;
And overhead a choir of warblers sing,
In sweetest strains, hers, and the charms of Spring.

Nor wonder Virtue rivets her respect,
While riches are beheld with fix'd neglect;
For Taste and Self appear on Virtue's side,
At once preserve our interests and our pride.
The more true virtue we admire and love,
Pleasing the more Spring's beauteous objects prove.
In loving her what heights soe'er we gain,
Insolvents still to Virtue we remain.
For chiefly to the man, whate'er he be,
Of rank pre-eminent, or mean degree,
Who, taught in Reason's, not the Stoic's school,
Keeps all his various passions under rule;
Guards against future errours, mends the past,
And lives each day as if decreed his last;
Spring is the source, where-e'er he turns his view,
Of pleasures ever exquisite, and new;

Ambitious still to entertain the man,
Who nobly acts on so sublime a plan;
A plan, laid down by Virtue for her sons,
Which parallel with life immortal runs.

In ev'ry place an elegance he finds,
Unnotic'd, unadmir'd, by vulgar minds;
Unmark'd by Study's microscopic eye,
That boasts such hidden wonders she can spy,
Grand in effect, as in design immense,
Beyond dull Vision's unassisted sense.
The charms of structure, symmetry, and hue,
So valu'd by the philosophic few,
Are but a part (let kings with clowns condole)
Of the divinely-complicated Whole.
Newton, superiour to the herd of men,
As, to a mortal's, is an angel's ken,
Fathom'd Heav'n's depths unmeasurably far,
Balanc'd in its bright orbit ev'ry star;
And hence, in full magnificence of proof,
While infidels, astonish'd, stood aloof,
Deduc'd one first, supreme, almighty Cause,
Acting by stated and eternal laws.
But Virtue's son, though Learning's paths untrod,
In ev'ry common instance finds a God.

Finds Him, and with the raptures of a Young,
When strains of Paradise flow'd from his tongue,
(In Night's deep ear yet swell the plaintive lays)
Rises to all the ecstasy of praise.

He, with a title monarchs dare not claim,
Unbounded views the Universal Frame,
And, while his knees their prompt devotions pay,
With humble confidence can boldly say,
“For me the curtains of the sky were spread,
“And sun, and moon, and stars in glory clad.
“For me, while seraphims exulting sung,
“In ambient air Earth's mighty orb was hung.
“For me, the Seasons roll the mystic round,
“In ev'ry change peculiar blessings found;
“While grateful clouds drop fatness on the plain,
“In lucid dew-drops, or in show'rs of rain.
“For me, by sapient laws supremely right,
“Alternately succeed the Day and Night.
“For me, mild zephyrs cool the noon-tide heat,
“And savages to forest-glooms retreat.
“For me, while inoffensive lightnings glow,
“Loud thunders break, and winds tumultuous blow,
“To purge the vital fluid of the air.
“Lest fogs and foul infections harbour there.

“For me the hills with gentle slope ascend,
“And verdure-painted vales beneath extend;
“While gurgling rills in fluid crystal glide,
“And cattle feast on Nature's flowery pride.
“For me, secure from Want's increas'd alarm,
“Beauty and Plenty spread their ev'ry charm;
“To touch the springs of Transport various ways,
“Or court the studious eye's elab'rate gaze.
“For me, aloft the groves umbrageous shoot,
“And ripen'd orchards bend with mellow fruit,
“Where all the gay musicians of the Spring
“From care and sorrow their exemption sing.
“For me, the Deep's illimitable space
“Swarms with its millions of the finny race.
“For me, the mountain, in its precious veins,
“Masses matur'd of ductile ore contains,
“Or marble, boasted monument of fame,
“To bear some mighty Hero's sculptur'd name.
“For me, the diamond sparkles on the rock,
“And coral blushes on its parent stock.
“For me the jonquil elegantly blooms,
“And roses lavish round their soft perfumes.
“For me, the bees through scented blossoms stray,
“And sip their aromatic breath away.

“For me, the injur'd fibre to renew,
“The healing plant distills its lenient dew.
“For me, the vine's impurpled cluster swells,
“And juicy melons fill their turgid cells.”

But small were his possessions, if confin'd
To blessings offer'd to all human kind.
With less contracted amplitude of thought,
With expectations more sublimely fraught,
Thus may his heart dilate, his bosom glow,
Thus his full raptures in big utt'rance flow;
“When earth and skies to nothing shall decay,
“And in their orbits planets melt away;
“When Time, coeval with yon radiant sun,
“His sand-glass of a thousand ages run,
“Shall to Eternity his charge resign,
“And worlds adjudg'd surround the bar divine;
“For me, with gods and angels to be shar'd,
“A state of bliss and glory is prepar'd,
“Vast as my boundless wishes can extend,
“And lasting, like my being, without end.”

But see, what gentle objects court us hence,
And spread their charms to captivate each sense.
Shall we the pleasing summons disobey?
What half so sweet, so elegant as they!

The End of the Third Book.

BOOK IV.

Now in the broad parterre, or terrace-walk,
Of various odour, drapery, and stalk,
By stated turns the flowery tribes arise,
Mantled in livery of a thousand dyes.
For not to one too partial Nature fix'd,
In colours with her choicest pencil mix'd,
As months advance, alternate they display
Their virgin beauties to the blushing ray;
While all the watchful Florist's ceaseless care
With indiscriminating favour share.

Some round he shelters from intrusive cold,
And borders with warm earth of fertile mold.
Careful he marks, lest some mishap befalls,
Where the rude insect lights, or reptile crawls;
Where moles, to discompose his plots around,
Run darkling their slant paths along the ground;
Checks timely those that too luxuriant spread,
And clears of noxious weeds the fragrant bed.
Nor do what others lighter trifles deem,
Such to the Florist's ready caution seem.
Some he disposes in a fairer view,
To heighten or their attitude or hue.

On some, that love to drink in frequent show'rs,
In drops effusive he the moisture pours.
Some on supports he gently makes to rest,
Or by their stature or their bulk opprest.
From those removes each intervening screen,
That more affect in sunshine to be seen.
Then, with fond look and intermingled smile,
His heart with rapture thrilling all the while,
His finely-varied fam'ly he surveys,
Not without some self-arrogated praise.
Struck with the elegance of Art, that more
Pleases, as oft examin'd o'er and o'er.
Struck too with Nature's easy soft address,
Beauty's flush'd touch, and Wisdom's fine impress;
Whence infinite diversities we view
Of conformation, foliage, and of hue;
No narrow limits, or to skill divine,
The charms of form, or wonders of design.

One all in snowy white itself attires,
Another the deep indigo admires.
Some clothe in royal purple to be seen,
Some full imbibe the em'rald's vivid green.
Others apart their silken leaves unfold,
Finely bedropt with crimson, or with gold.

While numbers in the sapphire's lighter blue,
Ethereal tincture, sip the trickling dew.
Vainly would Art each soft gradation trace,
Much less improve, or add one single grace.

But not distinguish'd by their tints alone,
What sumptuous taste in their apparel shown!
Some dress themselves in suits of stiff brocade,
And some in figur'd lutstring are array'd.
Yonder a tribe of beauties, lately blown,
Flaunt in loose tissue mantles round them thrown.
And here arrang'd another class select
Court our approach, in clouded velvet deck'd.
While some, to decorate the splendid year,
In satin robes of costly gloss appear.
All, all is neatness, delicacy, taste,
Nothing deficient left, yet nothing waste!
Nature form'd each in her peculiar way,
With her own pencil painted them so gay;
In silks attir'd them wove in her own loom,
And on them copious breath'd her own perfume.

See! by the Season's mild return inspir'd,
To rapt'rous heights of contemplation fir'd,
With grand ideas, bold conceptions fraught,
To the third Heav'ns, like him of Tarsus, caught;

The Poet to some consecrated shade,
Form'd to awake the fancy and to aid,
Retires from all the little cares of Life,
Its sordid pleasures, and ignoble strife;
A world within himself, without its train
Of Hydra evils, guilt, remorse, and pain.

The fresh-blown beauties of the bright-ey'd May,
That blush beneath the sun's enamour'd ray;
The murmuring brook, that down from rocky hills
In fluid silver copiously distills;
The orangery ting'd with ruddy gold,
In glass apartments shelter'd from the cold;
The flowery meadow stretch'd in fair extent,
The forest-nodding mountain's steep ascent;
The grove's adjusted rows, that waving rise
In leafy pomp majestic to the skies,
Concealing, from broad Noon's officious glow,
A thousand tender scenes that pass below;
The garden's gravel'd walks, and order'd beds,
Where flow'rs successive lift their painted heads;
Amongst unnumber'd objects, each surpass'd
In drapery and structure by the last,
Beneath his magic pencil charm anew,
With graces superadded to the view.

Oft-times, by subjects more august inflam'd,
He sings of monarchs and of heroes fam'd;
Of patriots steady in their Country's cause,
The mighty bulwarks of its rights and laws;
Such heroes, kings, and patriots, as maintain
Albion unrival'd empress of the main;
Steals from the annals of each distant age,
(A theft how glorious!) to enrich his page,
The genius, learning, virtues, taste, and fire,
Which men by instinct catch, while they admire;
And, into various lights and graces thrown,
With just selection, makes them all his own.
As in a breathing wilderness of flow'rs,
Relax'd by heat, and moist with new-fall'n show'rs,
From bloom to bloom the bee industrious flies,
Sips its choice sweets, and loads its little thighs.

Love, kind affection, still innately fraught
With candour, truth, and elegance of thought,
With ev'ry soft refinement of desire,
Sets his according numbers next on fire.
Through all its doubts, perplexities, and cares,
Or when it hopes, or wishes, or despairs;
Its quick disgusts, its pride, and pert disdain,
To meekness and submission turn'd again;

He traces out the Passion's pleasing wo,
With ev'ry aid Invention can bestow:
And while he sings, in heart-affecting strains,
Haply the tyrant in his bosom reigns.
Haply, he feels (his lines the secret tell)
Each soft sensation he describes so well,
That sympathy ineffable, which binds
Concordant tempers, and congenial minds.
Else, whence the clouded brow, the tear-swoln eye,
The look disconsolate, and bursting sigh?
Why, else, to melancholy musings prone?
Whence so solicitous to be alone?
Elated now, now sunk beyond relief?
Cheeks flush'd with rapture, or suffus'd in grief?

But chiefly, when his Maker's glorious praise
Fires his rapt muse, and claims superiour lays,
Sublime he soars, above the vulgar throng,
In all the conscious majesty of song.
Faith's beatific views, Ambition's aim,
Devotion's raptures, Love's seraphic flame,
The flights of Genius, depths of Thought profound,
The pomp of Style, and harmony of Sound;
Now all conspire (but all how far below
The mighty Theme!) to make his numbers glow.

Paternal Deity! Creator wise!
His footstool earth, eternal throne the skies!
Who walks serene upon the tempests' wing,
And lifts the islands as the smallest thing!
In scales the everlasting mountains weighs,
And holds in hollow of his hand the seas!
Light like a dazzling garment round him spread,
And awful darkness his pavilion dread!
His voice the triple thunder of the sky!
Lightning the vivid flashes of his eye!
Earthquakes, convulsing Nature's frame abroad,
The angry stamps of an offended God!
What language not immortal can define
Essential glory! majesty divine!

These give unsully'd lustre to the year,
And make the Spring so exquisite appear,
Else one unbounded, one unlovely waste,
Each beauteous object fled, each charm defac'd.
These undiminish'd in the Godhead shone,
Ador'd by angels circling round the throne,
Ere Man arose from animated dust,
Benign his aspect, as his form august;
And shall, completed Heav'n's immense design,
The wonder of new worlds eternal shine.

But, after Fancy's eagle-flights were o'er,
And heav'n-illumin'd Genius could no more;
Thus, conscious all his best essays how vain,
Might the rapt bard conclude his humble strain.
“O great Original of life, and good,
“And excellence! how little understood!
“From first to last unchangeably the same!
“I AM—thy dread unutterable name!
“Eternal King of kings! Almighty Pow'r!
“On whom depends Creation ev'ry hour,
“Depends for support, beauty, order, life,
“Else one vast scene of elemental strife!
“Oh! pardon (angels fail alike with me)
“This impotent attempt to sing of Thee!
“How shall a worm Omnipotence address;
“Range its confin'd ideas, or express?
“To Thee can languid mortal praise extend?
“Or infinite thought finite comprehend?
“Yet, though retir'd on high from human sight
“In mansions unapproachable of light;
“Though angels thy creative footsteps trace
“Through all the vast immensity of space;
“If Majesty Supreme can stoop so low,
“Or on a worthless worm a look bestow;

“Oh be Thou ever, merciful and kind,
“As Virtue finds Thee, present to my mind;
“From sudden weighty trials to secure,
“Which Nature is too feeble to endure;
“Or, if permitted, that, without a tear,
“Reason assisted may their pressure bear.
“To Thee, before the first approach of light,
“Dispels the congregated gloom of night,
“Or welcome slumbers close my willing eyes,
“May, like pure incense, my devotions rise.
“If Fortune her proud favours should bestow,
“And life's full cup with blessings overflow;
“In Thee alone may I expect to find
“An equable and unelated mind.
“But if Heav'n's boon is a depress'd estate,
“And poverty is my appointed fate;
“May the pert tongue of Discontent refrain,
“If it would boldly venture to complain.

“To Thee, when my unwary footstep strays
“In Guilt's broad path, or Errour's dubious maze,
“May I with sudden recollection look,
“Though to receive the timely sharp rebuke.
“Oh! led amid the gloom by Wisdom's ray,
“Soon, wand'ring, may I find the better way.

“In each condition, ev'ry change below,
“May I the end and motive learn to know;
“The measure just, and consequence of things,
“What flows from Prudence, what from Folly springs;
“Thy sapient distributions still in view,
“To give Thee all the glory that is due.
“If Prejudices rule with tyrant sway,
“Teach them the voice of Reason to obey.
“If Passion domineers with wild uproar,
“Speak, and again the Mind's lost peace restore,
“To Thee, when sickness or distress draw nigh.
“May I direct my help-imploring eye,
“When all the boasted remedies of Art,
“And friends themselves, in vain their aid impart:
“And O! at that, perhaps not distant, hour,
“When Health, impair'd in ev'ry active pow'r.
“In the last spark of animation flits,
“Glows out afresh, and languishes by fits;

“When by a thread all human safety hangs,
“And thought anticipates Life's parting pangs;
“Father of mercy! graciously impart
“Solace and comfort to my drooping heart!
“In Thee Supreme, sole Conquerour of death,
“O may I triumph with my latest breath!”

How fitted, Spring, thy objects to impart
Virtue's sublimest feelings to the heart!
To elevate our hopes and wishes hence,
And give a moral poignance to the sense!
Religion, while she treads thy paths of flow'rs,
Or in still glooms with Thee protracts the hours,
Or where thy streamlets in meanders flow,
Tastes those delights the world can ne'er bestow.
The breast enthusiastic rapture fires,
Something unknown prompts our enlarg'd desires;
Quick on the wing of lightning Fancy's caught,
Big images of things expand the thought;
Unheard of wealth Imagination counts,
Her pinnacle of fame Ambition mounts;
We speak and look, as more than mortal men;
Soar with an angel's eye, an angel's ken;
When, gentle Spring, the magic of thy scenes
Arrests the eye, and thrills along our veins.

Who can behold Earth's beauteous offsprings round,
See soft returning verdure clothe the ground,
Hear jocund music warble from each spray,
And mark the glories of the god of day,
Nor find his bosom fir'd, his thoughts alert,
Him niggard Nature form'd without a heart,
Such ne'er improves on Education's plan,
Though more than brutes, still something less than man.
But hush—no satire shall our page deform,
Spring's gentle reign but seldom knows a storm.
Who would from her fair landscapes lift his eye,
A dunghill, or its tenant worm, to spy?
Let the harsh pen be emptied of its gall,
Spring now but sweets and dews permits to fall.

O bear me, Fancy, on thy fleet-wing'd car,
To climes unknown, to regions distant far,
Where vertical the sun his pow'r displays,
Thron'd in refulgent majesty of blaze.
Where Beauty her more splendid form assumes,
And universal Spring eternal blooms.
Where, nourish'd by earth's rich-concocted sap,
While busy Science fills her outspread lap,
Annual, the plant, the balmy herb's renew'd,
With sov'reign virtues variously endu'd.

Where rivers, famous in immortal song,
On golden sands transparent glide along;
Whose lofty banks, by woods pomacious grac'd,
Blush with rich fruit, high-flavour'd to the taste.
Where unctuous shrubs, and honey-dropping trees,
And liquid gums, scent the favonian breeze,
Where orange-loaded forests deeply glow,
Spice-bearing groves, and citron orchards blow.
Where, through the sunk recesses of the mine,
Metals, for ages hid, resplendent shine,
The virgin silver, of no vulgar pore,
And gold's more highly-estimated ore.
Where purple rubies flame in common stone,
And diamonds, destin'd for some monarch's throne,
Pure harden'd ether, light's concenter'd rays,
Or singly sparkle, or in clusters blaze.

But what avail their temp'rature of skies,
And fertile lawns, where fruits spontaneous rise?
Their myrtle shades, and vales adorn'd with flow'rs,
Elysian walks, and amaranthine bow'rs?
There Accidents put on a thousand forms,
Diseases, famine, plague, vulcanos, storms.
There Sickness takes her periodic range,
While Generations ev'ry lustrum change;

Endless Diseases croud her ghastly train,
In languor sunk, or agoniz'd with pain;
Consumption, with emaciated look,
And pale-lipp'd Ague like an aspen shook.
There Tyranny, curs'd with imperial sway,
Beholds his millions abjectly obey;
The titled peer, with his domestic clown,
Alike beneath the terrour of his frown.
There Earthquakes, while dread Nature makes a pause,
Open enormous their expanded jaws,
The superb temple, and the regal tow'r,
Buried beneath, in one devoted hour.
There Pestilence blows round her tainted breath,
And riots in the horrid feast of death;
Cuts off alike the grandee with his slave,
And makes whole towns and provinces a grave.
There the vast Wild unhospitable glooms,
Where brutal life each dreaded form assumes;
Where savages in furious pastime play,
Or strew with carnage their insanguin'd way.
There, brooding long portentous o'er the deep,
Frequent abroad impetuous Whirlwinds sweep,
While lightnings in excessive flashes glare,
And smells sulphureous taint the fiery air,

Thunders round rattle formidably loud,
And torrents burst from each distended cloud.
There, laying waste the labours of an age,
The gorg'd Vulcano gathers all its rage;
Or vomits forth, in seas of melted ore,
Earth's glowing entrails, with explosive roar,
Masses of pitch, rocks subterranean broke
In molten fragments, wrapt in flame and smoke.
Why then abroad stretch Fancy's eagle-wing,
Flush'd by the vital spirit of the Spring,
When homeward, no such terrours to alarm,
Suns milder shine, and fairer prospects charm?
When blessings of a more substantial kind,
But by our wishes and our hopes confin'd,
Each comfort that to sweeten life can tend,
On ev'ry Season's grateful wing descend.

Rather on Albion's celebrated coast,
The boast of nations, as fair Freedom's boast,
Which rocks in hostile range surround immense,
Nature's own ramparts rais'd for her defence;
Of healthful air, and cultivated soil,
Where no fell pontifs threat, nor tyrants spoil;
Which oceans from the Continent divide,
Let me in bless'd security reside;

To fur-clad Indians, Heav'n's sole boon to them,
Left the resplendent ore, and costly gem.

Religion, here, with mercy-beaming eyes,
As when she came a seraph from the skies;
Virtue, that such desert reflects on man,
His arduous course of destin'd trial ran;
White-mantled Peace, that hates the bloody scene,
And Liberty, in sweet conjunction, reign.
Here darling Property's to all ensur'd,
By public faith inviolate secur'd,
While each, as fancy, taste, or ease incline,
Sits underneath his own embow'ring vine.
Here, equal with his lord's, the vassal's cause
Enjoys the naked sentence of the laws,
While royal favour flows alike to all,
At Virtue's suffrage, or at Merit's call.
Better the meanest cottager, if free,
Than the proud riban'd slave of high degree.
Here Plenty opens her delighted hand,
And scatters wide her favours round the land;
The farm-toil'd Peasant happy with his lot,
His garden-viands, and his low-roof'd cot;
As in their purple robes, and chairs of state,
The birth-ennobled, splendour-circled Great.

Boundless as Nature, yet confin'd by rule,
Here godlike Science founds her liberal school;
Ravish'd beholds her fame-enraptur'd sons,
Along whose veins the stream of genius runs,
On wing excursive their bold flights pursue,
And with a glance look all Creation through.
Here Art, in her own native climate, thrives,
Art, that but seldom Freedom's fall survives;
Sees here, her busy millions plac'd around,
With great success her vast inventions crown'd;
Life polish'd, manners soften'd and refin'd,
And by degrees enlarg'd the human mind.
Here Commerce lavishes her choicest stores,
The prime productions of remotest shores;
No gentle gale distends the sheet unfurl'd,
But wafts her all the treasures of a world.
And here the Muses, with their gentle train,
That in soft melting Elegy complain,
Or rise to Epic, by Fame's nearest road,
Take up with kings and heroes their abode.

Hail, Seat of empire! mighty Albion, hail!
Still may thy cause, and Liberty's, prevail.
Still may thy fleets, the barriers of thine isle,
While breezes waft, and suns auspicious smile,

Beat back Ambition to her native home,
As yonder surge retires in empty foam.
And still may one of Brunswick's princely line
Be both the darling of mankind, and thine,
Till hoary Time himself, surviving all,
Subdu'd, on his own broken sithe shall fall.
—But scenes of sport now call the Muse away,
Too much indulging the digressive lay.

On yonder beaten tract, the village-swains,
In strength robust, with youth distent their veins,
While looks elate their various hopes proclaim,
Croud from all quarters, candidates for fame.
With Herculean sweepy whirl they throw,
The pond'rous hammer, or the iron crow;
With vigorous arm fling light the massy stone,
Diversions fit for British youths alone;
Pop the well-rounded quoit with dextrous pitch,
Run the swift race, or leap the custom'd ditch:
Each emulous, as if his all at stake,
To gain the contest, or the lead to take.
Ambition's not restricted to a crown,
Kings have it but in common with a clown.

Some, not detain'd enervate at the side,
Plunge in the closing pool's translucent tide.

Forward, incumbent on the clear expanse,
With arms extended fearless they advance;
While, at each sturdy stroke, in vapoury light,
The tumid wave breaks refluent on the sight:
Or down some avenue's protracted length,
With practis'd sweep, and full-exerted strength,
Each fellow'd with his brawny-limb'd compeer,
The glowing bullet roll in fleet career:
Others, as kings of old us'd to contend,
With happy aim the bow elastic bend,
While forth impell'd the rapid arrow springs,
And whizzes up on well-proportion'd wings.

These are the Season's periodic sports,
Here Health, with all her florid train, resorts;
Here pale Consumption's wasted form's ne'er seen,
The Gout, Catarrh, the Gravel, or the Spleen.
Here all in native gaiety appear,
A temper sympathetic with the Year.
Such are the exercises that bestow
The strong-brac'd sinew, and the ruddy glow;
Lengthen, with blessings fraught, the narrow span
That circumscribes the stated life of man;
Blessings, when, haply, men their loss deplore,
But Heav'n, and Whytt, and Temp'rance can restore.

Blessings, alone by active Virtue won,
From hardy sire transmitted to his son.

Such scenes of tranquil life, and rural ease,
Such scenes, in their own nature form'd to please,
Immortal poets sung, renown'd of old,
In happy ages fondly styl'd of gold;
When men their blissful hours in vineyards spent,
With Nature's unextorted gifts content;
Ere Rapine and Oppression warn'd mankind,
In common league, for common good, combin'd,
To delegate to one imperial sway,
Whom all with willing suffrage should obey.
Such scenes, by ev'ry mild and gentle art,
To all the finer feelings mould the heart;
Add swiftness to Time's care-retarded wing,
And give a native elegance to Spring.
Teach that instructive lesson, seldom known,
Though in importance it outweighs a throne,
That Happiness basks not in Fortune's blaze,
Nor to the Great her ready visit pays;
But with the shepherd shares the lowly cot,
How simple, how obscure, regarded not.
Blush, ye that boast a garter or a star,
Behold a peasant, more ennobled far.

Well might a tear the Grecian hero shed,
To dim the starry circlet round his head,
For, short of happiness, he knew no rest,
Though he a world in proud survey possest.

Hail! Happiness, fair native of the skies!
What is it thy celestial name implies?
Is it for wise, for excellent to pass,
Or heaps of useless riches to amass?
Is it to live in ease, exempt from care?
A haughty monarch's partial smile to share?
Is it to flutter with a titled name,
Or swell elated by a breath of fame?
Is it to range through Nature's boundless space,
The endless laws of Gravity to trace?
Studious o'er books with midnight lamp to pore,
And Learning's age collected funds explore?
Is it to weep at Pity's soft command?
Or stretch forth Charity's assistant hand?
Is it a form, with ev'ry beauty grac'd?
A set of features, regularly plac'd?
Is it a temper's accidental cast?
A heart by Nature's finest touch imprest?
Is it the spirits mov'd in brisker flow,
And softly agitated to and fro?

Is it Life's salient springs adjusted right,
And wound up gently to a certain height?
No; to the foul opprobrium of mankind,
Thy sacred name remains yet undefin'd.
Nought that results from an external cause,
Which chance bestows, or accident withdraws;
Nought to a rank confin'd, in fame or gain,
Which few can merit, fewer far obtain;
But what, as dews from heav'n promiscuous fall,
Flows in a constant equal tide to all,
To all alike, that govern, or obey,
Of Thee a just idea can convey.
Let then fantastic Lovers dream no more,
And all their schemes Philosophers give o'er:
An humble spirit, a contented mind,
To ill, by choice, averse, to good inclin'd,
In ev'ry change of circumstance the same;
Comprise in apt epitome thy name.

The End of the Fourth Book.

Let the reader be here informed, once for all, that nothing is meant by Fortune, in this or any other place, but such a crisis or revolution in human affairs, or in the circumstances of individuals, as seems immediately to result from the mere solly, caprice, and passions of mankind. In this sense the word Fortune, so often, and so indiscriminately used by authors, happily enough supplies the place of a tedious circumlocution.

BOOK V.

Now swells the full-grown orchard on the sight,
O'erspread with blossoms delicately white;
Or streak'd with crimson's richly-painted dye,
With saffron tinct, or glow of evening-sky:
A wilderness of soft perfumes, more sweet
Than in Arabia's gummy forests meet;
Than what the sun's prolific ray exhales
From spicy groves, and fragrant Indian vales.

Here pear-trees in capacious shade extend,
Soon with their juicy progeny to bend.
On lofty branches there, luxuriant spread,
The apple shows its cheeks of burnish'd red.
Along that wall, the apricote and peach
Bask in the heat, and soften to the reach;
And yonder plums, turgescent to the view,
Fatten their luscious flesh of cloudy blue.

How deep, how solemn spreads each tree around,
Bent in a thousand arches to the ground!
Mingling their branches in diffusive shade,
Scarce can Noon's brightest glance the gloom pervade.

How comes the sadly-pensive mood unsought!
How melancholy steals upon the thought!
Who can the half-spontaneous sigh refuse?
Who can resist the urgent call to muse?
When we would thrones and diadems despise,
And on all human grandeur shut our eyes;
Peep at Eternity from Time's dark brink,
Converse like angels, and like angels think;
Better and wiser when we wish to be,
From endless trials, snares, and follies free;
To such Retirements, with becoming awe,
Oft let us from a guilty world withdraw.

Here might some Bard, whose hopes immortal tow'r
Above the poor possessions of an hour,
By Faith's sublime enthusiasm fir'd,
And long of Life's unmeaning sameness tir'd;
Thus, with each thought on happiness intent,
Might he indulge his soul's enamour'd bent.
“Oh could I, Happiness! seraphic maid,
“To whom the universal vow is paid!
“With Thee retire to this sequester'd spot,
“By all, save by a faithful friend, forgot;
“A friend, whose joyous countenance and smile
“Can soften care, and pain itself beguile!

“Through solitude diffuse a cheerful ray,
“And gild those glooms unvisited by day;
“Not Siren Pleasure, with her fair pretence,
“Nor Fame, nor Grandeur, should allure me hence.
“Science should teach me all her sacred lore,
“And with me Fancy on her pinion soar.
“Study exhaust each genius-kindled page,
“The treasures and researches of an age.
“Sweet Meditation, heav'n-descended maid,
“Should lead me through each solitary shade;
“Of thought intranc'd ecstatic flights inspire,
“And with her transports set my soul on fire.
“Beneath the spread of some romantic tree,
“(All places, cherub! are alike to thee)
“Where the fond bee with tube inserted clings,
“Or buzzes round on deeply-loaded wings;
“Where grasshoppers chirp their incessant note,
“And the lone robin strains her mournful throat;
“On Nature's verdant lap, should balmy sleep
“Each willing sense in soft oblivion steep,
“Brought gently on (a boast unknown to Wealth)
“And render'd sound, by exercise and health:
“While zephyrs scatter odours from their wings,
“The sweets quintescent of each flow'r that springs;

“While Twilight draws her sable curtain round,
“And Silence guards the consecrated ground.
“Peace should conclude the day, as it began,
“And Virtue form the angel on the man.
“Each hour to Heav'n should bear some fond request,
“Not to be mighty, or of pow'r possest;
“Not to claim kindred with a splendid name,
“Or live recorded in the rolls of fame;
“Not for pre-eminence in rank or style,
“A monarch's favour, or a courtier's smile:
“But hopes more elevated, less confin'd,
“More prompt devotions, and an humbler mind.
“And when Time's measur'd sands were gradual run,
“And Life its strangely checker'd task had done,
“Sustained by mighty Faith's supporting arm,
“No guilt to sting, no terrours to alarm;
“Pleas'd should the spirit wing, from earth set free,
“Its flight to Heav'n, O Happiness! with thee.”

While others form the visionary scheme,
Of castles in the air phantastic dream;
Wrapt in the love of mercenary gold,
In wretchedness and misery grow old;
On Pleasure's wanton lap in dalliance lie,
And drink swift poison from her darted eye;

His moments thus the virtuous Bard employs,
And Spring far more than vulgarly enjoys;
Flatters no statesman, by base faction rais'd,
Himself dishonour'd, as his patron prais'd;
Maligns no worthy venerable name,
With parts, alas! that damn him into fame;
Takes from himself no image of the age,
Then to hell sinks it with a devil's rage:
But, unseduc'd by pride, caprice, or pelf,
Thinks greatly each man better than himself;
While Nature feasts with fruit his vagrant eye,
Soon at his feet in luscious heaps to lie;
At once delights him, Nature's true sublime,
With Plenty and with Beauty in their prime.

Breathe mild, ye winds! ye Zephyrs! gently fan,
Nor disappoint the sanguine hopes of man;
Your softest dews, ye skies! benignant show'r,
Nor scorch the folded bud, or infant flow'r:
That when Autumnal suns maturing shine,
Little inferiour to the purple vine,
May flow the limpid current from the press,
And sparkle highly-flavour'd in the glass;
That mellow fruitage, in profusion stor'd,
May long a delicate repast afford,

When Winter's joyless solitary reign
Extends through widow'd Nature's bleak domain;
When, round the clean-swept hearth, and blazing fire,
The social circle from the Storm retire;
Regardless how it sweeps with hostile roar,
And heaves the spumy billows to the shore;
Or how the torrent, rapid and profound,
With rous'd-up fury smokes along the ground;
While gloom primæval clouds the face of day,
And ruin big marks their tumultuous way!
From harm secure, with grateful calm content;
Prepar'd to taste the present blessings sent;
Such blessings Nature fails not to provide
For modest wishes, unenlarg'd by pride;
Happy that soon, these surly horrours past,
The rain-charg'd tempest, and the icy blast,
While Winter each in frightful caves confines,
And to her smile the willing world resigns,
Spring, usher'd in by Music's gladsome strain,
Will light exulting on the conscious plain;
Furnish'd with all that genial climes bestow,
To bless the fond expectant world below.
Furnish'd—but let the eye around be thrown
To see those treasures Spring may style her own.

Waft me, Imagination, on thy wing
To some sweet wood-encircled haunt of Spring,
Along fam'd Tweed, or fairer-border'd Clyde,
Where she delights with Beauty to reside.
Already has the Thames, imperial stream!
Unrival'd been the Muse's boasted theme,
Wafting the wealth of distant worlds along,
By Twick'nam's bard immortaliz'd in song;
Oh could I (but the forward wish is vain)
Reach his surpassing elegance of strain,
Not Thames alone should be consign'd to fame,
Clyde should the secondary honours claim!

Warm'd by the Season's vivifying ray,
Light, Muse, on airy pinion bear away,
To trace its current, various as it flows,
And verdure and fertility bestows.

First, in a sheet of water broad and deep,
On osier beds each murmur fast asleep,
It swells immense, in liquid mirrours seen,
Ashes and pines adown each margin green,
Or lime-trees in full arching rows prolong'd,
Or pendent rocks with thickets wildly throng'd:
Headlong anon, rous'd from its languid flow,
Where some huge precipice o'erlooks below.

The gulf profound, and ragged shadows frown,
It dashes, whirls, and smokes, and thunders down;
Till, in a smooth expanse compos'd again,
Onward it sweeps majestic to the main.

Here shoots with wing'd velocity along
The salmon, monarch of the scaly throng;
Here trouts unnumber'd skim their fluid way,
Plunge far below, or near the surface play;
Fierce-darting, here the tyrant pike resides,
While deep in mud the eel elapsive glides;
Often in nets by sturdy peasant haul'd,
Or on the angler's bloody hook impall'd.

Nor shall the Muse, transported as she roves,
Pass by, Dalzell! thy venerable groves.
Thy fields, such as romantic fancy feigns,
Where golden Plenty ever smiling reigns.
Thy orchards, loaded with Autumnal fruit,
Thy nurseries, where woods in embryo shoot.
Thy noble vistas, grottoes, and cascades,
Thy upland lawns, and sun-expanded glades.

Thy long, dark avenues, at distance seen,
Forming o'er head arch'd canopies of green.
Thy temples gilt, Invention's boast, and Clyde's,
Thy hot-beds, where through winter Spring resides.
Thy rich inclosures, where the stately deer
Majestic roam, or sport in fond career.
Thy flow'r-plots and thy gardens richly drest,
On which the genial powers of Culture rest.
Thy shady arbours, alcoves, green retreats,
The Lover's darling haunts, and Muse's seats;
Where pensive Meditation oft retires,
Stretches her wing, and kindles all her fires;
While, as she takes her visionary walk,
Around her forms ethereal seem to talk.
With her to spend the summer-lengthen'd day,
Each passion calm, and ev'ry care away,
Here would I envy not Arcadian swains,
Tempe's fam'd valley, nor Hesperia's plains.

Authors should too employ my choicest time,
Correct their diction, as their thoughts sublime.
Authors, whose pleasing lessons daily read,
Better the heart, while they inform the head;
Still, as by magic, Passion's inbred storm,
And portray Virtue in her comeliest form;

Not such as drag down Reason from her throne
Or make her reign unaided and alone;
Both ill extremes, and foes to humankind,
That warp the judgment, and debase the mind;
Where fatal doctrines charm in fair disguise,
Oft unperceiv'd by superficial eyes:
Amid a glow of subtile language, still
By taste selected, and arrang'd with skill,
Errour conceal'd from vulgar notice lurks,
And sure her darling scheme, though slowly, works.
As in a bed of flow'rs, or thorny brake,
Fold within fold lies hid the crested snake.

Who would affect to mingle with the croud,
Form'd of the selfish, insolent, and proud,
And not prefer the Country's tranquil joys,
Where Nature always pleases, never cloys?
For smoke, condens'd in many a pitchy wreath,
The sweetness of untainted air to breathe.
For narrow streets, by quick-ey'd Fancy led,
To roam through meads, in lilied verdure clad.
For noise incessant, from each pensile spray,
To hear the tuneful songster's jocund lay.
For vain distinctions and phantastic show,
Those cares Contentment glories not to know,

Nothing save rural elegance to see,
What Virtue is, what Grandeur ne'er can be.
Did angels from their blissful seats descend,
Their time below in Paradise to spend,
Our heav'nly guests would not in courts abide,
But near a wood, or by a fountain's side.

Happy the man, to whom a well-spread board
An ample Independence can afford,
Leisure to study, quiet, peace, and ease,
Born rather to be pleas'd, than others please;
A little sov'reign, though without a crown,
Courted his smile, nor dreaded less his frown!
Spring opens all her treasures to his view,
To be admir'd with more than common goo.
Labour and Want (unhospitable twain)
Chill not the current in Life's salient vein;
Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast,
Nor check the nobler passions of the breast;
Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge,
Which man's chief pride philosophers allege.
Thus some fair shoot, in spreading foliage gay,
Drinks youth and vigour from the golden day,
Because no worm gnaws at its root below,
Colds nip above, or forky lightnings glow.

A taste, improv'd by Education, finds
Pleasures where none appear to ruder minds;
Scenes, where the croud but few attractions see,
Affect it in an exquisite degree:
As telescopes, the finer ground, convey
More striking beauties by the visual ray;
Or magnets, as prepar'd the more exact,
Objects around more forcibly attract.

This is her privilege; nor this alone,
Wealth others yet more glorious calls her own.
Her's is the pow'r, from Heav'n descends the will,
The famish'd mouth of Indigence to fill.
To over-rule the casts of Fortune's wheels,
And mitigate the pang Affliction feels.
The cares of injur'd Virtue to beguile,
And make the haunts of Desolation smile.
With pious hand the frequent tear to dry,
That gushes down from Sorrow's humid eye.
The naked limbs in raiment to unfold,
Expos'd to shame, and all benumm'd with cold.
Thus to partake their pleasures, heighten'd too,
No painful sense of obligations due:
For he whose bounty well directed flows,
Enjoys the very blessings he bestows.

As bodies give to others, though at rest,
That same first motion on themselves imprest;
Or as the clouds in exhalations gain,
What they expended in Vertumnal rain;
While Virtue dares not to decide pretend,
Which party most indebted in the end.

Such kindred sentiments would Spring impart,
Softness of look, and gentleness of heart;
Simplicity of thought, a taste refin'd,
Feeling of soul, and sympathy of mind.
For view through vegetable life her plan,
In guile how little she resembles man!
All her productions, to enrich the year,
Simply and fairly are what they appear.
I wrong her sure—minutely them explore,
She promis'd much, but she bestows us more.
The flow'r excells in elegance of hue,
Ev'n to the distant superficial view;
But to its velvet leaves the glass apply,
Still richer glows the variegated dye!
The herb and plant how botanists admire,
Though furnish'd only with plain green attire!
But let the chymist exercise his art,
Extracting the rich essence of each part;

What words can paint our gratitude to Spring,
While health we title a momentous thing!
Though much on her employ'd the sylvan strains,
Much of her beauties still unsung remains.
But who can count the pearly globules Morn
Sheds infinite on ev'ry twinkling thorn?
Or who arrange with unbewilder'd eye
The stars that cluster through the midnight sky?

Hail, blooming Spring! essential Sweetness, hail!
Thy fragrant breath perfumes the lenient gale.
Thy magic smile, amid the Tempest's strife,
Can wake the torpid glebe to verdant life;
The harden'd soften, the compact expand,
Moist from thy dews, and by thy zephyrs fann'd.
Not central cold its genial force can stop,
Though Winter's frosts arrest the pendent drop.
By it the sap, protruded to the root,
And juices, long confin'd, fermenting shoot;
Through twining tubes in brisk meanders play,
And life and vigour to the top convey.
From hence deriv'd the vegetative pow'r,
The turgid stem, herb, plant, and dew-fring'd flow'r.
Hence all the various growths that Earth o'erspread,
Mantled in verdure, and by ether fed.

Hence Summer to the thickest shades retreats,
And coolest haunts, to shun the sultry heats;
Hence ripens, underneath her radiant eye,
Refresh'd by dews, that trickle from the sky,
The fields, thick-waving in luxuriant grain,
And vineyards flush'd with purple's richest stain.
Hence Autumn gathers in his fruits mature,
From hostile winds and accidents secure;
While the glad hind, exulting in his store,
Content, forms not a distant wish for more;
His rosy children prattling on his knee,
Their little sweet endearments fond to see;
They too delighted to behold him smile,
With aspect pleas'd, and brow relax'd the while.
Hence, the full Year with golden plenty crown'd,
The liberal glass, in bumpers hurried round,
Inspires each gladden'd heart, from cares set free,
With honest transport, and facetious glee;
No red-cheek'd dame forgot, with artless mien,
And untaught step, that trips the daizied green.

Hence all that lavish imagery thrown
From Nature's lap, which Fancy names her own.
Hence too whate'er to studious ease inclines,
Exalts the genius, or the sense refines;

Those objects, in successive fair display,
That wake to harmony the Poet's lay;
Excite fond pictures in the Lover's thought,
The Lover still intensely musing caught,
Venting, where some congenial shade surrounds,
His love-sad anguish in pathetic sounds.

The End of the Fifth Book.

One of the finest seats, for natural beauties particularly, on Clyde, belonging to Archibald Hamilton of Rosehall, Esq;

BOOK VI.

From crouded villas, and frequented ways,
Unhappy youth! now pensive Damon strays.
Damon, whom Love to lasting sorrow dooms,
To pathless haunts, and solitary glooms;
Where echoes, sympathetic with his wo,
Where crystal brooks, that murmur as they flow;
Where lonely birds of melancholy throat,
That piteous swell the sadly-pleasing note;
Where flutes that round to plaintive music wake,
Where grasshoppers that chirp amid the brake;
Where bees that hum, or to the blossom cling,
Where beatles, wheeling round on drony wing,
Where zephyrs, sighing through the branchy trees,
Where ev'ry sound he hears, or object sees;
Confirm, but by some strange mysterious pow'rs,
The settled sadness on his brow that low'rs.

Long ill-requited had he worn her chains,
That reigns the scornful Beauty of the plains;
Oft, in such language as express'd his flame,
Trembling would he accost the haughty dame;
Oft as she pass'd, no kindly word to say,
In pleasing anguish look his soul away.

But all in vain; her heart would never melt,
No thrill of passion ere her bosom felt;
With angry glance, or quick-averted eye,
Would she retire, disdaining to reply.

Once, from a secret eminence he spied
Himself unseen (Love's ever watchful-ey'd)
His fair one trip across the nether lawn,
Her cheek, the roseate blush that paints the dawn.
Spring strow'd with fragrant flow'rs her smiling way,
And zephyrs wanton'd with her loose array;
While birds, her steps delighted to detain,
Pour all their softest melody of strain.
Enamour'd round her lovely eyes she threw,
In many a glance, on the surrounding view,
Where Spring's gay forms their sweetest looks assume,
In naked pride of noon-unfolded bloom;
Pleas'd with the partial self-attested truth,
That all smil'd emblems of her charms and youth.
But had she guess'd what conscious eye beheld,
To her no more the landscape had excell'd.
Lightly the grass her hasty footsteps print,
And no delay her motions seem to hint.
Howe'er by others view'd, in Damon's eye,
Our Fair seem'd not to walk, but almost fly.

100

Ill-omen'd speed, yet hoping half he err'd,
He knew to somewhat not his meed referr'd!
Some foreign care her thoughts seems to employ,
And ev'ry step deprives him of a joy.
No wonder Damon gaz'd with dumb surprise,
With all his passions crouding to his eyes!
Rarely the eye-lids of the blushing Morn
Ope on a maid whom fairer charms adorn!
In spiral rings her hair disparted flows,
And half her neck of milky whiteness shows;
Her garments, loosely floating on the gale,
Would hide her gentle limbs, but kindly fail.

New glory, in his fond deluded eye,
Seems to illumine all the cloudless sky;
In beauty ev'ry object to surpass,
As conscious of the presence of his lass.
Each sound, each accent, of a pleasing kind,
He partial deems to catch her ear design'd;
To call her easy gracefulness of air,
Her bloom, her shape, her looks, beyond compare.
A fuller gale of fragrance from the ground
Seems to diffuse its wafted sweets around.

Yet other feelings too succeed in turn,
Destin'd to freeze, like Hecla, and to burn.

101

What strange sensations vibrate in his eye!
How heaves his bosom with the lab'ring sigh!
What doubts, what fears, (to hold him in suspense)
Rush in disorder on his troubled sense!
How Recollection her fell pow'r employs,
To dwell on former scenes of blasted joys!
To bring each disappointment into mind,
When all her looks and answers were unkind;
Hiding no proof officious from his view,
That can the anguish of his soul renew;
O'ercloud his brow with the dark gloom of care,
And sink his baffled wishes in despair!

Yet through the chaos of his thoughts, from far
Hope faintly gleams, like some auspicious star.
Oft he resolves aside reserve to lay,
And throw himself abruptly in her way,
One last effort to melt a frozen heart,
That mocks his passion, and derides his art.
But soon his coward resolution flags,
His courage fails him ev'ry step he drags.
He dreads to try, by one decisive test,
What wretched renders him for life—or blest.
Too prudent fear—for ah! ill-fated swain!
This trial had like others prov'd in vain!

102

She chanc'd, as passing negligently by,
Where Damon stood, to cast her lifted eye.
Nor needed more—with frown-o'erclouded look,
And sudden turn, a by-mark'd path she took.
Down his swoln cheek the tear effusive dropt,
And stupid grief his pow'r of utt'rance stopt—

At other times, oft to the clear expanse
Would he, erect in conscious pride, advance.
There, in a faithful mirrour, he beheld,
In what his person fail'd, in what excell'd;
His manly limbs how turn'd, his sinews strung,
His shape how graceful, how his shoulders hung;
What comeliness of aspect might inspire
Some gentle female bosom with desire.
Returning lightsome from the fond survey,
Oft to himself in silence would he say,
“Sure, though as cold as Winter's native ice,
“This form of mine some Virgin might entice,
“Else has the crystal element hard by,
“Flatter'd poor Damon, and deceiv'd his eye!
“Yet do the flow'rs, its margin that compose,
“By the resemblance half their beauties lose.
“Shall it a heighten'd image then convey,
“And flatter love-sick shepherds more than they?

103

“If thus beguil'd, where-e'er his footsteps go,
“Still in despair may Damon's sorrows flow.”

Thus, while the Hours on heavy pinions move,
He lingers out a life of hopeless love;
Alike forgot, where fellow-swains convene,
The sprightly dance, and gambol on the green;
His crook neglected, mute his oaten reed,
And lonely flocks untended left to feed.

But see where Strephon, happy shepherd! laid
Beneath the umbrage of a beechen shade,
With pipe and song the tedious time beguiles,
While pleas'd around him blooming Nature smiles.
No vulture on his vitals inly preys,
No clouds obscure the sunshine of his days;
He gives each sad reflection to the wind,
His flocks all thriving, and his mistress kind.

One summer's day, beneath the noon-tide beam,
Strephon, return'd from bathing in the stream,
Sought the cool windings of a devious wood,
That well accorded with the Lover's mood.
Here ev'ry noted songster, warbling round,
Ran through the softest melodies of sound.
Here gelid breezes fann'd the sultry hours,
Lavish of sweets from incense-breathing flow'rs.

104

Here Silence fixes her retir'd domain,
Far from the proud, the wanton, and the vain.
Here Melancholy's tardy footsteps range,
With countenance scarce Spring herself can change.
Here something strikes him, speech but ill explains,
That sends an unknown rapture through his veins,
Conveys, though Nature only knows from whence,
Strange images of transport to his sense;
Which all, howe'er confus'd and wild they mix,
Alone on one beloved object fix.
Something, of secret instantaneous pow'r,
Nor to a mode restricted, nor an hour,
That a sad-pleasing flow of temper brings,
And wakes the Fancy by unusual springs.

Nor does this charm the soften'd soul to melt,
This nameless impulse only to be felt,
Affect the doubting anxious Lover more,
Than Him, whose cares and vague distrusts are o'er.
Each somewhat of a sweet despondence finds,
A languishment, that soothes but Lovers' minds.
Each too is gratified, yet nothing gains,
Though what the one delights, the other pains.
Thus Strephon, though Ethlinda kind as fair,
With Love's bland voice had bade him not despair;

105

Amid the rueful solitary shade,
Conceiv'd a joy from each thing he survey'd;
Yet sighs his inward discontent betray,
His Charmer still protracts the happy day,
When yonder sun shall meet his eager sight,
To see their persons with their hearts unite.

Not long the grateful covert he enjoy'd,
On recollected proofs of love employ'd;
What mingled sweetness in her features reigns,
Where Beauty seems to speak what Virtue means;
Where her fine temper's seen, beyond a guess,
As objects shine reflected in a glass!
Not long, on such endearing thoughts intent,
He thus indulg'd his fancy's pleasing bent,
How kind his angel last, how soothing spoke,
When from a secret copse these accents broke,
Which through each sense like subtile lightning thrill'd,
And all his soul with sudden tumults fill'd.

“O Strephon! beauteous as the dawn of day!
“Blooming as Spring! as radiant Summer gay!
“Sweeter than odours from the new-mown vale!
“And milder than the softly-breathing gale!
“O lovely youth! thy charms, unknown to art,
“Attract each eye, and captivate each heart.

106

“In vain, alas! Ethlinda's virgin pride
“The partial wishes of her breast would hide.
“No shepherd in the festive dance I see
“Can, gentle Strephon, once compare with thee.
“Thy locks, that down in shining ringlets fall,
“Thy form unequall'd, manly, graceful, tall;
“Thy open countenance, and star-bright eye,
“Thy health-flush'd cheek, where artless dimples lie;
“Thy polish'd brow, unfurrow'd o'er with care,
“Thy easy carriage, and engaging air;
“The honey gliding music of thy tongue,
“Beyond whate'er enamour'd shepherd sung;
“Thy elegance of taste, and temper frank,
“Conspire to set thee far above thy rank!
“These render thee the Country's darling boast,
“Of all thy fellow-swains distinguish'd most!
“But O!—what shall a bashful maiden say?
“These charms have stole Ethlinda's heart away!
“Howe'er in numbers she affects to mix,
“On thee alone her thoughts with rapture fix!
“A thousand quaint remarks, and sighs apart,
“Fraught with the unknown wishes of her heart;
“A thousand looks, that mean expressive more
“Than words can tell, though ransack'd o'er and o'er;

107

“A thousand artless smiles, if Strephon by,
“A thousand side long glances of the eye;
“A thousand tender proofs, did she disguise,
“Against her would in bold conviction rise.”

“But such from noblest friendships oft are shown,
“Which blushing Modesty herself may own.
“Such too to Strephon's candid view they seem'd,
“And shall not obvious Merit be esteem'd?
“Is it forbid in females to admire?
“Can Custom's laws such deference require?
“Must maids to some excess be ever prone,
“Pliant as wax, or harder than the stone?
“Scorch'd by the flame that Love within excites,
“Or cold as Winter-snows on Lapland heights?
“Is there no happy medium to prefer,
“Nor in the one extreme nor other err?

“Ye Formalists! ye stiff censorious race!
“With air demure, and grave disciplin'd face!
“Say, where the bounds by Reason fix'd begin,
“Which virgin Modesty must keep within:
“How far say, and no farther, must the tide,
“Without control, of female fancy glide,
“Nor to o'erflow its banks, nor yet forsake,
“As either might our int'rests leave at stake?

108

“How Judgment may the helm, with prudent fear,
“Far from the shallow, and the eddy steer;
“That no rough blast, with unsuspected shock,
“May dash us shipwreck'd on Misfortune's rock,
“But down the current Hope may gently sail,
“Wafted by ev'ry mild and pleasant gale.

“Why have we faculties which angels share,
“And fix'd on objects not beneath their care;
“Why Fancy, which some bold flights still employ,
“But the wide range of Nature to enjoy?
“Why Memory, but, each excursion o'er,
“To lay all her researches up in store?
“Why have we passions of so fine a turn,
“With Love to languish, or with Friendship burn;
“Why those affections of a gentler kind,
“To all the social feelings still inclin'd;
“Why hearts of such refin'd materials fram'd,
“To relish pleasures language never nam'd;
“But to dilate, at the fond tender hour,
“And feel the warmth of sentimental pow'r?
“Why have we senses, of so keen an edge,
“Of Nature's kind regard the living pledge,
“None of her gifts so bountiful as they,
“But pleasure through soft inlets to convey?

109

“Why have we organs exquisite for sound,
“But to be charm'd by Nature vocal round?
“For vision, but to view, all sweet surprise,
“Beauty, with soften'd look, and melting eyes?
“For speech, but to express these chaste desires,
“With which Love Innocence herself inspires?
“Why fram'd thus mid Creation are we plac'd,
“But what attracts of fair and good to taste?
“Why thus endu'd? but virtue-caution'd when,
“And where, to be as happy as we can?

“Ah! self-deluder! arts like these must fail
“O'er Nature's standard maxims to prevail.
“Such arts may on thyself impose, but know,
“Poor love-sick maid, such arts no farther go.
“Echo, reposing in her rocky cell,
“Till Love the tender tale essay'd to tell,
“And conscious zephyrs, round thee wont to play,
“Would all thy fair appearances betray;
“Thy specious pleas, and inferences bold,
“In their own vain fallacious light unfold.
“Oft too, ere wearied with her silent walk,
“Where deep'ning shadows seem'd around to stalk,
“Cynthia, between the op'nings of the shade,
“Beheld unseen the melancholy maid.

110

“Nor she alone, unconscious to the eye,
“But all her bright companions of the sky.
“Oft as she wander'd, at the murky hour,
“To some lone alley, or espalier-bow'r,
“When all but Love, by wakeful cares opprest,
“Retir'd to taste the sweets of downy rest;
“Vesper shone witness of her flame avow'd,
“If sobs and sighs are tender marks allow'd;
“If looks, that seem in silence to complain,
“If footsteps, that no certain course maintain,
“If endless musings, with sad down-cast eyes,
“To proofs of more than doubtful meaning rise.”

She ceas'd—but little thought her Lover nigh,
To hear, with broken voice and heaving sigh,
The prompt confession from her bosom flow,
With all the love-sad emphasis of wo.
Strephon, who long stood like a statue fix'd,
In ecstasy with speechless wonder mix'd,
As these last words his ravish'd ear detain,
No longer his impatience could restrain;
But straightway steals, directed by the sound,
Where haply the sweet mourner might be found.
Nor wanders far—with rapture-quicken'd pace,
He soon explores the oft-frequented place.

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Where, in a state of terrour and surprise,
That wildly flash'd alternate from her eyes,
With countenance deep-ruffled o'er with care,
He found his sweetly-agitated fair.

Oft she essay'd the forward youth to fly,
As oft her feet their timely aid deny.
Resentment seem'd to chide her strange delay,
But something gently whisper'd her to stay.
She judg'd him rude, but in a mild degree,
Prudence condemn'd, but Candour set him free.
Divided passions in her bosom rose,
Love govern'd these, but female spirit those.
But how unequal is the contest found,
When Pride and Love contend to keep the ground?
This always conquers, though against our will,
That, in the issue, proves the vanquish'd still.
A sudden glow, that made her charm the more,
Her cheek in deep suffusion colour'd o'er.
Unusual heavings in her bosom told,
Her heart how caught, and his approach how bold.
A soft confusion all her air betray'd,
And mix'd emotions seize the silent maid.
While Strephon too was in proportion aw'd,
His looks would censure what his thoughts applaud.

112

But why those tumults? that disorder'd look?
Respect, with love, ne'er Strephon's breast forsook;
His passion, still controll'd by too much sense,
And much too delicate, to give offence.
Thus, soon his aspect and address allay'd
The various doubts of the half-angry maid.
He spoke—but only, as her fears he saw,
To make a gen'rous offer to withdraw.
“O Pardon,” he in gentle accents cries,
“Love too officious gave thee this surprise.
“Pardon a faithful swain, who only proves
“A bold intruder thus, because he—loves.
“A frown that beauteous brow but to invade,
“To him, Noon's brightest sun-beam would o'ershade;
“Would to his wishes death at once impart,
“And like a dagger pierce him to the heart.
“If but his presence hurts my lovely maid,
“She need but word her will to be obey'd.
“Obey'd, in all that exile can imply,
“From her, from love, and happiness to fly.
“Say, charmer! shall I quit this sweet recess,
“Sacred to friendship, nor to Strephon less?
“Shall I my fortune all at once resign,
“And, for thy ease and comfort, forfeit mine?

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“But can, to render life scarce worth a care,
“Thy ease and pleasure be to him despair?
“To his hard fate may Strephon then retire,
“In secret pine, yet cease not to admire.”
He stopt; and seem'd to think she whisper'd—no,
Although her answer meant to bid him go;
Yet, had she disallow'd his longer stay,
She hop'd to find her Lover disobey.
Thus pleas'd alike, alike to please inclin'd,
Their equal wishes one acceptance find,
While both, each selfish mean disguise above,
Vow mutual constancy, and mutual love .

Thus would the Muse, amid the din of arms
Tumultuous, and the trumpet's loud alarms ;
While War malignant rages unconfin'd,
And purple Slaughter thins the human kind;
The softer scenes of Peace attempt to paint,
Beauteous her landscapes, though her colours faint.

114

Faint, gentle Thomson! when to thine compar'd,
With whom her skill kind Nature fondly shar'd,
While ev'ry Season ran its full career,
To draw a finish'd portrait of the Year!
Nor is her subject of ignoble fame,
Though less of sounding grandeur in its name.
Peace shall exult supreme from shore to shore,
When War's loud clangours kindle strife no more;
Kings see themselves, who now like gods behave,
Sunk to the level of their meanest slave.

But to sylvestran scenes, where Fancy strays,
Fountains and groves, confin'd her humble lays,
While only zephyrs whisper in her song,
Birds simply warble, murmurs glide along;
Will no heroic bard, by glory fir'd,
By victory and martial deeds inspir'd,
Britannia sing, victorious o'er her foes,
Whose smiles to peace a willing world compose?
Sing Liberty, with civet wreaths adorn'd,
Without whom, crowns shine only to be scorn'd?

Who rouses not at Freedom's glorious name?
Mounts up to transport, kindles into flame?
Dilates in the big swell of conscious pride?
And looks, and speaks, as if to thrones allied?

115

Freedom, whose int'rests with Religion's mix,
Howe'er vain schoolmen names distinct affix,
As fibres of the heart together twine,
Or glass-transmitted rays concenter'd shine;
On one same gracious sacred errand sent,
Alike in nature, motive, and extent!
A separation is the death of each,
Whate'er kings boast, or bold fanatics teach!

Where-e'er Britannia's royal banners fly,
Whether in nearer, or remoter sky,
Conquest attends, shapes her resistless way,
And quick decides the fortune of the day.
What well concerted plans! what great designs!
Where patriotic wisdom glorious shines!
What orders with alacrity perform'd!
Cities subdu'd, and mighty bulwarks storm'd!
What acquisitions! what renew'd success!
Our fortune great, nor yet our conduct less!
How will these animate the future page,
The splendid boast of each succeeding age!
How all alive will Fancy's colouring glow!
With what proud majesty the numbers flow!
While some rapt Bard, whom Homer's genius warms,
Sublimely sings, inspir'd, of men and arms,

116

Makes British heroes rival those of Greece,
The long-fam'd Iliad less a matchless piece!
From Virgil's brow unties the age twin'd bays,
To flourish on his own with tenfold praise!

But shall such noble themes pass now unsung,
Untun'd the lyre, mute the harmonious tongue?
Shall Britain wide diffuse her warlike name,
The earth not more unbounded than her fame,
Nor yet a Bard, on whom the Muses smile,
Be found through all her sea-encircled isle?
Shall Albion's sons, renown'd for conquest long,
In ev'ry place be heroes but in song?
In ev'ry place, save in the tuneful page,
Her trophies claim the wonder of the age!

Next Him, in whom a nation can confide,
The mighty helm of Government to guide;
Calm, wise, discerning, steady, fix'd, as fate,
To manage all the grand concerns of state;
Next to the gallant Hero great in arms,
Whose bosom more than Roman virtue warms,
Whose valour, which to glory still inclines,
Prompt executes the Statesman's bold designs;
The Bard accomplish'd should be understood,
As those of ancient fame, a public good.

117

In ev'ry age depends upon his pen
The gift of Immortality to men,
Which great achievements not alone can give;
Thus godlike names of old recorded live,
The finest scenes of conduct and address,
Applause that merit, or ensure success;
The noblest efforts of heroic might,
Exerted in the tumult of the fight,
While rival kings in glorious strife contend,
And crowns imperial on each stroke depend;
If some illustrious Verse recite them not,
Die of themselves, neglected and forgot .
The mist of ages, gather'd by degrees,
Where Study objects through false mediums sees,
Spreads o'er Fame's fair horizon, and displays
One gloomy, vast, inexplicable, maze;
Still, in those native regions of romance,
The more obscure, the further we advance,

118

If Poetry, as day-break on the night,
Shines not abroad to call from darkness light.

But whether has the Muse digressive stray'd,
Forsook the peaceful covert of the shade,
To rush amid the noisy files of war,
Led by the light of the Mœonian star?
Tumult and death, while mighty kings dispute,
Ill, beauteous Spring, thy gentle temper suit.
The purple dye, on plains embattled seen,
Forms a sad contrast with thy softer green.
Thy love-tun'd voice, that sighs among the trees,
With the loud roar of battle ill agrees.
No more digressions shall the Muse prolong,
But end with Thee as she began her song.

Hark! in yon plantane-range, yon poplar-shade,
Hard by the murmur of a lone cascade,
Or where some antique pile, superbly high,
Rears its enormous ruin to the sky;
At Twilight's dusky hour, protracted long,
The Nightingale plies her lugubrious song;
Piteous, as if her gentle mate had died,
Or tender young been ravish'd from her side.
Warn'd by the dying cadence of her strain,
Like her the screech-owl peeps out to complain.

119

Complain of such as barb'rous would molest
Her peaceful haunts, her ivy-circled nest.
On yonder wall in solemn state she sits,
While round and round the bat incessant flits,
Yon time-rent wall, with moss-tufts overgrown,
And utters forth her melancholy moan.
Silence and mute Attention, guards serene,
Meet to preserve the stillness of the scene.

The pool in gentle undulations shook
By the swift lapse of some near-falling brook;
The milk-maid, as she bears her fragrant load,
Singing aloud to cheer the dreary road;
The beatle's drony pinions, slowly stirr'd,
The frequent hoots of Night's ill-omen'd bird;
The heifer lowing from adjacent hill,
The mastiff barking from a distant vill;
The shepherd's horn with lusty cheek full-blown,
The gently-finger'd hautboy's milder tone;
The momentary rustling of the breeze,
Sighing in scarce-heard whispers through the trees;
The break successive, and deep hollow roar,
Of billows lashing some contiguous shore;
The ceaseless hum of insects, hov'ring round,
And flocks penn'd up with sleepy tinkling sound;

120

The blackbird's clamours, lonely as she hops,
Her infant brood, ah! ravish'd from the copse;
The partridge shrill, in some adjoining park,
Seeking her mate scarce obvious in the dark;
The swallow, twitt'ring from her mud-built nest,
As if to soothe her callow young to rest;
Or noisy martlets, in phantastic play,
And keen pursuit, winging their airy way;
While each by intervals the ear detains,
Sets off the nightingale's mellifluous strains;
With endless contrasts varies ev'ry note,
And gives peculiar softness to her throat.

While, in one universal chaunt of praise,
The common herd of warblers join'd their lays,
Greatly as if superiour to the rest,
In scornful silence she her voice supprest.
But now, the wonder-list'ning world her own,
When she can charm the pensive ear alone,
In full impassion'd melody of wo,
Through the dun shade her mournful numbers flow.
Night, lurking in the distant vap'ry sky,
Or hov'ring in her ebon chariot nigh,
Transported, seems her visit to delay,
Loath to obscure the faint remains of day.

121

Echo too, fond no tender accent should
The delicacy of her ear elude;
From some lone grot, or antiquated tow'r,
Exhausts her finest arts of mimic pow'r.

Say, Music! by what fascinating art,
Dost thou hold sov'reign empire o'er the heart?
Say, whence thy pow'rs mysterious can arise,
Sure some ecstatic impulse from the skies,
By ev'ry nerve that vibrates to the brain,
The soft ascendant o'er the soul to gain?
Rapid and sudden, like ethereal fire,
All the whole man resistless to inspire?

Hail, potent lenitive! hail magic charm!
The viper of his poison to disarm!
The rabid tyger's deadly rage to stay,
And soften lions rampant o'er their prey!
Kindly to sweeten Fortune's bitter cup,
And keep through life man's drooping spirits up!
His journey o'er earth's rugged paths to smoothe,
His toils to mitigate, his cares to soothe!
To still the sigh that heaves the breast of wo,
And dry those tears down sorrow's cheek that flow!

But see! from yonder chambers of the sky,
Sent by the sun his absence to supply,

122

The full-orb'd moon, queen-regent of the night,
In all the soft resplendency of light,
With silent imperceptible advance,
Slides up the clear cerulean's smooth expanse.
Quick through the air the yellow radiance spreads,
First faint reflected from the mountain-heads;
Then, delicately checker'd, by degrees,
It steals among the openings of the trees,
Or on the river, mov'd in sprightly flow,
Dances in mild vibrations to and fro;
Anon immense, o'er all the landscape wide,
Diffus'd in one uninterrupted tide.
On as the meek-ey'd Empress glides serene,
Stars, to augment the grandeur of the scene,
Brightly arrang'd her sapphire path along,
Or cluster'd round her car, in myriads throng.

The solemn, glimm'ring, exquisite display
Of beauties, Fancy ever would survey,
Court the nocturnal Warbler to prolong,
Nor court in vain, her finely-varied song.
While Sleep prepares, with aspect still and calm,
On human eyes to pour her opiate balm;
The day-set task of busy Labour o'er,
And care's incessant clamours heard no more;

123

Retir'd the peasant to his straw-thatch'd cot,
The noble, rich, and mighty, envied not;
Content with what the beauteous Seasons bring,
The wealth of Autumn, promis'd by the Spring.
Spring! softest period of the circling Year!
When all things in the bloom of youth appear;
When Nature's hoary age seems quite renew'd,
In Winter's arms late spent and wrinkled view'd;
To which, while all the brighten'd landscape glows,
Summer her radiant flush of beauty owes:
To whose bland influence, and enliv'ning smile,
If aught, in fancy, sentiment, or style,
The Muse can boast of beautiful, is due
The inspiration, and the tribute too.
Ye kindred souls, whose taste is form'd sublime
On Nature's faultless standard, friends of rhyme,
Whose feeling hearts Spring's charms by instinct move,
Cherish her labours, and the verse approve!

But when, at shut of eve, all home repair,
The soft delights of virtuous rest to share,
Sweeter than that, on silken couch of down,
Partakes the monarch burden'd with a crown;

124

And leave the Solitude, more awful grown,
To Philomela and the Muse alone;
The Muse too must the scene sequester'd quit,
To let unrival'd the proud Songstress fit.
Unrival'd, save by Him, whose tuneful tongue
Of life and death in lofty numbers sung;
Who of those idols all so fond pursue,
Riches and Fame, a faithful portrait drew;
To man immortal set his matchless strings,
Himself immortal render'd while he sings!
The dark-brow'd Night, through her opaque domain,
The Moon, with all the planetary train,
Listen'd with silent wonder to his lay,
Pleas'd thus preferr'd their empire to the day.
He heard the latest quiver of her throat,
Though echoes lengthen'd out each parting note.
Who else, sweet Nightingale! could sing so well?
Who else the twilight-harmonist excell?
He saw the lark on early pinion rise,
Saluting with her matin song the skies;
The silver Majesty of night withdrew,
And stars alternate vanish'd from the view;

125

To other worlds, far as their beams can pierce,
The Bard's nocturnal labours to rehearse!
But simpler scenes the rural Muse delight,
Her wing a stranger to so bold a flight;
Far other themes attune the sylvan lyre,
Far other strains Spring's modest charms inspire.

The End of the Sixth and last Book.

It will here be obvious, though shepherd, flock, &c. are introduced, as giving a romantic air to the description, that, in the foregoing love-scenes, the writer never intended to preserve the simplicity of the pastoral character. This will apologize for Ethlinda being so great a reasoner in love.

Written in the year 1761.

------ Sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
Hor. Scindentur vestes, gemmæ frangentur et aurum;
Carmina quam tribuent fama perennis erit.
Ovid.

127

ODE ON SPRING.

Addressed to Miss ---

Now Spring, of seasons gentle queen,
In flow'ry mantle rob'd of green;
Her locks in beauteous ringlets spread,
And rainbows circling round her head;
From southern climes, which shar'd erewhile
The vital sunshine of her smile;
Upon a sun-beam gilded cloud,
While grateful Nature shouts aloud,
Approaches; led by jocund Mirth,
To give ten thousand objects birth;
Sparkling her eye, her aspect sweet,
All azure pure beneath her feet.
Approaches, to alight anon,
Winter with all his tempests gone;
To bid the month-divided year
Begin its downy wing'd career;
Awake the reed, the dance awake,
And call creation to partake,

128

While varions tasks and scenes employ,
Of universal wealth and joy.

The virgin choir of Graces bland,
Each with a rose-bud in her hand,
With dimpled cheeks in vermile dy'd,
Attend their queen on either side.
Around her sportive Cupids dance,
Bending their bows with wanton glance;
With various signs and various arts,
Soon to surprise a thousand hearts.
Plump buxom Plenty, pleas'd Content,
And Peace, on gentlest errand sent;
Gay social Ease, and Friendship kind,
Make up her smiling train behind:
While Music with her warbling lute,
All in attentive silence mute,
Through air in undulations toss'd,
With gradual cadence gently lost,
Swells the impassion'd note before,
Sweetly repeated o'er and o'er.
Hov'ring aloft in liquid sky,
She views the earth with anxious eye,
To see through all its wide extent,
What change each place has underwent;

129

Where Winter's triumphs most appear,
To blast the sun-abandon'd year,
(Rude tyrant thron'd on hills of snow),
There most her favours to bestow.
She views, and through the blue expanse
Bids the bright Lord of day advance;
Bids Winter's gloom, the sky that shrouds,
Quick vanish into fleecy clouds;
Commands the snows to fall no more,
And colds to give their freezings o'er;
Restrains the torrents of the sky,
Soft dews their fury to supply;
Forbids the angry storm to rage,
While lawless elements engage,
But, hush'd to silence by degrees,
To imitate the fanning breeze.
Thus all her mild commands express'd,
To her arrival left the rest;
Straight from a lucid cloud that bends,
She with her jovial court descends;
While Zephyr breathes around, and flings
Ambrosial odours from her wings.
Some of her light ethereal train
Frequent the lily-broider'd plain.

130

Pleas'd to survey on ev'ry side
The variegated prospect wide.
Some to the hill's aëreal height
To bend their upward steps delight,
And there, no vapours foul to wreathe,
In elemental pureness breathe.
Some to the river's shady banks,
Where wild-goats wanton o'er their pranks,
When noon-tide heats infest the air,
With fond alacrity repair.
Others, amid the grove's lone walk,
With fancied forms affect to talk;
Echoes, that deep in caves reside,
And Zephyrs that in whispers glide:
While numbers in the osier shade,
For tender scenes of rapture made,
Attune to love the sylvan reed,
And chide each moment's forward speed.

Where-e'er the blushing Goddess moves,
Her smile, her touch, creative proves.
Beneath the splendour of her eyes
New infant-forms of beauty rise.
Nature all life and transport seems,
And earth with births impatient teems.

131

The woods in waving foliage clad,
The fields with checker'd carpets spread;
The brook, late swell'd from melting hills,
Gliding along in silver rills;
The meadows stock'd with flocks and herds,
The copses throng'd with warbling birds:
Shepherds and nymphs, in parties met,
With rosy cheeks and eyes of jet;
In social strains prepar'd to sing
The charms of Nature and of Spring,
With hearts elate and looks serene,
Beyond what raptur'd poets feign.

Now from the city's noisy streets,
Where Care with Grandeur ever meets,
The winter-prison'd croud repair,
With Spring soft rural scenes to share;
Amply to gain in rosy health,
What they had forfeited for wealth.
Such hapless man's peculiar fate,
Nor rich alike in all, nor great!
If in one article he thrives,
And one alone, howe'er he strives,
In others, so high Heav'n decrees,
His sudden ill-success he sees!

132

Nor blame the justice of the skies;
One falls, and hence a thousand rise.
Nought but the partial love of gain
Could them in noise and smoke detain;
Save Spring's glad call no fond pretence
Could court their loit'ring footsteps hence.

But, more supremely charm'd than those,
Julia the fair enamour'd goes
The ever-lovely Dame to meet,
With brow as mild and aspect sweet;
Breath that partakes of her perfume,
And cheek that emulates her bloom;
By the green margin of a stream,
That sparkles to the pointed beam;
Beneath some ag'd romantic oak,
Where thoughtful bards the Muse invoke;
Up some fair eminence, from whence
The landscape is survey'd immense;
In some close copse, or woodbine shade,
Or o'er some lawn, or upland glade;
Some level vista's measur'd walk,
Or deep recess where echoes talk;
Where wakeful Philomel complains,
And linnets warble forth their strains;

133

Where airy Fancy strays alone
In calm retirements of her own,
And, though apart from human kind,
Can company and converse find.
Nor she alone charm'd with the year,
It too with her would pleas'd appear.
Her presence adds a grace to Spring,
While softer all her warblers sing;
Each object, in advance she meets,
Exhibits all its choicest sweets;
Beauty her fairest form assumes,
More gaily smiles, or deeper blooms.

She goes! but not to entertain
The recollection light or vain,
Or, by Spring's native charms uncaught,
Idly to roam for want of thought.
Far other laurels she demands
From Virtue's consecrated hands;
Far other suffrages of praise,
Than Vice bestows, or Folly pays.

Her mute companions most admir'd,
By life's disgusting sameness tir'd,
Are, Innocence in vestment white,
And Fancy borne on pinion light;

134

Content, still forward to rejoice,
And Music with her love-tun'd voice;
Peace, with pleas'd brow and aspect calm,
And Health with breath of fragrant balm;
Philanthropy, of boundless view,
And Charity as boundless too;
Friendship, that scorns each false disguise,
And Pity, with tear-trickling eyes;
Taste, of quick sense and feeling just,
And Love, that knows no mean disgust;
Meekness, of feature mildly sweet,
Fond with Humility to meet;
Gay Hope, whose looks a transport wear,
And Silence with attentive ear;
Fair Modesty, that loves to walk,
No eye to see, no tongue to talk;
Candour, the rough-told tale that smooths,
And Sympathy, that kindly soothes;
Lone Contemplation tardy-pac'd,
And Solitude, in glooms solac'd;
Wisdom, that draws the veil from Folly,
And with the Muse sweet Melancholy.
With such associates she retires,
Traces their steps, their haunts admires;

135

With them her pensive hours employs,
And though alone, the world enjoys.
Oh! when her wonted roams she takes,
While ev'ry sense to joy awakes;
Whether to yonder green alcove,
Yon belvedere, or spacious grove;
Or fine slop'd hill, that overlooks
Flocks, shepherds, villas, woods, and brooks;
Or shadowy vale, or sunny glade,
Or lime-tree row's imbow'ring shade;
Or gay parterre, or terrace-walk,
Grac'd with each flow'r of courtly stalk;
Or grotto cool, or arcade green,
Or wilderness, with seats between:
Propitious may the sylvan Muse,
In her own lov'd retreats she wooes,
While fields their richest tints assume,
And op'ning rose-buds round her bloom,
Her gentlest votary inspire,
And warm her with celestial fire!
May ev'ry rural scene she views,
With Wisdom lone retir'd to muse;
Whether the azure-mantled sky,
The wood, or brook that murmurs by;

136

The rising hill, or meadow green,
Where shepherds with with their flocks convene;
The colonnade, or tow'r-grac'd wall,
The temple, or steep water-fall;
The orchard, in full glory blown,
Or parks, with bladed wealth o'ergrown;
Or flow'r-plot, where carnations bloom,
And gales their balmy wings perfume:
May all, with inspiration stor'd,
Some sentimental joy afford!
Some hint, by study vainly sought,
Some happy flight, some pleasing thought!

137

An HYMN TO THE DEITY.

In imitation of the CIVth Psalm .

Nec viget quidquam simile aut secundum.
Hor.

Ascend, my Muse, inferiour scenes give o'er,
On wing of fire celestial heights to soar.
No common subject now demands thy lays,
Nothing below the great Creator's praise;
Who systems calls to being when he wills,
Whose presence Nature's wide expansion fills,

138

But which, though not immensity confines,
In empyrean worlds transcendent shines.

Honour, his by prerogative alone,
Is ever the attendant on his throne;
While Majesty, approach'd with awe profound,
Encircles him ineffable around.
He clothes himself, unsufferably bright,
In all the pomp of uncreated light;
Though to frail mortals, but with breath inspir'd,
Darkness is his pavilion dread retir'd;
While seraphs, swelling the immortal strings,
Veil their astonish'd faces with their wings.
He spreads the spacious skies beneath his feet,
Like a vast curtain, or expansive sheet;
While æther swells transparently around,
Pure elemental fluid without bound.
On the broad deep the sapphire columns rise,
That bear up the huge circle of the skies;
Yon superb arch, where in full glory shine
Proofs of superiour wisdom and design.
Above, rais'd glorious by paternal hands,
The mighty palace of Jehovah stands.
Amazing height, and depth, and breadth, and length!
Surpassing splendour, grandeur, beauty, strength!

139

Eternity its basis! substance light!
Attendants angels! area infinite!

On ev'ry cloud a vehicle he finds,
And walks upon the pinions of the winds.
Through the vast stretch of infinite expanse,
Suns darken'd in their orbits at his glance,
Abroad he moves, omnipotently great,
In all the glorious majesty of state.
His angels round, that bend the duteous knee,
Are spirits of pre-eminent degree;
In whom glows out their Maker's image bright,
Efflux of breath divine, first-born of light.
His ministers bright rang'd before him stand,
To watch each signal of supreme command;
Active, as glances of ethereal fire,
To execute what his behests require;
Behests of mercy to his worlds around,
Dispers'd through all the depths of space profound.
Tempests themselves, impetuous as they blow,
Strongly convulsing Nature's frame below;
And lightnings, roll'd in vivid sheets around,
His dreadful ministers of wrath are found.

The mighty pillars of the Earth he laid,
And her foundations everlasting made.

140

In vain loud thunders break, and tempests rage,
She stands unmov'd though elements engage.
The swelling waters o'er the mountains rise,
The great Abyss heaves boundless to the skies;
At his rebuke the billows swoln subside,
Restrain their fury, and contract their tide;
With hasty tumult, and deep-felt uproar,
Down through the valleys seek their destin'd shore;
Where, circumscrib'd, immense barriers withstand
Their hostile inundations on the land;
While in his dwelling man secure resides,
Hears Ocean roar, nor dreads his angry tides.

He bids the springs gush forth among the hills,
To wander through the vales in silver rills;
Where, with his flock, the shepherd speeds his way,
And asses wild their ardent thirst allay;
Adown whose sides, wood-grown and vocal too,
The feather'd tribe their tuneful tasks renew;
His praise divine in choral numbers sing,
Oft as his smile turns Winter into Spring;
While echoes, up-rous'd by the general song,
Catch ev'ry measure, and each note prolong.

From his fraught clouds descend the timely rains,
To fatten and refresh the thirsty plains.

141

Æthereal fluid, of prolific pow'r,
To give the vernal and autumnal hour:
While all mankind their grateful joy declare,
Bless'd with each mark of kind indulgent care;
Content with what his various works produce,
Charm'd with their beauty, harmony, and use.

With flow'ry herbage he o'erspreads the field,
A rich repast the milky kind to yield,
In lusty droves that low from ev'ry hill,
While flocks beneath the bleating meadows fill.
And see the village-nymph, high-flush'd with health,
Exhaust each udder of its balmy wealth;
And homeward, guided by the twilight beam,
In frothing goblets bear the luscious stream.

Here, of fine movements, and majestic size,
With deep-arch'd neck, and lightning-kindled eyes;
Ears exquisitely-fashion'd, nostrils wide,
And mane that flutters in dishevell'd pride;
The sprightly horse, of more than vulgar breed,
Delights through Nature's green retreats to feed;
Or plunges, heated by the noon-tide beam,
Amid the gelid river's closing stream;
To cool the glow which through his vitals reigns,
And check the tide that shoots along his veins.

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For Man he bids the juicy herb arise,
That Plenty still may feast his ravish'd eyes;
Bids various crops their turgid ears unfold,
Each valley waving in autumnal gold;
Bids the flush'd vine her purple clusters fill,
And balm from ev'ry unctuous shrub distill:
That wake to rapture man's expanded heart,
And vigour to his well-brac'd limbs impart;
To the soft cheek perpetual smiles bestow,
And to each feature Health's fresh roseate glow.

He calls the sap, detruded to the root,
Among the boughs a living tide to shoot;
And lo! a thousand forests stand display'd,
In all the verdant majesty of shade;
The hill-rais'd cedar, of superiour size,
Mounts in adumbrant verdure to the skies;
While zephyrs, thro' the full-spread solemn gloom,
With aromatic scents their wings perfume.
Hither the tuneful tenants of the air,
As to a hospitable lodge, repair;
Here, mutual pair'd, and by soft duties prest,
With care parental build the downy nest;
Here, on glad pinions waft the insect-food,
To soothe with tender life their callow brood;

143

Here, gently teach the infant-wing to rise,
Anon to stretch unbounded through the skies:
While in the bosom of a lofty fir
The stork enjoys the mansion rais'd for her.

On yonder tufted hill's romantic sides,
Whose brow sublime oft the blue vapour hides,
The wild-goats upward climb their dauntless way,
Where Fancy's footsteps dread themselves to stray.
Self-taught to climb, beneath no shepherd's charge,
On Nature's hidden boon they feed at large;
While in the rocks below, and shrubby dells,
The nimble-footed cony silent dwells;
At each return of eve, or dewy morn,
Stol'n forth to nibble through the bladed corn.

Kindled from the refulgence of his eye,
The sun assum'd his station in the sky;
Earth an unnumber'd progeny to give,
And bid ten thousand forms of being live;
Each season to enjoy its destin'd range,
And day and night observe alternate change.
In what bright beams of glory he ascends!
How to his rise the gen'ral eye attends!
How grand in Noon's refulgency of light!
How soft his setting radiance on the sight!

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At his command the full-orb'd Moon arose.
To mount her chariot at the twilight close;
Relieve faint Nature from noon's sultry blaze,
Amid the languish of her softer rays.
Through vistas lone how mild her splendours gleam!
How ocean swells beneath the placid beam!
At her approach what crouds of twinkling stars
Round Night's pale empress whirl their silver cars!

Down the crystalline void, with graceful bend,
He bids the rainbow's dewy prisms extend.
From clime to clime the sign æthereal's seen,
Radiant with orange, purple, and with green.
Behind a broken watery cloud, the sun
In one grand arch sees all his splendours run;
To tell mankind no deluge shall o'erflow,
As heretofore, the fated world below;
But that bland moisture and refreshing show'rs,
To give the earth new vegetative pow'rs,
Soon as the fulgid wonder bends o'er all,
Shall from the air-suspended conduits fall;
To a light texture loose the kindly soil,
And half anticipate the peasant's toil.
Men view, with grateful hearts, and ravish'd eyes,
The ample glory stretch'd across the skies;

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Meanly indulge alarming doubts no more,
But prostrate kneel, sing praises, and adore.

Darkness from Him its dreary being takes,
When only Rapine, back'd by Murder, wakes;
When, more than half-rejoic'd Creation gone
To those chaste welcome slumbers toil brings on;
Their aspects fierce the prowling race assume,
Quit their dank caves, and stalk the rueful gloom.
Rabid and gaunt, abruptly forth they pour,
And add fresh horrours to the midnight hour;
While but the moon, with pale reluctant ray,
Shines conscious of their outrage on the prey.
How swift their steps the trackless wilds explore!
How loud the repercussions of their roar!
How quake the world of animals around,
Hid in their holes, or scamp'ring o'er the ground!

The Lion, in majestic terrour proud,
To awful silence hush'd the savage croud;
Steps forth with slumber sullenly content,
On slaughter and assault indignant bent.
Enrag'd by want the shaggy monarch stands,
And with redoubled roar his food demands;
He rears his mane, discloses wide his jaw,
And tears the prey beneath his ruthless paw.

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From the bright chambers of the East, at length,
The sun arises, glorious in his strength;
The sanguine tribe, each to his gloomy den,
Retreat apace in gather'd troops from men.
There, stretch'd behind huge carnage-clotted stones,
Mid ghastly sculls, crush'd limbs, and fractur'd bones,
Deep-gorg'd with blood, all-horridly they sleep,
Or yawning grim, unceasing growlings keep.

Eternal Sov'reign of the starry skies!
Where-e'er we cast our wonder-gazing eyes,
How admirable, how immense are found
Thy works, through all creation's ample round!
Of matchless skill what master touches shine!
What signatures of workmanship divine?
Till human thoughts, howe'er aloft they tow'r,
Are lost in thy infinity of pow'r!
O'er yonder wide cœrulean tracts on high,
Thee in thy blaze of glory we descry;
Thy Godhead's brightest characters survey,
Nor need our Bible's mandate to obey:
There, while suns unextinguishably burn,
And planets on their golden axles turn;
While comets take their grand æthereal range,
And seasons in sublime progression change.

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But if the pinion aquiline descends,
And to the Earth its downward flight extends;
Earth we behold exhibit ev'ry hour,
Like proofs of sapience, and creative pow'r;
But chief of love paternal, that o'er all
Thy other works for admiration call;
Till with big transports each full heart runs o'er,
And man's capacious wish can grasp no more!

Here swells the ocean boundless to the view,
Whose amber depths conceal thy wonders too.
Here, wafted pathless through the booming tide,
Beyond arrangement animals reside;
Some of stupendous size, while gradual some,
Smaller almost to infinite become.
What eye not more than mortal can extend,
Where these tumultuous worlds of water end?
Whoe'er the gulf unfathomable plumb'd?
Its islands number'd, or its treasures summ'd?

Here, with broad sheets unloos'ned to the gale,
Like flying castles, trade-built navies sail;
Loaded with all the wealth of distant shores,
What Luxury affects, or Want implores.
Hence Nature's various products intermix'd,
And bounds to home-bred prejudices fix'd;

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Hence elegance of manners takes its rise,
And those fine arts affected by the wise;
Hence ties commercial bind consenting states,
While public faith secures, and justice rates;
Hence friendly feelings wake the social heart,
And int'rests join, whom mighty oceans part.

Here huge Leviathans their dwellings keep,
Monarchs enormous of the billowy deep;
In awkward gambols, and unwieldy play,
Like living mountains sweep their uncouth way;
O'er the swoln surge in clumsy grandeur rise,
And squirt the liquid columns to the skies.
When the black tempest's midnight terrours form,
And flame and thunders aggravate the storm;
The cumbrous potent of the scaly throng
Heaves unalarm'd his shapeless bulk along;
Nature's dread aspect all sedate he braves,
Amid the tumult of conflicting waves;
Or sportive, while the elements engage,
Deepens their horrours, and augments their rage.

These all promiscuous, happy with their state,
Daily on thee, Almighty Father, wait;
Wait in observance of thy high command,
To catch the prompt allowance from thy hand:

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It they receive, are satisfy'd, and own,
With pleas'd content, to them thy bounty shown!
To Earth aghast is turn'd thy wrathful look,
The Earth is to her inmost basis shook;
Sudden, at thy tremendous touch burst out
In smoke the kindled mountains all about;
Their loos'd foundations to the bottom rock,
And nature to the centre feels the shock.
Displeasure veils the smiles upon thy face,
Dismay and anguish seize the human race;
Thy finger interrupts their fleeting breath,
They faint, they sink, o'erwhelm'd by instant death;
Prostrate in ashes own thy vengeance just,
Drop into nothing, and return to dust.
From thy dread brow the cloud of anger falls,
Thy voice with Mercy's tender accents calls;
From depths of sorrow man erects his eye,
To thee, great God, and thy relenting sky;
Renew'd in beauty earth rejoicing stands,
As first form'd perfect from thy plastic hands.
So cloth'd in storms and vapours for a robe,
Stretching his iron sceptre o'er the globe;
When Winter steps abroad with sullen frown,
From rocks abrupt his torrents tumbling down;

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The rural world, its vegetation gone,
A wither'd form and aspect pale puts on;
Gay beauty's soft diversities of hue
Unfold no more, bedropt with pearly dew;
Joyless the eye, round the wide landscape thrown,
Sees one vast scene with wildness overgrown.
But, when transported on a zephyr's wing,
From heav'n alights the rosy-featur'd Spring;
To Earth's cold centre, long unknown to day,
Extends the Season's vivifying ray:
Nature no more with mists invested glooms,
But one unbounded jocund smile assumes;
To vegetable life each object wakes,
And Ruin her dread paths below forsakes.

The glory of Jehovah shall endure,
On rectitude his throne establish'd sure,
Eternal, incommunicably bright,
When yonder orbs are whelm'd in central night;
When worlds in myriads through the mighty void,
Have been in turns created and destroy'd.
In his grand works, of each sublime degree,
Shall his supreme complacence ever be.
His works, each plann'd for some peculiar race,
That croud the infinite profound of space!

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His works, to which compar'd, how strangely small
The little extent of our atom ball!
His works, howe'er unmeasurably great,
That nothing seem, if by a God we rate!
His works, which but himself can comprehend,
The rap'trous song of angels without end!

While salient life shoots through these conscious veins,
And animation's latest spark remains;
To thee, all-gracious Parent of the skies!
My hymns on Faith's ecstatic wing shall rise.
Thy orient sun shall hear my song renew'd,
Ardent to his late parting blush pursu'd.
Of thee, essential Excellence! of thee,
Sweet shall each stated meditation be!
Unutterably sweet, when pain, or grief
Mocks the vain impotence of man's relief!
In Thee, Supreme! alone will I rejoice,
To Thee alone exalt my grateful voice.
On Thee alone for support will I call,
In Thee alone my wishes center all.

Let those, ingrate, their own deluded foes,
Who dare Jehovah's outstretch'd arm oppose,
And at his dread perfections fearless scoff,
Be, unlamented, from mankind cut off;

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Lest yet their guilt to bolder heights should rise,
Astonish earth, and irritate the skies.
But thou, my soul, thy nobler pow'rs exert,
To act through life a less presumptuous part;
To know thyself, that sum of wisdom when
All other boasted knowledge dies with men.
Still persevere in Virtue's sacred way,
And all her laws with promptitude obey.
Offer thy Maker still a holy flame,
And bless for ever his transcendent name.

The 104th Psalm is, perhaps, one of the finest compositions of antiquity, and only wants the appendage of some celebrated Heathen's name to be universally admired. It has undergone a variety of versions by some of the most distinguished wits, no less than twelve to the writer's own knowledge; all of them inspired with a laudable emulation to imitate or preserve the beauty of the sublime original. Of these, ten are in a learned language. No wonder therefore, if little new or striking should occur in the present attempt to illustrate this Divine Ode.

153

THE THEORY OF TEARS.

A FRAGMENT.

Inscribed to Mrs Pleydell.

Sunt lacrymæ rerum ------
Vir.

Tears, which the bar-rang'd oratours command,
Are tears of pleasure for the fee in hand,
The greater it the more abundant those,
Rated by price, as wine by measure flows.
But wines a due hilarity impart,
Their tears add sadness to the client's heart.
Grief, when sincere, by no vain proof appears,
Too vast for the parade of formal tears.
So, in the sky when deep-charg'd thunders brew,
No clouds descend in rain, or melt in dew.

On Tully's words when list'ning senates hung,
Charm'd by the magic accents of his tongue,
Few tears suffic'd; for tears then learn'd to flow
Less at the call of Lucre than of Wo.

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Once from the offer'd hand your fee withdraw,
That key which opes the cabinet of Law,
Tears then no more shall their full sluices break,
Nor eyes amid the dew of rhetoric—speak.
The maxim then how much the truth beyond
That hearts and eyes must ever correspond!
Reverse the adage, and behold it true,
If you mankind by no false optics view.

The Doctor's tears, if doctors weep at all,
That soon his patient will recover, fall.
Each salient vein that vibrates towards health,
Beats in repugnance to the pulse of wealth;
Each sign that to an happy crisis tends,
A tear resistless to its orbit sends.
But here the pointed satire fain would stop,
Joy too, like Sorrow, boasts her pearly drop.
From fleecy clouds, on which the sun-beam plays,
Oft falls the dew-show'r interspers'd with rays.
Let Candour, then, who scorns the partial plan,
Sometimes mistake the doctor for a man.
“All hope is gone! behold! the doctor cries!
“His tears speak out in silence from his eyes!
“Good tender man!—but say, dear doctor, say,
“Is it too certain what your looks betray?

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“Has Physic now no last resource to try?
“And must the sweet, the lovely patient—die?

“No, Heav'n be prais'd!” with fervour-lifted eyes,
“My tears are tears of joy,” the doctor cries;
“No more the fever's heats internal burn,
“No more deliriums, big with fate, return;
“Mix these few cordials, and your fears abate,
“Our patient's in a convalescent state.”
Short triumph! his lank purse so empty felt,
Each eye would fain from other motives melt.
Now certain hopes Health's kind prognostics give,
So soon cur'd patients, how shall doctors live?
Men must debauch, take fevers, faint, and rave,
Few hopes attend them, and late periods save;
Their fatal snares must wine and women spread,
Or doctors go a-begging for their bread.
Which is the worst alternative, let those
That dictate from the casuist's chair disclose.

Now to the pulpit turns the Muse's eye,
There, haply, tears from proper fonts to spy;
Doubtless, if such us any where o'ertake,
Although with-held for Friendship's pressing sake,

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Though rarely found in rostrums, it must be
Where God descends, and mortals bend the knee.
Where all confess, a tale that still begins,
How much Religion suffers by their sins,
On whose sublime and venerable plan,
We rise to angel, and renounce the man.

But hold,—all honour to the sacred gown,
Though less rever'd the gem-encircled crown.
A scoff contemptuous here, were to decry
Virtue herself, fair native of the sky.
Were to defame the Volume of the skies,
By God's own finger penn'd to make men wise.
Degrade the gown, and ridicule the text,
You must (dread thought!) dethrone Jehovah next.
The person from the office we divide,
To shun the stigma, or of guilt or pride;
Pride, that betrays a littleness of mind,
And guilt of a most disingenuous kind.

Tears, gushing forth, the parson's sight bedim,
His eyes, like stars in mists, uncertain swim;
Nor wonder such his cautious lids beguile,
For oh! the melting pathos of his style!
Who can behold him, and refrain from tears?
None, but the marble-hearted wretch who—hears.

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This vain parade of partial tears is shown,
Because the preacher's to himself unknown.
In big effusive consciousness they run,
For what his pen, not wicked heart, has done.
With contrite looks, and some few passing groans,
His sins and errours multiplied, he owns;
But let no censure from the critic fall,
His pen omnipotent has cancell'd all.
For acting ill, as few in both excel,
Sure Heav'n will pardon him for—writing well.
But this, not Nature's, but the preacher's law,
No tears but sacerdotal e'er can draw;
Hence, though the rapt self-conscious parson weeps,
No social tear a well-bred cadence keeps;
Or, if a courteous drop with his consents,
The cheek alone, but not the soul, relents.
Thus womens eyes abundant use to flow.
If you the reason ask—they do not know.
Few honest tears, like gentle Pleydell's, start,
Conglob'd by Friendship, from the feeling heart.

But shall rough Satire quite ingross the page,
And through the numbers spend its Cynic rage?
No; let some gentle subject close the song,
To the soft passions softer strains belong.

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The muse increasing ardours too may feel,
And kindle onward like a chariot-wheel;
But not, as chariots raise the dust around,
Truth to obscure, or reason to confound.

Tears are the eye's pellucid dews, that fall
At Pity's summons, or at Mercy's call;
Though ruthless eyes oft-times affect them too,
As stones themselves distill a breathing dew:
As Spring's to earth, all-gently such impart
A kindly genial softness to the heart.
Tears, when the mind enjoys unruffled ease,
For form-sake shed, or from desire to please,
Seem like those rains, through sunshine oft sent down,
From partial clouds, when Nature wears no frown.

Tears are the special messengers, akin
To oracles, on errands from within,
To tell mankind, beyond conjectures vain,
Those secrets Friendship only can explain;
What active passions rise in tender strife,
What soft affections touch the springs of life.
Tears are the wordless language of the heart,
That more, far more, than empty sounds impart;
By which it loves, o'erburden'd, to complain,
When speech would but offend, or prove in vain.

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Tears ease the soul in anguish and despair,
And leave a sadly-pleasing languor there.
Thus close-pent clouds dissolve in hasty show'rs,
By which the thunder loses all its pow'rs;
The sky, far as the spreading view unfolds,
A temp'rature serene and soften'd holds.
Tears are the gentle streams that off convey
Those floods that would o'erwhelm us by delay;
The heart's big swell, by hard misfortunes griev'd,
That heaving soon would burst, not thus reliev'd.
Tears are the tender proofs of love sincere,
In silence shed, whence no reports take air;
Shed, as the tribute of congenial minds,
While each a more than vulgar transport finds:
False eyes, indeed, may weep, if fame divulge,
But true affection only can indulge.

Tears are the debt, in pearly drops convey'd,
But more than pearls in price, to merit paid;
In which none act the base insolvent's part,
But those whom Nature form'd without a heart.
Tears wait on Vice, and oft on Virtue too,
As winter-clouds dissolve in summer-dew.
Tears, though the cheek a partial mark retain,
Wash out, if shed aright, a fouler stain.

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Tears are the silent arguments to tell
That man's immortal, though at first he fell.
Immortal!—for he weeps for joy oft-times,
Free from the sting of recollected crimes.
And what can Nature's law thus counteract?
What thus sensation's springs revers'd affect?
O thought sublime! strong proofs inculcate hence,
How much inferiour to the mind the sense,
Dissolv'd in tears, that feebly it reflects
Back to the soul what rapt'rous she expects;
As Cynthia, though in full-orb'd glory bright,
But faintly represents her parent light.
Thus men infer, the soul superiour must
Exist apart, when dust returns to dust.
For, if the body impotent withstands
Those transports she to infinite demands;
Reason dare promise her desires immense,
As Virtue's long-expected recompense,
But when, or where, no mortal's taught to know,
That full enjoyment sense can ne'er bestow,
When matter lives in various forms no more,
And all the farce of human life is o'er.

161

THE PROGRESS OF EVENING; OR, THE POWER OF VIRTUE.

Inscribed to Mrs Richmond Ingles.

Jam Nox inducere terris
Umbras, et cœlo diffundere signa parabat.
Virtus ------
Intaminatis fulget honoribus.
Hor.

The hurry of the busy world was o'er,
And in the western ocean sunk the sun;
Mild Eve, unlocking her ambrosial store,
To throw thick shadows from the hills begun.

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A solemn stillness lull'd the silent world,
The fleecy flocks within their folds retir'd;
Save where the pebble-ruffled streamlet purl'd,
Save where the grove with whisp'ring plaints inspir'd.

Save where the thrush, perch'd on a thorny spray,
Makes ev'ry echo vocal with his song,
Join'd by the loud-pip'd blackbird's kindred lay,
Down the dark lengthen'd vale protracted long.

Save where the turtle, in soft cooing strains,
While not a breath to interrupt him stirs,
To his coy unrelenting mate complains,
From the green bosom of encircling firs.

Now, on the surface of the lucid stream,
The youthful swains exert each active limb;
Around in dewy light the waters gleam,
Forming alternate circles as they swim.

This charming exercise Health calls her own,
Hence beauty, life, and pleasure be it nam'd,
Fresh as Aurora on her eastern throne,
Each gains the beach, in every nerve new-fram'd.

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Returning home, with triumph in his look,
The Angler in his basket bears his spoils,
The finny treasures of a neighb'ring brook,
Or by his hook made captive, or his toils.

On the green turf the village-rout advance,
Maids of plump buxom form, and spruce-clad swains;
Each mingles artless in the festive dance,
Enliven'd by the fiddle's well-known strains.

Each shepherd fronts the nymph he most admires,
A glance declares what Colin's fears deny;
Damon betrays his heart-consuming fires
In the spontaneous language of a sigh.

With native art, and well-affected scorn,
Fain would each maid her ignorance pretend;
But vainly would the east conceal the morn,
When tipt with liquid gold the hills ascend.

Now Contemplation mounts her eagle-wing,
To take advantage of the special hour;
Wonders, where-e'er she moves, before her spring,
Court her attention, and exhaust each pow'r.

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Lost in a breathing wilderness of sweets,
Through the wide garden's order'd walks she strays,
Where Beauty with her sister Plenty meets,
Reflecting each on each commutual praise.

Yonder she stoops to view the lily clad
In fair, unspotted mantle, white as milk;
Narcissus here, with soft declining head,
Dress'd in a figured robe of glossy silk.

Let haughty monarchs, seated on a throne,
Demand the homage of a thousand knees;
Lo! Contemplation calls a world her own,
All yonder sun in his proud circuit sees.

In chariot, rapid as the whirlwind's speed,
Astonish'd through Creation can she fly,
Where systems in amazing change succeed,
Nor stop to see an emperour pass by.

No zephyr whispers through the sighing trees,
No murmurs float down the pellucid rills;
No forest-bloom invites the sipping bees,
No lambkins bleat round from adjacent hills;

165

No costly pearls lie scatter'd on the shore,
No diamonds sparkle on their native rock;
No metals glitter in their common ore,
No coral blushes on its parent stock;

No gaudy peacock spreads his rainbow plumes,
A bright circumf'rence of resplendent hues;
No bed of flowers the ambient air perfumes,
No healing plant distills its balmy dews;

No vernal songster tunes his tender lay,
No foodful herb protrudes its infant stems;
No insect flutters on the quiv'ring spray,
No hawthorn twinkles, hung with pendent gems:

Nature dispenses nought of fair, or sweet,
Of useful, curious, delicate, or grand,
But rises in luxuriance at her feet,
But waits obsequious on her mild command.

To Her, and gentle Eve, Silence, and Ease,
Who would the bustle of a court prefer,
At Virtue's cost where men are pleas'd, and please,
Depart from Nature, and from Reason err?

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With them, as life advances in its round,
Our knowledge and astonishment increase;
Till, haply, with success our labours crown'd,
Death shuts our eyes, and ends our days in peace.

But now the wearied peasant's homeward gone,
To taste the welcome sweets of healthful rest;
Such rest as honest rural toil brings on,
Not discompos'd by guilt, perplexing guest.

Free from Ambition's wildly-fancied schemes
Of boundless honours, riches, and renown;
The fopling's raptures, and the miser's dreams,
And endless terrours that beset a crown.

Him at the door his smiling offspring meet,
His wonted period they remember well;
Lisping and prattling round in accents sweet,
Each has its pretty artless tale to tell.

See, how they strive to grasp his willing hand,
Jump to his arms to share the offer'd kiss!
Let kings with empty glory states command,
Even kings might envy such a scene as this.

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With what the garden's wholesome beds afford,
The simple pantry, or the milky churn,
Within his consort spreads the humble board,
Impatient for his welfare and return.

Let not the homely peasant then repine,
Though coarse his fare, and his attendants rude;
Let princes boast their rarities and wine,
His cooling esculents are better food.

These give an active vigour to the nerve,
And paint with roseate bloom the smiling face;
From num'rous ills the hardy frame preserve,
That torture and deform the human race:

The whizling asthma, and consumption wan,
The stone, the gout, the ague, and catarrh;
Those foes conleagu'd implacable 'gainst man,
That slaughter more than fall a prey to war.

Summer for him matures her finest roots,
Suckles each wholesome plant, and balmy herb;
For him the orchard swells with choicest fruits,
And ev'ry meadow wears a flowery garb.

168

Excursive bees, for his luxurious use,
With liquid sweets distend their waxen cells.
For him rich crops Autumnal suns produce,
While underneath his roof kind Plenty dwells.

What would the man, from Virtue's paths astray,
Whose thoughts perplex, whose passions domineer,
Uncheck'd by sober Reason's friendly sway,
Harass'd by conscience, and disturb'd with fear;

What would he give one moment to enjoy
The lowly ploughman's toil-inhanc'd repose,
Sweet cordial slumbers never known to cloy,
Which, big with boasts, proud Grandeur ne'er bestows?

Did mankind know what palaces contain,
What splendid mis'ry fills a coach and six;
What Hydra mischiefs round encompass Gain,
What poisons with Earth's choicest pleasures mix:

Could we conceive but half the piercing smart
That often lurks beneath a specious show;
The keen remorse, the sorrow-bleeding heart,
The sad reflection, and the poignant wo:

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Sure our ambition would no higher rise,
No larger views our restless wishes swell,
Than with the hind, now all his labour o'er,
Beneath the cot's unenvied roof to dwell.

Contented to partake the homely dish,
The herb, the root, the brook that murmurs by,
Viands, though not high-season'd to our wish,
Which health, grey hairs, and strength of limb supply.

Such topics croud upon the studious thought
At the soft period of departed day;
The soul seems now by intuition taught,
And wak'd by magic the spontaneous lay.

Quick as the eye, in many a vivid glance,
Shoots o'er the landscape's variegated scene;
Fancy sinks in enthusiastic trance,
And pleasing rapture thrills along each vein.

For what rapt muse, with philosophic eye,
Half thy productions, Nature, can run o'er?
Sooner arrang'd the stars of midnight sky,
Or aggregated sands that form the shore.

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When Morn impearls the ground with shining gems,
Beauty seems in her fairest form array'd;
While gradual she expands the tender stems,
Or sits with Meditation in the shade.

But see mild Eve approach, by zephyrs fann'd,
Breathing the garden's humid sweets around;
Still softer beauties rise at her command,
Flow'rs rob'd in fairer liv'ry strow the ground.

Nor, on the scorching heats of noon intent,
When Vegetation droop'd her sickly head,
Are Recollection's thoughts now idly spent,
To lessen ev'ry object round her spread.

When Spring succeeds inclement Winter's reign,
And turns his frown of horrour to a smile;
What new-created charms bedeck the scene,
Wrapt up in vapours, mists, and storms erewhile.

But Summer comes, to rule the laughing year,
Her cheek the glow of health, her breath perfume;
Where e'er her flow'r-enamel'd steps appear,
How rich the drap'ry! and how deep the bloom!

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Has Nature yet a larger fund in store?
She has; see Autumn bending with his load
Of yellow full-ear'd wealth, unknown before,
On Industry's peculiar sons bestow'd.

Thus fondly still the present we conclude,
More lovely, more attractive than the past;
Our wonder heightens with the object view'd,
Their origin the same, the same their last.

Such rich variety, such beauteous change,
Revolving still, as months complete their signs,
Where-e'er our fancy-guided footsteps range,
But chiefly when Day's parting sun-beam shines.

Aside when Nature lays her dazzling robes,
And mantles her fair form in sober grey;
When gentle Eve rounds the soft dew in globes,
And scatters them translucent on each spray.

Transported with the scene, the pensive Muse
Strays onward by a stream's meand'ring flow;
Where, in a length of avenue diffuse,
Majestic elms their bending shade bestow.

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Hither with fond alacrity she moves,
To woo fair Virtue in her native seats,
For Virtue solitude and silence loves,
And oft to them from drawing-rooms retreats.

Hills, at some distance, with ambitious height,
Ascending to the skies, confine the view,
From which the sun, in scatter'd rays of light,
Took, like departing friends, his late adieu.

Here, in the centre of a shady bow'r,
Rises a seat of turf, enamel'd o'er
With a rich carpet of each fragrant flow'r,
While branches arch'd an entrance form before.

Ivy around with honey-suckle twines
In wanton folds its fondly-clasping arms;
While, as the twilight through each op'ning shines,
The mantling gloom seems to display new charms.

Sparkling with crystal rocks, and orient gems,
There fretted grottoes boast each curious shell,
Embellish'd by the coral's blushing stems,
Where Art would Nature in address excel.

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In drousy tinklings, or in murmurs deep,
Yonder a cascade swells upon the breeze,
Abruptly falling down the rocky steep,
Finely beheld through intermingling trees.

Oft from the vulgar croud, the venal throng,
Loathing Life's vain parade of forms and toys,
Here Meditation steals, and brings along
No languid relish for sequester'd joys.

The World, compos'd of senseless mode and show,
A dull impertinence of care and strife;
At least one maxim teaches us to know,
That to enjoy, is to retire from life.

In such a peaceful consecrated shade,
If, recollected in itself, the mind
Mourns no gross errours, from Uprightness stray'd,
Each his lost Paradise regain'd may find.

For what was paradise? the sweet recess
Of Innocence, unconscious of a blush;
When no fell serpent taught men to transgress,
No fruitage tempted with deceitful flush.

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If guilt embitters not the cup of life,
If no distress broods o'er the troubled thought;
If Passion kindles no intestine strife,
In ev'ry grove an Eden may be sought.

How sweet from tumult often to withdraw,
From ostentation, noise, and bustling care,
Where sordid Self reigns with despotic law,
And here breathe copious draughts of healthful air.

The sun, rejoicing in his mid-day bow'r,
Has oft beheld me pensively reclin'd,
And, ere dismiss'd the thoughtful musing pow'r,
With welcome beam in distant climates shin'd.

Then, all the air felt one continued glow,
The panting swain, while strength and spirits fail,
Suspends his toil, and where cool streamlets flow,
Sits down with breast expanded to the gale.

Smitten and vanquish'd with excessive heat,
The herds stroll breathless to the gelid shade;
Silent, the birds to deepest glooms retreat,
The drooping rose's damask blushes fade.

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But now, refreshing genial coolness reigns,
Fans in the breeze, or falls in dewy show'rs;
Cattle in droves browse o'er the verdant plains,
And deep vermilion paints the lifeless flow'rs.

Thus Nature acts on wise prudential plan,
(Her plan all should industriously pursue)
How grateful such vicissitudes to man,
Ensur'd his safety, and his pleasures too!

Did constant heat or cold o'er-rule the year,
Soon Vegetation would our Earth forsake;
Did endless light prevail, or darkness drear,
What could our listless lives more wretched make.

But gracious Heav'n, still uniformly good,
These wide extremes attempers still so well,
That, if our weal or duty understood,
To be dissatisfied, is to rebel.

Thus, while around the alcove's freshness breathes,
And nightingales protract their songs of wo;
While the faint breeze sighs through the jes'mine wreathes,
The Muse's numbers not unconscious flow,

176

Each scene of mirth and gaiety's now fled,
The nymphs and swains forsake the flow'ry lawn,
All save the Muse, by vagrant fancy led,
To their respective mansions are withdrawn.

Martlets now quit their airy circling range,
Decreasing still their clamours as they fly;
The lone bat, flitting with incessant change,
On leathern pinion wings the darksome sky.

The wheeling hornet no one course confines,
On heedless here, now there, dull drone, he holds;
In lucid spangles, lo, the glow-worm shines,
As o'er the blade he drags his spiral folds.

Creation now seems mantled in a shade,
But soon this momentary darkness ends;
A promis'd visit yet remains unpaid,
To welcome it the willing Muse ascends.

The moon, pale empress of the midnight hour,
Full orb'd, moves forward on her ebon wain;
With unperceiv'd, but with resistless pow'r,
To rule the ebbing and the flowing main.

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Hesper, warn'd by her quick approach, retires,
And modestly withdraws his fainter light;
First star that hangs, replete with twinkling fires,
Its silver lamp in the blue vault of night.

Peeping alternate through the twilight sky,
A thousand little sparkling orbs advance,
To pay their court, in radiance not to vie,
And grace her path-way cross the arch'd expanse.

The herb, the plant, the dew-bespangled flow'r,
Drain'd of each breathing juice, each gelid sweet,
While Day's bright lord o'er-rul'd the sultry hour,
Her softer beams, her gentler presence greet.

On yonder elm, in spreading foliage drest,
The owl sits melancholy bird of wo;
Enthusiastic rapture thrills the breast,
While from her throat the uncouth numbers flow.

The cavern'd rock returns her rueful moan,
Sad through the trees the dreary accents glide;
The tott'ring tow'r, with ivy overgrown,
Oft as she told her piteous tale, replied.

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Silent, within the leafy copse inclos'd,
Remote from harm, the warblers of the spring,
Each in its little downy nest repos'd,
Listen, and nearer press with cow'ring wing.

Methinks, amid this solitary gloom,
The soul would soar on eagle's wing sublime,
As earth's whole stretch affords but scanty room,
Beyond the utmost boundaries of time.

Methinks she seems oppress'd beneath the weight
Of her conceptions, up to transport wrought;
Sinking with her own voluntary freight,
And overwhelm'd in the profound of thought.

At such a crisis, how the bosom glows,
How the full heart swells with unknown desires,
Virtue herself, or Richmond only knows,
Whom gentlest feelings move, and taste inspires.

Nature, profusely lavish of her charms,
Ne'er form'd before a more alluring place;
Never did trees extend their leafy arms,
With more umbrageous friendship to embrace.

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Never did raptur'd music charm so well,
While Philomela told her mournful tale;
Never did odours of a sweeter smell,
Freight, evanescent, the warm southern gale.

Never did colours finer mix'd reside
In fairer flow'rs to fix the ravish'd look;
Never did murmurs more attractive glide
In crystal globules down the gurgling brook.

Ne'er did the moon, from her nocturnal steep,
Shed milder influence on the lambent eye;
Never did Silence softer vigils keep,
Or wing'd Imagination soar so high.

For Virtue now the Muse's fancy caught,
And Contemplation's ev'ry pow'r ingross'd;
Absorbing each less interesting thought,
As Cynthia's beam in noon's effulgence lost.

She gives a heighten'd verdure to the plain,
And branching shade, new brightness to the sky;
A softer cadence to the warbler's strain,
Scarce, else, distinguish'd by the ear, or eye.

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Virtue! for whom the grand Creation rose,
Emerging fair from chaos and from night;
Though various jarring elements compose,
Govern'd by wisdom, and upheld by might.

For whom shone forth yon centre-station'd sun,
The moon, and all the planetary train,
Which still in stated equal circles run,
Order of days and seasons to maintain.

For whom Almighty Power will stretch its arm.
To raze the column that sustains the world;
While her bless'd sons survey, without alarm,
Ten thousand globes prone into ruin hurl'd.

Virtue! the theme that tunes the martyr's lyre,
Oft as her smiling radiant form he eyes;
Sets the angelic bosom all on fire,
And brightens ev'n the mansions of the skies.

Virtue! by whom inspir'd, great names of old
Dar'd nobly to contemn the tyrant's frown;
Sublimely firm, heroically bold,
No parasites, no cringers to a crown,

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Though chain'd in dungeons, burning in the flames,
Or nail'd fast to the ignominious tree;
Yet torment the most hardy natures tames,
And conquers, Virtue! ev'ry thing but—Thee.

Virtue! ador'd and practis'd by the wife,
The noble, gen'rous spirit, and the brave;
Ambition's adequate, consistent prize,
All our vast hopes affect, or wishes crave.

Virtue! pure source of rapture, to supply
Large draughts to chaste and elegant desire;
Not transient, like the dews of evening-sky,
Not flashy like yon shoot of meteor fire.

Sweetly with whom retir'd, the hermit's cell,
Howe'er fastidious Grandeur keeps aloof,
Though herbs his meat, his drink the crystal well;
Invites beyond the lordly festoon'd roof.

But what mere mortal pencil can depaint
That portrait angels call devoutly thine?
The boldest strokes, the richest tints are faint,
Alas! how infinitely languid mine!

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But O! forgive the well-intention'd lays,
Nor, though the tribute's small, reject the will;
Beyond the strains that only sound thy praise,
The heart that loves thee is accepted still.

From thy fair presence, struck with conscious awe,
Cursing their abject littleness of form,
Abandon'd Guilt's ignoble throng withdraw,
As from bright Spring the wint'ry gloom and storm.

Stung to the heart, there, Insolence and Pride,
Sour Jealousy with agitated mien;
Envy, and sister Obloquy squint-ey'd,
Dark Discontent, and self-tormenting Spleen.

Here, Avarice, his soul absorb'd in pelf,
His Heav'n, his all, some scraps of gilded ore;
Nought more contemn'd by wise men—save himself,
Oppress'd with wealth, yet grasping after more.

Deceit, Malevolence, and swoln Disdain,
Hypocrisy, wrapt up in false disguise;
Remorse, dire source of bosom-rending pain,
Despair, with ghastly looks, and staring eyes.

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These hell-born monsters, this detested crew,
Abash'd from thy vindictive throne retire;
Unable to sustain thy piercing view,
Or bear the frown of thy celestial ire.

But gentle is thy train! surpassing fair!
Sincerity, with open honest face;
Meekness with downcast eye, and placid air,
And Beauty full of dignity and grace.

Sweet Modesty, dress'd in a robe more white
Than snow new-dropt from Winter's fleecy store;
And Charity, with exquisite delight,
Still doing good, still wishing to do more.

Bright Liberty, first blessing of the skies,
Without which angels were far less than man;
Friendship, with fervent heart, and eager eyes,
Still acting on the candid gen'rous plan.

Science, unlimited by time or place,
Her compass ever pointing towards truth;
Content, with smiles eternal on her face,
And Health, to age itself ensuring youth.

184

Peace, with the olive blooming in her hand,
Around her all the splendid Arts arrang'd;
Plenty, diffusing gladness through the land,
From clime to clime her liberal gifts exchang'd.

Illustrious Patriotism, nobly warm'd,
And vehement, in Freedom's sacred cause;
With seven-fold terrours resolutely arm'd,
To save his country, and assert its laws.

Valour, with shining folds of laurel wreath'd,
Trophies of glory sculptur'd on his shield;
Who ne'er beholds his dreadful dagger sheath'd,
Against her foes when Virtue takes the field.

Justice, still weighing with impartial scale,
Mercy and Pity, gentle sisters twain,
While Misery relates her melting tale,
Still shedding tears, nor shedding them in vain.

These are the Glories that surround thy throne,
That Thee their parent, friend, and guardian call;
The Graces that thy soft dominion own,
Catch thy pleas'd glance, and wait upon thy smile.

185

Though ridicul'd, or slighted, for thy sake,
Who would not court thy favour and acclaim;
Live in thy temple, of thy joys partake,
Howe'er unknown to Fortune, or to Fame?

O! make me sympathetic but with thee,
Thy feelings conscious feel, thy knowledge know;
Hear with thine ear, with thy own soft eye see,
I ask no more, Heav'n can no more bestow!

But now the chilly vapours of the night
Fall thick and fast, loud from a village-spire,
While death-like sleep seals up the human sight,
With solemn toll the clock warns to retire.

Rous'd by the sound, no more the copse confines,
Homeward the Muse accelerates her way;
While through the trees a yellow radiance shines,
A faint resemblance of departed day.

The active pulse of Nature beats no more,
Care's breathless voice sunk to spontaneous rest;
Save where the miser counts his rusted store,
Yet Want, fell harpy, gnawing at his breast.

186

Save where the house-dog, faithful to his trust,
Keeps through the sullen gloom incessant watch;
Or where the sons of gluttony and lust
Prolong the noisy revel and debauch.

But hold—be censure here discreetly hush,
Virtue's chaste song let no suggestion taint;
Prevent yon conscious moon's indignant blush,
Nor interrupt Night's silence with complaint.

187

RURAL SPORTS, Descriptive and Elegiac.

In Three Parts.

------ utile famæ,
Vitæque et membris.
Hor.

PART I. ANGLING.

Inscribed to James Hamilton, Esq;

Unmann'd by sloth, and unrelax'd by ease,
Without the rod, the basket, or the line,
My friend, can Angling e'er pretend to please,
Howe'er alert the Muse's faith, or thine?

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Oft has the monarch trout, by art betray'd,
To your well-practis'd fly a victim rose;
Come then, experienc'd, to the Muse's aid,
And where the sport's aught injur'd, interpose.

Now Winter, muffled in his russet cloak,
The surly blasts attending in his train,
Seiz'd his dominions, and his sceptre broke,
With sullen frown forsakes the shiv'ring plain.

Huge as the tyrant stalks, while, roaring loud,
The tempest rous'd his gloomy rage betrays,
Fair Spring, descending on a purple cloud,
Her virgin presence in the east displays.

Onward the goddess moves, with graceful tread,
In flowing em'rald vesture loosely drest;
A flowery garland circles round her head,
And damask rose-buds blush upon her breast.

Smiling, on hill and dale she looks around,
On grove, and coppice, ravish'd of their charms;
And verdant carpets clothe the naked ground,
And trees extend the umbrage of their arms.

189

The river, late swell'd with descending rain,
With torrents tumbling down the mountain's sides;
No more sweeps rapid o'er the delug'd plain,
But in its native channel gently glides.

Zephyrs with fragrance load their fanning wings,
And breathe soft whispers thro' the conscious grove;
With pipe attun'd the feather'd warbler sings,
Hid in the foliage of a green alcove.

In this gay season, when unnumber'd scenes.
Of elegant amusement charm mankind,
When past'ral life, and simple nature reigns,
Chiefly admir'd the Angler's sport we find.

His line to finish, twisted round and round,
Quick to the wide inclosure he repairs,
And from the courser, sweeping to the ground
His tail luxuriant, pulls the chosen hairs.

Next, to the wood he hies with urgent haste,
And of firm ash shapes his elastic wand;
Joint upon joint with just proportion plac'd,
It bends, it tapers in his poising hand.

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To flutter unsuspected o'er the brook,
Last he equips his artificial fly;
Fictitious wings conceal the lurking hook,
Delusive colours gleam upon the eye.

Furnish'd, he trips, in light-spun frock attir'd,
Along some level green, or shelving hill;
Fancy, by quick enthusiasm fir'd,
Anticipates the success of his skill.

Arriv'd, his curious tackle he unties,
With prompt address adjusting ev'ry part;
While humid evening, and a shadowy skies,
Invite the finest essays of his art.

But first some precepts would the muse propose,
Haply not foreign to the sportsman's care;
Success in angling still depends on those,
Which still the best instructed oft'nest share.

Prefer the livid, short, distractile hook,
The clear, round, shining, pliant hairs select;
Each maculated tenant of the brook
A failure here will readily detect.

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Cull, from the turtle's variegated wings,
Where tints in rich variety prevail;
Each warbler on the leafy spray that sings,
The wild-duck's glossy neck, and peacock's tail;

Provide the finest plumage each displays,
And decorate in it your mimic fly;
Consult Experience, follow what she says,
But few mistakes escape her sapient eye.

Form not its body of too large a size,
Nor yet too small—the happy medium chuse;
This oft eludes the trouts' exploring eyes,
That with distrust and loathing they refuse.

With just proportion shape each splendid wing,
To spread and flutter on the dimpling pool;
Still near to life your imitation bring,
Its faultless and invariable rule.

See yonder pensile birch, that gently nods
Its leafy umbrage o'er the crystal stream;
Mark well what insects croud its quiv'ring rods,
What vivid hues on their spread pinions gleam.

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These ever vary with the circling sun,
Each smiling month has its peculiar hue;
This, when your pleasing office is begun,
Keep ever as the pattern in your view.

Nor let your hook, a fault which oft occurs,
Be left expos'd to scare the timid game;
Down, cotton, velvet, feathers, tissues, furs,
Unite their aid the curious garb to frame.

Florella thus, if she with fond success
Would charm us, charm'd alas! with too much ease,
Must study ev'ry elegance of dress,
Each fav'rite mode, each ornament to please.

Climates remote, to forward the design,
Must at her toilet their joint tribute pay;
See the phantastic airy charmer shine,
Prompt to dissemble, gaudy to betray!

But to attend the busy Angler, where
He shifts progressive down the winding stream,
Be now the object of the Muse's care,
A not inglorious, though an humble theme.

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On a green bank he takes his watchful stand,
Silence and Hope his mute companions twain;
Then casts his arching line with practis'd hand,
While no rude brambles it midway detain.

Quick o'er the glassy brook's serene expanse,
It playful glides, in many a pleasing frisk;
In gazing crouds the cautious fish advance,
Wary as yet the bold attempt to risk.

Sportsman, despair not; ply your finest art,
Shift circumspect, and humour as you move,
Where bubbling rills in distinct channels part,
Or pendent branch luxuriant waves above.

Or, where translucent the wide pool receives
The gurgling streamlet, by no stoppage held;
Or, in alternate circles gently heaves
Refluent, from the shrubb'd oozy bank impell'd.

Beneath that pond'rous stone's projecting seat,
Deep hid in mud, the parent trout resides;
There, with a jerk, direct your pinion'd bait,
Behold! he stirs, and near the surface glides.

194

Skim light your fly against the silver tide,
Or with the current let it move with ease;
Leave no ingenious lesson unapply'd,
Lose no position that will surest please.

Impatience and confusion wisely shun,
Coolly observant, and discreetly slow;
Whate'er the office, or the task begun,
Rashness is justly held their greatest foe.

Reserve and coyness conquer'd by degrees,
His spotted sides he ventures now to show,
In wanton pranks:—O for a friendly breeze
With gentle curl adown the stream to blow!

Rustling the shrubs, reclin'd from side to side,
It breathes, obsequious to his ardent wish;
In liquid furrows lifts the yielding tide,
Sad omen to the unsuspecting fish.

Vainly intent far other prize to share,
While a dusk cloud o'ershadows all the sky,
Dauntless he leaps, lur'd by the specious snare,
And desp'rate seizes the deceitful fly.

195

Writhing he flounces, frantic with his pain,
The feather'd hook deep-fix'd within his jaw;
His speckled fellows he implores in vain,
From his misfortune cautious they withdraw.

He runs, he shoots, indignant, through the brook,
And tugs the shifting line with ceaseless gill:
Angler, attend; be wary with your hook,
The present moment claims your nicest skill.

Fain would he seek his old secure retreat,
Beneath the tangles of an ancient tree,
Where he was wont to shun the sultry heat,
The monarch of the flood, from danger free.

A thousand ways he pulls the bending rod,
Struggling for freedom with incessant strife;
Or, by a secret well-dissembled fraud,
Floats down the stream, as if depriv'd of life.

But lo! not long abandon'd to despair,
Near and more near approaching to the side,
Again he stretches out the lengthen'd hair,
And furious lashes the unconscious tide.

196

Now see him bounce aloft, now plunging sink,
Vainly the barbed death to disengage;
Quick let the Angler play him to the brink,
In idle toil exhausted all his rage.

On the green turf he throws his beauteous prize,
Successive gasps dilate each crimson gill;
He gazes on it with insatiate eyes,
Nor fails to pass encomiums on his skill.

One strong effort ends all its feeble strife,
It rolls, it twists, it quivers with its tail;
Then spends in fluid air its panting life,
While oozing blood distains its polish'd mail.

O could the Muse end here her sylvan strain,
Nor wake to harsher notes the conscious reed!
Must pleasure ever be allied to pain,
As shadows from their substances ne'er freed!

When bursting torrents from the skies descend,
And swelling floods their feeble mounds o'erflow,
That seem abroad vindictive to portend
A second deluge on the world below;

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To yonder swain in lonely copse repair,
(Can Censure here repress her wrathful tongue?)
See him the hook of sharpest barb prepare,
The living bag loose on his button hungs.

From this a helpless innocent he draws,
A reptile call'd, though heard not to complain,
Design'd to feel, by Nature's sapient laws,
The thrill of pleasure, and the smart of pain:

It from the kind investing moss he hales,
That moss its native cov'ring wont to grow,
And on the hook with merc'less hand empales,
Twisting convuls'd in agonizing wo.

Deep in the flood he throws the mangled bait,
A bold advent'rer from the finny throng,
With fatal greed, devours the certain fate,
Plunges, and heaves, and drags, and darts along.

Blame not, ye youths, to rural sports inclin'd,
The angry Muse, but as a friend severe.
Pity's the noblest passion of the mind,
A fiend an angel without pity were.

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Think, Angler, what excruciating smart
The harmless victim, unappris'd, must feel,
When, close adherent to its bleeding heart,
Remorseless forth is torn the pointed steel.

Leave death and carnage to the reeking knife
That thins the fold, the meadow, and the stall;
No creature idly ravish'd of its life,
Alas! unable for relief to call.

Nor let your circling nets, with hollow sweep,
Exhaust the rivers of their speckled brood;
Convey your engines to the billowy deep,
Where squammy millions roam, a common good.

And, haply, if an useless prize too young
With feeble pull bends your reluctant rod,
Back let the slender forward thing be flung,
Toss not the infant on the mossy fod.

With piteous eye his tender youth behold,
Long should he yet in sportive freedom glide;
Few dawning suns have ting'd the hills with gold,
Since first his fins essay'd the silver tide.

199

Ere two succeeding springs, with genial beam,
In verdant foliage clothes the mantling grove,
Grown to full size, the father of the stream,
Agape for food, exulting will he rove.

Then, to the spacious river's grassy banks,
Humid with pearly drops of evening-dew,
Lead him, indulging o'er his youthful pranks,
The conquest justly is reserv'd for you.

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PART II. FOWLING.

Inscribed to John Hamilton, Esq;

Charm'd with the sprightly thunder of the gun,
With well-bred pointer's nose sagacious charm'd;
For moors and parks, will you o'er pages run,
And spring the game by fire-side unarm'd?

This will your powder frugally preserve,
Haply to guard you from nocturnal foes;
Thus will no aching joint, no twitching nerve
With frequent starts disturb your night's repose.

201

When Autumn's golden treasures are led home,
To occupy the farmer's yards at large;
When flocks and well-fed herds promiscuous roam,
Free from the deep-sunk fence, and shepherd's charge;

While Morn, immantled in her purple robe,
Lights the transparent dew-drops on the green,
Or Noon extends her empire o'er the globe;
The sportive Fowler's music wakes around.

The fatal tube, of temper'd metal wrought,
Rests innocently glitt'ring on his arm;
With leaden death and sleeping thunder fraught,
Explosive soon to give the quick alarm.

Around his waist, girt like a virgin zone,
The bag-sustaining leathern belt is tied;
With careless air, loose o'er his shoulders thrown,
The powder-flask hangs dangling at his side.

Beware, ye game, ye feather'd tribe, beware,
Fly to the shade, nor trust the naked ground;
Behold the eager youth his wiles prepare,
And all your fond retreats explore around.

202

Softly he steals across the stubble field,
Nodding erewhile beneath luxuriant grain;
His hands the pointed piece precautious wield,
Oft cock'd, oft levell'd, but as yet in vain.

The scouring pointer snuffs with subtile nose
Each blast that stirs the air's elastic waves;
Of ev'ry gale that sighs, or breath that blows,
Sagaciously observant he behaves.

Now, many a park his weary steps had rang'd,
No ridge, no furrow his strict search eludes;
Sometimes the champain for the copse is chang'd,
To see what bush conceals the sportsman's goods.

How on his organs reason seems to gleam,
For scarce mere instinct could so oft succeed!
Not idly, with the wind's deceptive stream,
But full against it, he directs his speed.

Now, fresher odours swell the loaded breeze,
Certain assurance of the covey near;
Close and more close approaching by degrees,
The wary tread declares his prudent fear.

203

Straitway, flat-cow'ring on the ground, he sets
The nut-brown partridge, long time vainly spar'd;
The Fowler quick unfurls his swelling nets,
A waving prison ah! for her prepar'd.

Alarm'd and trembling, from the earth she springs,
But strives in vain to gain her native skies;
Vainly she flaps and flutters with her wings,
Breathless and spent, inclos'd by snares she lies.

Ah! what avails it, when the rising sun
Illum'd the east, (of freedom now bereft)
She saw delighted her fond younglings run
To feed on scatter'd ears by peasant left!

Ah! what avails the covert of the grove,
The shelter of the stubble, or the brake!
No more shall Autumn see her joyful rove,
Echo no more her guiltless clamours wake.

Oft too, the sportsman beats the country round,
When silver frost impearls the shining glade;
The lonely marsh, the hedge, the brambly ground,
The ditch, and wood, that boasted once a shade.

204

Quick glancing cross the vista's leafless view,
Oft is the hare arrested in her flight;
No more her early rambles to pursue,
Or print the virgin snow with footstep light.

In these bleak days, when Winter dreary reigns,
When deep-wreath'd, glist'ning snows his call obey,
Stretching with rapid swiftness o'er the plains,
The needy greyhound tears his screaming prey.

But why scenes foreign to our song describe,
As if relax'd the triumphs of the gun?
Enough here to depaint the feather'd tribe,
Nor Mercy's ear with woes officious stun.

What endless methods tyrant man invents
His universal empire to assert!
Seldom his eye, suffus'd with tears, relents,
Seldom one throb of pity melts his heart!

The death-charg'd gun, that scatters ruin round,
To his fell rage for blood subservient made;
The mastiff, ferret, terrier, and hound,
The guileful net, the lure, the ambuscade.

205

With these he ravages Creation through,
Rock, mountain, cavern, valley, river, wood;
Nothing lies hid from his officious view,
No creature safe, if fit for sport or—food.

See him, with uncommiserating heart,
To seize, to slaughter, all his arts employ;
No matter how forlorn, how keen their smart,
If they have life, that life he must destroy.

The mother from her helpless brood to snatch,
To tear the consort from her fondling mate,
How anxious some new mode of death to hatch?
How high his glee! his boasts how meanly great!

Oft does the woodcock, springing from the brake,
Shot to the heart, drop from the frozen sky!
The snipe, the wild-duck rising from the lake,
The dove, the lapwing, heedless as they fly!

Ah! how despis'd their gold-emburnish'd hue!
Their glossy necks, and plumes of velvet! all
Serve but to entertain the transient view,
To grace their death, but not prevent their fall!

206

Erewhile, each boasted his effulgent dyes,
And dress'd his gaudy wings with faultless taste;
Adorn'd the pond, incumbent wing'd the skies,
Or, in gay throngs, the slated palace grac'd.

Erewhile, with tender and assiduous care,
By faithful instinct accurately taught,
Forewarn'd, their mansion-nests did they prepare;
But now these rapt'rous scenes avail them nought.

Such recollections ne'er one moment stay
The cruel hand that perpetrates their woes;
When the swift bullet speeds its rapid way,
Vainly the spider's cobwebs interpose:

For see, the finch, the linnet, and the thrush,
Now meet, unmeriting, one common doom,
Conven'd unnumber'd on the crouded bush,
Or hopping harmless through the naked broom.

With steady look the fowler takes his aim,
Quick from the flint the flashy lightning flies;
Nor sooner is the powder wrapt in flame,
Than, stain'd with blood, some noted songster dies.

207

But spare, unthinking youth, the gentle race
That usher in with songs the verdant Spring;
Where they resort still sacred be the place,
And undeform'd with gore each tabby wing.

What else can charm our solitary hours,
What else solace our pensive evening-walk,
When the fond soul exerts her musing pow'rs,
Tir'd with the dull impertinence of talk?

Do they not rob themselves of sweet repose,
To call us, loit'ring, from the arms of sleep?
Do they not soothe us, when our eye-lids close,
With gentlest airs, and tuneful vigils keep?

Rather let birds of prey your wrath awake,
Behold your poultry panting in their claws;
Here merited and ample vengeance take,
And thus assert the weaker's injur'd cause.

208

PART III. HARE-HUNTING.

Inscribed to Andrew-Thomas Stewart, Esq;

Around Stewarthall's hereditary tow'rs,
While you in graceful horsemanship excell,
To exercise and health devote your hours,
Behold describ'd the Sport you love so well.

Far nobler thus your sacred time's employ'd,
Than in State-policy's loud wrangling schools;
Where, till a pension earn'd, or place enjoy'd,
Men become downright knaves, tho' better fools.

Where the description halts, or colours fail,
Your recollection will the rest supply;
Practice o'er Theory ever will prevail,
When Judgment would their rival merits try.

209

When the blythe songsters hail the rising morn,
And scatter'd rays peep o'er each eastern hill;
The huntsman rouses, with his winding horn,
Each dormant echo from her slumbers still.

The jocund summons wakes the drousy hounds,
They start, they shake, they snuff the early dawn;
Each little heart with expectation bounds,
Anon to pant along the dewy lawn.

Hark! what loud peals break on the ravish'd ear
Of music's noblest sounds!—up, sportsman, up;
Sleep's dalliance longer to provoke forbear,
Wan-cheek'd disease lurks in her opiate cup:

But flies, with all her pale consumptive train,
The hardy youth that leads an active life;
His mind from spleen, his body free from pain,
He feels no languor, and he knows no strife.

Up then, rejoic'd Creation calls aloud,
Nor waste your hours in Sloth's ignoble arms;
Now in the court the deep-ton'd beagles croud,
Whose melody upbraids you, while it charms.

210

Fresh from his crib the neighing steed is led,
Majestic, and exulting in his strength;
With haughty fling he tosses up his head,
Waving in curls his mane of graceful length.

With many a fiery glance his eye rolls round,
He champs the bit, and paws the stone-pav'd way;
Pricks his expanded ears at ev'ry sound,
And all his dauntless soul resigns to play.

Strait, from a seat encompass'd wide about
With lofty elms, secluded from the day,
The youthful crew advance, with jovial shout,
And pause, and wonder, that so long they lay.

Blooming with health, and cheerful as the morn,
By exercise from bile and vapours freed,
Pitying the man to female softness born,
With salient step each mounts his shining steed.

Onward they move, an active num'rous train,
Each puny elegance of life forgot;
While, to the early horn's enliv'ning strain,
Echo re-answers from her vocal grot.

211

Now, on the verge of Heav'n's cerulean height,
The sun arriv'd, looks boundless joy around;
Shooting abroad long dazzling streams of light,
Bright'ning ten thousand dew-drops on the ground.

His beams inspire delight before unknown,
And throw a novel charm on ev'ry place;
Each looks and smiles, as if he fill'd a throne,
His bliss, his all, concent'red in the Chace.

In distinct roving parties they divide,
Each has his station and his task assign'd;
Ambitious each, a no ignoble pride,
To leave his fellows loit'ring far behind.

One beats the brambly thicket's pendent sprays,
No bush, no hole, his strict survey escapes;
O'er the wide field another ceaseless strays,
A third his way through whins or rushes shapes.

The search though tedious, yet no youth complains,
Around the song, the jest, the laugh prevail;
The flutt'ring hare yet in her den remains,
Nor prints the grass, nor warms the loaded gale.

212

She listens from her once secure retreat,
Peeps cautious forth, with her own rustling stunn'd;
Returns then, trembling, to her lonely seat,
Alas! ere long as passionately shunn'd.

Inviron'd ah! with foes on ev'ry side,
Her heart melts down with terrour and amaze;
Where from impending danger can she hide?
Death threats in ev'ry project she essays.

With pangs of recollection and despair,
She ponders on her wonted hours of joy,
Unbounded when she stray'd devoid of care,
No blood-hound near, rapacious to destroy:

When no sounds discrepant swell'd on the breeze,
But music from a hawthorn's flow'ry seat;
The restless hum of honey-sipping bees,
The chirp of grasshopper, or lambkin's bleat.

This heightens her distress, augments her pain,
Her bosom with deep woes already torn;
Desp'rate, distracted, all delay in vain,
She steals away, abandon'd and forlorn.

213

Through many a brake she flies, and range of trees,
Too many paths her trait'rous footsteps press;
Her safety is betray'd in every breeze,
Her flight discover'd on each blade of grass.

Full on the track the stanch-nos'd dogs advance,
Catching the strong effluvias as they fly;
While the flush'd huntsmen bless the happy chance,
And mark the dubious maze with ravish'd eye.

Like lightning o'er the mossy glebe they speed,
Warm and more warm inhale the tainted dew;
Too well unrav'ling all her tracks succeed,
And gain upon her, now in obvious view.

Swift, and transported, o'er the level lawn,
With loosen'd rein the rapid courser flies;
Ne'er yet by puny art of sculpture drawn,
Art somewhat still remote from life implies.

His mighty soul disdaining to be last,
Still in the front he quickens his career;
The marsh, drain, precipice, and quickset past,
No obstacle can strike his soul with fear.

214

Fierce and impatient, all on fire he glows,
And drinks with greedy ears the jovial noise;
Down his warm sides the stream effusive flows,
Yet nought but triumph his big thought employs.

But what fine form attracts the Muse's eye,
Mounted on yonder steed of dappled brown?
An angel, sure, descending from the sky,
Ne'er mixes with the huntsman and the clown.

A female form?—to elegance of taste,
To delicacy, to refinement born!
Let not the modest sex be thus disgrac'd,
The banter of the other, or the scorn—

Heav'n has affix'd the boundaries of sex,
For each religiously to keep within,
Else, all wise order wantonly perplex,
Rebel 'gainst Reason, and 'gainst Nature sin.

Can gentle love inspire that sturdy heart
Which for the chace with awkward ardour pants?
To be pursu'd be still the woman's part,
If wishing to be something more than—aunts.

215

But see, o'er yonder park, or stubbled plain,
The fear-wing'd hare her eager course urge on,
Stretch ev'ry limb, each active sinew strain,
Though half her vigour spent, her courage gone.

To yonder hill she presses up her way,
Or headlong down precipitates her flight;
Bleeds her soft bosom on the prickly spray,
Bounces o'er the sunk fence, or hedge-fac'd height.

Sometimes, with sly device, her last resort,
She boldly plunges where some river flows;
Or, warily describes (as oft in sport)
A winding course, to over-reach her foes.

Upon a little eminence she stands,
Round drops of sweat pour down her darken'd face;
Full to the gale her list'ning ear expands,
Deafen'd with the loud thunder of the chace.

In shelt'ring copse fain would she cease from toil,
Fain rest her aching joints in soft repose,
Or, lowly cow'ring on the furrow'd soil,
Hope to escape her unrelenting foes.

216

False expectation! nearer still they press,
While deeper tones freight ev'ry breeze that blows;
Echo seems mocking her extreme distress,
And distant hills but multiply her woes.

Once more she puts her safety in her flight,
And unperceiv'd, dejected steals away;
A furious hound disturbs her timid sight,
In ev'ry shrub, in ev'ry rustling spray.

From bush to bush, from haunt to haunt, she speeds,
And flutt'ring visits all her well-known seats,
Nor for a while approaching ruin heeds,
So much enamour'd of her old retreats.

But ah! delay augments her heart-felt pangs,
The wide-mouth'd dogs their certain prize pursue—
Now by a cobweb-thread her safety hangs—
One last effort is all her strength can do.

This she exerts, and reels with wild affright,
Backward and forward, stagg'ring in her gait;
Her sanguine murderers arriv'd in sight,
And she unable to protract her fate.

217

Dark, dark her visage looks—what rueful wo
Lours on her blacken'd face, with wildness mix'd!
Stupid with anguish, starting to and fro,
Her large black eyes stare in their sockets fix'd.

How terrible this moment of suspense!
Her cries infantile pity seem to crave—
What interposing hand will snatch her hence,
Like gracious Heav'n beneficent to save!

But, deaf to mercy, as the senseless rock,
That hangs its shadow o'er the grumbling deep;
Hard as the oak that braves the tempest's shock,
With her loud screams their triumphs cadence keep.

The bloody pack, hot-streaming, stretch along,
In short quick heaves she languishes for breath;
Close at her heels they growl, a hostile throng,
With jaws wide-open'd for devouring death.

Oppress'd she sinks—despair swells in her eye,
Distraction bursts forth in a falling tear—
Turn, turn aside, nor see the victim die!
Ah! from her plaints avert the anguish'd ear!

218

Harmless and meek, alas! what has she done,
From tyrant man to meet a fate so hard?
Let her fall victim to the loaded gun,
If e'er with blood she stain'd the treasur'd yard.

Rather the fox's dark retreats explore,
Your skill oft will the wily knave elude;
Nor your pursuit give impotently o'er,
Till the arch thief dies for the public good.

See him steal faithless, when night's shadows fall,
Where your warm feather'd fam'ly roosting sit,
When darkness hides his outrages from all,
And frequent murder, join'd with theft, commit.

Shall then your poultry the fell ruffian feed,
Grown by successes bold, to blood inur'd;
Nor yet the insolent assassin bleed,
By crafty arts, and stratagems secur'd?

But vainly would the weeping Muse engage
Compassion to her woes—behold! they tear
Her guiltless breast, with more than savage rage;
Gentler the famish'd hound, or forest-bear.

219

And while her dying sobs relief implore,
Dash down her quiv'ring entrails on the ground,
While dogs impure lick up the reeking gore,
And men and steeds exulting gather round.

Mangled she lies, stiff ev'ry springy limb,
Wont to transport her o'er the less'ning plain;
Her glaring eyes in death's cold languor dim,
And all besmear'd with many a clotted stain.

But let the numbers farther cease to flow,
Haply, to sport enthusiastic swains,
Blended too much with elegiac wo,
The Muse when she should triumph, but complains.

Yet, though the hardy, unreflecting heart
Glows in the chace, as flints are fir'd by steel;
Well may the Muse with confidence assert,
That breast's not human which can never feel.

If to extremes mankind may ever lean,
(Our common fault, from meanness, or from pride)
Howe'er our acts explain ill what we mean,
The errour's surely best on Mercy's side.

220

ON RICHES.

------ Quid habet pulchri constructus acervus.
Hor.

Why is extensive wealth bestow'd on men?
To be as greatly useful as they can,
Not merely their own in'trests to pursue,
Or meanly hoard as wretched misers do;
Alas! while thousands of their betters starve,
Or only have their barest wants to serve.

God, in dispensing favours here below,
Wisely dispens'd, would have all orders know,
Howe'er the lots unequal seem to fall,
He seeks the welfare not of one, but all.
Not that a pride-swoln purse-vain tyrant, born
Both the disgrace of mankind, and the scorn,
Should raise, with unremitted bent of mind,
His fortune on the ruins of his kind;
Sole, rigid arbiter of right and wrong,
Holding high jurisdiction o'er the throng;

221

A pow'r which only from presumption flows,
Or something foreign to himself bestows:
His only merit—save but to himself,
The merit of the mine, a little pelf,
Though here unlike, his to himself confin'd,
The mine bestows its blessings on mankind.
All are the objects of God's special care,
His Providence all undistinguish'd share;
His rains and dews the barren soil enrich,
No matter which the lord, the vassal which;
His radiant sun, his moon, his stars, display
To all one indiscriminating ray.
The monarch and the hamlet's servile clown,
Howe'er on him the royal eye looks down,
Howe'er the first by prostrate crouds obey'd,
Stand on a level, when by Him survey'd;
For to the last, so equal He bestows,
The first his diadem and sceptre owes;
While in return, though casual ills endur'd,
The peasant's life and property's secur'd.
No titles, no distinctions, that exist
Only while Fortune smiles, or factions list,
Expos'd to accidents of time and place,
Avail with Him whose empire is all space;

222

Whose eye, which through no partial medium sees,
Beholds, as one, all stations and degrees;
As gilded clouds dispers'd o'er evening-sky,
Some of a brighter, some a fainter dye,
But all alike, at the approach of night,
Snatch'd in surrounding darkness from the sight.

For what are all the haughty boasts of pow'r,
But the fantastic playthings of an hour,
Which Fortune from her lap in pastime throws,
While in the scramble friends turn mortal foes?
So have we seen two mastiffs fierce engage,
With rival hatred, and contentious rage,
The strongest sure the mighty prize to own,
The mighty prize—a crumble or a bone.

Say not that Virtue suffers by the charge,
We censure thus her merit to enlarge;
Thus too applause on Reason we bestow,
Reason, man's grand prerogative below;
For seldom either seems concern'd at all
With Mankind's incidental rise or fall;
Seldom the last claims Pity's tender sigh,
The first one glance of their approving eye.
Refrain to call their honour injur'd then,
But let the censure justly light on men.

223

Men who, when plumes or stars within their reach,
Think no excess a law's notorious breach;
Surmount each obstacle, as in their way
An insect flutter'd, or a molehill lay;
The first that can obtain, or best defend,
(No matter how) most lucky in the end.
Rather pronounce the satire dipt in gall,
That thus their favour is denied to all.
And why denied? because (O lasting blot
In Fame's escutcheon) priz'd and courted not.

Riches, consider'd right, are not our own,
But lent us as a temporary loan,
To be, as the fam'd Hebrew understood,
Laid out discreetly for the common good.
A certain test, a grand criterion this,
As manag'd with discretion, or amiss,
God in superiour wisdom means to try
The rectitude of our intentions by;
Whence the reward, or glory or disgrace,
Will with impartial equity take place.

Such then reverse the universal law,
Whose hearts relent not, and whose hands withdraw.
Such counteract Heav'n's uniform design,
And boldy would oppose the will divine,

224

Who, to the circle of themselves confin'd,
Their thoughts extend not to the human kind;
Whom no kind gen'rous sentiments impress,
Averse to aid, though they the means possess.
For shame! thus faithless to the noblest trust,
To God ungrateful, and to man unjust.
To God, of whom unmerited you hold
Your lease of life, your honours, and your gold.
To man, related by one common tye,
Whate'er proud mottoes boast, or crests imply.
Reason, to man intrusted as a grant,
Lest he should ever sink oppress'd with want,
Makes him the common creditor of all,
Whate'er hard fate betides, or ills befall.
To whom all, places chang'd, commutual owe
What each would wish the other to bestow.
A diamond is a diamond, whether seen
On dunghill, or in bracelet of a queen.
Yon sun the same, when vapours foul obscure,
As when he shines through boundless æther pure.
For shall a being form'd by breath divine,
In whom the graces of an angel shine,
Destin'd, when life's vain senseless farce is o'er,
To live with kindred spirits evermore,

225

Shall he, unhonour'd by a gen'rous sigh,
Live unassisted, or neglected die?
Shall he alone demand his birth-right due,
Yet, with reproach, meet a refusal too?
No; first the open air let glow-worms shun;
Lest in his glory they eclipse the sun;
Let wretches guard their bags with bolted door,
Starving with plenty, in abundance poor.
Let emmets boast their hoarded grains, but man
Should act upon a better, nobler plan.
Nor let the bard, who freely censures them,
Be guilty of a fault his lays condemn.
Thus would he take the disingenuous side,
And from his actions his belief divide.

226

From PHANOR, A Lover with a small Patrimony,

To CONSTANTIA, His wealthy Mistress, whom he admired before he was apprised of her Fortune, An EPISTLE.

Amor vincit ------
Ovid.

The hand, O ever-charming fair,
Whence this epistle, will declare.
O could it in your breast excite
One soft idea of delight!
Ah why on you did Fortune smile,
Yet sternly frown on me the while?
Why did she wealth refuse to pour
Propitious on my natal hour?

227

Or, since her bounty here confin'd,
To you why lavishly so kind?
Had you been born a rural maid,
To grace the ivy-mantled shade;
To hear the music-warbling throng,
Or, by your own, excel their song;
Simple in manners and in dress,
Yet doubly charming ne'er the less:
Then had, like me, some youthful swain
Approach'd, nor met with cold disdain,
But welcom'd, in Love's courteous style,
With placid brow, and gracious smile.
Approach'd, and of success secure,
Which Wealth might bribe, but ne'er ensure;
That union of congenial hearts,
Which time cements, and death but parts,
For which not power nor fame atones;
Scarce envy'd monarchs on their thrones:
You, fairest nymph that tript the plain,
And he the kindest fondest swain!
You yielding with a blush of joy,
He clasping charms that never cloy!

O lovely maid (on whose account,
No good would to my wish amount)

228

Possess'd of beauty, youth, and health,
For once divest yourself of wealth.
Health, youth, and beauty, in their prime,
Should lose in vain resolves no time;
Though Virtue without them may please,
Virtue is still set off by these.
Health, youth, and beauty, one by one,
Are Virtue's outward suits put on;
Becoming, when she leaves the skies,
Thus visible to mortal eyes.
Prudence forbids those charms to fade,
Which blooming come to Virtue's aid;
Without which, she were sure to know
Less admiration still below.
While some would prostitute their charms
To a vile sordid husband's arms;
At the unfeeling shrine of pelf,
Each meanly sacrifice herself;
Affect, for titles, or degree,
Wretched through a long life to be:
Nature doth you with power invest
Of blessing, and of being blest;
True happiness was never sold,
Nor bought by mercenary gold.

229

Had I a fortune at command,
To make acceptable my hand;
That offer'd hand, did you incline,
That fortune, Charmer, should be thine.
Nor would I challenge, on my part,
Aught as the purchase but your heart.
What you had seen perform'd by me,
May I in turn expect from thee?
Were you less lovely in mine eye,
Riches could ne'er that loss supply.
Worth your regard if me you judge,
Scorn my mere want of pelf to grudge.
Enough already you possess,
Another and yourself to bless;
Some Youth whom merit recommends,
Not mouldy rent-rolls, or court-friends,
Those splendid enemies to love,
When sense and virtue fail to move:
More might in vain parade be spent,
But nought could add to real content.
Left to determine your own state,
Rather be happy, than be great.
Those who have neither choice, nor will,
If such mistake, are pitied still.

230

But pity's to that maid deny'd,
By no compulsive methods try'd;
From numbers who's allow'd to chuse,
Approve uncensur'd, or refuse.
But O! while others force confines,
Sole mistress of your own designs,
Mistress of that important part,
Where all should first consult the heart;
If constancy and truth can please,
In me, sweet maid, o'erlook not these!
In no bold confidence of style,
If gentle manners court your smile,
O kindly pardon the attempt,
And me from blame pronounce exempt!
Pity a heart sincere, that would
Fix your regard; yet not intrude,
That would, in your's and candour's ears,
Express its wishes, hopes, and—fears;
To you, for friendship form'd and love,
Each thought, each sentiment approve.
That heart, ills fated to endure,
Wounded by you, but you can cure.

231

The ANSWER.

Fortuna vincit.

Your letter I receiv'd, dear swain,
But the address is all in vain.
In vain the pow'rs of verse essay
To make black white, or midnight day.
Money has charms; let parsons preach,
Their lives far other doctrines teach.
Gold you would undervalue: right;
Little, my swain, you have to slight.
His foxship scorn'd the grapes as sour,
Because—remov'd beyond his pow'r.
That you have merit, is most true,
Talents and virtues, not a few;
But these, with person, youth, and health,
Are poor equivalents for wealth.
Beside, you doubtless must confess,
These I as well as you possess.
Say then, alike accomplish'd thus,
What's offer'd for my overplus?

232

Rather would I a title wed,
Than take mere merit to my bed.
Mere merit, in mere private life,
Mere Love's, or Friendship's simple strife,
May figure; but how awkward still,
And disconcerted at—quadrille?
Riches already I may vaunt,
A title's only what I want.
A title makes the vulgar gaze,
Commands respect at balls and plays;
O'erawes the bailiff, and takes place
Where Virtue still—shows not her face;
Than which, with wealth, nought we possess
More truly good—but happiness.
Perhaps, when twoscore years are past,
If your regard so long can last,
No coronet, in all that space,
Obtain'd, no Ladyship, no Grace;
With a bold favour'd lover's ease,
You may approach me—if you please.
Meantime farewell, keep hope in store,
Twice twenty springs will soon pass o'er.

233

PROLOGUE,

Spoken at the Representation of the Recruiting-Officer, by the young Gentlemen of Dungannon in Ireland; the profits of which were appropriated to relieve the necessities of the poor, during the almost universal scarcity of the year 1757.

This night, untutor'd for the buskin'd stage,
Alike (alas) regarding skill and age,
A comic play we offer to your view,
Humbly submitting our attempts to you.
If they your favour and applause obtain,
Your grateful debtors largely we remain;
If not, the good intention will ensure
Success, what our deserts can ne'er procure.
The gen'rous bosom, and the feeling heart,
Will plead excuse for each defective part.

See yonder wretches (let their cries prevail)
The starving mother with her children pale!
Misfortune pictur'd in each ghastly look!
Almost by gracious Heav'n itself forsook!

234

In each sunk feature misery is trac'd,
Humanity's own image near defac'd.
Hard penury chills ev'ry torpid heart,
And nought but anguish their swoln sighs impart.
Clouds of despondence hang on each sad brow,
And big despair half forms the horrid vow.
Distressful times!—say, can the Muse behold
The triumphs joint of hunger and of cold,
And yet suppress the sympathetic sigh,
Yet stop the tear that trickles from the eye;
Those genuine tributes on soft Pity's side,
When others more substantial are deny'd?
With Plenty's loaded board to feast the eye,
Us'd only want and wretchedness to spy;
On each wan cheek to paint Health's roseate bloom,
And bid each look its wonted smile assume;
Life's last remains of vigour to preserve,
Strengthen the limb, and brace anew the nerve;
Thus ev'ry breast with gratitude to fire,
And with delight the melting heart inspire;
Can true Ambition e'er the mind dispose
To worthier deeds, to nobler acts than those?
Such claim the highest honours as their due,
And such not vainly we expect from You.

235

EPILOGUE On the same Occasion.

If ever play an epilogue deserv'd,
For acting which from justness never swerv'd,
That now presented (cries some waggish elf)
Speaks with convincing merit for itself;
Though Charity the palm of virtues wins,
As she conceals a multitude of sins.
What native strokes of genius, to surprise
The most unthinking hearts, and careless eyes!
What easy attitudes! what graceful shapes!
Which self-vain affectation vainly apes.
What apt behaviour! what exact address!
As if it were not human to transgress.
How with the comic muse their bosoms burn'd!
With what just emphasis their periods turn'd!
Which show'd, beyond the strongest proofs of art,
True eloquence is seated in the heart.
Had present but the British Roscius been,
Their fine display of talents to have seen,

236

He had confess'd, though oft in boasts detected,
He never could, indeed, like them have acted.

From evils often of the largest size
Some accidental good we see arise.
Thus, in the midst of scarcity and need,
When universal famine seem'd decreed,
A set of worthies rose to our relief,
Dispell'd our fears, and mollify'd our grief.
Had plenty still charm'd our delighted sight,
We had not seen this matchless play to-night.
Ladies, your breasts with admiration mov'd,
Justly have you each actor's skill approv'd;
For only they so greatly could excel,
And only you distinguish worth so well.

237

To the Author of Douglas and Agis.

Written in the year 1758.

Hail, tragic bard! still while esteem remains
For nature painted in the purest strains;
While sentiments express'd with native ease,
And elegant simplicity can please;
While poesy and taste maintain their cause,
Douglas shall live the subject of applause.

How Agis shines, drawn by thy faithful pen,
The greatest, wisest, and the best of men!
When sacred Freedom fires his glowing breast,
Each less exalted gen'rous aim supprest;
How does he rise, deserted and alone,
Superiour to the grandeur of a throne,
Unsooth'd by Pleasure's fascinating voice,
The coward's boast, the slave's ignoble choice!
Proud Cæsar, seated in triumphal car,
Amid the trophies and the spoils of war,
While adoration crouds almost bestow,
Exhibits to mankind a meaner show.

238

Britain, awake; a finish'd picture see,
Drawn by the Muse's happiest art, for thee;
Not merely to amuse, but to inspire
With virtuous zeal, and patriotic fire.
To rouse from sloth thy once heroic race,
Sloth, still the harbinger of quick disgrace;
Rouse them, at Glory's oft-repeated call,
To live like heroes, or like heroes fall.
Britain!—too much resembling Sparta's state,
When few had the ambition to be great;
When luxury, intemperance, and ease,
Had only the successful power to please;
When Party and Corruption, with deep stealth,
Plann'd basely to o'erturn the Commonwealth.
May such Plays only grace the British stage,
As tend to better and improve the age;
Tend, by each manly, noble, lib'ral art,
To fire the genius, and enlarge the heart;
Which heroes, and which patriots may admire,
Virtue approve, and Liberty inspire.

Now Caledonia lifts her aged head,
Long buried with the literary dead,
And, from the slumber of a hundred years,
Upon the top of Helicon appears.

239

She comes, to greet you her peculiar son,
To hail your race of glory now begun,
Such glory as Parnassian laurels claim,
Beyond the honours of a titled name.

Long Scotia's sons were famous in the field,
For might and prowess that could never yield.
Immortal trophies long adorn'd her land,
Nobly achiev'd by Valour's stoutest hand.
Through distant nations spread her martial name,
And Scotia and renown were still the same.
Scarce did her children leave the dandling knee,
By Nature warlike, as by Nature free,
When ev'ry little hand essay'd to wield
The spear, or train the courser for the field;
Anon to lead forth armies on the foe,
Conquest and death attending ev'ry blow.
No music could transport them but alarms,
No exercise was popular but arms.
The wretch that liv'd in indolence and ease,
Whom dangers could affright, and softness please;
Was fain to deserts from mankind to fly,
In senseless glooms to shun the public eye.
But though for warriours, vet'ran warriours, fam'd,
Few favourites there the gentle Muses claim'd;

240

Save the restorer of the classic phrase,
Whose eulogy has half exhausted praise .
Save Johnston, not ungratefully here past,
Nor Thomson, whose fresh laurels ever last.
Nor virtuous Blacklock, though depriv'd of sight,
And shrouded in the rayless gloom of night,
To whose soul Reason shines with purest rays,
And mental Beauty's ev'ry charm displays.
But now her name, wide as her conquests flew,
Shall boundless spread, spread by the Muse and You.

Buchanan.

241

CROSS .

Errare per lucos, amœnæ
Quos et aquæ subeunt, et auræ.
Hor.

This sylvan Seat, which lofty trees surround,
Stands on the summit of a rising ground,
Whence all the varied landscape is survey'd,
In Nature's richest drapery array'd.
Hard by, two sloping sister hills ascend,
Whose ample sides from the rude storm defend;
Along whose slantings Plenty's ever seen,
In yellow liv'ry rob'd, or em'rald green.
Feeding on summer's fragrant bloom at large,
Here the blythe shepherd tends his fleecy charge;
Pores on the ballad, from ambition free,
Or cheats the lengthen'd hours in harmless glee;
Breathes, from the simple flagellet's soft throat,
The sprightly air, or tender plaintive note;

242

His little dog asleep, or barking round
At some stray sheep, or unaccustom'd sound.

Before the door, in apt arrangement plac'd,
With all the truest elegance of taste,
Of ev'ry odour, each resplendent dye,
Beds of selected flow'rs green-border'd lie:
Where the jonquil, anemone, and rose,
Their silken bosoms to the sun disclose;
Tulips, in robes of gaudy crimson bright,
And lilies conscious of their snowy white;
Pansies, diversify'd with various hues,
And hyacinths bedropt with silver dews;
Pinks and carnations, delicately gay,
Flush'd with the virgin smiles that gild the day;
Ranunculus, in radiant scarlet clad,
And fair Narcissus, hung his love-sick head:
A splendid, num'rous, variegated tribe,
Which scarce the Florist can himself describe;
All that perfumes the zephyr's lenient wing,
Or blushes on the verdant lap of Spring.

From this, with more of elegance than state,
Through the kind entrance of a portal'd gate,
A flight of polish'd steps leads, by degrees,
To a long range of venerable trees,

243

Where oaks, and elms, and ashes, seem to vie
In fond ambition to approach the sky;
Forming a kindly umbrage, to allure
Spring's warblers, from fell truant's grasp secure.

Below, a river's limpid currents glide,
Bounded by mossy banks on either side;
Now, like a liquid pavement, smooth and still,
When not a pebble forms the gurgling rill;
No murmur rolls its burden on the wind,
To soothe the heavy heart, the anxious mind;
Impetuous now, full-charg'd, abrupt and hoarse,
From the cleft rocky steep, with headlong force,
While deep-shook caverns swell the mighty roar,
In broken whirls it sweeps, and thunders o'er.

Here lies a spacious garden, richly stor'd
With all that Art or Nature can afford
Of roots, and herbs, to grace the healthful dish,
What Want requires, what Temperance can wish.
Diffusive there, and bending with their load,
(Rich fruitage by Autumnal suns bestow'd)
Variety of trees connect their shade,
Till all one arch'd capacious covert made:
Some that support the apple's juicy race,
On whose ripe cheeks the virgin's blush we trace;

244

Others with mellow pears luxuriant hung,
That melt in pulpy fatness on the tongue;
While numbers boast the damson and the peach,
Soft to the touch, and dropping to the reach.
Hail wholesome viands! hail ambrosial food!
What can the royal cook present so good,
Though foreign climes their costly meats afford,
To spread with luxury the monarch's board;
Though wines high-flavour'd sparkle in his cup,
As if mere wines could keep the spirits up?
These are the baneful sources of disease,
And Siren-like, but to destroy us, please;
But those, which fed the ancient Patriarch sage,
Protract life to a happy good old age.

Here, when the songsters, from each pensile spray,
Sing the last exit of departing day;
Or when bright Morn looks round with radiant eyes,
To chase Night's length'ned shadows from the skies;
Oft does the Muse from noisy scenes retire,
Wafted on Contemplation's wing of fire;
Wander unnumber'd pleasing objects o'er,
Till Observation can supply no more.
From earth to heav'n oft elevates her view,
Still in the keen pursuit of something new.

245

To yonder sun's meridian bow'r ascends,
Whence through Creation's confines life extends;
Now to the silver majesty of night,
Diffusing round the softer streams of light;
Now to the circlet of each lucid star,
Whose splendours reach unmeasurably far:
Amaz'd that globes, in systems clust'ring strung,
Globes, pendulous in fluid æther hung,
Globes, of enormous weight, and heat, and size,
Should each maintain its station in the skies;
Nor sweep eccentric, from its orbits hurl'd,
Through the vast void, and conflagrate a world!
Grand proof of Pow'r Almighty, that restrains
Those pond'rous masses by magnetic chains,
Obnoxious else, each moment of the day,
To anarchy, to uproar, and decay.

Sometimes, the flow'rs bedropt with pearls of dew,
The tears of Nature, at light's last adieu;
Sometimes the rich enamel of the fields,
Where all of sweet and fair kind Nature yields;
Sometimes the fruit dependent from the trees,
Loading with sweets the intermingled breeze;
Sometimes, the smiling azure of the sky,
Streak'd o'er with fleecy gold, attracts her eye.

246

Now the mild whispers of the dying breeze,
Breathing faint sighs through sympathetic trees;
Martlets in ceaseless flight, and clamour loud,
Winging the liquid sky, a feather'd cloud;
The bleat of sheep, some folded, straggling some,
Or hornet, wheeling round with drousy hum;
Now the soft warblings of the vocal tribe,
As they their little feather'd loves describe;
Doom'd no keen anguish from remorse to bear,
Courts the attention of her ravish'd ear.

Say, ye immur'd in towns, what can compare
With flow'ry verdure and the open air?
What strains of labour'd music can surprise
The captive sense, and mount us to the skies,
Like that which hails Aurora's gladsome ray,
Or mourns the absence of the god of day?
Erewhile, not Handel's more than mortal art
To move the noblest feelings of the heart;
Though every passion, each sublime desire
Wak'd, as his fingers swept the living lyre,
Could imitate the ear-inchanting lays,
That from the shade swell the Creator's praise.

To catch Health floating on the zephyr's wings,
Or gushing from the rock's pellucid springs;

247

Distilling odours from the flow'ry bed,
Or smiling mead, with new-mown hay o'erspread;
With active vigour bracing the strong limb,
While with the stream's translucent tide we swim;
Mount the swift steed, and scour the tainted ground,
While the loud horn wakes ev'ry echo round;
Shoot the fleet arrow from the trembling string,
Or joyous grace the festive rural ring:
Kings might for these their drawing-rooms forego,
And prove their greatness by contempt of show.
This world is nothing, if to us unkind
In health of body, and in peace of mind.
Without them monarchs seem with want opprest,
Rustics, with them, of more than crowns possest.

Would Heav'n but grant me my supreme desire,
That state I wish, that mansion I admire;
Not with proud courts would I affect to mix,
But here at once my hopes and dwelling fix.
Here, with a chosen set of worthy friends,
Whom harmony of tempers recommends,
Union of souls and sympathy of hearts,
Which years but rivet, and but death disparts;
Prefer simplicity to splendid ease,
My sole ambition to be pleas'd, and please.

248

Here, when life's dying lamp was gradual spent,
No murmur heard of fretful discontent,
Approving Conscience my alone solace,
Smoothing to smiles Pain's agonizing face;
Heave the last draught that feeds my fainting breath,
Welcome my latest pang, and triumph over death.

A beautiful rural retirement near Strabane in the county of Tyrone, Ireland.

249

On the Ruins of an old ELM.

------ Arbores loquantur, non tantum feræ.
Phæd.

Hail! ag'd remains of what thou once hast been,
When, mantled o'er with vernal foliage green,
For stature thy fair form unrival'd stood,
The landscape's pride, and monarch of the wood.
O did a spark of Pope's unequall'd fire
The elegiac numbers but inspire,
From thy bare stump the laurel should arise,
And thou once more affect sublime the skies!

What revolutions, in life's strange affairs,
In stations, places, fortunes, studies, cares,
Hast thou beheld, since first thy infant root
Did deep in earth its tender fibrils shoot!
To portray all, whate'er the well-earn'd praise,
In pointed numbers, and in faithful lays,

250

Would occupy the fam'd Horatian quill,
Yet (strange) the catalogue imperfect still;
Or his, at once his subject and his claim,
Who sung the general passion, love of fame.
Yet shall the muse, content with aiming well,
Attempt a theme where others may excell.

Say, since thy birth, what undertakings plann'd,
What armies rais'd—a rumour to withstand.
In seas of their own blood what millions drown'd,
What battles fought—about an inch of ground.
What furies veil'd in sacerdotal gown,
Sent from below to turn worlds upside-down.
What arts a stain on merit to affix,
What villains wafted in a coach and six,
Thousands of Virtue's sons obscurely born,
Haply, the humblest stations to adorn.
What midnight lamps consum'd—a day to fix,
What learning spent—that three and three make six.
What spleen—our merit suffers by compare.
What noble goodly structures—built in air.
To hide us—from ourselves, what treble bars,
What marks of honour—in love's glorious wars.
What tours to distant regions—in the brain.
What contests to support—a harlot's train.

251

What engines rear'd—a rocket to expel.
What kingly favour shown—for pimping well.
What godlike acts of bounty—to be seen.
What grand contrivances—a knave to screen.
What pomp of language—to describe a dance.
What great resolves—in fashion to advance.
What factions form'd—to discompose a stage,
What laws to mend—the gaming of the age.
What gen'rous friendship—to ourselves avow'd.
What dignity of look—his Lordship bow'd.
What fortunes mortgag'd—that a horse may run.
What striking talents—to compose a pun.
What dreadful terrours—for a midge's sting.
What sums expended—on an insect's wing.
What loud laments—a monkey to bewail,
What grief—for trampling on a lap-dog's tail.
What freedoms us'd by each fierce son of thunder,
Resolv'd—his sword and sheath shall never sunder.
With what audacious haughty front he struts,
Like yonder bull against some tree that butts!
By method valiant, and by piece-meal brave,
How much unlike himself would he behave!
To Clodia, see how quick revers'd his plan,
For Clodia, like a hero, kill'd his man!

252

Not so mild Ned, he ne'er his rapier gor'd,
And hence is threaten'd by each poltroon's sword.
But let the muse to other objects turn,
With indignation and with anger burn,
While she but narrates, in impartial rhyme,
What pass'd when mankind saw thee in thy prime.

To settle faith what sanguine crouds in arms.
What set devotions paid—to Circe's charms.
What recollection—at a tart reply.
What manly boldness—to maintain a lie.
What high debates—to fix a stallion's price.
What strength of reasoning—to defend a vice.
What strong foretastes of Heav'n, what perfect bliss,
What chaste enjoyments—in a strumpet's kiss.
What looks of dark design, not to disclose
A mighty secret—which all mankind knows.
What cordial shakes, with many a gen'rous vaunt,
What promises—to those who nothing want.
What looks of honest meaning—to beguile.
What years attendance to obtain—a smile.
What learn'd advice—a freckled brow to cure,
What Christian calm—a pimple to endure.
What pious multitudes to church repair,
To take their godly nap, or see the Fair.

253

How ev'ry night long Sarco's fam'ly pray,
For he defrauds his customers all day.
Vano how like a saint, none really more,
Just now the doctor gave poor Vano o'er.
How Casto's voice in talking seldom sinks,
For the best reason, Casto never thinks.
How furious Marcia, stamping on the floor,
Poor George (black crime) forgot to shut the door.
What obloquy—Aurelia seeks the shade.
What cruel jests—Amanda's roses fade.
What endless sighs—not that Aspasia's ill,
But O! the doctor—kept her from quadrille.
What joyful looks (apart) what triumphs vast,
Just now Almira's husband—breath'd his last.
How wedlock women—of fourteen adore.
How self-deny'd to marriage—full threescore.
How meek Fastidia gen'rously would wed,
Could she but take a coronet to bed;
While Chloe ventures on a man downright,
For O—! he danc'd most charmingly last night.
How many maids to marry still delay,
Because (alas) no husband comes their way;
Because (at the mere thought Compassion starts)
If wed, whole scores would die of broken hearts!

254

But who can travel through the maze of life,
Its little contests, bustlings, cares, and strife,
Hopes, wishes, fears, in quick rotation seen
Thy vernal bloom and thy decline between?
Sooner the eye may Spring's cast blossoms count,
Or leaves in Autumn's whirling blasts that mount.
But now alas! thy glory is no more,
Thy glory wont each season to restore.
How emblematic of man's common doom,
Man, so conceited of his nodding plume;
Like thee, to see a few short summers glide,
Then be disrob'd of all his gorgeous pride;
Small space between, howe'er his prospects tow'r,
His rites funereal and his natal hour!
Shall mortals then on length of years depend,
And stretch out life almost without an end;
To fortune, strength, to youth, or beauty trust,
To rescue, or detain, them from the dust;
When Elms themselves, with all their proud display
Of branchy verdure, wither and decay?
Elms, that can brave the Winter's northern blast,
But by Time's stronger hand subdu'd at last.

255

To Doctor AKENSIDE.

An EPISTLE.

Say, Akenside, by the chaste Muse inspir'd,
And first among Fame's classic sons admir'd;
Say, why the lyre so backward to resume,
Unaw'd by ev'ry meaner poet's doom;
When glory courts your patriotic lays,
Bourbon's submission, and Britannia's praise.

Say, would your fancy soar, your bosom burn?
To Ocean's empress, wreath'd with laurel, turn;
Albion the fair! victorious o'er her foes,
Whose smile now universal peace bestows.
If any sparks, struck from celestial fire,
Your kindling Muse to ravishment inspire,
(And that there are, is echo'd back by fame)
Each great exploit will mount them up to flame.
The true-born sons of Genius we behold
Turn all beneath their magic touch to gold;
With them, whate'er the arduous task decreed,
But barely to attempt, is to succeed.

256

The sun but glimmers, while a cloud confines,
Light forms in prisms, and yonder rainbow shines.
Save then, from sordid scribblers of the age,
Who blot with worse than ink the sacred page;
Who with no genius, and with ears as bad,
Affect to run poetically mad;
Drawl out their expletives to form a rhyme,
The couplet good, if but the last words chyme:
Or, if they scorn the fetters Dryden chose,
Range through a chaos wild of blank-verse-prose.
From such unworthy candidates for fame,
Whom Pity's self can scarce as objects claim;
Like Mercy, all beneficent to save,
O! snatch Britannia's Heroes—from the grave.
For shall exploits, that ask no meaner pen,
Than his who sung inspir'd of arms and men;
Shall they be murder'd by that wretch's quill,
Who breaks Heaven's great command, “Thou shalt not kill?”
Exploits, the Julian æra that renew,
Worthy of Wolfe, who fell, but conquer'd too!
Shall the proud sons of battle, Albion's sons,
In whose high veins the blood of heroes runs;

257

Shall they, whose thunders on fam'd Minden roar'd,
Fall by the hand of Dulness undeplor'd!
Forbid it, Gratitude—that loudly claims
Trophies of praise to their heroic names!
Forbid it, Freedom—while immortal fame
Through ages spreads thy poet's honour'd name!
Forbid it, Akenside—while Edwards stand,
Till now, unrivall'd glories of our land;
While you Imagination's pow'rs inspire
With Plato's feeling, and with Pindar's fire!

To Mr WOTY;

On his publishing the Poetical Calendar.

What numbers with unhallow'd hands delight
To nip the bud of Genius ere full-blown!
Or to repress, with little sordid spite,
Fancy's strong pinion that sublime had flown!

Far gentler the rude flash of lightning past,
That struck the eagle from his tow'ring wing!
Less cruel riots Winter's ruffian blast
On the soft virgin bosom of the Spring!

258

But satire ne'er shall our chaste page defile,
Let their just fate suffice—to die forgot—
Now let the frown be soften'd to a smile,
Worth claims applause, though she solicits not.

Late did the hand of Elegance select
Each flow'r o'er Albion scatter'd by the Muse;
And hence in Attic taste a nosegay deckt,
Whose beauty time revolving but renews .

So, from the pathless solitary waste,
The gay parterre oft borrows half its pride;
See! yonder terrace with those snow-drops grac'd,
That rudely once adorn'd the landscape wide.

To You a like return of praise belongs,
That now the Muses grace our native land;
Ye friends of bards, and guardians of their songs,
By no mean breath the fire poetic fann'd.

These Volumes as fair monuments shall last,
“What gems had lain neglected in the mine,
“Had you not here the precious store amass'd,
“To charm by union, and by contrast shine.”

Alluding to Mr Dodsley's very elegant collection of Poems.

259

On HARMONY.

Inscribed to Mr Robert Stevenson.

Dulci laborem decipitur sono.
Hor.

Accept these lines, my brother, and my friend,
If kindly you approve, not vainly penn'd.
Yet all the strongest colourings are faint,
To one who feels beyond what words can paint.
Music has charms peculiar to a man
Whose life is form'd on Harmony's own plan;
Whose actions, and their motives, ever run
With Virtue's laws in happy unison.
Still persevere—then shall the numbers be
From ev'ry charge of partial friendship free.
But wherefore partial, since it is confest,
They worth most justly praise, who know it best?
Him to commend not, for pure morals fam'd,
Is an express affront at Virtue aim'd.

260

Besides, praise to ingenuous minds, creates
What, by assumption, it already rates;
As the same sun-beam, that adorns the flow'r,
Matures its lenient sweets and healing pow'r.

Hail, Harmony! hail, native of the skies,
Where thou art wont before the throne to rise,
On golden harp, with angels all on flame,
To celebrate the dread Eternal Name!
Seraphic charmer, hail! to man sent down
To soften into smiles Misfortune's frown:
Sent down the joys of Eden to restore,
His pledge of higher, when life's drama's o'er;
When, from the dross of elements refin'd,
He lives all pure and unembodied mind;
With spirits lives, whose vast durations run
Thro' ages never ended, still begun.
Spirits, like him, once in probation tried,
To matter, though in different mode, allied;
In higher ranks, by no first stain disgrac'd,
Of intuition, thought, and reason plac'd.
There, heav'n-taught art! in Glory's native clime,
Thy touches of the tender, and sublime,
The sweet, the grand, the melting, and the soft,
That languish, or majestic swell aloft,

261

With uncreated energy of sound,
Shall make infinitude of space rebound;
Rouse to high flame Devotion's hallow'd fires,
A flame, heart-kindled flame, that ne'er expires;
Which to an angel the mere mortal turns,
And only in celestial bosoms burns.

Hail! living type of man design'd to be,
When all his various active pow'rs agree;
Or, join'd with discord, aptly to define
His complex nature, earthly and divine:
Discord his emblem, when his passions jar,
And rage tumultuous in eternal war!

Each passion acts obsequious to thy pow'r,
Rises or falls, in the same conscious hour;
While human skill, in impotent essays,
Would labour that to calm, or this to raise.
Vengeance sits brooding o'er the darken'd face,
In sullen gloom eclips'd each social grace;
Or, shrinking from the rash vindictive vow,
Smiles sweet Forgiveness with an angel's brow.
Anger within indomitable storms,
And all the ruffled countenance deforms;
Or Meekness, mov'd not by the harsh reply,
Softens each beam that vibrates from the eye.

262

When all the charms of oratory fail
To rouse the soul, thy pathos can prevail.
Let Cicero his wordy thunder wield,
If Orpheus plays, the Roman boast must yield.
That vigour to a senate-house might give,
This made ev'n things inanimate to live.
When Reason, on her dictatorial throne,
Argues and pleads, with undecisive tone;
Thy rhetoric of sound, beyond her aid,
Thy lyre-breath'd strains of language can persuade.

Oh! at that crisis of alarming fate,
Just to commence a new eternal state;
When, like a broken reed, or trembling asp,
All human comfort sinks beneath my grasp;
When friends, suffus'd in sorrow and despair,
Express their anguish, but no hopes declare,
With downcast looks, and sighs-returning breath,
Adding a dread solemnity to death:
Oh! by Religion made a welcome guest,
Thy habitation, seraph, be my breast,
To soothe the spirit, soon its flight to wing,
And to each thought celestial requiems sing!

263

To Miss J---y T---tt---r, Appearing often at her Window with her Hat on.

An EPISTLE.

Say, J---y, ne'er in vapours gone,
Why still your Kitty Fisher on,
How'er unnecessary made,
By the warm room's protecting shade?
Do you this stratagem practise,
Lest we be dazzled with your eyes?
The kind intent we grateful own,
And thank the umbrage o'er them thrown.
But, though we venture not to gaze
At yonder sun in noon-tide blaze,
We wish no intervening cloud
The radiance of his orb to shroud.
Perhaps, as specks obscure the gem,
Some languor rudely seizes them.
On me O let your suffrage fall!
O me your special doctor call!
Art, haply, may relief afford,
Each eye's soft lambent fires restor'd.

264

How bless'd, how envied would I be,
Were those fine orbs renew'd by me,
Though the bright ray, when back it came,
Might kindle all my soul to flame!
Me would you then your patient see,
And you, in turn, physician be;
No fee from either party due,
You might cure me, for curing you.
But ah! the heart, when ills surprise,
Is cur'd less easy than the eyes!

Miss G---tt to the Author;

With a Pocket-book she had renewed.

Go, little book, renew'd by me,
And to thy master tell,
That, for my pains bestow'd on thee,
I hope he'll use thee well.

This further I would have thee say,
Though he may merit less;
I as his friend will ever pray,
And wish him all success.

265

His ANSWER.

Yes, little book, by her renew'd,
Thou shalt be treated well;
O! wert thou but with speech endu'd,
And could the Charmer tell,

That I accept her as my friend,
With fond intent to prove,
Friendship with women, in the end
Is sister but to love.

A QUESTION:

Sacred to the learned body of Quacks.

Doctors, except just now and then,
Seem longer-liv'd than other men,
Though largely they, like all, great sinners,
Indulge at suppers, and at dinners,
And, from restraints like others freed,
In the non-naturals exceed.

266

Give then, philosophers, the reason,
Why them thus Death delays to seize on.
Death spares the doctor, grave and prim,
For his great usefulness to him.
For one he thus in kindness leaves,
A thousand yearly he receives.
But when Disease, though oft he mock'd her,
Him useless makes, death cures the doctor.
Alternate thus, the fee once sure,
Death and the doctor kill and cure.
Hail! living monitors and sage,
To a vain, frolic, vitious age!
With taking manner to behave,
You to yourselves assume the Grave—
Hail worthies of the Coan tribe!
What pen your triumphs can describe,
Your triumphs vast, when illness seizes,
O'er purses, patients, and—diseases!
Nor angry at a brother be,
Heav'n mortal foes design'd these three;
Who mutual work each other's fall,
You wisely then destroy them all;
For thus, howe'er the squabble rose,
They cease for ever to be foes.

267

To DANIEL N---, Esq

Tell me, just from the doctor's hands,
Secure from his and death's demands;
Say, Daniel from the lion's den,
Can doctors e'er be honest men,
Who, praying for their daily bread,
Wish men diseas'd, though better dead?
Yes, doctors honest you may call,
For doctors seldom pray at all.

ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ.

How proud this rule adorns each shelf,
To hearts unknown, man, “know thyself;”
For thus, self knowledge and self-love
Not friends, but foes, commutual prove!
Who then this precept can practise?
To know one's self, is to despise.

268

On a Foreigner's losing a considerable Sum of Money at a Gaming-table with a Sharper.

Hail, fam'd Britannia! hospitable land!
Justly by Nature destin'd to command,
Not merely kingdoms (these are trivial parts
Of thy immense domain) but human hearts:
Thy son my boundless thanks shall ever win,
I was a stranger, and he took me in.

C---'S CURE.

Written in the year 1764.

See C--- crawl the viper of the times,
And dart his poison through ten thousand rhymes;
Foaming with more than canine fury swell,
And grin in numbers like a fiend from hell.
The more enlighten'd and improv'd the age,
The more our envy-tortur'd bard will rage.
But let the blackest guilt our times deform,
Then will the mighty C--- cease to storm;
With real vices be our isles o'ergrown,
Then will his spleen abate, and then alone.

269

But, may he rather with black venom burst,
Than thus disgrac'd our nation and accurst;
In vortices of rhyming madness tost,
Rather than silent at Britannia's cost.

On MARRIAGE.

Felices ter, et amplius
Quos irrupta tenet copula ------
Hor.

Marriage is good, mankind agree;
One flesh let male and female be.
One in the grand resolve of life,
Eternal hate, and mutual strife.
One form'd exactly for another,
To harass and torment each other.
But better thus their spleen to vent,
And gross abuse, till all is spent,
Than, haply, disengag'd from home,
The public pests abroad to roam.

On the Same.

[The man whom Wedlock renders sib]

The man whom Wedlock renders sib
To woman, thus regains his rib,

270

Which erewhile from his side was stole,
To envelope the female soul:
But O! what thousands, luckless born,
Will for a rib receive a thorn!

On an Author who pleaded Poverty as an excuse for Printing.

Crito is miserably poor—what then?
So often are the worthiest of men.
But what his want of fortune ne'er could do,
He prints to prove his want of genius too.
As if (on man's unfeeling heart severe)
One single evil could not claim his tear.
That want is piteous, but admits a cure,
This still unremedied he must endure.
Alas! alas! if the trite maxim's right,
Two blacks can never, never make a white.
For once, two negatives forget their use,
Nor can one kind affirmative produce.
Add nought to nought (what so prolific breeds?)
And the whole sum of—nothing straight succeeds.

271

To A CLERGYMAN Too fond of appearing in Print.

Write on, your trade is, all agree,
Argumentorum vi probare,
Eve ate of the forbidden tree,
Et quod humanum est errare.

Practice and Theory ne'er should part.
Example teaches mankind more,
Fixes the judgment, gains the heart,
Than Precept, hackney'd o'er and o'er.

The End of the First Volume.