The Poetical Works of John Langhorne :: :: University of Virginia Library

Fraught with each wish the friendly breast can form,
A simple muse, O! Langhorne, would intrude;
Her lays are languid, but her heart is warm,
Tho' not with Fancy's potent powers endu'd.

Fancy, tho' erst she shed a glimmering ray,
And op'd to fairy scenes my infant eye,
From Pain, and Care, has wing'd her chearful way,
And with Hygeia sought a milder sky.

No more my trembling hand attempts the lyre,
Which Shenstone oft (sweet bard) has deign'd to praise;
Even tuneful Langhorne's friendship fails t' inspire
The glow that warm'd my breast in happier days.

Yet not this cold heart can remain unmov'd,
When thy sweet numbers strike my raptur'd ear;
The silver sounds, by ev'ry muse approv'd,
Suspend a while the melancholy tear.

What time, on Arrowe's osier'd banks reclin'd,
I to the pale moon pour'd thy plaintive lay;
Smooth roll'd the waves, more gently sigh'd the wind,
And Echo stole the tender notes away.

Sweet Elves and Fays, that o'er the shadowy plains
Their mystic rites, and mazy dance pursue,
Tun'd their light minstrelsy to softer strains,
And from thy lays their melting music drew.

Sweet son of Fancy! may the white-rob'd Hours
Shed their kind influence on thy gentle breast;
May Hebe strew thy vernal path with flow'rs,
Blest in thy love, and in thy friendship blest.

Smooth as thy numbers may thy years advance,
Pale Care and Pain their speeding darts suspend;
May Health, and Fancy, lead the chearful dance,
And Hope for ever her fair torch extend.

For thee may Fame her fairest chaplets twine;
Each fragrant bloom, that paints Aonia's brow,
Each flow'r, that blows by Alcidale, be thine;
With the chaste laurel's never-fading bough:

On thee may faithful friendship's cordial smile
Attendant wait to sooth each rising care;
The nymph thou lov'st be thine, devoid of guile,
Mild, virtuous, kind, compassionate, and fair.

May thy sweet lyre still charm the generous mind,
Thy liberal muse the patriot spirit raise;
While, in thy page to latest time consign'd,
Virtue receives the meed of polish'd praise.

SONNET TO MR. LANGHORNE.

BY JOHN SCOTT, ESQ.

Langhorne, unknown to me (sequester'd swain!)
Save by the Muse's soul-enchanting lay,
To kindred spirits never sung in vain,
Accept the tribute of this light essay;

Due for thy sweet songs that amus'd my day!
Where Fancy held her visionary reign,
Or Scotland's honours claim'd the pastoral strain.
Or Music came o'er Handel tears to pay:

For all thy Irwan's flow'ry banks display,
Thy Persian lover and his Indian fair;
All Theodosius' mournful lines convey,
Where Pride and Av'rice part a matchless pair;
Receive just praise and wreaths that ne'er decay,
By Fame and Virtue twin'd for thee to wear.

Amwell, near Ware, 16 March, 1766.

TO THE HONOURABLE CHARLES YORKE.

A Muse that lov'd in Nature's walks to stray,
And gather'd many a wild flower in her way,
To Nature's friend her genuine gifts would bring,
The light amusements of Life's vacant spring;
Nor shalt thou, Yorke, her humble offering blame,
If pure her incense, and unmixt her flame.
She pours no flattery into Folly's ear,
No shameless hireling of a shameless Peer,
The friends of Pope indulge her native lays,
And Gloucester joins with Lyttelton to praise.
Each judge of art her strain, tho' artless, loves;
And Shenstone smil'd, and polish'd Hurd approves.
O may such spirits long protect my page,
Surviving lights of Wit's departed age!
Long may I in their kind opinion live!
All meaner praise, all envy I forgive.—

Yet fairly be my future laurels won!
Nor let me bear a bride to Hardwicke's son!
Should his free suffrage own the favour'd strain,
Tho' vain the toil, the glory were not vain.

PROEMIUM.

WRITTEN IN 1766.

In Eden's vale, where early fancy wrought
Her wild embroidery on the ground of thought,
Where Pembroke's grottos, strew'd with Sidney's bays,
Recall'd the dreams of visionary days,
Thus the fond Muse, that sooth'd my vacant youth,
Prophetic sung, and what she sung was truth.

“Boy, break thy lyre, and cast thy reed away;
Vain are the honours of the fruitless bay.
Tho' with each charm thy polish'd lay should please,
Glow into strength, yet soften into ease;
Should Attic fancy brighten every line,
And all Aonia's harmony be thine;
Say would thy cares a grateful age repay?
Fame wreathe thy brows, or Fortune gild thy way?
Ev'n her own fools, if Fortune smile, shall blame;
And Envy lurks beneath the flowers of Fame.

Yet, if resolv'd, secure of future praise,
To tune sweet songs, and live melodious days,
Let not the hand, that decks my holy shrine,
Round Folly's head the blasted laurel twine.
Just to thyself, dishonest grandeur scorn;
Nor gild the bust of meanness nobly born.
Let truth, let freedom still thy lays approve!
Respect my precepts, and retain my love!

The River Eden, in Westmorland.

The Countess of Pembroke, to whom Sir Philip Sidney dedicated his Arcadia, resided at Appleby, a small but beautiful town in Westmorland, situated upon the Eden.

STUDLEY PARK.

TO THE REV. MR. FARRER.

Farrer! to thee these early lays I owe:
Thy friendship warms the heart from whence they flow.
Thee, thee I find, in all I find to please;
In this thy elegance, in that thy ease.
Come then with Fancy to thy fav'rite scene,
Where Studley triumphs in her wreaths of green,
And, pleas'd for once, while Eden smiles again,
Forget that Life's inheritance is pain.

Say, shall we muse along yon arching shades,
Whose aweful gloom no brightning ray pervades;
Or down these vales where vernal flowers display
Their golden bosoms to the smiles of day,
Where the fond eye in sweet distraction strays,
Most pleas'd, when most it knows not where to gaze?

Here groves arrang'd in various order rise,
And bend their quiv'ring summits in the skies.
The regal Oak high o'er the circling shade.
Exalts the hoary honours of his head.

The spreading Ash a diff'ring green displays,
And the smooth Asp in soothing whispers plays.
The Fir that blooms in Spring's eternal prime,
The spiry Poplar, and the stately Lime.

Here moss-clad walks, there lawns of lively green,
United, form one nicely-varying scene:
The varying scene still charms th' attentive sight,
Or brown with shades, or op'ning into light.

Here the gay tenants of the tuneful grove,
Harmonious breathe the raptures of their love:
Each warbler sweet that hails the genial Spring,
Tunes the glad song, and plies th' expanded wing:
The love-suggested notes, in varied strains,
Fly round the vocal hills and list'ning plains:
The vocal hills and list'ning plains prolong,
In varied strains, the love-suggested song.
To thee, all-bounteous Nature! thee they pay
The welcon e tribute of their grateful lay!
To thee, whose kindly-studious hand prepares
The fresh'ning fields and softly-breathing airs;
Whose parent-bounty annual still provides
Of foodful insects such unbounded tides.
Beneath some friendly leaf supremely blest,
Each pours at large the raptures of his breast;
Nor changeful seasons mourns, nor storms unkind,
With those contented, and to these resign'd.

Here sprightly range the grove, or skim the plain,
The sportive deer, a nicely-checker'd train.
Oft near their haunt, on him who curious strays,
All throng'd abreast in fix'd attention gaze;
Th' intruding spy suspiciously survey,
Then butting limp along, and lightly frisk away.

Not so, when raves the pack's approaching roar,
Then Loves endear, then Nature smiles no more:
In wild amaze, all tremblingly-dismay'd,
Burst thro' the groves, and bound along the glade.
'Till now some destin'd stag, prepar'd to fly,
Fires all the malice of the murd'ring cry:
Forc'd from his helpless mates the fated prey
Bears on the wings of quiv'ring Fear away:
In flight (ah! could his matchless flight avail!)
Scorns the fierce steed, and leaves the flying gale.
Now trembling stops—and listens from afar
In long, long deep'ning howls, the madd'ning war;
While loud-exulting triumphs thunder round,
Tremble the mountains, and the rocks rebound.
In vain, yet vig'rous, he renews his race,
In vain dark mazes oft perplex the chace:
With speed, inspir'd by grief, he springs again
Thro' vaulted woods, and devious wilds in vain.
Th' unrav'lling pack still, onward-pouring, trace
The various mazes of his circling race.
Breathless at last with long-repeated toil,
Sick'ning he stands—he yields—he falls the spoil.

From all the various blooms of painted bow'rs,
Fair, banky wilds, and vallies fring'd with flow'rs,
Where Nature in profusion smiles delight,
With pleasure-sated turns the roving sight.

Come then, bright vision! child of heav'nly day!
From this fair summit ampler scenes survey;
One spacious field in circling order eye,
And active round the far horizon fly;
Where dales descend, or ridgy mountains rise,
And lose their aspect in the falling skies.

What pleasing scenes the landskip wide displays!
Th' inchanting prospect bids for ever gaze.
Hail charming fields, of happy swains the care!
Hail happy swains possest of fields so fair!
In peace your plenteous labours long enjoy;
No murd'ring wars shall waste, nor foes destroy;
While western gales Earth's teeming womb unbind,
The seasons change, and bounteous suns are kind.
To social towns, see! wealthy Commerce brings
Rejoicing Affluence on his silver wings.
On verdant hills, see! flocks innum'rous feed,
Or thoughtful listen to the lively reed.
See! golden harvests sweep the bending plains;
“And Peace and Plenty own a Brunswick reigns.”

The wand'ring eye from Nature's wild domain
Attracted, turns to fairer scenes again.

Scenes, which to thee, refining Art! belong,
Invite the poet, and inspire the song.

Sweet, philosophic muse! that lov'st to stray
In woody-curtain'd walks and dim-seen day,
Lead me, where lonely Contemplation roves,
Thro' silent shades and solitary groves.

Stop, daring foot! the sacred maid is here!
These awful glooms confess the goddess near.
Low in these woods her fav'rite scene is laid,
The fence umbrageous, and the dark'ning shade,
Whose bow'ry branches bar the vagrant eye,
Assailing storms and parching suns defy.
A gentle current calmly steals serene,
In silv'ry mazes, o'er the weeping green,
'Till op'ning bright, its bursting waters spread,
And fall fast-flashing down a wide cascade.
A spacious lake below expanded lies,
And lends a mirror to the quiv'ring skies.
Here pendent domes, there dancing forests seem
To float and tremble in the waving gleam.

While gaily-musing o'er it's verdant side,
Pleas'd I behold the glassy riv'let glide;
Bright in the verdure of the blooming year,
Where circling groves their full-blown honours wear;
Ambrosial daughter of the spicy spring,
While fragrant woodbine scents each zephyr's wing;

While nectar-footed Morn, approaching, dyes,
In radiant blush, the rosy-checker'd skies;
The first fair Eden, o'er th' inchanted plain
Reviving, smiles, or seems to smile again.

Hail, blissful scene! divine Elysium hail!
Ye flow'ry blooms eternal sweets exhale:
The blest asylum's here, the sacred shore,
Where toils tumultuous tear the breast no more.

From wild Ambition free, from dire Despair,
Appalling Terror, and perplexing Care,
Happy the Man who in these shades can find
That angel-bliss, Serenity of Mind;
Walk the fair green, or in the grotto lie,
With hope-strung breast, and heav'n-erected eye!
While cheated worlds, by Pleasure's lure betray'd,
Thro' rocks and sands pursue the syren-maid;
And, long-bewilder'd, urge the weary chace,
Tho' still the phantom slips their vain embrace:
'Tis his with pitying eye to see—to know
Whence purest Joy's perennial fountains flow.
With this exalting charm divinely blest,
The dear reflection of a blameless breast:
Where sweet-ey'd Love still smiles serenely gay,
And heav'nly Virtue beams a brighter ray.
Soft, smoothly-pacing slide his peaceful days,
His own his censure, and his own his praise:
Alike to him, both subjects of the grave,
The seepter'd monarch, and the menial slave.

Thrice happy he who Life's poor pains has laid
In the lone tomb of some sequester'd shade!
More amply blest, if gloriously retir'd,
With Learning charm'd, and with the Muses fir'd;
Who nobly dares with philosophic eye,
Thro' full Creation's bounded orbs to fly;
Pleas'd, in their well-form'd systems, still to find
The matchless wisdom of th' immortal mind.
Still charm'd, in Nature's various plan, to trace
His boundless love and all-supporting grace.

Ye pompous great! whose dream of glory springs
From sounding titles, or the smiles of kings:
Ye, laurell'd in the bleeding wreathes of war!
And ye, whose hearts are center'd in a star!
Say, all ye sons of power and splendor, say,
E'er could ye boast one unimbitter'd day?
Cease the vain hope in dazzling pomp to find
Divine Content, to humbler lots assign'd;
The modest fair frequents the lowly cell,
Where smiling Peace and conscious Virtue dwell.

While thro' the maze of winding bow'rs I stray,
The shade's dim gloom, or vista's op'ning day;
Soft-sighing groves, where silky breezes fill,
Kiss the smooth plain, and glassy-dimpling rill;
In silent vales, by sadly-mourning streams,
Where swift-ey'd Fancy wings her waving dreams;
What sacred awe the lonely scenes inspire!
What joys transport me, and what raptures fire!

Visions divine, inchanted I behold,
And all the Muses all their charms unfold.

Ye, woods of Pindus, and Ætolian plains,
No more shall listen to immortal strains:
Flow unconcern'd, no Muse celestial sings,
Ye Thracian fountains, and Aonian springs!
No more your shades shall leave their native shore,
Nor songs arrest your raptur'd currents more.

And thou, Parnassus, wrapt in deep alcoves,
Mourn, in sad silence, thy forasken groves:
No more thy warblers rival notes admire,
Nor choral zephyrs fill the breathing lyre.
Each drooping laurel bends its languid head;
The strains are vanish'd, and the Muses fled.

To nobler hills, where fairer forests grow,
To vales, where streams in sweeter accents flow;
To blooming Studley's more delightful shades
Welcome, ye sacred, ye celestial maids!
Wake the soft lute, here strike the sounding string,
Make the groves echo, and the vallies ring;
Harmonious lead, thro' rosy-smiling bow'rs,
The soft-ey'd Graces and the dancing hours.

In awsul scenes retir'd where gloomy night.
Still broods, unbanish'd by returning light;
Where Silence, fix'd in Meditation deep,
Folds in her arms her fav'rite offspring Sleep;

Musing along the lonely shades I roam
'Till beauteous rises a devoted dome;
Thy fane, seraphic Piety! low plac'd
In sable glooms, by deep'ning woods embrac'd.
Nor radiant here the Prince of Day displays
His morning blushes, nor meridian blaze:
Rolls o'er the world the splendid orb unseen,
'Till his last glories gild the streaming green;
Then sportive gleams thro' parting columns play,
Here waves a shadow, and there smiles a ray.
Just emblem of the man who, free from strife,
Th' uneasy pains that vex the noon of life;
Not dazzled with the diamond-beaming zone,
Flash of a lace, or brilliance of a stone,
Courts the last smiles of Life's declining ray,
Where Hope exulting reaps eternal day.

The sacred solitude, the lone recess,
An awful pleasure on my soul impress.
Raptures divine thro' all my bosom glow,
The bliss alone immortal beings know.
Ah, knew that sovereign bliss no base alloy,
Wer't thou, my Farrer! witness to my joy;
What nobler pleasure couid we boast below!
What joy sublimer Heav'n itself bestow!
Haste, my gay friend! my dear associate, haste!
Life of my soul, and partner of my breast!
Quick to these shades, these magic shades retire:
Here light thy Graces, and thy virtue fire:

Here sheds sweet Piety her beams divine,
And all the Goddess fills her heav'nly shrine.
Celestial maids before her altar move:
White-handed Innocence, and weeping Love.

Her tow'ring domes let Richmond boast alone;
The sculptur'd statue and the breathing stone:
Alone distinguish'd on the plains of Stowe,
From Jones's hand the featur'd marble glow:
Tho' there unnumber'd columns front the skies,
To fancied Gods forbidden temples rise;
Unenvied, Studley, be this pomp of art,
'Tis thine the pow'r to please a virtuous heart.

From this lov'd scene with anxious steps I trace
Each devious winding of the banky maze;
To the tall summit of the steep repair,
And view the gay surrounding prospect there.
What joys expand my breast! what rapture warms!
While all the landskip opens all its charms:
While pleas'd I see, the parting shades between,
The lake fair-gleaming and the smoother green;
Thro' lowly grots where wand'ring shadows stray,
Groves gently wave, and glist'ning waters play.

On thee, fair Hackfall! Fancy bends her eye,
Longs o'er the cliffs and deep'ning lawns to fly.
Inchanted sees each silv'ry-floating wave
Beat thy green banks, thy lonely vallies lave:

And now delighted, now she joys to hear
Thy deep, slow falls, long-lab'ring thro' her ear.

All-beauteous Nature! object of my song,
To thee my first, my latest strains belong:
To thee my lays I tune, while envious art
In rival charms here courts the raptur'd heart.
Like thee to please, she decks the painted bow'r,
Spreads the smooth lawn, and rears the velvet flow'r:
With winding arbours crowns the sylvan dale,
And bends the forest o'er the lowly vale:
Bids the loud cataract deep-thund'ring roar,
Or winds the riv'let round a mazy shore.
Ambitious still, like thee, when she beguiles,
Wins with thy grace, and in thy beauty smiles.

In this gay Dome where sportive Fancy plays,
And imag'd life the pictur'd roof arrays;
Proud in thy charms the mimic shines confest,
Beams the soft eye, and heaves the panting breast.

From thee, prime source! kind-handed Goddess! flow
The purest blessings that we boast below:
To thee its beauty owes this charming scene,
These groves their fragrance, and those plains their green:

For thee the Muses wreaths eternal twine,
Immortal Maid! for every Muse is thine.

Oh, wou'd'st thou lead me thro' the boundless sky!
Regions untravell'd by a mortal eye;
Or kindly aid, while studious I explore
Those arduous paths thy Newton trod before!
There wond'ring shou'd my ravish't eye survey
New worlds of being, and new scenes of day.
But if for my weak wing and trembling sight,
Too vast the journey, and too full the light;
Inglorious here I'll tune the lowly reed,
How rolls the fountain, and how springs the mead.

Or, bear me to the banks, ye sacred Nine!
Of beauteous Isis, or the silver Tine.
To Tine's delightful banks, where, ever gay,
The generous F---lives the peaceful day:
F---still free from passion's fretful train,
Ne'er felt the thorn of anguish nor of pain:
His heart-felt joys still Nature's charms improve,
Her voice is music, and her visage love:
Pleas'd with the change each various season brings,
Imbrowning autumns, and impurpled springs:
For him kind Nature all her treasures yields,
She decks the forest, and she paints the fields.

O say! where bloom those :ime-surviving groves,
Where ancient bards first sung their sacred loves:

Those sadly-solemn bow'rs, ye Muses! say,
Where once the melancholy Cowley lay?
When long perplext with Life's deluding snares,
Her flatt'ring pleasures, and her fruitless cares;
Obscure he fled to sylvan shades alone,
And left mankind, to be for ever known.

Such were the scenes where Spenser once retir'd,
When great Eliza's fame the Muse inspir'd;
When Gloriana led her poet's dreams,
O'er flow'ry meadows, and by murm'ring streams.

Immortal bards! whose death-contemning lays
Shall shine, distinguish'd with eternal praise.
Knew my poor Muse, like these to soar sublime,
And spurn the ruins of insulting Time;
Where'er I stray: where blooming Flora leads,
O'er sunny mountains, and thro' purple meads;
Or careless in the sylvan covert laid,
Where falling rills amuse the mournful shade,
Ye, rural fields, should still resound my lay,
And thou, fair Studley! smile for ever gay.

Upon an eminence, east of the gardens, stands a house of Chinese structure.

GENIUS AND VALOUR: A PASTORAL POEM.

WRITTEN IN HONOUR OF A SISTER KINGDOM.

MDCCLXIII.

Amyntor, Chorus of shepherds.

Where Tweed's fair plains in liberal beauty lie,
And Flora laughs beneath a lucid sky;
Long winding vales where crystal waters lave,
Where blythe birds warble, and where green woods wave,
A bright-hair'd Shepherd, in young beauty's bloom,
Tun'd his sweet pipe behind the yellow broom.

Free to the gale his waving ringlets lay,
And his blue eyes diffus'd an azure day.
Light o'er his limbs a careless robe he flung;
Health rais'd his heart, and strength his firm nerves strung.

His native plains poetic charms inspir'd,
Wild scenes, where ancient Fancy oft retir'd!
Oft led her faeries to the Shepherd's lay,
By Yarrow's banks, or groves of Endermay.

Nor only his those images that rise
Fair to the glance of Fancy's plastic eyes;
His country's love his patriot soul possess'd,
His country's honour fir'd his filial breast.

Her lofty genius, piercing, bright, and bold,
Her valour witness'd by the world of old,
Witness'd once more by recent heaps of slain
On Canada's wild hills, and Minden's plain,
To sounds sublimer wak'd his pastoral reed—
Peace, Mountain-echoes! while the strains proceed.

Amyntor.
No more of Tiviot, nor the flowery braes,
Where the blythe Shepherd tunes his lightsome lays;
No more of Leader's faery-haunted shore,
Of Athol's lawns, and Gledswood banks no more.
Unheeded smile my country's native charms,
Lost in the glory of her arts and arms.
These, Shepherds, these demand sublimer strains
Than Clyde's clear fountains, or than Athol's plains.

Chorus of shepherds.
Shepherd, to thee sublimer lays belong,
The force divine of soul-commanding song.
These humble reeds have little learnt to play,
Save the light airs that cheer the pastoral day.
Of the clear fountain, and the fruitful plain
We sing, as Fancy guides the simple strain.
If then thy country's sacred fame demand
The high-ton'd music of a happier hand—
Shepherd, to thee sublimer lays belong,
The force divine of soul-commanding song.

Amyntor.

In spite of faction's blind, unmanner'd rage,
Of various fortune and destructive age,
Fair Scotland's honours yet unchang'd are seen,
Her palms still blooming, and her laurels green.

Freed from the confines of her Gothic grave,
When her first light reviving Science gave,
Alike o'er Britain shone the liberal ray,
From Enswith's mountains to the banks of Tay.

For James the Muses tun'd their sportive lays,
And bound the monarch's brow with Chaucer's bays.
Arch Humour smil'd to hear his mimic strain,
And plausive Laughter thrill'd thro' every vein.

When Taste and Genius form the royal mind,
The favour'd arts a happier era find.
By James belov'd the Muses tun'd their lyres
To nobler strains, and breath'd diviner fires.
But the dark mantle of involving Time
Has veil'd their beauties, and obscur'd their rhyme.

Yet still some pleasing monuments remain,
Some marks of genius in each later reign.

In nervous strains Dunbar's bold music flows,
And Time yet spares the Thistle and the Rose.

O, while his course the hoary warrior steers
Thro' the long range of life-dissolving years,
Thro' all the evils of each changeful age,
Hate, Envy, Faction, Jealousy, and Rage,
Ne'er may his scythe these sacred plants divide,
These plants by Heaven in native union tied!
Still may the flower its social sweets disclose,
The hardy Thistle still defend the Rose!

Hail happy days! appeas'd by Margaret's charms,
When rival Valour sheath'd his fatal arms;
When kindred realms unnatural war supprest,
Nor aim'd their arrows at a sister's breast.

Kind to the Muse is Quiet's genial day;
Her olive loves the foliage of the bay.

With bold Dunbar arose a numerous choir
Of rival bards that strung the Dorian lyre.
In gentle Henryson's unlabour'd strain
Sweet Arethusa's shepherd breath'd again.

Nor shall your tuneful visions be forgot,
Sage Bellentyne, and fancy-painting Scott.
But, O my country! how shall Memory trace
Thy bleeding anguish, and thy dire disgrace?
Weep o'er the ruins of thy blasted bays,
Thy glories lost in either Charles's days?
When thro' thy fields destructive Rapine spread,
Nor sparing infant's tears, nor hoary head.
In those dread days the unprotected swain
Mourn'd on the mountains o'er his wasted plain.
Nor longer vocal with the Shepherd's lay
Were Yarrow's banks, or groves of Endermay.

Chorus of shepherds.
Amyntor, cease! the painful scene forbear,
Nor the fond breast of filial duty tear.
Yet in our eyes our fathers' sorrows flow,
Yet in our bosoms lives their lasting woe.
At eve returning from their scanty fold,
When the long sufferings of their sires they told,
Oft we have sigh'd the piteous tale to hear,
And infant wonder dropt the mimic tear.

Amyntor.

Shepherds, no longer need your sorrows flow,
Nor pious duty cherish endless woe.
Yet should Remembrance, led by filial love,
Thro' the dark vale of old afflictions rove,
The mournful shades of sorrows past explore,
And think of miseries that are no more;
Let those sad scenes that ask the duteous tear,
The kind return of happier days endear.

Hail, Anna, hail! O may each muse divine
With wreaths eternal grace thy holy shrine!
Grav'd on thy tomb this sacred verse remain,
This verse more sweet than Conquest's sounding strain:
“She bade the rage of hostile nations cease,
“The glorious arbitress of Europe's peace.”
She, thro' whose bosom roll'd the vital tide
Of Britain's Monarchs in one stream allied,
Clos'd the long jealousies of different sway,
And saw united Sister-Realms obey.

Auspicious days! when Tyranny no more
Rais'd his red arm, nor drench'd his darts in gore.
When, long an exile from his native plain,
Safe to his fold return'd the weary swain.
Return'd, and, many a painful summer past,
Beheld the green bench by his door at last.

Auspicious days! when Scots, no more opprest,
On their free mountains bar'd the fearless breast;

With pleasure saw their flocks unbounded feed,
And tun'd to strains of ancient joy the reed.

Then, Shepherds, did your wondering sires behold
A form divine, whose vesture flam'd with gold;
His radiant eyes a starry lustre shed,
And solar glories beam'd around his head.
Like that strange power by fabling poets feign'd,
From east to west his mighty arms he strain'd.
A rooted olive in one hand he bore,
In one a globe, inscrib'd with sea and shore.
From Thames's banks to Tweed, to Tay he came,
Wealth in his rear, and Commerce was his name.

Glad Industry the glorious stranger hails,
Rears the tall masts, and spreads the swelling sails;
Regions remote with active hope explores,
Wild Zembla's hills, and Afric's burning shores.

But chief, Columbus, of thy various coast,
Child of the Union, Commerce bears his boast.
To seek thy new-found worlds, the vent'rous swain,
His lass forsaking, left the lowland plain.
Aside his crook, his idle pipe he threw,
And bade to Music, and to Love adieu.

Hence, Glasgow fair, thy wealth-diffusing hand,
Thy groves of vessels, and thy crowded strand.
Hence, round his folds the moorland Shepherd spies
New social towns, and happy hamlets rise.

But me not splendor, nor the hopes of gain
Should ever tempt to quit the peaceful plain.
Shall I, possest of all that life requires,
With tutor'd hopes, and limited desires,
Change these sweet fields, these native scenes of ease,
For climes uncertain, and uncertain seas?

Nor yet, fair Commerce, do I thee disdain,
Tho' Guilt and Death and Riot swell thy train.
Cheer'd by the influence of thy gladdening ray,
The liberal arts sublimer works essay.
Genius for thee relumes his sacred fires,
And Science nearer to her heaven aspires.

The sanguine eye of tyranny long clos'd,
By Commerce foster'd, and in Peace repos'd,
No more her miseries when my country mourn'd,
With brighter flames her glowing genius burn'd.
Soon wandering fearless many a muse was seen
O'er the dun mountain, and the wild wood green.
Soon, to the warblings of the pastoral reed,
Started sweet Echo from the shores of Tweed.

O favour'd stream! where thy fair current flows,
The child of nature, gentle Thomson, rose.
Young as he wander'd on thy flowery side,
With simple joy to see thy bright waves glide,
Thither, in all thy native charms array'd,
From climes remote the sister Seasons stray'd.

Long each in beauty boasted to excel,
(For jealousies in sister-bosoms dwell)
But now, delighted with the liberal boy,
Like Heaven's fair rivals in the groves of Troy,
Yield to an humble swain their high debate,
And from his voice the palm of beauty wait.

Her naked charms, like Venus, to disclose,
Spring from her bosom threw the shadowing rose;
Bar'd the pure snow that feeds the lover's fire,
The breast that thrills with exquisite desire;
Assum'd the tender smile, the melting eye,
The breath favonian, and the yielding sigh.
One beauteous hand a wilding's blossom grac'd,
And one fell careless o'er her zoneless waist.

Majestic Summer, in gay pride adorn'd,
Her rival sister's simple beauty scorn'd.
With purple wreathes her lofty brows were bound,
With glowing flowers her rising bosom crown'd.
In her gay zone, by artful Fancy fram'd,
The bright rose blush'd, the full carnation flam'd.
Her cheeks the glow of splendid clouds display,
And her eyes flash insufferable day.

With milder air the gentle Autumn came,
But seem'd to languish at her sister's flame.
Yet, conscious of her boundless wealth, she bore
On high the emblems of her golden store.

Yet could she boast the plenty-pouring hand,
The liberal smile, benevolent and bland.
Nor might she fear in beauty to excel,
From whose fair head such golden tresses fell;
Nor might she envy Summer's flowery zone,
In whose sweet eye the star of evening shone.

Next, the pale power, that blots the golden sky,
Wreath'd her grim brows, and roll'd her stormy eye;
“Behold,” she cried, with voice that shook the ground,
(The Bard, the Sisters trembled at the sound)
“Ye weak admirers of a grape, or rose,
“Behold my wild magnificence of snows!
“See my keen frost her glassy bosom bare!
“Mock the faint sun, and bind the fluid air!
“Nature to you may lend a painted hour,
“With you may sport, when I suspend my power.
“But you and Nature, who that power obey,
“Shall own my beauty, or shall dread my sway.”

She spoke: the Bard, whose gentle heart ne'er gave
One pain or trouble that he knew to save,
No favour'd nymph extols with partial lays,
But gives to each her picture for her praise.

Mute lies his lyre in death's uncheerful gloom,
And Truth and Genius weep at Thomson's tomb.
Yet still the Muse's living sounds pervade
Her ancient scenes of Caledonian shade.

Still Nature listens to the tuneful lay,
On Kilda's mountains and in Endermay.

Th' ethereal brilliance of poetic fire,
The mighty hand that smites the sounding lyre,
Strains that on Fancy's strongest pinion rise,
Conceptions vast, and thoughts that grasp the skies,
To the rapt youth that mus'd on Shakespear's grave,
To Ogilvie the muse of Pindar gave. Time, as he sung, a moment ceas'd to fly,
And lazy Sleep unfolded half his eye.

O wake, sweet bard, the Theban lyre again;
With ancient valour swell the sounding strain;
Hail the high trophies by thy country won,
The wreaths that flourish for each valiant son.

While Hardyknute frowns red with Norway's gore,
Paint her pale matrons weeping on the shore.
Hark! the green clarion pouring floods of breath
Voluminously loud; high scorn of death
Each gallant spirit elates; see Rothsay's thane
With arm of mountain oak his firm bow strain!
Hark! the string twangs—the whizzing arrow flies:
The fierce Norse falls—indignant falls—and dies.

O'er the dear urn, where glorious Wallace sleeps,
True Valour bleeds, and patriot Virtue weeps.
Son of the lyre, what high ennobling strain,
What meed from thee shall generous Wallace gain?
Who greatly scorning an Usurper's pride,
Bar'd his brave breast for liberty, and died.

Boast, Scotland, boast-thy sons of mighty name,
Thine ancient chiefs of high heroic fame,
Souls that to death their country's foes oppos'd,
And life in freedom, glorious freedom clos'd.

Where, yet bewail'd, Argyle's warm ashes lie,
Let music breathe her most persuasive sigh.
To him, what Heaven to man could give, it gave,
Wise, generous, honest, eloquent and brave.
Genius and Valour for Argyle shall mourn,
And his own laurels flourish round his urn.
O, may they bloom beneath a fav'ring sky,
And in their shade Reproach and Envy die!

A chain of mountains near Folkstone in Kent.

James the First, King of Scotland, author of the famous old song, entitled Christ's Kirk on the Green.

A poem so called, written in honour of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. on her marriage to James IV.King of Scots By Mr.William Dunbar.

Mr. Robert Henryson, an ingenious pastoral poet.

Mr. John Bellentyne, Archdean of Murray, author of beautiful allegorical poem, entitled, Virtue and Vice.

Mr. Archibald Scott, in the year 1524, translated the Vision, a poem, said to have been written in the year 1360. He was author of the Eagle and the Redbreast also, and several other pieces written with uncommon elegance for their day.

See Mr. Ogilvie's Ode to the Genius of Shakespear.

Ode to Time. Ibid.

Ode to Sleep. Ibid.

William Wallace, who, after bravely defending his country against the arms of Edward I. was executed as a rebel, though he had taken no oath of allegiance.

THE VISIONS OF FANCY.

IN FOUR ELEGIES.

La raison scait que c'est un songe,
Mais elle en saisit les douceurs:
Elle a besoin de ces fantômes,
Presque tous les plaisirs des hommes
Ne sont que de douces errcurs.
Gresest.

WRITTEN IN 1762.

ELEGY I.

Children of Fancy, whither are ye fled?
Where have ye borne those Hope-enliven'd hours,
That once with myrtle garlands bound my head,
That once bestrew'd my vernal path with flowers?

In yon fair vale, where blooms the beechen grove,
Where winds the slow wave thro' the flowery plain,
To these fond arms you led the tyrant, Love,
With Fear and Hope and Folly in his train.

My lyre, that, left at careless distance, hung
Light on some pale branch of the osier shade,
To lays of amorous blandishment you strung,
And o'er my sleep the lulling music play'd.

“Rest, gentle youth! while on the quivering breeze
“Slides to thine ear this softly breathing strain;
“Sounds that move smoother than the steps of ease,
“And pour oblivion in the ear of pain.

“In this fair vale eternal spring shall smile,
“And Time unenvious crown each roscate hour;
“Eternal joy shall every care beguile,
“Breathe in each gale, and bloom in every flower.

“This silver stream, that down its crystal way
“Frequent has led thy musing steps along,
“Shall, still the same, in sunny mazes play,
“And with its murmurs melodise thy song.

“Unfading green shall these fair groves adorn;
“Those living meads immortal flowers unfold;
“In rosy smiles shall rise each blushing morn,
“And every evening close in clouds of gold.

“The tender Loves that watch thy slumbering rest,
“And round thee flowers and balmy myrtles strew,
“Shall charm, thro' all approaching life, thy breast,
“With joys for ever pure, for ever new.

“The genial power that speeds the golden dart,
“Each charm of tender passion shall inspire;
“With fond affection fill the mutual heart,
“And feed the flame of ever-young Desire.

“Come, gentle Loves! your myrtle garlands bring;
“The smiling bower with cluster'd roses spread;
“Come, gentle Airs! with incense-dropping wing
“The breathing sweets of vernal odour shed.

“Hark, as the strains of swelling music rise,
“How the notes vibrate on the fav'ring gale!
“Auspicious glories beam along the skies,
“And powers unseen the happy moments hail!

“Extatic hours! so every distant day
“Like this serene on downy wings shall move;
“Rise crown'd with joys that triumph o'er decay,
“The faithful joys of Fancy and of Love.”

ELEGY II.

And were they vain, those soothing lays ye sung?
Children of Fancy! yes, your song was vain;
On each soft air though rapt Attention hung,
And Silence listen'd on the sleeping plain.

The strains yet vibrate on my ravish'd ear,
And still to smile the mimic beauties seem,
Though now the visionary scenes appear
Like the faint traces of a vanish'd dream.

Mirror of life! the glories thus depart
Of all that Youth and Love and Fancy frame,
When painful Anguish speeds the piercing dart,
Or Envy blasts the blooming flowers of Fame.

Nurse of wild wishes, and of fond desires,
The prophetess of Fortune, false and vain,
To scenes where Peace in Ruin's arms expires
Fallacious Hope deludes her hapless train.

Go, Syren, go—thy charms on others try;
My beaten bark at length has reach'd the shore:
Yet on the rock my dropping garments lie;
And let me perish, if I trust thee more.

Come, gentle Quiet! long-neglected maid!
O come, and lead me to thy mossy cell;
There unregarded in the peaceful shade,
With calm Repose and Silence let me dwell.

Come happier hours of sweet unanxious rest,
When all the struggling passions shall subside;
When Peace shall clasp me to her plumy breast,
And smooth my silent minutes as they glide.

But chief, thou goddess of the thoughtless eye,
Whom never cares or passions discompose,
O blest Insensibility be nigh,
And with thy soothing hand my weary eyelids close.

Then shall the cares of love and glory cease,
And all the fond anxieties of fame;
Alike regardless in the arms of Peace,
If these extol, or those debase a name.

In Lyttelton though all the Muses praise,
His generous praise shall then delight no more,
Nor the sweet magic of his tender lays
Shall touch the bosom which it charm'd before.

Nor then, tho' Malice, with insidious guise
Of friendship, ope the unsuspecting breast;
Nor then, tho' Envy broach her blackening lies,
Shall these deprive me of a moment's rest.

O state to be desir'd! when hostile rage
Prevails in human more than savage haunts;
When man with man eternal war will wage,
And never yield that mercy which he wants.

When dark Design invades the cheerful hour,
And draws the heart with social freedom warm,
Its cares, its wishes, and its thoughts to pour,
Smiling insidious with the hopes of harm.

Vain man, to other's failings still severe,
Yet not one foible in himself can find;
Another's faults to Folly's eye are clear,
But to her own e'en Wisdom's self is blind.

O let me still, from these low follies free,
This sordid malice, and inglorious strife,
Myself the subject of my censure be,
And teach my heart to comment on my life.

With thee, Philosophy, still let me dwell,
My tutor'd mind from vulgar meanness save;
Bring Peace, bring Quiet to my humble cell,
And bid them lay the green turf on my grave.

ELEGY III.

Bright o'er the green hills rose the morning ray,
The wood-lark's song resounded on the plain;
Fair Nature felt the warm embrace of day,
And smil'd thro' all her animated reign.

When young Delight, of Hope and Fancy born,
His head on tufted wild thyme half-reclin'd,
Caught the gay colours of the orient morn,
And thence of life this picture vain design'd.

“O born to thoughts, to pleasures more sublime
“Than beings of inferior nature prove!
“To triumph in the golden hours of Time,
“And feel the charms of fancy and of love!

“High-favour'd man! for him unfolding fair
“In orient light this native landscape smiles;
“For him sweet Hope disarms the hand of care,
“Exalts his pleasures, and his grief beguiles.

“Blows not a blossom on the breast of Spring,
“Breathes not a gale along the bending mead,
“Trills not a songster of the soaring wing,
“But fragrance, health, and melody succeed.

“O let me still with simple Nature live,
“My lowly field-flowers on her altar lay,
“Enjoy the blessings that she meant to give,
“And calmly waste my inoffensive day!

“No titled name, no envy-teasing dome,
“No glittering wealth my tutor'd wishes crave;
“So Health and Peace be near my humble home,
“A cool stream murmur, and a green tree wave.

“So may the sweet Euterpe not disdain
“At Eve's chaste hour her silver lyre to bring;
“The muse of pity wake her soothing strain,
“And tune to sympathy the trembling string.

“Thus glide the pensive moments, o'er the vale
“While floating shades of dusky night descend:
“Not left untold the lover's tender tale,
“Nor unenjoy'd the heart-enlarging friend.

“To love and friendship flow the social bowl!
“To attic wit and elegance of mind;
“To all the native beauties of the soul,
“The simple charms of truth, and sense refin'd.

“Then to explore whatever ancient sage
“Studious from Nature's early volume drew,
“To chase sweet Fiction thro' her golden age,
“And mark how fair the sun-flower, Science, blew!

“Haply to catch some spark of eastern fire,
“Hesperian fancy, or Aonian ease;
“Some melting note from Sappho's tender lyre,
“Some strain that Love and Phœbus taught to please.

“When waves the grey light o'er the mountain's head,
“Then let me meet the morn's first beauteous ray;
“Carelessly wander from my sylvan shed,
“And catch the sweet breath of the rising day.

“Nor seldom, loitering as I muse along,
“Mark from what flower the breeze its sweetness bore;
“Or listen to the labour-soothing song
“Of bees that range the thymy uplands o'er.

“Slow let me climb the mountain's airy brow,
“The green height gain'd, in museful rapture lie,
“Sleep to the murmur of the woods below,
“Or look on Nature with a lover's eye.

“Delightful hours! O, thus for ever flow;
“Led by fair Fancy round the varied year:
“So shall my breast with native raptures glow,
“Nor feel one pang from folly, pride, or fear.

“Firm be my heart to Nature and to Truth,
“Nor vainly wander from their dictates sage:
“So Joy shall triumph on the brows of youth,
“So Hope shall smooth the dreary paths of age.”

ELEGY IV.

Oh! yet, ye dear, deluding visions stay!
Fond hopes, of Innocence and Fancy born!
For you I'll cast these waking thoughts away,
For one wild dream of life's romantic morn.

Ah! no: the sunshine o'er each object spread
By flattering Hope, the flowers that blew so fair,
Like the gay gardens of Armida fled,
And vanish'd from the powerful rod of Care.

So the poor pilgrim, who in rapturous thought
Plans his dear journey to Loretto's shrine,
Seems on his way by guardian seraphs brought,
Sees aiding angels favour his design.

Ambrosial blossoms, such of old as blew
By those fresh founts on Eden's happy plain,
And Sharon's roses all his passage strew:
So Fancy dreams; but Fancy's dreams are vain.

Wasted and weary on the mountain's side,
His way unknown, the hapless pilgrim lies,
Or takes some ruthless robber for his guide,
And prone beneath his cruel sabre dies.

Life's morning-landscape gilt with orient light,
Where Hope and Joy and Fancy hold their reign,
The grove's green wave, the blue stream sparkling bright,
The blythe hours dancing round Hyperion's wain,

In radiant colours Youth's free hand pourtrays,
Then holds the flattering tablet to his eye;
Nor thinks how soon the vernal grove decays,
Nor sees the dark cloud gathering o'er the sky.

Hence Fancy conquer'd by the dart of Pain,
And wandering far from her Platonic shade,
Mourns o'er the ruins of her transient reign,
Nor unrepining sees her visions fade.

Their parent banish'd, hence her children fly,
The fairy race that fill'd her festive train;
Joy tears his wreath, and Hope inverts her eye,
And Folly wonders that her dream was vain.

A POEM TO THE MEMORY OF MR. HANDEL.

WRITTEN IN 1760.

Spirits of music, and ye powers of song,
That wak'd to painful melody the lyre
Of young Jessides, when, in Sion's vale
He wept o'er bleeding friendship; ye that mourn'd,
While freedom, drooping o'er Euphrates' stream,
Her pensive harp on the pale osier hung,
Begin once more the sorrow-soothing lay.

Ah! where shall now the Muse fit numbers find?
What accents pure to greet thy tuneful shade,
Sweet harmonist? 'twas thine, the tender fall
Of pity's plaintive lay; for thee the stream
Of silver-winding music sweeter play'd,
And purer flow'd for thee—all silent now
Those airs that, breathing o'er the breast of Thames,
Led amorous Echo down the long, long vale,
Delighted; studious from thy sweeter strain
To melodise her own; when fancy-lorn,

She mourns in anguish o'er the drooping breast
Of young Narcissus. From their amber urns,
Parting their green locks streaming in the sun,
The Naiads rose and smil'd: nor since the day,
When first by music, and by freedom led
From Grecian Acidale; nor since the day,
When last from Arno's weeping fount they came,
To smooth the ringlets of Sabrina's hair,
Heard they like minstrelsy—fountains and shades
Of Twit'nam, and of Windsor fam'd in song!
Ye heights of Clermont, and ye bowers of Ham!
That heard the fine strain vibrate thro' your groves,
Ah! where were then your long-lov'd Muses fled,
When Handel breath'd no more?—and thou, sweet Queen,
That nightly wrapt thy Milton's hallow'd ear
In the soft ecstacies of Lydian airs;
That since attun'd to Handel's high-wound lyre
The lay by thee suggested; could'st not thou
Sooth with thy sweet song the grim fury's breast?

Cold-hearted Death! his wanly-glaring eye
Nor Virtue's smile attracts, nor Fame's loud trump
Can pierce his iron ear, for ever barrd
To gentle sounds: the golden voice of song,
That charms the gloomy partner of his birth,
That soothes Despair and Pain, he hears no more,

Than rude winds, blust'ring from the Cambrian cliffs,
The traveller's feeble lay. To court fair fame,
To toil with slow steps up the star-crown'd hill,
Where Science, leaning on her sculptur'd urn,
Looks conscious on the secret-working hand
Of Nature; on the wings of genius borne,
To soar above the beaten walks of life,
Is, like the paintings of an evening cloud,
Th' amusement of an hour. Night, gloomy night
Spreads her black wings, and all the vision dies.

Ere long, the heart, that heaves this sigh to thee,
Shall beat no more! ere long, on this fond lay
Which mourns at Handel's tomb, insulting Time
Shall strew his cankering rust. Thy strain, perchance,
Thy sacred strain shall the hoar warrior spare;
For sounds like thine, at Nature's early birth,
Arous'd him slumbering on the dead profound
Of dusky chaos; by the golden harps
Of choral angels summon'd to his race:
And sounds like thine, when Nature is no more,
Shall call him weary from the lengthen'd toils
Of twice ten thousand years. O would his hand
Yet spare some portion of this vital flame,
The trembling Muse that now faint effort makes
On young and artless wing, should bear thy praise
Sublime, above the mortal bounds of earth,
With heavenly fire relume her feeble ray,
And, taught by Seraphs, frame her song for thee.

I feel, I feel the sacred impulse—hark!
Wak'd from according lyres the sweet strains flow
In symphony divine: from air to air
The trembling numbers fly: swift bursts away
The flow of joy—now swells the flight of praise.
Springs the shrill trump aloft; the toiling chords
Melodious labour thro' the flying maze;
And the deep base his strong sound rolls away,
Majestically sweet—Yet, Handel, raise,
Yet wake to higher strains thy sacred lyre:
The Name of ages, the Supreme of things,
The great Messiah asks it; He whose hand
Led into form yon everlasting orbs,
The harmony of Nature—He whose hand
Stretch'd o'er the wilds of space this beauteous ball,
Whose spirit breathes thro' all his smiling works
Music and love—yet, Handel, raise the strain.

Hark! what angelic sounds, what voice divine
Breathes thro' the ravisht air! my rapt ear feels
The harmony of Heaven. Hail sacred Choir!
Immortal Spirits, hail! If haply those
That erst in favour'd Palestine proclaim'd
Glory and peace: her angel-haunted groves,
Her piny mountains, and her golden vales
Re-echo'd peace—But, Oh! suspend the strain—
The swelling joy's too much for mortal bounds!
Tis transport even to pain.

Yet, hark! what pleasing sounds invite mine ear
So venerably sweet? 'Tis Sion's lute.
Behold her hero! from his valiant brow
Looks Judah's lion, on his thigh the sword
Of vanquish'd Apollonius—The shrill trump
Thro' Bethoron proclaims th' approaching fight.
I see the brave youth lead his little band,
With toil and hunger faint; yet from his arm
The rapid Syrian flies. Thus Henry once,
The British Henry, with his way-worn troop,
Subdu'd the pride of France—Now louder blows
The martial clangor: lo Nicanor's host!
With threat'ning turrets crown'd, slowly advance
The ponderous elephants—
The blazing sun, from many a golden shield
Reflected, gleams afar. Judean chief!
How shall thy force, thy little force sustain
The dreadful shock! The hero comes—'Tis boundless mirth and song
And dance and triumph; every labouring string,
And voice, and breathing shell in concert strain
To swell the raptures of tumultuous joy.

O master of the passions and the soul,
Seraphic Handel! how shall words describe
Thy music's countless graces, nameless powers!

When he of Gaza, blind, and sunk in chains,
On female treachery looks greatly down,
How the breast burns indignant! in thy strain,
When sweet-volc'd piety resigns to heaven,
Glows not each bosom with the flame of virtue?

O'er Jephtha's votive maid when the soft lute
Sounds the slow symphony of funeral grief,
What youthful breast but melts with tender pity?
What parent bleeds not with a parent's woe?

O, longer than this worthless lay can live!
While fame and music sooth the human ear;
Be this thy praise: to lead the polish'd mind
To Virtue's noblest heights; to light the flame
Of British freedom, rouse the generous thought,
Refine the passions, and exalt the soul
To love, to heaven, to harmony and thee.

The water-music.

Rorantesque Comas a Fronte removit ad Aures.
Ovid. Met.

L'Allegro and II Penseroso, set to Music by Mr. Handel.

See Milton's Lycidas.

Judas Maccabeus.

Chorus of youths, in Judas Maccabeus.

See the Oratorio of Samson.

THE ENLARGEMENT OF THE MIND.

EPISTLE I.

TO GENERAL CRAUFURD.

WRITTEN AT BELVIDERE, 1763.

Where is the man, who, prodigal of mind,
In one wide wish embraces human kind?
All pride of sects, all party zeal above,
Whose Priest is Reason, and whose God is Love;
Fair Nature's friend, a foe to fraud and art—
Where is the man, so welcome to my heart?

The sightless herd sequacious, who pursue
Dull Folly's path, and do as others do,
Who look with purblind prejudice and scorn,
On different sects, in different nations born,
Let Us, my Craufurd, with compassion view,
Pity their pride, but shun their error too.

From Belvidere's fair groves, and mountains green,
Which Nature rais'd, rejoicing to be seen,
Let Us, while raptur'd on her works we gaze,
And the heart riots on luxurious praise,
Th' expanded thought, the boundless wish retain.
And let not Nature moralize in vain.

O sacred Guide! preceptress more sublime
Than sages boasting o'er the wrecks of time!
See on each page her beauteous volume bear
The golden characters of good and fair.
All human knowledge (blush collegiate pride!)
Flows from her works, to none that reads denied.

Shall the dull inmate of pedantic walls,
On whose old walk the sunbeam seldom falls,
Who knows of nature, and of man no more
Than fills some page of antiquated lore—
Shall he, in words and terms profoundly wise,
The better knowledge of the world despise,
Think Wisdom center'd in a false degree,
And scorn the scholar of Humanity?

Something of men these sapient drones may know,
Of men that liv'd two thousand years ago.
Such human monsters if the world e'er knew,
As ancient verse, and ancient story drew!

If to one object, system, scene confin'd,
The sure effect is narrowness of mind.

'Twas thus St. Robert, in his lonely wood,
Forsook each social duty—to be good.
Thus Hobbes on one dear system fix'd his eyes,
And prov'd his nature wretched—to be wise.
Each zealot thus, elate with ghostly pride,
Adores his God, and hates the world beside.

Tho' form'd with powers to grasp this various ball,
Gods! to what meanness may the spirit fall?
Powers that should spread in Reason's orient ray,
How are they darken'd, and debarr'd the day!

When late, where Tajo rolls his ancient tide,
Reflecting clear the mountain's purple side,
Thy genius, Craufurd, Britain's legions led,
And Fear's chill cloud forsook each brightning head,
By nature brave, and generous as thou art,
Say did not human follies vex thy heart?
Glow'd not thy breast indignant, when you saw
The dome of Murder consecrate by Law?
Where fiends, commission'd with the legal rod,
In pure devotion, burn the works of God.

O change me, powers of Nature, if ye can,
Transform me, make me any thing but man.
Yet why? This heart all human kind forgives,
While Gillman loves me, and while Craufurd lives.
Is Nature, all benevolent, to blame
That half her offspring are their mother's shame?
Did she ordain o'er this fair scene of things
The cruelty of priests, or pride of kings?
Tho' worlds lie murder'd for their wealth or fame,
Is Nature all-benevolent to blame?

O that the world were emptied of its slaves!
That all the fools were gone, and all the knaves!

Then might we, Craufurd, with delight embrace,
In boundless love, the rest of human race.
But let not knaves misanthropy create,
Nor feed the gall of universal hate.
Wherever Genius, Truth, and Virtue dwell,
Polish'd in courts, or simple in a cell,
All views of country, sects, and creeds apart,
These, these I love, and hold them to my heart.

Vain of our beauteous isle, and justly vain,
For freedom here, and health, and plenty reign,
We different lots contemptuously compare,
And boast, like children, of a fav'rite's share.

Yet tho' each vale a deeper verdure yields
Than Arno's banks, or Andalusia's fields,
Tho' many a tree-crown'd mountain teems with ore,
Tho' flocks innumerous whiten every shore,
Why should we, thus with Nature's wealth elate,
Behold her different families with hate?
Look on her works—on every page you'll find
Inscrib'd the doctrine of the social mind.

See countless worlds of insect being share
Th' unenvied regions of the liberal air!
In the same grove what music void of strife!
Heirs of one stream what tribes of scaly life!
See Earth, and Air, and Fire, and Flood combine
Of general good to aid the great design!

Where Ancon drags o'er Lincoln's lurid plain,
Like a slow snake, his dirty-winding train,
Where fogs eternal blot the face of day,
And the lost bittern moans his gloomy way;
As well we might, for unpropitious skies,
The blameless native with his clime despise,
As him who still the poorer lot partakes
Of Biscay's mountains, or Batavia's lakes.

Yet look once more on Nature's various plan!
Behold, and love her noblest creature man!
She, never partial, on each various zone,
Bestow'd some portion, to the rest unknown,
By mutual interest meaning thence to bind
In one vast chain the commerce of mankind.

Behold, ye vain disturbers of an hour!
Ye dupes of Faction! and ye tools of Power!
Poor rioters on Life's contracted stage!
Behold, and lose your littleness of rage!
Throw Envy, Folly, Prejudice behind!
And yield to Truth the empire of the mind.

Immortal Truth! O from thy radiant shrine,
Where light created first essay'd to shine;
Where clust'ring stars eternal beams display,
And gems ethereal drink the golden day;
To chase this moral, clear this sensual night,
O shed one ray of thy celestial light!

Teach us, while wandering thro' this vale below
We know but little, that we little know.
One beam to mole-ey'd Prejudice convey,
Let Pride perceive one mortifying ray.
Thy glass to fools, to infidels apply,
And all the dimness of the mental eye.

Plac'd on this shore of Time's far-stretching bourn,
With leave to look at Nature and return;
While wave on wave impels the human tide,
And ages sink, forgotten as they glide;
Can life's short duties better be discharg'd,
Than when we leave it with a mind enlarg'd?

Judg'd not the old philosopher aright,
When thus he preach'd, his pupils in his sight?
“It matters not, my friends, how low or high
“Your little walk of transient life may lie.
“Soon will the reign of Hope and Fear be o'er,
“And warring passions militate no more.
“And trust me, he who, having once survey'd
“The good and fair which Nature's wisdom made,
“The soonest to his former state retires,
“And feels the peace of satisfied desires,
“(Let others deem more wisely if they can),
“I look on him to be the happiest man.”

So thought the sacred Sage, in whom I trust,
Because I feel his sentiments are just.

'Twas not in lustrums of long counted years
That swell'd th' alternate reign of hopes and fears;
Not in the splendid scenes of pain and strife,
That Wisdom plac'd the dignity of life:
To study Nature was the task design'd,
And learn from her th' enlargement of the mind.
Learn from her works whatever Truth admires,
And sleep in death with satisfied desires.

EPISTLE II.

TO WILLIAM LANGHORNE, MA.

WRITTEN IN 1765

Light heard his voice, and, eager to obey,
From all her orient fountains burst away.

At Nature's birth, O! had the power divine
Commanded thus the moral sun to shine,
Beam'd on the mind all Reason's influence bright,
And the full day of intellectual light,
Then the free soul, on Truth's strong pinion born,
Had never languish'd in this shade forlorn.

Yet thus imperfect form'd, thus blind and vain,
Doom'd by long toil a glimpse of truth to gain;
Beyond its sphere shall human wisdom go,
And boldly censure what it cannot know?
For what Heav'n gave let us the donor bless,
Nor than their merits rank our mercies less.
'Tis ours to cherish what Heav'n deign'd to give,
And thankful for the gift of being to live.

100

Progressive powers, and faculties that rise
From earth's low vale, to grasp the golden skies,
Tho' distant far from perfect, good, or fair,
Claim the due thought, and ask the grateful care.

Come, then, thou partner of my life and name,
From one dear source, whom Nature form'd the same,
Ally'd more nearly in each nobler part,
And more the friend, than brother, of my heart!
Let us, unlike the lucid twins that rise
At different times, and shine in distant skies,
With mutual eye this mental world survey,
Mark the slow rise of intellectual day,
View Reason's source, if man the source may find,
And trace each science that exalts the mind.

“Thou self-appointed Lord of all below!
“Ambitious Man, how little dost thou know?
“For once let Fancy's towering thoughts subside;
“Look on thy birth, and mortify thy pride!
“A plaintive wretch, so blind, so helpless born,
“The brute sagacious might behold with scorn.
“How soon, when Nature gives him to the day,
“In strength exulting, does he bound away!
“By instinct led, the fostering teat he finds,
“Sports in the ray, and shuns the searching winds.
“No grief he knows, he feels no groundless fear,
“Feeds without cries, and sleeps without a tear.

101

“Did he but know to reason and compare,
“See here the vassal, and the master there,
“What strange reflections must the scene afford,
“That shew'd the weakness of his puling lord!”

Thus Sophistry unfolds her specious plan,
Form'd not to humble, but depreciate man.
Unjust the censure, if unjust to rate
His pow'rs and merits from his infant-state.
For, grant the children of the flow'ry vale
By instinct wiser, and of limbs more hale,
With equal eye their perfect state explore,
And all the vain comparison's no more.

“But why should life, so short by Heav'n ordain'd,
“Be long to thoughtless infancy restrain'd—
“To thoughtless infancy, or vainly sage,
“Mourn through the languors of declining age?”

O blind to truth! to Nature's wisdom blind!
And all that she directs, or Heav'n design'd!
Behold her works in cities, plains, and groves,
All life that vegetates, and life that moves!
In due proportion, as each being stays
In perfect life, it rises and decays.

Is Man long helpless? Through each tender hour,
See love parental watch the blooming flow'r!
By op'ning charms, by beauties fresh display'd,
And sweets unfolding, see that love repaid!

102

Has age its pains? For luxury it may—
The temp'rate wear insensibly away.
While sage experience, and reflection clear
Beam a gay sunshine on life's fading year.

But see from age, from infant weakness see,
That Man was destin'd for society;
There from those ills a safe retreat behold,
Which young might vanquish, or afflict him old.

“That, in proportion as each being stays
“In perfect life, it rises and decays—
“Is Nature's law—to forms alone confin'd,
“The laws of matter act not on the Mind.
“Too feebly, sure, its faculties must grow,
“And Reason brings her borrow'd light too slow.”

O! still censorious? Art thou then possess'd
Of Reason's power, and does she rule thy breast?
Say what the use—had Providence assign'd
To infant years maturity of mind?
That thy pert offspring, as their father wise,
Might scorn thy precepts, and thy pow'r despise?
Or mourn, with ill-match'd faculties at strife,
O'er limbs unequal to the task of life?
To feel more sensibly the woes that wait
On every period, as on every state;
And slight, sad convicts of each painful truth,
The happier trifles of unthinking youth?

103

Conclude we then the progress of the mind
Ordain'd by wisdom infinitely kind:
No innate knowledge on the soul imprest,
No birth-right instinct acting in the breast,
No natal light, no beams from Heav'n display'd,
Dart thro' the darkness of the mental shade.
Perceptive powers we hold from Heaven's decree,
Alike to knowledge as to virtue free,
In both a lib'ral agency we bear,
The moral here, the intellectual there;
And hence in both an equal joy is known,
The conscious pleasure of an act our own.

When first the trembling eye receives the day,
External forms on young perception play;
External forms affect the mind alone,
Their diff'rent pow'rs and properties unknown.
See the pleas'd infant court the flaming brand,
Eager to grasp the glory in its hand!
The crystal wave as eager to pervade,
Stretch its fond arms to meet the smiling shade!
When Memory's call the mimic words obey,
And wing the thought that faulters on its way;
When wise Experience her slow verdict draws,
The sure effect exploring in the cause,
In Nature's rude, but not unfruitful wild,
Reflection springs, and Reason is her child:
On her fair stock the blooming scyon grows,
And brighter thro' revolving seasons blows.

104

All beauteous flow'r! immortal shalt thou shine,
When dim with age yon golden orbs decline;
Thy orient bloom, unconscious of decay,
Shall spread and flourish in eternal day.

O! with what art, my friend, what early care,
Should Wisdom cultivate a plant so fair!
How should her eye the rip'ning mind revise,
And blast the buds of Folly as they rise!
How should her hand with industry restrain,
The thriving growth of Passion's fruitful train,
Aspiring weeds, whose lofty arms would tow'r
With fatal shade o'er Reason's tender flow'r.

From low pursuits the ductile mind to save,
Creeds that contract, and vices that enslave;
O'er life's rough seas its doubtful course to steer,
Unbroke by av'rice, bigotry, or fear!
For this fair Science spreads her light afar,
And fills the bright urn of her eastern star.
The liberal power in no sequester'd cells,
No moonshine courts of dreaming schoolmen dwells;
Distinguish'd far her lofty temple stands,
Where the tall mountain looks o'er distant lands;
All round her throne the graceful arts appear,
That boast the empire of the eye or ear.

See favour'd first, and nearest to the throne
By the rapt mien of musing Silence known,

105

Fled from herself, the Pow'r of Numbers plac'd,
Her wild thoughts watch'd by Harmony and Taste.

There (but at distance never meant to vie)
The full-form'd image glancing on her eye,
See lively Painting! On her various face
Quick-gliding forms a moment find a place;
She looks, she acts the character she gives,
And a new feature in each feature lives.

See attic ease in Sculpture's graceful air,
Half loose her robe, and half unbound her hair;
To life, to life, she smiling seems to call,
And down her fair hands negligently fall.

Last, but not meanest, of the glorious choir,
See Music, list'ning to an angel's lyre.

Simplicity, their beauteous handmaid, drest
By Nature, bears a field-flower on her breast.

O Arts divine! O magic Powers that move
The springs of truth, enlarging truth, and love!
Lost in their charms each mean attachment ends,
And Taste and Knowledge thus are Virtue's friends.

Thus Nature deigns to sympathize with art,
And leads the moral beauty to the heart;

106

There, only there, that strong attraction lies,
Which wakes the soul, and bids her graces rise;
Lives in those powers of harmony that bind
Congenial hearts, and stretch from mind to mind:
Glow'd in that warmth, that social kindness gave,
Which once—the rest is silence and the grave.

O tears, that warm from wounded Friendship flow!
O thoughts that wake to monuments of woe!
Reflection keen, that points the painful dart;
Mem'ry, that speeds its passage to the heart;
Sad monitors, your cruel power suspend,
And hide, for ever hide, the buried friend:
—In vain—confest I see my Craufurd stand,
And the pen falls—falls from my trembling hand.
E'en Death's dim shadow seeks to hide, in vain,
That lib'ral aspect, and that smile humane;
E'en Death's dim shadow wears a languid light,
And his eye beams thro' everlasting night.

'Till the last sigh of Genius shall expire,
His keen eye faded, and extinct his fire,
'Till Time, in league with Envy and with Death,
Blast the skill'd hand, and stop the tuneful breath,
My Craufurd still shall claim the mournful song,
So long remember'd, and bewail'd so long.

107

AN ODE TO THE RIVER EDEN.

WRITTEN IN 1759.

Delightful Eden! parent stream,
Yet shall the maids of Memory say,
(When, led by Fancy's fairy dream,
My young steps trac'd thy winding way)
How oft along thy mazy shore,
That many a gloomy alder bore,
In pensive thought their Poet stray'd;
Or, careless thrown thy bank beside,
Beheld thy dimply waters glide,
Bright thro' the trembling shade.

Yet shall they paint those scenes again,
Where once with infant-joy he play'd,
And bending o'er thy liquid plain,
The azure worlds below survey'd:

108

Led by the rosy-handed Hours,
When Time trip'd o'er that bank of flowers,
Which in thy chrystal bosom smil'd:
Tho' old the God, yet light and gay,
He flung his glass, his scythe away,
And seem'd himself a child.

The poplar tall, that waving near
Would whisper to thy murmurs free;
Yet rustling seems to soothe mine ear,
And trembles when I sigh for thee.
Yet seated on thy shelving brim,
Can Fancy see the Naiads trim
Burnish their green locks in the sun;
Or at the last lone hour of day,
To chase the lightly glancing fay,
In airy circles run.

But, Fancy, can thy mimic power
Again those happy moments bring?
Can'st thou restore that golden hour,
When young Joy wav'd his laughing wing?
When first in Eden's rosy vale,
My full heart pour'd the lover's tale,
The vow sincere, devoid of guile!
While Delia in her panting breast,
With sighs, the tender thought supprest,
And look'd as angels smile.

109

O Goddess of the crystal bow,
That dwell'st the golden meads among;
Whose streams still fair in memory flow,
Whose murmurs melodise my song!
Oh! yet those gleams of joy display,
Which bright'ning glow'd in Fancy's ray.
When, near thy lucid urn reclin'd,
The dryad, Nature, bar'd her breast,
And left, in naked charms imprest,
Her image on my mind.

In vain—the maids of Memory fair
No more in golden visions play;
No friendship smoothes the brow of Care,
No Delia's smile approves my lay.
Yet, love and friendship lost to me,
'Tis yet some joy to think of thee,
And in thy breast this moral find;
That life, tho' stain'd with Sorrow's showers,
Shall flow serene, while Virtue pours
Her sunshine on the mind.

110

AUTUMNAL ELEGY.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1763.

While yet my poplar yields a doubtful shade,
Its last leaves trembling to the Zephyr's sigh;
On this fair plain ere every verdure fade,
Or the last smiles of golden Autumn die;

Wilt thou, my Nancy, at this pensive hour,
O'er Nature's ruin hear they friend complain;
While his heart labours with th' inspiring power,
And from his pen spontaneous flows the strain?

Thy gentle breast shall melt with kindred sighs,
Yet haply grieving o'er a Parent's bier;
Poets are Nature's children; when she dies,
Affection mourns, and Duty drops a tear.

Why are ye silent, brethren of the grove,
Fond Philomel, thy many-chorded lyre
So sweetly tun'd to tenderness and love,
Shall love no more, or tenderness inspire?

111

O mix once more thy gentle lays with mine;
For well our passions, well our notes agree:
An absent love, sweet bird, may soften thine;
An absent love demands a tear from me.

Yet, ere ye slumber, songsters of the sky,
Thro' the long night of winter wild and drear:
O let us tune, ere Love and Fancy die,
One tender farewell to the fading year.

Farewell ye wild hills, scatter'd o'er with spring!
Sweet solitudes, where Flora smil'd unseen!
Farewell each breeze of balmy-burthen'd wing!
The violet's blue bank, and the tall wood green!

Ye tuneful groves of Belvidere, adieu!
Kind shades that whisper o'er my Craufurd's rest!
From courts, from senates and from camps to you,
When Fancy leads him, no inglorious guest.

Dear shades adieu! where late the moral Muse,
Led by the dryad, Silence, oft reclin'd,
Taught Meanness to extend her little views,
And look on Nature to enlarge her mind.

Farewell the walk along the woodland-vale!
Flower-feeding rills in murmurs drawn away!
Farewell the sweet breath of the early gale!
And the dear glories of the closing day!

112

The nameless charms of high, poetic thought,
That Spring's green hours to Fancy's children bore;
The words divine, Imagination wrote
On Slumber's light leaf by the murmuring shore—

All, all adieu! From Autumn's sober power
Fly the dear dreams of Spring's delightful reign;
Gay Summer strips her rosy-mantled bower,
And rude winds waste the glories of her train.

Yet Autumn yields her joys of humbler kind;
Sad o'er her golden ruins as we stray,
Sweet Melancholy soothes the musing mind,
And Nature charms, delightful in decay.

All-bounteous power, whom happy worlds adore!
With every scene some grateful change she brings—
In Winter's wild snows, Autumn's golden store,
In glowing Summers and in blooming Springs!

O most belov'd! the fairest and the best
Of all her works! may still thy lover find
Fair Nature's frankness in thy gentle breast;
Like her be various, but like her be kind.

Then, when the spring of smiling youth is o'er;
When Summer's glories yield to Autumn's sway;
When golden Autumn sinks in Winter hoar,
And life declining yields its last weak ray;

113

In thy lov'd arms my fainting age shall close,
On thee my fond eye bend its trembling light:
Rememb'rance sweet shall soothe my last repose,
And my soul bless thee in eternal night.

114

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1763.

When pale beneath the frowning shade of death,
No soothing voice of love, or friendship nigh,
While strong convulsions seiz'd the lab'ring breath,
And life suspended left each vacant eye;

Where, in that moment, fled th' immortal mind?
To what new region did the spirit stray?
Found it some bosom hospitably kind,
Some breast that took the wanderer in its way?

To thee, my Nancy, in that deathful hour,
To thy dear bosom it once more return'd;
And wrapt in Hackthorn's solitary bower,
The ruins of its former mansion mourn'd.

But, didst thou, kind and gentle as thou art,
O'er thy pale lover shed the generous tear?
From those sweet eyes did Pity's softness start,
When Fancy laid him on the lowly bier?

Didst thou to Heaven address the forceful prayer,
Fold thy fair hands, and raise the mournful eye,
Implore each power benevolent to spare,
And call down pity from the golden sky?

115

O born at once to bless me and to save,
Exalt my life, and dignify my lay!
Thou too shalt triumph o'er the mouldering grave,
And on thy brow shall bloom the deathless bay.

Dear shades of genius! heirs of endless fame!
That in your laureate crowns the myrtle wove,
Snatch'd from oblivion Beauty's sacred name,
And grew immortal in the arms of Love!

O may we meet you in some happier clime,
Some safer vale beneath a genial sky;
Whence all the woes that load the wing of time,
Disease, and death, and fear, and frailty fly!

116

THE COMPLAINT OF HER RING-DOVE.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1759.

Far from the smiles of blue hesperian skies,
Far from those vales, where flowery pleasures dwell,
(Dear scenes of freedom lost to these sad eyes!)
How hard to languish in this lonely cell!

When genial gales relume the fires of love,
When laughing Spring leads round the jocund year;
Ah! view with pity, gentle maid, your dove,
From every heart-felt joy secluded here!

To me no more the laughing Spring looks gay;
Nor annual loves relume my languid breast;
Time slowly drags the long, delightless day,
Thro' one dull scene of solitary rest.

Ah! what avails that dreaming Fancy roves
Thro' the wild beauties of her native reign!
Breathes in green fields, and feeds in freshening groves,
To wake to anguish in this hopeless chain?

117

Tho' fondly sooth'd with Pity's tenderest care,
Tho' still by Nancy's gentle hand carest,
For the free forest, and the boundless air,
The rebel, Nature, murmurs in my breast.

Ah let not Nature, Nancy, plead in vain!
For kindness sure should grace a form so fair:
Restore me to my native wilds again,
To the free forest, and the boundless air.

118

SONNET IN THE MANNER OF PETRARCH.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1765.

On thy fair morn, O hope-inspiring May!
The sweetest twins that ever Nature bore,
Where Hackthorn's vale her field-flower-garland wore,
Young Love and Fancy met the genial day.
And, all as on the thyme-green bank I lay,
A nymph of gentlest mien their train before,
Came with a smile; and Swain, she cried, no more
To pensive sorrow tune thy hopeless lay.
Friends of thy heart, see Love and Fancy bring
Each joy that youth's enchanted bosom warms!
Delight that rifles all the fragrant spring!
Fair-handed Hope, that paints unfading charms!
And dove-like Faith, that waves her silver wing.—
These, Swain, are thine; for Nancy meets thy arms.

119

WRAPPED ROUND A NOSEGAY OF VIOLETS.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1761.

Dear object of my late and early prayer!
Source of my joy! and solace of my care!
Whose gentle friendship such a charm can give,
As makes me wish, and tells me how to live.
To thee the Muse with grateful hand would bring
These first fair children of the doubtful Spring.
O may they, fearless of a varying sky,
Bloom on thy breast, and smile beneath thine eye!
In fairer lights their vivid blue display,
And sweeter breathe their little lives away!

120

ON THE MORAL REFLECTIONS CONTAINED IN HER ANSWER TO THE ABOVE VERSES.

TO MISS CRACROFT.

1761.

Sweet moralist! whose moving truths impart
At once delight and anguish to my heart!
Tho' human joys their short-liv'd sweets exhale
Like the wan beauties of the wasted vale;
Yet trust the Muse, fair friendship's flower shall last,
When life's short sunshine, like its storms is past;
Bloom in the fields of some ambrosial shore,
Where Time, and Death, and Sickness are no more.

121

WRITTEN IN A COLLECTION OF MAPS.

1765.

Realms of this globe, that ever-circling run,
And rise alternate to embrace the sun;
Shall I with envy at my lot repine,
Because I boast so small a portion mine?
If e'er in thought of Andalusia's vines,
Golconda's jewels, or Potosi's mines;
In these, or those, if vanity forgot
The humbler blessings of my little lot;
Then may the stream that murmurs near my door,
The waving grove that loves its mazy shore,
Withhold each soothing pleasure that they gave,
No longer murmur, and no longer wave!

122

THEODOSIUS TO CONSTANTIA.

1760.

Let others seek the lying aids of art,
And bribe the passions to betray the heart;
Truth, sacred Truth, and Faith unskill'd to feign,
Fill my fond breast, and prompt my artless strain.

Say, did thy lover, in some happier hour,
Each ardent thought, in wild profusion pour?
With eager fondness on thy beauty gaze,
And talk with all the ecstasy of praise?
The heart sincere its pleasing tumult prov'd;
All, all declar'd that Theodosius lov'd.

Let raptur'd Fancy on that moment dwell,
When thy dear vows in trembling accents fell;
When Love acknowledg'd wak'd the tender sigh,
Swell'd thy full breast, and fill'd thy melting eye.

O! blest for ever be th' auspicious day,
Dance all its hours in pleasure's golden ray!
Pale sorrow's gloom from every eye depart!
And laughing joy glide lightly thro' the heart!

123

Let village-maids their festive brows adorn,
And with fresh garlands meet the smiling morn;
Each happy swain, by faithful Love repaid,
Pour his warm vows, and court his village maid.

Yet shall the scene to ravish'd memory rise;
Constantia present yet shall meet these eyes;
On her fair arm her beauteous head reclin'd,
Her locks flung careless to the sportful wind.
While Love, and Fear, contending in her face,
Flush every rose, and heighten every grace.

O, never, while of life and hope possest,
May this dear image quit my faithful breast!
The painful hours of absence to beguile,
May thus Constantia look, Constantia smile!

124

ELEGY.

1760.

The eye of Nature never rests from care;
She guards her children with a parent's love;
And not a mischief reigns in earth or air,
But time destroys, or remedies remove.

In vain no ill shall haunt the walks of life,
No vice in vain the human heart deprave,
The pois'nous flower, the tempest's raging strife
From greater pain, from greater ruin save.

Lavinia, form'd with every powerful grace,
With all that lights the flame of young desire;
Pure ease of wit, and elegance of face,
A soul all fancy, and an eye all fire.

Lavinia!—Peace, my busy, fluttering breast!
Nor fear to languish in thy former pain:
At length she yields—she yields the needful rest;
And frees her lover from his galling chain.

The golden star, that leads the radiant morn,
Looks not so fair, fresh-rising from the main;
But her bent eye-brow bears forbidding scorn,—
But Pride's fell furies every heart-string strain.

125

Lavinia, thanks to thy ungentle mind;
I now behold thee with indifferent eyes;
And Reason dares, tho' Love as Death be blind,
Thy gay, thy worthless being to despise.

Beauty may charm without one inward grace,
And fair proportions win the captive heart;
But let rank pride the pleasing form debase,
And Love disgusted breaks his erring dart.

The youth that once the sculptur'd nymph admir'd,
Had look'd with scornful laughter on her charms,
If the vain form, with recent life inspir'd,
Had turn'd disdainful from his offer'd arms.

Go, thoughtless maid! of transient beauty vain,
Feed the high thought, the towering hope extend;
Still may'st thou dream of splendor in thy train,
And smile superb, while love and flattery bend.

For me, sweet peace shall soothe my troubled mind,
And easy slumbers close my weary eyes;
Since Reason dares, tho' Love as Death be blind,
Thy gay, thy worthless being to despise.

126

INSCRIPTION ON THE DOOR OF A STUDY.

O thou that shalt presume to tread
This mansion of the mighty dead,
Come with the free, untainted mind;
The nurse, the pedant leave behind;
And all that superstition, fraught
With folly's lore, thy youth has taught—
Each thought that reason can't retain,—
Leave it, and learn to think again.
Yet, while thy studious eyes explore,
And range these various volumes o'er,
Trust blindly to no fav'rite pen,
Remembering authors are but men.
Has fair Philosophy thy love?
Away! she lives in yonder grove.
If the sweet Muse thy pleasure gives;—
With her in yonder grove she lives:
And if Religion claims thy care;
Religion, fled from books, is there.
For first from Nature's works we drew
Our knowledge, and our virtue too.

127

TO LORD GRANBY.

In spite of all the rusty fools
That clean old nonsense in the schools;
Nature, a mistress never coy,
Has wrote on all her works—Enjoy.
Shall we, then, starve, like Gideon's wife,
And die to save a makeweight's life?
No, friend of Nature, you disdain
So fair a hand shou'd work in vain.

But, good my Lord, make her your guide.
And err not on the other side:
Like her, in all you deign to do,
Be liberal, but be sparing too.

When sly Sir Toby, night by night,
With his dear bags regales his sight;
And conscience, reason, pity sleep,
Tho' virtue pine, tho' merit weep;
I see the keen reproaches fly
Indignant from your honest eye;
Each bounteous wish glows unconfin'd,
And your breast labours to be kind.

128

At this warm hour, my Lord, beware
The servile Flatterer's specious snare,
The fawning Sycophant, whose art
Marks the kind motions of the heart;
Each idle, each insidious knave,
That acts the graceful, wise, or brave.

With festive board, and social eye,
You've seen old Hospitality;
Mounted astride the moss-grown wall,
The genius of the ancient hall.
So reverend, with such courtly glee,
He serv'd your noble ancestry;
And turn'd the hinge of many a gate,
For Russel, Rous, Plantagenet.
No lying porter levied there,
His dues on all imported ware;
There, rang'd in rows, no liveried train
E'er begg'd their master's beef again;
No Flatterer's planetary face
Plied for a bottle, or a place,
Toad-eating France, and fiddling Rome
Kept their lean rascals starv'd at home.

“Thrice happy days!”

In this, 'tis true,
Old times were better than the new;

129

Yet some egregious faults you'll see
In ancient Hospitality.
See motley crowds, his roof beneath,
Put poor Society to death!
Priests, knights and 'squires debating wild,
On themes unworthy of a child;
'Till the strange compliment commences,
To praise their host, and lose their senses.

Go then, my Lord! keep open hall;
Proclaim your table free for all;
Go, sacrifice your time, your wealth,
Your patience, liberty, and health,
To such a thought-renouncing crew,
Such foes to care—e'en care for you.

“Heav'ns! and are these the plagues that wait
“Around the hospitable gate?—
“Let tenfold iron bolt my door,
“And the gaunt mastiff growl before;
“There, not one human creature nigh,
“Save, dear Sir Toby, you and I,
“In cynic silence let us dwell;
“Ye plagues of social life, farewel!”

Displeases this? The modern way,
Perhaps, may please—a public day.

130

“A public day! detested name!
“The farce of friendship and the shame.
“Did ever social freedom come
“Within the pale of drawing-room?
“See pictur'd round the formal crowd!
“How nice, how just each attitude!
“My Lord approaches—what surprise!
“The pictures speak, the pictures rise!
“Thrice ten times told the same salute,
“Once more the mimic forms are mute.
“Mean while the envious rows between,
“Distrust and Scandal walk unseen;
“Their poisons silently infuse,
“'Till these suspect, and those abuse.

“Far, far from these, in some lone shade,
“Let me, in easy silence laid,
“Where never fools, or slaves intrude,
“Enjoy the sweets of solitude!”

What! quit the commerce of mankind!
Leave virtue, fame, and worth behind!
Who fly to solitary rest,
Are Reason's savages at best.

Tho' human life's extensive field
Wild weeds, and vexing brambles yield;

131

Behold her smiling vallies bear
Mellifluous fruits, and flowrets fair!
The crowds of folly you despise—
Associate with the good and wise;
For virtue, rightly understood,
Is to be wise, and to be good.

132

MONODY.

1759.

Ah scenes belov'd! ah conscious shades,
That wave these parent-vales along!
Ye bowers where Fancy met the tuneful maids,
Ye mountains vocal with my Doric song,
Teach your wild echoes to complain
In sighs of solemn woe, in broken sounds of pain.

For her I mourn,
Now the cold tenant of the thoughtless urn—
For her bewail these strains of woe,
For her these filial sorrows flow,
Source of my life, that led my tender years,
With all a parent's pious fears,
That nurs'd my infant thought, and taught my mind to grow.

Careful, she mark'd each dangerous way,
Where youth's unwary footsteps stray:
She taught the struggling passions to subside;
Where sacred truth, and reason guide,
In virtue's glorious path to seek the realms of day.

133

Lamented goodness! yet I see
The fond affections melting in her eye:
She bends its tearful orb on me,
And heaves the tender sigh:
As thoughtful, she the toils surveys,
That crowd in life's perplexing maze,
And for her children feels again
All, all that love can fear, and all that fear can feign.

O best of parents! let me pour
My sorrows o'er thy silent bed;
There early strew the vernal flower,
The parting tear at evening shed—
Alas! are these the only meed
Of each kind thought, each virtaous deed,
These fruitless offerings that embalm the dead?

Then, fairy-featur'd Hope, forbear—
No more thy fond illusions spread:
Thy shadowy scenes dissolv'd in air,
Thy visionary prospects fled;
With her they fled, at whose lamented shrine
Love, gratitude, and duty mingled tears,
Condemn'd each filial office to resign,
Nor hopeful more to soothe her long-declining years.

134

TO MRS.---

IN TEARS FOR THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

1762.

So feeble Nature weeps o'er friendship's grave,
And mourns the rigour of that law she gave:
Yet, why not weep? When in that grave expire
All Pembroke's elegance, all Waldegrave's fire.
No more those eyes in soft effulgence move,
No more that bosom feels the spark of love.
O'er those pale cheeks the drooping graces mourn,
And Fancy tears her wild wreath o'er that urn.
There Hope at Heaven once cast a doubtful eye,
Content repin'd, and Patience stole a sigh.
Fair Friendship griev'd o'er ---'s sacred bier,
And Virtue wept, for ------ dropt a tear.

135

TO MRS. GILLMAN.

With sense enough for half your sex beside,
With just no more than necessary pride;
With knowledge caught from Nature's living page,
Politely learn'd, and elegantly sage—
Alas! how piteous, that in such a mind
So many foibles free reception find!
Can such a mind, ye gods! admit disdain?
Be partial, envious, covetous, and vain?
Unwelcome Truth! to love, to blindness clear!
Yet, Gillman, bear it;—while you blush to hear.

That in your gentle breast Disdain can dwell,
Let knavery, meanness, pride that feel it, tell!
With partial eye a friend's defects you see,
And look with kindness on my faults and me.
And does no Envy that fair mind o'er-shade?
Does no short sigh for greater wealth invade;
When silent merit wants the fostering meed,
And the warm wish suggests the virtuous deed?
Fairly the charge of vanity you prove,
Vain of each virtue of the friends you love.
What charms, what arts of magic have conspir'd
Of power to make so many faults admir'd?

136

FRAGMENT, WRITTEN AT CLARE-HALL ON THE KING's ACCESSION.

1760.

While every gale the voice of triumph brings,
And smiling Victory waves her purple wings;
While earth and ocean yield their subject powers,
Neptune his waves and Cybele her towers;
Yet will you deign the Muse's voice to hear,
And let her welcome greet a Monarch's ear?
Yes; midst the toils of glory ill-repaid,
Oft has the Monarch sought her soothing aid.
See Frederic court her in the rage of war,
Tho' rapid vengeance urge his hostile car:
With her repos'd in philosophic rest,
The sage's sunshine smooths the warrior's breast.

Whate'er Arcadian fancy feign'd of old
Of halcyon days, and minutes plum'd with gold;
Whate'er adorn'd the wisest, gentlest reign,
From you she hopes—let not her hopes be vain!

137

Rise, ancient suns! advance, Pierian days!
Flow, Attic streams! and spring, Aonian bays!
Cam, down thy wave in brisker mazes glide,
And see new honours crown thy hoary side!
Thy osiers old see myrtle groves succeed!
And the green laurel meet the waving reed!

138

CÆSAR's DREAM, BEFORE HIS INVASION OF BRITAIN.

1758.

When rough Helvetia's hardy sons obey,
And vanquish'd Belgia bows to Cæsar's sway;
When, scarce-beheld, embattled nations fall,
The fierce Sicambrian, and the faithless Gaul;
Tir'd Freedom leads her savage sons no more,
But flies, subdued, to Albion's utmost shore.

'Twas then, while stillness grasp'd the sleeping air,
And dewy slumbers seal'd the eye of care;
Divine Ambition to her votary came:
Her left hand waving, bore the trump of fame;
Her right a regal sceptre seem'd to hold,
With gems far-blazing from the burnish'd gold.
And thus, “My Son,” the Queen of Glory said;
“Immortal Cæsar, raise thy languid head.
“Shall Night's dull chains the man of counsels bind?
“Or Morpheus rule the monarch of mankind?
“See worlds unvanquish'd yet await thy sword!
“Barbaric lands, that scorn a Latian lord!

139

“See yon proud isle, whose mountains meet the sky,
“Thy foes encourage, and thy power defy!
“What, tho' by Nature's firmest bars secur'd,
“By seas encireled, and with rocks immur'd,
“Shall Cæsar shrink the greatest toils to brave,
“Scale the high rock, or beat the maddening wave?”

She spoke—her words the warrior's breast inflame
With rage indignant, and with conscious shame;
Already beat, the swelling floods give way,
And the fell genii of the rocks obey:
Already shouts of triumph rend the skies,
And the thin rear of barbarous nations flies.

Quick round their chief his active legions stand,
Dwell on his eye, and wait the waving hand.
The Hero rose, majestically slow,
And look'd attention to the crowds below.

‘Romans and Friends! is there who seeks for rest.
‘By labours vanquish'd, and with wounds opprest?
‘That respite Cæsar shall with pleasure yield,
‘Due to the toils of many a well-fought field.
‘Is there who shrinks at thought of dangers past,
‘The ragged mountain, or the pathless waste—
‘While savage hosts, or savage floods oppose,
‘Or shivering fancy pines in Alpine snows?
‘Let him retire to Latium's peaceful shore;
‘He once has toil'd, and Cæsar asks no more.

140

‘Is there a Roman, whose unshaken breast
‘No pains have conquer'd, and no fears deprest?
‘Who, doom'd thro' Death's dread ministers to go,
‘Dares to chastise the insults of a foe;
‘Let him, his country's glory and her stay,
‘With reverence hear her, and with pride obey.
‘A form divine, in heavenly splendor bright,
‘Whose look threw radiance round the pall of night,
‘With calm severity approach'd and said,
“Wake thy dull ear, and lift thy languid head.
“What! shall a Roman sink in soft repose,
“And tamely see the Britons aid his foes?
“See them secure the rebel Gaul supply;
“Spurn his vain eagles and his power defy?
“Go! burst their barriers, obstinately brave;
“Scale the wild rock, and beat the maddening wave.”

Here paus'd the Chief, but waited no reply,
The voice assenting spoke from every eye;
Nor, as the kindness that reproach'd with fear,
Were dangers dreadful, or were toils severe.

141

INSCRIPTION IN A TEMPLE OF SOCIETY.

Sacred rise these walls to thee,
Blithe-eyed nymph, Society!
In whose dwelling, free and fair,
Converse smoothes the brow of care.
Who, when waggish Wit betray'd
To his arms a sylvan maid,
All beneath a myrtle tree,
In some vale of Arcady,
Sprung, I ween, from such embrace,
The lovely contrast in her face.

Perchance, the Muses as they stray'd,
Seeking other spring, or shade,
On the sweet child cast an eye
In some vale of Arcady;
And blithest of the sisters three,
Gave her to Euphrosyne.

The grace, delighted, taught her care
The cordial smile, the placid air;

142

How to chase, and how restrain
All the fleet, ideal train;
How with apt words well-combin'd,
To dress each image of the mind—
Taught her how they disagree,
Awkward fear and modesty,
And freedom and rusticity.
True politeness how to know
From the superficial shew;
From the coxcomb's shallow grace,
And the many-modell'd face:
That Nature's unaffected ease
More than studied forms would please—
When to check the sportive vein;
When to Fancy yield the rein;
On the subject when to be
Grave or gay, reserv'd or free:
The speaking air, th' impassion'd eye,
The living soul of symmetry;
And that soft sympathy which binds
In magic chains congenial minds.

143

INSCRIPTION IN A SEQUESTERED GROTTO.

1763.

Sweet peace, that lov'st the silent hour,
The still retreat of leisure free;
Associate of each gentle power,
And eldest born of harmony!

O, if thou own'st this mossy cell,
If thine this mansion of repose;
Permit me, nymph, with thee to dwell,
With thee my wakeful eye to close.

And tho' those glittering scenes should fade,
That Pleasure's rosy train prepares;
What vot'ry have they not betray'd?
What are they more than splendid cares?

But smiling days, exempt from care,
But nights, when sleep, and silence reign;
Serenity, with aspect fair,
And love and joy are in thy train.

144

ANOTHER INSCRIPTION IN THE SAME GROTTO.

1756.

O Fairest of the village-born,
Content, inspire my careless lay!
Let no vain wish, no thought forlorn
Throw darkness o'er the smiling day.
Forget'st thou, when we wander'd o'er
The sylvan Beleau's sedgy shore,
Or rang'd the woodland wilds along;
How oft on Herclay's mountains high
We've met the morning's purple eye,
Delay'd by many a song?

From thee, from those by fortune led;
To all the farce of life confin'd;
At once each native pleasure fled,
For thou, sweet nymph, wast left behind.

145

Yet could I once, once more survey
Thy comely form in mantle grey,
Thy polish'd brow, thy peaceful eye;
Where e'er, forsaken fair, you dwell,
Tho' in this dim sequester'd cell,
With thee I'd live and die.

A small river in Westmorland.

A romantic village in the abovementioned county, formerly the seat of the Herclays, earls of Carlisle.

146

LEFT WITH THE MINISTER OF RIPONDEN,

A ROMANTIC VILLAGE IN YORKSHIRE.

1758.

Thrice happy you, whoe'er you are,
From life's low cares secluded far,
In this sequester'd vale!—
Ye rocks on precipices pil'd!
Ye ragged desarts, waste and wild!
Delightful horrors, hail!

What joy within these sunless groves,
Where lonely Contemplation roves,
To rest in fearless ease!
Save weeping rills, to see no tear,
Save dying gales, no sigh to hear,
No murmur, but the breeze.

Say, would you change that peaceful cell,
Where Sanctity and Silence dwell,

147

For Splendor's dazzling blaze?
For all those gilded toys that glare
Round high-born power's imperial chair,
Inviting fools to gaze?

Ah friend! Ambition's prospects close,
And, studious of your own repose,
Be thankful here to live:
For, trust me, one protecting shed,
And nightly peace, and daily bread
Is all that life can give.

148

WRITTEN AMONG THE RUINS OF PONTEFRACT CASTLE.

1756.

Right sung the bard, that all-involving age,
With hand impartial deals the ruthless blow;
That war, wide-wasting, with impetuous rage,
Lays the tall spire, and sky-crown'd turret low.

A pile stupendous, once of fair renown,
This mould'ring mass of shapeless ruin rose,
Where nodding heights of fractur'd columns frown,
And birds obscene in ivy-bow'rs repose:

Oft the pale matron from the threat'ning wall,
Suspicious, bids her heedless children fly;
Oft, as he views the meditated fall,
Full swiftly steps the frighted peasant by.

But more respectful views th' historic sage,
Musing, these awful relics of decay,
That once a refuge form'd from hostile rage,
In Henry's and in Edward's dubious day.

149

He pensive oft reviews the mighty dead,
That erst have trod this desolated ground;
Reflects how here unhappy Sal'sbury bled,
When faction aim'd the death-dispensing wound.

Rest, gentle Rivers! and ill-fated Gray!
A flow'r or tear oft strews your humble grave,
Whom Envy slew, to pave Ambition's way,
And whom a Monarch wept in vain to save.

Ah! what avail'd th' alliance of a throne?
The pomp of titles what, or pow'r rever'd?
Happier! to these the humble life unknown,
With virtue honour'd, and by peace endear'd.

Had thus the sons of bleeding Britain thought,
When hapless here inglorious Richard lay,
Yet many a prince, whose blood full dearly bought
The shameful triumph of the long-fought day;

Yet many a hero, whose defeated hand
In death resign'd the well-contested field,
Had in his offspring sav'd a sinking land,
The Tyrant's terror, and the Nation's shield.

Ill could the Muse indignant grief forbear,
Should Mem'ry trace her bleeding Country's woes;
Ill could she count, without a bursting tear,
Th' inglorious triumphs of the vary'd Rose!

150

While York, with conquest and revenge elate,
Insulting, triumphs on St. Alban's plain,
Who views, nor pities Henry's hapless fate,
Himself a captive, and his leaders slain?

Ah prince! unequal to the toils of war,
To stem ambition, Faction's rage to quell;
Happier! from these had Fortune plac'd thee far,
In some lone convent, or some peaceful cell.

For what avail'd that thy victorious queen
Repair'd the ruins of that dreadful day?
That vanquish'd York, on Wakefield's purple green,
Prostrate amidst the common slaughter lay:

In vain fair Vict'ry beam'd the gladd'ning eye,
And, waving oft her golden pinions, smil'd;
Full soon the flatt'ring goddess meant to fly,
Full rightly deem'd unsteady Fortune's child.

Let Towton's field—but cease the dismal tale:
For much its horrors would the muse appal,
In softer strains suffice it to bewail
The Patriot's exile, or the Heroe's fall.

Thus silver wharf, whose crystal-sparkling urn
Reflects the brilliance of his blooming shore,
Still melancholy-mazing, seems to mourn,
But rolls, confus'd, a crimson wave no more.

A river near the scene of battle, in which were slain 35,000 men.

151

PRECEPTS OF CONJUGAL HAPPINESS.

Friend, sister, partner of that gentle heart
Where my soul lives, and holds her dearest part;
While love's soft raptures these gay hours employ,
And time puts on the yellow robe of joy;
Will you, Maria, mark with patient ear
The moral Muse, nor deem her song severe?

Through the long course of Life's unclouded day,
Where sweet contentment smiles on Virtue's way;
Where Fancy opes her ever-varying views,
And Hope strews flowers, and leads you as she strews;
May each fair pleasure court thy favour'd breast,
By truth protected, and by love caress'd!

So Friendship vows, nor shall her vows be vain;
For every pleasure comes in Virtue's train;
Each charm that tender sympathies impart,
The glow of soul, the transports of the heart,
Sweet meanings, that in silent truth convey
Mind into mind, and steal the soul away,

158

These gifts, O Virtue, these are all thy own;
Lost to the vicious, to the vain unknown!

Yet blest with these, and happier charms than these,
By Nature form'd, by genius taught to please,
E'en you, to prove that mortal gifts are vain,
Must yield your human sacrifice to pain;
The wizard Care shall dim those brilliant eyes,
Smite the fair urns, and bid the waters rise.

With mind unbroke that darker hour to bear,
Nor, once his captive, drag the chains of Care,
Hope's radiant sunshine o'er the scene to pour,
Nor future joys in present ills devour,
These arts your philosophic friend may shew,
Too well experienc'd in the school of woe.

In some sad hour, by transient grief opprest,
Ah! let not vain reflection wound your breast!
For memory, then, to happier objects blind,
Though once the friend, the traitor of the mind,
Life's varied sorrows studious to explore,
Turns the sad volume of its sufferings o'er.

Still to the distant prospect stretch your eye,
Pass the dim cloud, and view the brightening sky;
On Hope's kind wing, more genial climes survey,
Let Fancy join, but Reason guide your way,

159

For Fancy, still to tender woes inclin'd,
May sooth the heart, but misdirects the mind.

The source of half our anguish, half our tears,
Is the wrong conduct of our hopes and fears;
Like ill-train'd children, still their treatment such,
Restrain'd too rashly, or indulg'd too much.
Hence Hope, projecting more than life can give,
Would live with angels, or refuse to live;
Hence spleen-ey'd Fear, o'er-acting Caution's part,
Betrays those succours Reason lends the heart.

Yet these, submitted to fair Truth's controul,
These tyrants are the servants of the soul;
Through vales of peace the dove-like Hope shall stray,
And bear at eve her olive branch away,
In every scene some distant charm descry,
And hold it forward to the brightening eye;
While watchful Fear, if Fortitude maintain
Her trembling steps, shall ward the distant pain.

Should erring Nature casual faults disclose,
Wound not the breast that harbours your repose:
For every grief that breast from you shall prove,
Is one link broken in the chain of love.
Soon, with their objects, other woes are past,
But pains from those we love are pains that last.
Though faults or follies from Reproach may fly,
Yet in its shade the tender passions die.

160

Love, like the flower that courts the Sun's kind ray,
Will flourish only in the smiles of day;
Distrust's cold air the generous plant annoys,
And one chill blight of dire contempt destroys.
O shun, my friend, avoid that dangerous coast,
Where peace expires, and fair affection's lost;
By wit, by grief, by anger urg'd, forbear
The speech contemptuous, and the scornful air.

If heart-felt quiet, thoughts unmixt with pain,
While peace weaves flowers o'er Hymen's golden chain,
If tranquil days, if hours of smiling ease,
The sense of pleasure, and the power to please,
If charms like these deserve your serious care,
Of one dark foe, one dangerous foe beware!
Like Hecla's mountain, while his heart's in flame,
His aspect's cold, and Jealousy's his name.
His hideous birth his wild disorders prove,
Begot by Hatred on despairing Love!
Her throes in rage the frantic mother bore,
And the fell sire with angry curses tore
His sable hair—Distrust beholding smil'd,
And lov'd her image in her future child.
With cruel care, industrious to impart
Each painful sense, each soul-tormenting art,
To Doubt's dim shrine her hapless charge she led,
Where never sleep reliev'd the burning head,
Where never grateful fancy sooth'd suspense,
Or the sweet charm of easy confidence.

161

Hence fears eternal, ever-restless care,
And all the dire associates of despair.
Hence all the woes he found that peace destroy,
And dash with pain the sparkling stream of joy.

When love's warm breast, from rapture's trembling height,
Falls to the temperate measures of delight;
When calm delight to easy friendship turns,
Grieve not that Hymen's tore more gently burns.
Unerring Nature, in each purpose kind,
Forbids long transports to usurp the mind;
For, oft dissolv'd in joy's oppressive ray,
Soon would the finer faculties decay.

True tender love one even tenor keeps;
'Tis reason's flame, and burns when passion sleeps.

The charm connubial, like a stream that glides
Through life's fair vale, with no unequal tides,
With many a plant along its genial side,
With many a flower that blows in beauteous pride,
With many a shade, where peace in rapturous rest
Holds sweet affiance to her fearless breast,
Pure in its source, and temperate in its way,
Still flows the same, nor finds its urn decay.

O bliss beyond what lonely life can know,
The soul-felt sympathy of joy and woe!

162

That magic charm which makes e'en sorrow dear,
And turns to pleasure the partaken tear!

Long, beauteous friend, to you may Heaven impart
The soft endearments of the social heart!
Long to your lot may every blessing flow,
That sense, or taste, or virtue can bestow!
And oh, forgive the zeal your peace inspires,
To teach that prudence which itself admires.

163

OWEN OF CARRON.

[_]

There is something romantic in the story of the following Poem; but the Author has his reasons for believing that there is something likewise authentic. On the simple circumstances of the ancient narrative, from which he first borrowed his idea, those reasons are principally founded, and they are supported by others, with which, in a work of this kind, to trouble his readers would be superfluous.

165

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED TO A LADY, WHOSE ELEGANT TASTE, WHOSE AMIABLE SENSIBILITY, AND WHOSE UNAFFECTED FRIENDSHIP, HAVE LONG CONTRIBUTED TO THE PLEASURE AND HAPPINESS OF THE AUTHOR.

167

On Carron's side the primrose pale,
Why does it wear a purple hue?
Ye maidens fair of Marlivale,
Why stream your eyes with pity's dew!

'Tis all with gentle Owen's blood
That purple grows the primrose pale;
That pity pours the tender flood
From each fair eye in Marlivale.

The evening star sate in his eye,
The sun his golden tresses gave,
The north's pure morn her orient dye,
To him who rests in yonder grave!

Beneath no high, historic stone,
Tho' nobly born, is Owen laid,
Stretch'd on the green wood's lap alone,
He sleeps beneath the waving shade.

There many a flowery race hath sprung,
And fled before the mountain gale,
Since first his simple dirge ye sung;
Ye maidens fair of Marlivale!

168

Yet still, when May with fragrant feet
Hath wander'd o'er your meads of gold,
That dirge I hear so simply sweet
Far echoed from each evening fold.

II.

'Twas in the pride of William's day,
When Scotland's honours flourish'd still,
The Moray's earl, with mighty sway,
Bore rule o'er many a Highland hill.

And far for him their fruitful store
The fairer plains of Carron spread;
In fortune rich, in offspring poor,
An only daughter crown'd his bed.

Oh! write not poor—the wealth that flows
In waves of gold round India's throne,
All in her shining breast that glows,
To Ellen's charms, were earth and stone.

For her the youth of Scotland sigh'd,
The Frenchman gay, the Spaniard grave,
And smoother Italy apply'd,
And many an English baron brave.

169

In vain by foreign arts assail'd,
No foreign loves her breast beguile,
And England's honest valour fail'd,
Paid with a cold, but courteous smile.

“Ah! woe to thee, young Nithisdale,
“That o'er thy cheek those roses stray'd,
“Thy breath, the violet of the vale,
“Thy voice, the music of the shade!

“Ah! woe to thee, that Ellen's love
“Alone to thy soft tale would yield!
“For soon those gentle arms shall prove
“The conflict of a ruder field.”

'Twas thus a wayward sister spoke,
And cast a rueful glance behind,
As from her dimwood glen she broke,
And mounted on the moaning wind.

She spoke and vanish'd—more unmov'd
Than Moray's rocks, when storms invest,
The valiant youth by Ellen lov'd
With aught that fear, or fate suggest.

For love, methinks, hath power to raise
The soul beyond a vulgar state;
Th' unconquer'd banners he displays
Controul our fears, and fix our fate.

170

III.

'Twas when, on summer's softest eve,
Of clouds that wander'd west away,
Twilight with gentle hand did weave
Her fairy robe of night and day.

When all the mountain gales were still,
And the wave slept against the shore,
And the sun, sunk beneath the hill,
Left his last smile on Lemmermore.

Led by those waking dreams of thought
That warm the young unpractis'd breast,
Her wonted bower sweet Ellen sought,
And Carron murmur'd near, and sooth'd her into rest.

There is some kind and courtly sprite
That o'er the realm of Fancy reigns,
Throws sunshine on the mask of night,
And smiles at Slumber's powerless chains;

'Tis told, and I believe the tale,
At this soft hour that sprite was there,
And spread with fairer flowers the vale,
And fill'd with sweeter sounds the air.

171

A bower he fram'd (for he could frame
What long might weary mortal wight:
Swift as the lightning's rapid flame
Darts on the unsuspecting sight).

Such bower he fram'd with magic hand,
As well that wizard bard hath wove,
In scenes where fair Armida's wand
Wav'd all the witcheries of love.

Yet it was wrought in simple shew;
Nor Indian mines nor orient shores
Had lent their glories here to glow,
Or yielded here their shining stores.

All round a poplar's trembling arms
The wild-rose wound her damask flower;
The woodbine lent her spicy charms,
That loves to weave the lover's bower.

The ash, that courts the mountain-air,
In all her painted blooms array'd,
The wilding's blossom blushing fair,
Combin'd to form the flowery shade.

With thyme that loves the brown hill's breast,
The cowslip's sweet, reclining head,
The violet of sky-woven vest,
Was all the fairy ground bespread.

172

But, who is he, whose locks so fair
Adown his manly shoulders flow?
Beside him lies the hunter's spear,
Beside him sleeps the warrior's bow.

He bends to Ellen—(gentle sprite,
Thy sweet seductive arts forbear)
He courts her arms with fond delight,
And instant vanishes in air.

V.

Hast thou not found at early dawn
Some soft ideas melt away,
If o'er sweet vale, or flowery lawn,
The sprite of dreams hath bid thee stray?

Hast thou not some fair object seen,
And, when the fleeting form was past,
Still on thy memory found its mien,
And felt the fond idea last?

Thou hast—and oft the pictur'd view,
Seen in some vision counted vain,
Hast struck thy wondering eye anew,
And brought the long-lost dream again.

With warrior-bow, with hunter's spear,
With locks adown his shoulder spread,
Young Nithisdale is ranging near—
He's ranging near yon mountain's head.

173

Scarce had one pale moon pass'd away,
And fill'd her silver urn again,
When in the devious chase to stray,
Afar from all his woodland train,

To Carron's banks his fate consign'd,
And, all to shun the fervid hour,
He sought some friendly shade to find,
And found the visionary bower.

VI.

Led by the golden star of love,
Sweet Ellen took her wonted way,
And in the deep-defending grove
Sought refuge from the fervid day—

Oh!—Who is he whose ringlets fair
Disorder'd o'er his green vest flow,
Reclin'd in rest—whose sunny hair
Half hides the fair cheek's ardent glow?

'Tis he, that sprite's illusive guest,
(Ah me! that sprites can fate control!)
That lives still imag'd on her breast,
That lives still pictur'd in her soul.

As when some gentle spirit fled
From earth to breathe elysian air,
And, in the train whom we call dead,
Perceives its long-lov'd partner there;

174

Soft, sudden pleasure rushes o'er,
Resistless, o'er its airy frame,
To find its future fate restore
The object of its former flame.

So Ellen stood—less power to move
Had he, who, bound in slumber's chain,
Seem'd haply, o'er his hills to rove,
And wind his woodland chace again.

She stood, but trembled—mingled fear,
And fond delight and melting love
Seiz'd all her soul; she came not near,
She came not near that fated grove.

She strives to fly—from wizzard's wand
As well might powerless captive fly—
The new cropt flower falls from her hand—
Ah! fall not with that flower to die!

VII.

Hast thou not seen some azure gleam
Smile in the morning's orient eye,
And skirt the reddening cloud's soft beam
What time the sun was hasting nigh?

Thou hast—and thou canst fancy well
As any Muse that meets thine ear,
The soul-set eye of Nithisdale,
When wak'd, it fix'd on Ellen near.

175

Silent they gaz'd—that silence broke;
‘Hail goddess of these groves,’ he cry'd,
‘O let me wear thy gentle yoke!
‘O let me in thy service bide!

‘For thee I'll climb the mountain steep,
‘Unwearied chase the destin'd prey,
‘For thee I'll pierce the wild-wood deep,
‘And part the sprays that vex thy way,

‘For thee’—‘O stranger, cease,’ she said,
And swift away, like Daphne, flew,
But Daphne's flight was not delay'd
By aught that to her bosom grew.

'Twas Atalanta's golden fruit,
The fond idea that confin'd
Fair Ellen's steps, and bless'd his suit,
Who was not far, not far behind.

VIII.

O Love! within those golden vales,
Those genial airs where thou wast born,
Where Nature, listening thy soft tales,
Leans on the rosy breast of morn.

Where the sweet Smiles, the Graces dwell,
And tender sighs the heart remove,
In silent eloquence to tell
Thy tale, O soul-subduing Love!

176

Ah! wherefore should grim Rage be nigh,
And dark Distrust, with changeful face,
And Jealousy's reverted eye
Be near thy fair, thy favour'd place?

IX.

Earl Barnard was of high degree,
And lord of many a lowland hind,
And long for Ellen love had he,
Had love, but not of gentle kind.

From Moray's halls her absent hour
He watch'd with all a miser's care;
The wide domain, the princely dower
Made Ellen more than Ellen fair.

Ah wretch! to think the liberal soul
May thus with fair affection part!
Though Lothian's vales thy sway controul,
Know, Lothian is not worth one heart.

Studious he marks her absent hour,
And, winding far where Carron flows,
Sudden he sees the fated bower,
And red rage on his dark brow glows.

For who is he?—'Tis Nithisdale!
And that fair form with arm reclin'd
On his?—'Tis Ellen of the vale,
'Tis she (O powers of vengeance!) kind.

177

Should he that vengeance swift pursue?
No—that would all his hopes destroy;
Moray would vanish from his view,
And rob him of a miser's joy.

Unseen to Moray's halls he hies—
He calls his slaves, his ruffian band,
And, ‘Haste to yonder groves,’ he cries,
‘And ambush'd lie by Carron's strand.

‘What time ye mark from bower or glen
‘A gentle lady take her way,
‘To distance due, and far from ken,
‘Allow her length of time to stray.

‘Then ransack straight that range of groves.—
‘With hunter's spear, and vest of green,
‘If chance, a rosy stripling roves,—
‘Ye well can aim your arrows keen.’

And now the ruffian slaves are nigh,
And Ellen takes her homeward way:
Though stay'd by many a tender sigh,
She can no longer, longer stay.

Pensive, against yon poplar pale
The lover leans his gentle heart,
Revolving many a tender tale,
And wondering still how they could part.

178

Three arrows pierc'd the desert air,
Ere yet his tender dreams depart;
And one struck deep his forehead fair,
And one went through his gentle heart.

Love's waking dream is lost in sleep—
He lies beneath yon poplar pale;
Ah! could we marvel ye should weep;
Ye maidens fair of Marlivale!

X.

When all the mountain gales were still,
And the wave slept against the shore,
And the sun, sunk beneath the hill,
Left his last smile on Lemmermore;

Sweet Ellen takes her wonted way
Along the fairy-featur'd vale:
Brogjt o'er his wave does Carron play,
And soon she'll meet her Nithisdale.

She'll meet him soon—for at her sight
Swift as the mountain deer he sped;
The evening shades will sink in night,—
Where art thou, loitering lover, fled?

O! she will chide thy trifling stay,
E'en now the soft reproach she frames:
‘Can lovers brook such long delay?
‘Lovers that boast of ardent flames!’

179

He comes not—weary with the chace,
Soft slumber o'er his eyelids throws
Her veil—we'll steal one dear embrace,
We'll gently steal on his repose.

This is the bower—we'll softly tread—
He sleeps beneath yon poplar pale—
Lover, if e'er thy heart has bled,
Thy heart will far forego my tale!

XI.

Ellen is not in princely bower,
She's not in Moray's splendid train;
Their mistress dear, at midnight hour,
Her weeping maidens seek in vain.

Her pillow swells not deep with down;
For her no balms their sweets exhale:
Her limbs are on the pale turf thrown,
Press'd by her lovely cheek as pale.

On that fair cheek, that flowing hair,
The broom its yellow leaf hath shed,
And the chill mountain's early air
Blows wildly o'er her beauteous head.

As the soft star of orient day,
When clouds involve his rosy light,
Darts thro' the gloom a transient ray,
And leaves the world once more to night;

180

Returning life illumes her eye,
And slow its languid orb unfolds—
What are those bloody arrows nigh?
Sure, bloody arrows she beholds!

What was that form so ghastly pale,
That low beneath the poplar lay?—
‘'Twas some poor youth—Ah Nithisdale!’
She said, and silent sunk away.

XII.

The morn is on the mountains spread,
The wood-lark trills his liquid strain—
Can morn's sweet music rouse the dead?
Give the set eye its soul again?

A shepherd of that gentler mind
Which Nature not profusely yields,
Seeks in these lonely shades to find
Some wanderer from his little fields.

Aghast he stands—and simple fear
O'er all his paly visage glides—
‘Ah me! what means this misery here!
‘What fate this lady fair betides?’

He bears her to his friendly home,
When life, he finds, has but retir'd;—
With haste he frames the lover's tomb,
For his is quite, is quite expir'd!

181

XIII.

‘O hide me in thy humble bower,’
Returning late to life she said;
‘I'll bind thy crook with many a flower;
‘With many a rosy wreath thy head.

‘Good shepherd, haste to yonder grove,
‘And, if my love asleep is laid,
‘Oh! wake him not; but softly move
‘Some pillow to that gentle head.

‘Sure, thou wilt know him, shepherd swain,
‘Thou know'st the sun rise o'er the sea—
‘But oh! no lamb in all thy train
‘Was e'er so mild, so mild as he.’

‘His head is on the wood-moss laid;
‘I did not wake his slumber deep—
‘Sweet sings the redbreast o'er the shade—
‘Why, gentle lady, would you weep?’

As flowers that fade in burning day,
At evening find the dew-drop dear,
But fiercer feel the noon-tide ray,
When soften'd by the nightly tear;

Returning in the flowing tear,
This lovely flower, more sweet than they,
Found her fair soul, and wandering near,
The stranger, Reason, cross'd her way.

182

Found her fair soul—Ah! so to find
Was but more dreadful grief to know!
Ah! sure, the privilege of mind
Can not be worth the wish of woe.

XIV.

On melancholy's silent urn
A softer shade of sorrow falls,
But Ellen can no more return,
No more return to Moray's halls.

Beneath the low and lonely shade
The slow-consuming hour she'll weep,
Till Nature seeks her last-left aid,
In the sad, sombrous arms of sleep.

‘These jewels, all unmeet for me,
‘Shalt thou,’ she said, ‘good shepherd, take;
‘These gems will purchase gold for thee,
‘And these be thine for Ellen's sake.

‘So fail thou not, at eve and morn,
‘The rosemary's pale bough to bring—
‘Thou know'st where I was found forlorn—
‘Where thou hast heard the redbreast sing.

‘Heedful I'll tend thy flocks the while,
‘Or aid thy shepherdess's care,
‘For I will share her humble toil,
‘And I her friendly roof will share.’

183

XV.

And now two longsome years are past
In luxury of lonely pain—
The lovely mourner, found at last,
To Moray's halls is borne again.

Yet has she left one object dear,
That wears love's sunny eye of joy—
Is Nithisdale reviving here?
Or is it but a shepherd's boy?

By Carron's side, a shepherd's boy,
He binds his vale-flowers with the reed;
He wears love's sunny eye of joy,
And birth he little seems to heed.

XVI.

But ah! no more his infant sleep
Closes beneath a mother's smile,
Who, only when it clos'd, would weep,
And yield to tender woe the while.

No more, with fond attention dear,
She seeks th' unspoken wish to find;
No more shall she, with pleasure's tear,
See the soul waxing into mind.

XVII.

Does Nature bear a tyrant's breast?
Is she the friend of stern controul?
Wears she the despot's purple vest?
Or fetters she the free-born soul?

184

Where, worst of tyrants, is thy claim
In chains thy children's breasts to bind?
Gav'st thou the Promethéan flame?
The incommunicable mind?

Thy offspring are great Nature's,—free,
And of her fair dominion heirs;
Each privilege she gives to thee;
Know, that each privilege is theirs.

They have thy feature, wear thine eye,
Perhaps some feelings of thy heart;
And wilt thou their lov'd hearts deny
To act their fair, their proper part?

XVIII.

The lord of Lothian's fertile vale,
Ill-fated Ellen, claims thy hand;
Thou know'st not that thy Nithisdale
Was low laid by his ruffian-band.

And Moray, with unfather'd eyes,
Fix'd on fair Lothian's fertile dale,
Attends his human sacrifice,
Without the Grecian painter's veil.

O married Love! thy bard shall own,
Where two congenial souls unite,
Thy golden chain inlaid with down,
Thy lamp with Heaven's own splendor bright.

185

But if no radiant star of love,
O Hymen! smile on thy fair rite,
Thy chain a wretched weight shall prove,
Thy lamp a sad sepulchral light.

XIX.

And now has Time's slow wandering wing
Borne many a year unmark'd with speed—
Where is the boy by Carron's spring,
Who bound his vale-flowers with the reed?

Ah me! those flowers he binds no more;
No early charm returns again;
The parent, Nature keeps in store
Her best joys for her little train.

No longer heed the sun-beam bright
That plays on Carron's breast he can,
Reason has lent her quivering light,
And shewn the chequer'd field of man.

XX.

As the first human heir of earth
With pensive eye himself survey'd,
And, all unconscious of his birth,
Sate thoughtful oft in Eden's shade;

In pensive thought so Owen stray'd
Wild Carron's lonely woods among,
And once, within their greenest glade,
He fondly fram'd this simple song:

186

XXI.

Why is this crook adorn'd with gold?
Why am I tales of ladies told?
Why does no labour me employ,
If I am but a shepherd's boy?

A silken vest like mine so green
In shepherd's hut I have not seen—
Why should I in such vesture joy,
If I am but a shepherd's boy?

I know it is no shepherd's art
His written meaning to impart—
They teach me, sure, an idle toy,
If I am but a shepherd's boy.

This bracelet bright that binds my arm—
It could not come from shepherd's farm;
It only would that arm annoy,
If I were but a shepherd's boy.

And, O thou silent picture fair,
That lov'st to smile upon me there,
O say, and fill my heart with joy,
That I am not a shepherd's boy.

XXII.

Ah lovely youth! thy tender lay
May not thy gentle life prolong:
See'st thou yon nightingale a prey?
The fierce hawk hovering o'er his song?

187

His little heart is large with love:
He sweetly hails his evening star,
And fate's more pointed arrows move,
Insidious, from his eye afar.

XXIII.

The shepherdess, whose kindly care
Had watch'd o'er Owen's infant breath,
Must now their silent mansions share,
Whom time leads calmly down to death.

‘O tell me, parent if thou art,
‘What is this lovely picture dear?
‘Why wounds its mournful eye my heart,
‘Why flows from mine th' unbidden tear?

‘Ah! youth! to leave thee loth am I,
‘Tho' I be not thy parent dear;
‘And would'st thou wish, or ere I die,
‘The story of thy birth to hear?

‘But it will make thee much bewail,
‘And it will make thy fair eye swell—
She said, and told the woesome tale,
As sooth as shepherdess might tell.

XXIV.

The heart, that sorrow doom'd to share,
Has worn the frequent seal of woe,
Its sad impressions learns to bear,
And finds full oft, its ruin slow.

188

But when that seal is first imprest,
When the young heart its pain shall try,
From the soft, yielding, trembling breast,
Oft seems the startled soul to fly.

Yet fled not Owen's—wild amaze
In paleness cloath'd, and lifted hands,
And horror's dread, unmeaning gaze,
Mark the poor statue, as it stands.

The simple guardian of his life
Look'd wistful for the tear to glide;
But, when she saw his tearless strife,
Silent, she lent him one,—and died.

XXV.

‘No, I am not a shepherd's boy,’
Awaking from his dream, he said,
‘Ah where is now the promis'd joy
‘Of this?—for ever, ever fled!

‘O picture dear!—for her lov'd sake
‘How fondly could my heart bewail!
‘My friendly shepherdess, O wake,
‘And tell me more of this sad tale.

‘O tell me more of this sad tale—
‘No; thou enjoy thy gentle sleep!
‘And I will go to Lothian's vale,
‘And more than all her waters weep.’

189

XXVI.

Owen to Lothian's vale is fled—
Earl Barnard's lofty towers appear—
‘O! art thou there,’ the full heart said,
‘O! art thou there, my parent dear?’

Yes, she is there: from idle state
Oft has she stole her hour to weep;
Think how she ‘by thy cradle sate,’
And how she ‘fondly saw thee sleep.’

Now tries his trembling hand to frame
Full many a tender line of love;
And still he blots the parent's name,
For that, he fears, might fatal prove.

XXVII.

O'er a fair fountain's smiling side
Reclin'd a dim tower, clad with moss,
Where every bird was wont to bide,
That languish'd for its partner's loss.

This scene he chose, this scene assign'd
A parent's first embrace to wait,
And many a soft fear fill'd his mind,
Anxious for his fond letter's fate.

190

The hand that bore those lines of love,
The well-informing bracelet bore—
Ah! may they not unprosperous prove!
Ah! safely pass yon dangerous door!

XXVIII.

‘She comes not;—can she then delay?’
Cried the fair youth, and dropt a tear—
‘Whatever filial love could say,
‘To her I said, and call'd her dear.

‘She comes—Oh! no—encircled round
‘'Tis some rude chief with many a spear.
‘My hapless tale that earl has found—
‘Ah me! my heart!—for her I fear.’

His tender tale that earl had read,
Or ere it reach'd his lady's eye,
His dark brow wears a cloud of red,
In rage he deems a rival nigh.

XXIX.

'Tis o'er—those locks that wav'd in gold,
That wav'd adown those cheeks so fair,
Wreath'd in the gloomy tyrant's hold,
Hang from the sever'd head in air;

That streaming head he joys to bear
In horrid guise to Lothian's halls;
Bids his grim ruffians place it there,
Erect upon the frowning walls.

191

The fatal tokens forth he drew—
‘Know'st thou these—Ellen of the vale?’
The pictur'd bracelet soon she knew,
And soon her lovely cheek grew pale.—

The trembling victim straight he led,
Ere yet her soul's first fear was o'er:
He pointed to the ghastly head—
She saw—and sunk, to rise no more.

William the Lyon, king of Scotland.

The Lady Ellen, only daughter of John earl of Moray, betrothed to the earl of Nithisdale, and afterwards to the earl Barnard, was esteemed one of the finest women in Europe, insomuch that she had several suitors and admirers from foreign courts.

A chain of mountains running through Scotland from east to west.

See the ancient Scottish ballad, called Gill Morrice.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.