University of Virginia Library

TO HER GRACE THE DUTCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

The Great and Fair, in every age and clime,
Receive free homage from the Sons of Rhyme:
Bend, ye ambitious Bards, at Grandeur's shrine!
Be Power your patron! Wit and Beauty mine!—
To thee, whom elegance has taught to please
By serious dignity, or sportive ease;
Whom Virtue hails, at Pleasure's festive rites,
Chaste Arbiter of Art's refin'd delights:

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To thee, fair Devon! I breathe this votive strain;
Nor dread th'averted ear of proud Disdain:
For O, if music has not blest my lyre,
A lovelier spirit of th'ætherial choir,
Joy-breathing Gratitude, that hallow'd guest,
Who fires with heavenly zeal the human breast,
Bids my weak voice her swelling note prolong,
And consecrate to thee her tributary song.

When first my anxious Muse's fav'rite child,
Her young Serena, artless, simple, wild,
Presum'd from privacy's safe scenes to fly,
And met in giddy haste the public eye;
Thy generous praise her trembling youth sustain'd,
The smile she dar'd not ask, from thee she gain'd;
And found a guardian in the gracious Devon,
Kind as the regent of her fancied heaven.—
The flatter'd Muse, whose offspring thou hast blest,
In the fond pride that rules a parent's breast,

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Presents thus boldly to thy kind embrace
This little group of her succeeding race.
Blest! if by pathos true to Nature's law,
From thy soft bosom they may haply draw
Those tender sighs, that eloquently shew
The virtues of the heart from whence they flow!
Blest! if by foibles humorously hit
In the light scenes that aim at comic wit,
They turn thy pensive charms to mirthful grace,
And wake the sprightly sweetness of thy face!

While thus the proud Enthusiast would aspire
To change thy beauties with her changing lyre;
Much as she wants the talent and the right,
To shew thy various charms in varied light,
O might the Muse, intruding on thy bower,
From her fair Patron catch the magic power
Frequent to meet the public eye, and still
That fickle eye with fond amazement fill!

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Let her, if this vain wish is lost in air,
Breathe from her grateful heart a happier prayer!
Howe'er her different fables may give birth
To fancied woe, and visionary mirth;
May all thy griefs belong to Fiction's reign,
And wound thee only with a pleasing pain!
May thy light spirit, on the sea of life,
Elude the rocks of care, the gusts of strife,
And safely, as the never-sinking buoy,
Float on th'unebbing flood of real joy!