The blights of envy, of those insect-clouds,
That, blasting merit, often cover courts:
Nay, should, perchance, some kind Mæcenas aid
The doubtful beamings of his prince's soul,
His wavering ardour fix, and unconfin'd
Diffuse his warm beneficence around;
Yet death, at last, and wintery tyrants come,
Each sprig of genius killing at the root.
But when with me imperial bounty joins,
Wide o'er the public blows eternal Spring:
While mingled Autumn every harvest pours
Of every land; whate'er invention, art,
Creating toil and Nature can produce.'

Here ceas'd the goddess; and her ardent wings,
Dipt in the colours of the heavenly bow,
Stood waving radiance round, for sudden flight
Prepar'd, when thus, impatient, burst my prayer.
"Oh, forming light of life! O, better Sun!
Sun of mankind! by whom the cloudy north,
Sublim'd, not envies Languedocian skies,
That, unstain'd ether all, diffusive smile :
When shall we call these ancient laurels ours?

Till moral, public, graceful action crowns

hand,

Celestial red, she touch'd my darken'd eyes.
As at the touch of day the shades dissolve,
So quick, methought, the misty circle clear'd,
That dims the dawn of being here below:
The future shone disclos'd, and, in long view,
Bright rising eras instant rush'd to light. [hold!
"They come! great Goddess! I the times be-
The times our fathers, in the bloody field,
Have earn'd so dear, and, not with less renown,
In the warm struggles of the Senate fight.
The times I see! whose glory to supply,
For toiling ages, commerce round the world
Has wing'd unnumber'd sails, and from each land
Materials heap'd, that, well-employ'd, with Rome
Might vie our grandeur, and with Greece our art.
"Lo! princes I behold! contriving still,
And still conducting firm some brave design;
Kings! that the narrow joyless circle scorn,
Burst the blockade of false designing men,
Of treacherous smiles, of adulation fell,

And of the blinding clouds around them thrown:
Their court rejoicing millions; worth alone,
And virtue dear to them; their best delight,
In just proportion, to give general joy :
Their jealous care thy kingdom to maintain;
The public glory theirs ; unsparing love
Their endless treasure; and their deeds their praise.
With thee they work. Nought can resist your force:
Life feels it quickening in her dark retreats;
Strong spread the blooms of genius, science, art;
His bashful bounds disclosing merit breaks;
And, big with fruits of glory, virtue blows
Expansive o'er the land. Another race
Of generous youth, of patriot-sires, I see!
Not those vain insects fluttering in the blaze
Of court, and ball, and play; those venal souls,
Corruption's veteran unrelenting bands,
That, to their vices slaves, can ne'er be free.

"I see the fountain's purg'd; whence life derives
A clear or turbid flow; see the young mind
Not fed impure by chance, by flattery fool'd.
Or by scholastic jargon bloated proud,

But fill'd and nourish'd by the light of truth.
Then, beam'd through fancy the refining ray,
And pouring on the heart, the passions feel
At once informing light and moving flame;

From the foul herd of brutal slaves thy sons,
And fearless peace. Or should affronting war
To slow but dreadful vengeance rouse the just,
Unfailing fields of freemen I behold!
That know, with their own proper arm, to guard
Their own blest isle against a leaguing world.
Despairing Gaul her boiling youth restrains,
Dissolv'd her dream of universal sway:
The winds and seas are Britain's wide domain;
And not a sail, but by permission, spreads.

"Lo! swarming southward on rejoicing sons,
Gay colonies extend; the calm retreat.
Of undeserv'd distress, the better home
Of those whom bigots chase from foreign lands,
Not built on rapine, servitude, and woe,
And in their turn some petty tyrant's prey;
But, bound by social freedom, firm they rise;
Such as, of late, an Oglethorpe has form'd,
And, crowding round, the charm'd Savannah sees,
"Horrid with want and misery, no more
Our streets the tender passenger afflict.
Nor shivering age, nor sickness without friend,
Or home, or bed to bear his burning load,
Nor agonizing infant, that ne'er earn'd
Its guiltless pangs, I see! The stores, profuse,
Which British bounty has to these assign'd,
No more the sacrilegious riot swell
Of cannibal devourers! Right apply'd,
No starving wretch the land of freedom stains:
If poor, employment finds; if old, demands;
If sick, if maim'd, his miserable due;
And will, if young, repay the fondest care.
Sweet sets the sun of stormy life, and sweet
The morning shines, in mercy's dews array'd.
Lo! how they rise! these families of Heaven!
That!* chief, (but why-ye bigots!-why so late?)
Where blooms and warbles glad a rising age:
What smiles of praise! and while their song ascends,
The listening seraph lays his lute aside.

"Hark! the gay Muses raise a nobler strain,
With active nature, warm impassion'd truth,
Engaging fable, lucid order, notes
Of various string, and heart-felt image fill'd.
Behold! I see the dread delightful school
Of temper'd passions, and of polish'd life,

An hospital for foundlings.

K k

Restor'd behold! the well-dissembled scene
Calls from embellish'd eyes the lovely tear,
Or lights up mirth in modest cheeks again.
Lo! vanish'd monster-land. Lo! driven away
Those that Apollo's sacred walls profane :
Their wild creation scatter'd, where a world
Unknown to Nature, chaos more confus'd,
O'er the brute scene its ouran-outangs *
Detested forms! that, on the mind imprest,
Corrupt, confound, and barbarize an age.

pours;

"Behold! all thine again the sister-arts,
Thy graces they, knit in harmonious dance.
Nurs'd by the treasure from a nation drain'd
Their works to purchase, they to nobler rouse
Their untam'd genius, their unfetter'd thought;
Of pompous tyrants, and of dreaming monks,
The gaudy tools, and prisoners, no more.

"Lo! numerous domes a Burlington confess :
For kings and senates fit, the palace see!
The temple breathing a religious awe;
Ev'n fram'd with elegance the plain retreat,
The private dwelling. Certain in his aim,
Taste, never idly working, saves expence.
"See! Sylvan scenes, where Art, alone, pretends
To dress her mistress, and disclose her charms :
Such as a Pope in miniature has shown;
A Bathurst o'er the widening forest + spreads;
And such as form a Richmond, Chiswick, Stowe.

"August, around, what public works I see! Lo! stately streets, lo! squares that court the breeze,

In spite of those to whom pertains the care,
Ingulphing more than founded Roman ways.
Lo! ray'd from cities o'er the brighten'd land,
Connecting sea to sea, the solid road.
Lo! the proud arch (no vile exactor's stand)
With easy sweep bestrides the chafing flood.
See! long canals, and deepen'd rivers, join
Each part with each, and with the circling main
The whole enliven'd isle. Lo! ports expand,
Free as the winds and waves, their sheltering arms.
Lo! streaming comfort o'er the troubled deep,
On every pointed coast the light-house towers;
And, by the broad imperious mole repell'd,
Hark! how the baffled storm indignant roars.'

As thick to view these varied wonders rose,
Shook all my soul with transport, unassur'd,
The vision broke; and, on my waking eye,
Rush'd the still ruins of dejected Rome.

Oh! if thou hover'st round my walk, While under every well-known tree, I to thy fancy'd shadow talk,

And every tear is full of thee;

Should then the weary eye of grief,
Beside some sympathetic stream,
In slumber find a short relief,
O visit thou my soothing dream!

THE HAPPY MAN.

[Spring,

He's not the Happy Man, to whom is given
A plenteous fortune by indulgent Heaven;
Whose gilded roofs on shining columns rise,
And painted walls enchant the gazer's eyes;
Whose table flows with hospitable cheer,
And all the various bounty of the year;
Whose valleys smile, whose gardens breathe the
Whose carved mountains bleat, and forests sing;
For whom the cooling shade in Summer twines,
While his full cellars give their generous wines;
From whose wide fields unbounded Autumn pours
A golden tide into his swelling stores:
Whose Winter laughs; for whom the liberal gales
Stretch the big sheet, and toiling commerce sails;
When yielding crowds attend, and pleasure serves;
While youth, and health, and vigour string his

nerves.

Ev'n not all these, in one rich lot combin'd,
Can make the Happy Man, without the mind;
Where Judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys
The chain of Reason with unerring gaze;
Where Fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes,
His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise;
Where social Love exerts her soft command,
And plays the passions with a tender hand,
Whence every virtue flows, in rival strife,
And all the moral harmony of life.

SONG.

HARD is the fate of him who loves,
Yet dares not tell his trembling pain,

But to the sympathetic groves,

But to the lonely listening plain.

Oh! when she blesses next your shade,

Oh! when her footsteps next are seen

In flowery tracts along the mead,

In fresher mazes o'er the green,

Ye gentle spirits of the vale,

To whom the tears of love are dear, From dying lillies waft a gale,

And sigh my sorrows in her ear.

O, tell her what she cannot blame,
Though fear my tongue must ever bind;
O, tell her that my virtuous flame
Is as her spotless soul refin'd.

Not her own guardian angel eyes
With chaster tenderness his care,
Not purer her own wishes rise,
Not holier her own sighs in prayer.

But if, at first, her virgin fear

Should start at love's suspected name, With that of friendship soothe her earTrue love and friendship are the same.

SONG.

FOR ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove An unrelenting foe to love,

And when we meet a mutual heart, Come in between, and bid us part?

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish, and wish the soul away;
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone?

But busy, busy, still art thou,
To bind the loveless joyless vow,
The heart from pleasure to delude,
To join the gentle to the rude.

For once, O Fortune, hear my prayer,
And I absolve thy future care;
All other blessings I resign,
Make but the dear Amanda mine.

ODE.

O NIGHTINGALE, best poet of the grove,
That plaintive strain can ne'er belong to thee,
Blest in the full possession of thy love:

O lend that strain, sweet nightingale, to me!

'Tis mine, alas! to mourn my wretched fate :
I love a maid who all my bosom charms,
Yet lose my days without this lovely mate;
Inhuman Fortune keeps her from my arms.

You, happy birds! by Nature's simple laws
Lead your soft lives, sustain'd by Nature's fare;
You dwell wherever roving fancy draws,

And love and song is all your pleasing care:

But we, vain slaves of interest and of pride,
Dare not be blest lest envious tongues should
blame :

And hence, in vain I languish for my bride;
O mourn with me, sweet bird, my hapless flame.

HYMN ON SOLITUDE. HAIL, mildly pleasing Solitude, Companion of the wise and good, But, from whose holy, piercing eye, The herd of fools and villains fly.

Oh! how I love with thee to walk, And listen to thy whisper'd talk, Which innocence and truth imparts, And melts the most obdurate hearts.

A thousand shapes you wear with ease, And still in every shape you please. Now wrapt in some mysterious dream, A lone philosopher you seem; Now quick from hill to vale you fly, And now you sweep the vaulted sky; A shepherd next, you haunt the plain, And warble forth your oaten strain. A lover now, with all the grace Of that sweet passion in your face; Then, calm'd to friendship, you assume The gentle-looking Hartford's bloom, As, with her Musidora, she (Her Musidora fond of thee) Amid the long withdrawing vale, Awakes the rivall'd nightingale.

Thine is the balmy breath of morn, Just as the dew-bent rose is born; And while meridian fervours beat, Thine is the woodland dumb retreat; But chief, when evening scenes decay, And the faint landscape swims away, Thine is the doubtful soft decline, And that best hour of musing thine.

Descending angels bless thy train,
The virtues of the sage, and swain;
Plain Innocence, in white array'd,
Before thee lifts her fearless head:
Religion's beams around thee shine,
And cheer thy glooms with light divine:
About thee sports sweet Liberty;
And rapt Urania sings to thee.

Oh, let me pierce thy secret cell!
And in thy deep recesses dwell;
Perhaps from Norwood's oak-clad hill,
When Meditation has her fill,
I just may cast my careless eyes
Where London's spiry turrets rise,
Think of its crimes, its cares, its pain,
Then shield me in the woods again.

TO THE

REV. MR. MURDOCH,

RECTOR OF STRADDISHALL, IN SUFFOLK, 1738. THUS safely low, my friend, thou canst not fall: Here reigns a deep tranquillity o'er all; No noise, no care, no vanity, no strife; Men, woods, and fields, all breathe untroubled life. Then keep each passion down, however dear; Trust me the tender are the most severe. Guard, while 'tis thine, thy philosophic ease, And ask no joy but that of virtuous peace; That bids defiance to the storms of Fate, High bliss is only for a higher state.

The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield,
Seem'd polish'd lances in a hostile field.
The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise,
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise.

The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine,
Glaz'd over, in the freezing ether shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.
When, if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies,

The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends:
Or, if a southern gale the region warm,
And by degrees unbind the wintery charm,
The traveller a miry country sees,

And journeys sad beneath the dropping trees :
Like some deluded peasant, Merlin leads [meads:
Through fragrant bowers, and through delicious
While here enchanted gardens to him rise,
And airy fabrics there attract his eyes,
His wandering feet the magic paths pursue,
And, while he thinks the fair illusion true,
The trackless scenes disperse in fluid air,
And woods, and wilds, and thorny ways appear.
A tedious road the weary wretch returns,
And, as he goes, the transient vision mourns.

The birds, dismiss'd, (while you remain,)
Bore back their empty car again :
Then you, with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smil'd,
And ask'd, what new complaints I made,
And why I call'd you to my aid?

What phrenzy in my bosom rag'd, And by what care to be assuag'd? What gentle youth I would allure, Whom in my artful toils secure? Who does thy tender heart subdue, Tell me, my Sappho, tell me who?

Though now he shuns thy longing arms,
He soon shall court thy slighted charms;
Though now thy offerings he despise,
He soon to thee shall sacrifice;

Though now he freeze, he soon shall burn,
And be thy victim in his turn.

Celestial visitant, once more
Thy needful presence I implore!
In pity come and ease my grief,
Bring my distemper'd soul relief:
Favour thy suppliant's hidden fires,
And give me all my heart desires.

A HYMN TO VENUS,

FROM THE GREEK OF SAPPHO.

O VENUS, beauty of the skies,
To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles,
O, goddess! from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.

If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferr'd,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
O, gentle goddess, hear me now.
Descend, thou bright immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confest.

Thou once didst leave almighty Jove,
And all the golden roofs above:
The car thy wanton sparrows drew;
Hovering in air they lightly flew ;
As to my bower they wing'd their way,
I saw their quivering pinions play.

A FRAGMENT OF SAPPHO.
BLEST as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee all the while
Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And rais'd such tumults in my breast;
For while I gaz'd, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost,

My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung,
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd,
My blood with gentle horrours thrill'd;
My feeble pulse forgot to play,
I fainted, sunk, and died away.