Then had the village youth at vernal hour That made the man of mercy good as great. And told abroad thy hospitable fame. In every joy of life the hours had fled, Whilst time on downy pinions hurried by, And, as thy liberal hand had shower'd around And angels hymn'd the rich man's soul to heaven. HOSPITALITY. «LAY low yon impious trappings on the ground, Bend, superstition, bend thy haughty head, Be mine supremacy, and mine alone :>> But lo! with stern and threatful mien, In vain the voice of reason cries, Where wont the hospitable fire And with its genial warmth the pilgrim's woes assuage. The desert ivy clasps the joyless hearth; With mouldering ruins loads the unfrequented earth. Ye minstrel throng, In whose bold breasts once glow'd the tuneful fire, No longer struck by you shall breathe the plaintive lyre: The walls, whose trophied sides along Now damp and moss-ymantled load the ground; Shall spread from Thule's distant shore; Where shall we seek thee now? No more thy cheering smiles impart One ray of joy to Sorrow's heart; No more within the lordly pile Wilt thou bestow the bosom-warming smile. Whilst haughty pride his gallery displays, Where hangs the row in sullen show Of heroes and of chiefs of ancient days, The gaudy toil of Turkish loom Shall decorate the stately room; Yet there the traveller, with wistful eye, Beholds the guarded door, and sighs, and passes by. Not so where o'er the desert waste of sand Speeds the rude Arab wild his wandering way; Leads on to rapine his intrepid band, And claims the wealth of India for his prey; There, when the wilder'd traveller distrest Holds to the robber forth the friendly hand, The generous Arab gives the tent of rest, Guards him as the fond mother guards her child, Relieves his every want, and guides him o'er the wild. Not so amid those climes where rolls along Patient of hunger, and of pain, Close in their haunts the chiefs remain, And proffering forth the friendly hand, Such virtue Nature gives: when man withdraws And steels the soul of apathy to rest; Mounts in relentless state her stubborn throne, And deems of other bosoms by her own. INSCRIPTION FOR THE APARTMENT IN CHEPSTOW CASTLE, WHERE FOR thirty years, secluded from mankind, He never saw the sun's delightful beams, An imitation of this by Mr Canning appeared in the first number of the Anti-Jacobin, Nov. 20, 1797, entitied :-Inscription for the door of the cell in Newgate, where Mrs Brownrigg the Prentice-cide was confined previous to her execution.-EDITOR. And broken splendour. Dost thou ask his crime? Blessed hopes! awhile From man withheld, even to the latter days, When Christ shall come and all things be fulfill'd. INSCRIPTION FOR THE BANKS OF THE HAMPSHIRE AVON. A LITTLE While, O traveller, linger here, Nor fraught with merchant wealth, nor famed in song, Its gentle charms may soothe and satisfy INSCRIPTION UNDER AN OAK. HERE, Traveller! pause awhile. This ancient Oak Wastes on the wandering wind. Nor wilt thou want For from these fruitful boughs the acorns fall Will grunt their greedy joy. Dost thou not love- If thou wouldst rather with inhuman ear Hark to the warblings of some wretched bird INSCRIPTION FOR A MONUMENT AT OLD SARUM. READER, if thou canst boast the noble name ЕРІТАРН. TIME and the world, whose magnitude and weight TO LYCON. On yon wild waste of ruin thron'd, what form Beats her swold breast, and tears her unkempt hair? Why seems the spectre thus to court the storm? Why glare her full-fix'd eyes in stern despair? The deep dull groan I hear, I see her rigid eye refuse the soothing tear. Ah! fly her dreadful reign, For desolation rules o'er all the lifeless plain; For deadliest nightshade forms her secret bower; For oft the ill-omen'd owl Yells loud the dreadful howl, And the night spectres shriek amid the midnight hour. Pale spectre, Grief! thy dull abodes I know, I know the horrors of thy barren plaiu, I know the dreadful force of woe, I know the weight of thy soul binding chain; If thou hast plann'd the morrow's dawn to roam Wilt thou despond in sadness at thy home, Or will thy hope expect the coming day, Oft when my steps have trac'd the secret glade, What time the pale moon glimmering on the plain Just mark'd where deeper darkness dyed the shade, Has contemplation lov'd the night-bird's strain : Still have I stood, or silent mov'd and slow, Whilst o'er the copse the thrilling accents flow, Nor deem'd the pensive bird might pour the notes of woe. Yet sweet and lovely is the night-bird's lay, The passing pilgrim loves her notes to hear, When mirth's rude reign is sunk with parted day, And silence sleeps upon the vacant ear; For staid reflection loves the doubtful light, When sleep and stillness lull the noiseless night, And breathes the pensive song a soothing sad delight. Fearful the blast, and loud the torrent's roar, And sharp and piercing drove the pelting rain, When wildly wandering on the Volga's shore, The exil'd OVID pour'd his plaintive strain; He mourn'd for ever lost the joys of Rome, He mourn'd his widow'd wife, his distant home, And all the weight of woe that load the exile's doom. Oh! could my lays, like SULMO's minstrel, flow, Eternity might love her BION's name; The muse might give a dignity to woe, And grief's steep path should prove the path to But I have pluck'd no bays from PHOEBUS' bower, When bright the sun may shine with unremitted ray? May haply smile and bloom to last one little hour. Wilt thou float careless down the stream of time, To please that little hour is all I crave: Lov'd by my friends, I spurn the love of fame; High let the grass o'erspread my lonely grave, Let cankering moss obscure the rough-hewn name: These are the crimes that harrow up my heart, These are the crimes that poison memory's dart; There never may the pensive pilgrim go, Nor future minstrel drop the tear of woe, For all would fail to wake the slumbering earth below. For these each pang of penitence I prove, Be mine, whilst journeying life's rough road along O'er hill and dale the wandering bard shall go, To hail the hour of pleasure with the song, Or soothe with sorrowing strains the hour of woe; The song each passing moment shall beguile; Perchance too, partial friendship deigns to smile: Let fame reject the lay, I sleep secure the while. Be mine to taste the humbler joys of life, Lull'd in oblivion's lap to wear away, And flee from grandeur's scenes of vice and strife, And flee from fickle fashion's empty sway: Be mine, in age's drooping hour, to see The lisping children climb their grandsire's knee, And train the future race to live and act like me. Then, when the inexorable hour shall come To tell my death, let no deep requiem toll, No hireling sexton dig the venal tomb, Nor priest be paid to hymn my parted soul; But let my children, near their little cot, Lay my old bones beneath the turfy spot: So let me live unknown, so let me die forgot. ROSAMUND TO HENRY. WRITTEN AFTER SHE HAD TAKEN THE VEIL. HENRY, 't is past! each painful effort o'er, Why bursts the big tear from my guilty eye? My heart will heave, my tears will fall for thee. Yet virtue from her deathlike sleep awakes, Remorse comes on, and rears her whip of snakes. Ah, HENRY! fled are all those fatal charms That led their victim to the monarch's arms; No more responsive to the evening air In wanton ringlets waves my golden hair; No more amid the dance my footsteps move, No more the languid eye dissolves with love; Fades on the cheek of ROSAMUND the rose, And penitence awakes from sin's repose. Harlot! adultress! HENRY! can I bear Such aggravated guilt, such full despair! By me the marriage-bed defil'd, by me The laws of heaven forsook, defied for thee! Dishonour fix'd on CLIFFORD's ancient name, A father sinking to the grave with shame; Yet these, and more than these, are lost in love. Yes, even here amid the sacred pile, The echoing cloister, and the long-drawn aisle; Even here, when pausing on the silent air, The midnight bell awakes and calls to prayer; As on the stone I bend my clay-cold knee, Love heaves the sigh, and drops the tear for thee: All day the penitent but wakes to weep, Till nature and the woman sink in sleep; Nightly to thee the guilty dreams repair, And morning wakes to sorrow and despair! Lov'd of my heart, the conflict soon must cease, Soon must this harrow'd bosom rest in peace; Soon must it heave the last soul-rending breath, And sink to slumber in the arms of death. To slumber! oh, that I might slumber there! Oh, agonizing hour! when round my head Oh, I was cheerful as the lark, whose lay Trills through the ether, and awakes the day! Mine was the heartfelt smile, when earliest light Shot through the fading curtain of the night; Mine was the peaceful heart, the modest eye That met the glance, or turn'd it knew not why. At evening hour I struck the melting lyre, Whilst partial wonder fill'd my doating sire, Till he would press me to his aged breast, And cry, « My child, in thee my age is blest! Oh! may kind heaven protract my span of life To see my lovely ROSAMUND a wife; To view her children climb their grandsire's knee, The dreams of bliss are vanish'd from his view, The buds of hope are blasted all by you; Thy child, O CLIFFORD! bears a mother's name, A mother's anguish, and a harlot's shame; Even when her darling children climb her knee, Feels the full force of guilt and infamy! Wretch, most unhappy! thus condemn'd to know, Even in her dearest bliss, her keenest woeCurst be this form, accurst these fatal charms That buried virtue in seduction's arms; Or rather curst that sad, that fatal hour, When HENRY first beheld and felt their power; When my too partial brother's doating tongue On each perfection of a sister hung; Told of the graceful form, the rose-red cheek, Thine, HENRY, is the crime! 't is mine to bear The aggravated weight of full despair; To wear the day in woe, the night in tears, And pass in penitence the joyless years: Guiltless in ignorance, my love-led eyes Knew not the monarch in the knight's disguise; Fraught with deceit th' insidious monarch came To blast his faithful subject's spotless name; To pay each service of old CLIFFORD's race With all the keenest anguish of disgrace! Of love he talk'd; abash'd down-cast eye my Nor seem'd to seek, nor yet had power to fly; Still, as he urg'd his suit, his wily art Told not his rank till victor o'er my heart: Ah, known too late! in vain my reason strove, Fame, honour, reason, all were lost in love. How heav'd thine artful breast the deep-drawn sigh? In anxious guilt I shunn'd each friendly eye; And yet, fond Hope, with self-deluding art, Why, nature, didst thou give this fatal face? Oh! had fate plac'd amidst Earl CLIFFORD's hall Of menial vassals, me most mean of all; Low in my hopes, and homely rude my face, Nor form, nor wishes, rais'd above my place; How happy, ROSAMUND, had been thy lot, In peace to live unknown, and die forgot! Guilt had not then infix'd her piercing sting, Nor scorn revil'd the harlot of a king; Contempt had not revil'd my fallen fame, Nor infamy debas'd a CLIFFORD's name. Oh, CLIFFORD! Oh! my sire! thy honours now Thy child has blasted on thine ancient brow; Fallen is that darling child from virtue's name, And thy grey hairs sink to the grave with shame? Still busy fancy bids the scene arise, Still paints the father to these wretched eyes. Yet still the same kind parent, still all mild, Oft will remembrance, in her painful hour, |