Queen of the stately step, and flowing pall.
Now let Monimia mourn with streaming eyes
Her joys incestuous, and polluted love:
Now let foft Juliet in the gaping tomb
Print the last kifs on her true Romeo's lips,
His lips yet reeking from the deadly draught.
Or Jaffeir kneel for one forgiving look.
Nor feldom let the Moor on Defdemone
Pour the mifguided threats of jealous rage.
By foft degrees the manly torrent steals
From
my fwoln eyes; and at a brother's woe
My big heart melts in fympathizing tears.
What are the fplendors of the gaudy court,
Its tinfel trappings, and its pageant pomps?
To me far happier feems the banish'd Lord
Amid Siberia's unrejoycing wilds
Who pines all lonefome, in the chambers hoar
Of fome, high caftle fhut, whofe windows dim
In diftant ken discover tracklefs plains,
Where Winter ever whirls his icy car;
While still repeated objects of his view,
The gloomy battlements, and ivied fpires
That crown the folitary dome, arise;
While from the topmoft turret the flow clock,
Far heard along th' inhofpitable wastes,
With fad-returning chime awakes new grief;
Ev'n he far happier feems than is the proud,
The potent Satrap, whom he left behind
Mid Mofcow's golden palaces, to drown
In eafe and luxury the laughing hours.
Illuftrious objects ftrike the gazer's mind
With feeble bliss, and but allure the fight,
Nor rouze with impulfe quick th' unfeeling heart.
Thus feen by fhepherd from Hymettus' brow,
What dædal landscapes fmile! here palmy groves,
Refounding once with Plato's voice, arife,
Amid whose umbrage green her filver head
Th' unfading olive lifts; here vine-clad hills
Lay forth their purple ftore, and funny vales
In profpect vast their level laps expand,
Amid whofe beauties gliftering Athens tow'rs.
Tho' thro' the blissful fcenes Iliffus roll
His fage-infpiring flood, whofe winding marge
The thick-wove laurel fhades; tho' rofeate Morn
Pour all her fplendors on th' empurpled scene;
Yet feels the hoary Hermit truer joys,
As from the cliff that o'er his cavern hangs,
He views the piles of fall'n Persepolis
In deep arrangement hide the darksome plain.
Unbounded waste ! the mould'ring obelifc
Here, like a blafted oak, ascends the clouds ;
Here Parian domes their vaulted halls difclofe
Horrid with thorn, where lurks th' unpitying thief,
Whence flits the twilight-loving bat at eve,
And the deaf adder wreathes her spotted train,
The dwellings once of elegance and art.
Here temples rife, amid whofe hallow'd bounds
Spires the black pine, while thro' the naked street,
Once haunt of tradeful merchants, fprings the grass:
Here columns heap'd on proftrate columns, torn
From their firm bafe, encrease the mould'ring mafs.
Far as the fight can pierce, appear the spoils
Of funk magnificence! a blended scene
Of moles, fanes, arches, domes, and palaces,
Where, with his brother Horror, Ruin fits.
O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought!
O come with faintly look, and ftedfast step,
From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew,
Where ever to the curfeu's folemn found
Lift'ning thou fitt'ft, and with thy cypress bind
Thy votary's hair, and feal him for thy fon.
But never let Euphrófyne beguile
With toys of wanton mirth my
Nor in my path her primrose-garland caft.
Tho' 'mid her train the dimpled Hebe bare
Her rofy bofom to th' enamour'd view ;
Tho' Venus, mother of the Smiles and Loves,
And Bacchus, ivy-crown'd, in citron-bow'r
With her on nectar-ftreaming fruitage feast :
What tho' 'tis her's to calm the low'ring fkies,
And at her prefence mild th' embattel'd clouds
Disperse in air, and o'er the face of heav'n
New day diffufive gleam at her approach;
Yet are thefe joys that Melancholy gives,
Than all her witless revels happier far ;
These deep-felt joys, by Contemplation taught.
Then ever, beauteous Contemplation, hail!
From thee began, aufpicious maid, my fong,
With thee shall end: for thou art fairer far
Than are the nymphs of Cirrha's moffy grot;
To loftier rapture thou canft wake the thought,
Than all the fabling Poet's boafted pow'rs.
Hail, queen divine! whom, as tradition tells,
Once, in his ey'ning-walk a Druid found,
Far in a hollow glade of Mona's woods;
And pitious bore with hospitable hand
To the close shelter of his oaken bow'r.
There foon the fage admiring mark'd the dawn
Of folemn mufing in your penfive thought;
For when a smiling babe, you lov'd to lie
Oft deeply lift'ning to the rapid roar
Of wood-hung Meinai, ftream of Druids old.
**********
A SONNET; written at W-DE
-DE, thy beechen flopes with waving grain Border'd, thine azure views of wood and lawn, Whilom could charm, or when the joyous Dawn 'Gan Night's dun robe with flushing purple stain,
Or Evening drove to fold her woolly train ;
Her fairest landscapes whence my Muse has drawn,
Too free with fervile courtly phrafe to fawn,
Too weak to try the Bufkin's ftately strain :
Yet now no more thy flopes of wood and corn
Nor profpects charm, fince He far-diftant strays
With whom I trac'd their fweets each eve and morn,
From Albion far, to cull fair Gallia's bays;
In this alone they please, howe'er forlorn,
That ftill they can recall thofe happier days.
HEN late the trees were flript by Winter pale,
W &
Fair HEALTH, a Dryad-maid in vesture green,
Rejoyc'd to rove 'mid the bleak fylvan scene, On airy uplands caught the fragrant gale,
And ere fresh Morn the low-couch'd lark did hail
Watching the found of earliest horn was seen. But fince gay Summer, thron'd in chariot sheen, Is come to fcorch each primrofe-fprinkled dale,
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